Page 60 of Gifted & Talented

“What do you think I should say?” asked Arthur.

Philippa tilted her head, deep in thought. “Pragmatically it might be worth pointing out that you’ve recently come into a vast sum of money,” she said. “It’s gauche, but depending how artfully you put it, probably a real conversation starter if you don’t want her to slam the door in your face.”

“Well,” said Arthur reasonably. “Can’t argue with that.”

27

Ryan Behrend hadn’t done especially well in law school, but he did know a secret that Meredith Wren never figured out: after a certain level of acceptance, you really don’t have to get good grades.

Sure, it mattered up to a point—looking good on paper was a necessity for many reasons, academically speaking. Around sixth grade (or maybe earlier, depending on how early your school begins to gauge the giftedness of its students) you began to be separated out from your classmates on the basis of your potential (TM). Strong performance on preliminary evaluations led to placements in honors classes. Meeting or exceeding the benchmarks in honors classes led to placements in APs. High AP scores got you out of university classes and gave you extra points on a transcript. More APs meant higher GPAs, higher than any comparable students in schools without advanced resources or competitive test scores. It helped to be good at the SATs, but what also helped with the SATs was expensive private tutoring. Good scores, good grades led to good universities, which was when things started toreallyshift. The better and more famed the university, the harder the administration worked to prevent you from falling. What could be more embarrassing than a high dropout rate, which for all intents and purposes was like saying the oracle got it wrong? Think what you will about the virtues of merit, but Harvard and Yale do not let their students fail.

It’s true, even in the magitech age that has so reshaped the landscape of what is possible, that high-minded dignities remain intact for certain jobs despite the fact that nearly anyone can do them. The law, for example, remains an attractive profession in the United States, even though I’ve met countless smarter people driving taxis than any I’ve watched sign off on contracts for an industry standard quarter million a year. The world is oversaturated with lawyers—or rather, with people capable of memorizing law. Though unless you can get into one of the top twenty law schools, don’tbother. And true, unless your grades are good, the big law firms won’t look your way, and even if they do, you’ll likely be laid off in lieu of promotion, because a fresh, hungry law school graduate has the fire (and the motivating student loans) that all those hundred-hour weeks took out of you, and they’ll do it for half the cost of your raise.

But once again, all institutional legacies pad their stats, and a law school isn’t giving you a C or lower unless you’re comatose, maybe even dead. If you’ve got a pulse, you’re managing a decent set of passing grades, and so Ryan Behrend skipped the readings and went to the free cocktail hours; he slept with every woman under forty in his section and didn’t miss an episode of his favorite network drama; he gained a respectable tolerance for excessive alcohol and perfected his golf swing in the name of networking; and then he went home to work for his father, not bothering with the effort of being good enough for Three Random Last Names Here.

It sounds relaxing, doesn’t it, that life? Hard to believe that for some people, that’s reality. Some people really think they’ve been through the ringer; that because they danced the right dance in the correct order, they deserve what society tells them they’ve faithfully earned.

Which maybe they have, because I can promise you right now that Ryan Behrend has laughed at a thousand jokes that weren’t funny, which I personally could not do if you held me at gunpoint. Still, if it seems like certain talents should be rewarded more generously than others, you’ll have to take that up with some other narrative god.

In any case, Ryan Behrend awoke that morning after a cushy eight hours; he looked at his heart-rate-monitoring Tyche watch for the time, and then went back to sleep for another hour. By the time he emerged from his bed, it was close to eleven and he had several messages from John, the elderly lawyer who had worked for the Wren family up until Ryan had casually bumped into Thayer Wren at his usual restaurant, the place Thayer Wren went every Friday night as some kind of personal ritual, after having spent the day at the golf course with his usual crowd of acolytes, which coincidentally included Ryan’s father.

