Page 5 of Gifted & Talented

“Meredith,” said Jamie Ammar. The real one, who bent down to retrieve the ringing phone, placing it carefully back in her palm.

Her pulse was in double time, maybe worse. A feminine voice in her hand sounding tinny and far away as Meredith hastily ended the call. “You nearly killed me, Jamie. Oh my god.” She stared, taking advantage of their collision to have a long look at him. She tried to fashion it as a glare, which she achieved, because Meredith did not have resting bitch face. She had active bitch face, because everything she did was with purpose. (But in moments of rest it was extraordinarily bitchy, too.)

Jamie was what, thirty-two now? She tried desperately to be repulsed by him, but alas, it was not to be. He was even better looking than he’d been in his early twenties, because of course he was. He was now approaching the sweet spot, the tipping point where the truly, extravagantly handsomemen began to lap their more generic contemporaries—those pretty, polished, peaked-in-high-school chumps who were slowly losing their hair and putting on weight and all sorts of normal things that happened to human men as they aged.

Alas, not Jamie. Jamie had flecks of gray now streaking the temples of his coal-black curls and dusting the fashionably libertine stubble that filled the pages ofGQ,but the tiny, expected unsightliness of age only made Jamie look better, somehow, more valuable. Leave it to society to create a term like silver fox for the men, Meredith had always thought, and save haggard old crone for the ladies. Jamie! For fuck’s sake. He had always been angular, sharp, lanky, his skin tone warmer than her bisque-y shade by some scant handful of degrees, glowing in brazen defiance of Bostonian winters. Now he was fine-edged and gilded, a man, lean and battle-worn, fit to unironically wield a sword. He belonged on the cover of some ethnically progressive Arthurian romance—the hero in a lusty, bodice-ripping tale of old. Christ, the fucking injustice.

She realized Jamie was looking at her expectantly. What did he want? A sonnet? “What?”

He rolled his eyes, as if the last time they’d spoken had been Thursday rather than years ago, from prior lives. “I know you saw my message.”

“Excuse me?” She had read receipts turned off, because she was no dilettante in avoidance.

“Pretty sure the whole auditorium saw you get my message, Meredith,” Jamie said.

A herd of Tyche software employees (“Kip Hughes’s army of goddamn sheep,” as Meredith’s father typically called them) rounded the corner as Meredith took hold of Jamie’s arm, shoving him into the confines of a vacant conference room. It was dark as they entered, the contents of the room visible only by the light from the corridor through the door’s small window by the time the latch clicked shut.

Meredith had assumed the conference room lights would come on automatically. They did not, but it seemed too late to grope the walls looking for a switch.

“We’ve barely spoken for almost adecade,” she seethed at Jamie, or the half of his face she could see from the sliver of corridor light. “And now you’ve resorted to blackmail?”

“Meredith, I’m not blackmailing you.” It was difficult to tell, given the way the shadows bled into the dark room, but he looked borderline amused by her, which was sinfully annoying.

“So that was your idea of a joke? Unbelievable.” She made to storm out when Jamie caught her by the elbow, pulling her back.

“No, Meredith—” He shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. “I know what Tyche is doing. I know what you did,” he repeated, and it was difficult, in the moment, to ascertain whether this, too, was an episode from Meredith’s rich fantasy life or an actual, concrete accusation. “This isn’t blackmail. I don’t require any leverage. I’m saying that I know what you did because I’ve spent the last six months tracking down every clinical patient Birdsong ever worked with, and now I’m going to publish my findings.”

“Which are?” (The word “arrhythmia” sprang to mind.)

“That your product doesn’t work,” said Jamie conclusively, “and Tyche knows it. That Chirp is a scam that was never actuallymeantto work.” He leaned closer, a hair’s breadth. “And that it only got this far because of you.”

Briefly, a buzzing sound filled Meredith’s ears, to the point where she could only scarcely hear him.

“—only here to give you fair warning,” Jamie was saying, the traitor, as if he hadn’t placed their history into the empty space between them. As if he hadn’t brandished it at her like a weapon. “I figured I owed you at least that much. I didn’t want you to see it for the first time on your desk Monday morning. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

Meredith looked at him for a long time. A variety of thoughts raced through her head. All of them were panic. The vast majority were guilty panic, and rightly so. Without really doing the math, I’d ballpark Meredith’s wrongdoing at somewhere around a dozen counts of felony corporate fraud. But obviously I digress.

Meredith had some thoughts about being dangerously perceived; about losing the gamble over the knife she’d proverbially stuck in her father’s chest; about watching her life’s work go down the drain; about giving up the dream of Wrenfare; about watching herself dim in Jamie’s eyes in real time.

It does work,she nearly said. It was on the tip of her tongue.Sure, everyone hyperbolizes a little, but that’s what this industry is! “Value” is subjective—capital is self-fulfilling prophecy—all money comes with strings—the point is, I know what I made. It does work. Itdoeswork.

It does, technically, work.

Then, thankfully, a modicum of reason returned to her. The buzzing sound faded away as she forced a disinterested smile.

An old trick of Meredith’s, which I can confirm took her further than it should have: deny, deny, deny.

“Jamie, this is absurd. I’m sure you’re aware that our results were incredibly conclusive. Extraordinary, even.”

“Yes,” Jamie agreed. Even in the dark, his eyes found hers. “And I think you and I both know why that is.”

This time, the word in her head was:Caught.

Meredith felt intensely aware of his position in the room. The distance from his mouth to hers. The motion of her own breasts. Christ, even fighting for her livelihood was erotic with him. Survival demanded a change of subject.

“I’m seeing someone,” she said.

“Congratulations,” said Jamie, his eyes not leaving hers.

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