But let no one claim Ryan was without drive! A golf joke, but also the truth. He’d had a drink with Thayer Wren, and then another. Over the course of several weeks, Ryan ingratiated himself slowly with Thayer Wren on the hunch that the man might one day be poachable—because Thayer’s own pet lawyer was too busy golfing, again with Ryan’s father. Ryan wasnonthreatening, he was one of the boys, he was ambitious and golden and a symbol of what the titans had all wanted to be when they were young (fuckable), and Ryan understood that Thayer was at a point in his life where his priorities were changing; where his thoughts on his own legacy were cast in a different, more troubling light.

Again, Ryan was not untalented. He was justalsodealt a favorable hand, which in this case was a natural fluency with the inner lives of rich old men.

“The judge wants to see us in his chambers at two,” said John on the phone, sounding tired. No doubt he’d been wandering the house at 4:00AM, thinking idly of his prostate. “I’ve already gotten in touch with the Wrens. We’ll pass on the judge’s decision this evening.”

John was reasonably threatened by Ryan. (And do you knowwhy,Meredith Wren? Certainly not because of the grade Ryan got in Contracts!) “As I’ve said,” Ryan smoothly pointed out, “I already know the will we drew up last month is sound.”

“The personal details will be… difficult to deliver,” said John. “It’s a sensitive matter. I’m sure Thayer thought he’d have more time to explain his decisions to his children.”

(“It’s my money,” Thayer had said to Ryan, “and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with it.”)

“The Wrens have already received the trusts their mother left for them,” Ryan pointed out. Persephone Liang Wren had left her family fortune in equal parts to each of her children. They were plenty wealthy. “It’s not as if any of them are being left destitute.”

“Still. I have some concerns about the corporate decision as well,” John fretted aloud. “The board will still have a say in the matter I’m sure, so it’s not as if it’s final…” He trailed off. “But I have to admit, I’m surprised.”

“You’re really surprised he’d leave the family business to his daughter?” asked Ryan mildly. “Seems quite a standard inheritance to me.”

“Maybe surprised isn’t the word. But still, the circumstances, the things he felt the need to change, it’s all a bit… fishy,” said John. “We spoke every year and he never changed much of anything, not since his wife passed. It’s just very unexpected, that’s all.”

Ryan knew that John was going to contest whether the will had been made while Thayer was in sound mind. But there were no medical reports suggesting that Thayer was ailing—he’d died from acute causes, a stroke, not something more prolonged. He wasn’t drunk when he made the will,nor was he under any duress. Imagine Ryan Behrend being a source of duress! He wouldnever. So really, the existence of the new will wouldn’t have been fishy at all if the timing of Thayer Wren’s sudden death hadn’t been so… coincidental.

But it was, of course. A coincidence, that is.

“Well, if that’s all,” said Ryan cheerily, with all the leisure of someone whose time was billed by the hour, this phone call included. “I’ll see you in chambers this afternoon.”

“Yes,” said John, who was probably sorting his medications or contemplating the lasting effects of his accomplishments or seeing his much younger girlfriend, as so many of Ryan’s clients were. Coincidentally, of course. “I suppose I’ll see you then.”

28

Eilidh had not initially been invited on Meredith and Arthur’s excursion into the East Bay, which was infuriating.Shewas the one with the apocalypse problem, which, last she checked, concerned everyone. Wasn’t she part of the reason Meredith had decided this excursion was even necessary to begin with? Instead, Eilidh had caught Arthur and Meredith bickering about who should drive and then realized that Gillian was there, making it clear this visit hadn’t been limited to those who’d known Lou in the past.

“Why does Gillian get to go and not me?” Eilidh demanded.

“In case we need a stranger,” said Meredith, who was wearing a pair of sunglasses so enormous that Eilidh wanted to slap them off her face. The thing inside Eilidh’s chest barked a warning, like a hiccup. An image of the current flowing from east to west, the blanketing of the San Francisco Bay in vengeful waters becoming a distant but not implausible outcome. A stirring of something primordial, a deep, maternal well of disappointment, threatened to swallow Eilidh’s better judgment. Being twenty-six and past her prime was starting to feel incredibly hellish.

“We don’t know how Lou is going to react to seeing us,” Meredith continued. “And Gillian’s very good at this sort of thing.”

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