Chapter 30 #2
I ask questions about the food, and Morgan actually answers them. She tells me this chef studied in Paris, used to work for Nobu, and she’s been following him for a while.
“I hope this comes out right, but I’m kind of surprised that you know who the chef is.”
“It’s the burden of having good taste,” Morgan says. “Hype is fickle and easily swayed. When it comes to food, I do my own sourcing.”
“I just feel lucky when the Jimmy John’s doesn’t give me food poisoning,” I say with a wry grin.
Morgan wrinkles her nose, making no effort to hide her disgust. It’s kind of cute.
“So,” I say, “how are things going with the investors?” I’m hoping I can suss out who didn’t show tonight and why it’s just us after Morgan’s been avoiding me. I’m glad that at least she still prefers my company to being alone, even if that’s all this is.
“Well, a few of them have required some extra… education on how this campaign will affect them, but the smart ones are seeing the value. The others will quickly follow suit.”
She shifts into a rant about one of them, then asks me my impressions from the after-parties. It’s light, casual. It feels nice.
#
There’s a lull, and I decide I want to strike up conversation again, but I’m on my way to wine-drunk, so my filter’s a little loose.
“So, I uh… have a confession to make.”
Morgan’s eyes glitter with something I can’t quite read. I have the sensation of peering behind the mask again. Openness, maybe? “What’s that?”
“I… read your Wikipedia page.”
Then the glitter is gone, replaced with Morgan’s usual self-assurance. “Oh? And what did you find?”
“Well, other than your dizzying net worth… I saw you have siblings. And that’s kind of cool—or well—is it? I’m an only child. I’ve always kind of wondered.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Morgan says with a rueful smile.
“They can’t be that bad, can they?”
Morgan shrugs. “To be entirely honest, I wouldn’t know how they’re doing now.
We’re not close. I’m the oldest, so I spent most of my childhood butting heads with my father, Cyrus.
John’s two years after me and Blake two years after him.
They stuck together. Both also alphas. Cyrus mostly left them alone—he had his hands full with me.
So they still suck up to Cyrus and Beatrice, our mother.
When I was sixteen, our parents got unexpectedly pregnant again.
That’s Diana, the omega. Beatrice finally got what she’d always wanted, and Cyrus was getting old enough that having a precious little omega to tote around softened him up. ”
I give what I hope is a commiserating expression. “I wish I’d had that effect on my father.”
“Let me be clear,” Morgan says, with an intensity in her voice that I haven’t quite heard before. “I was being sarcastic. It is never an omega’s job to calm an alpha.”
I’m not quite sure what to do but take the statement at face value, so I say, “Thanks. It… it means a lot to hear an alpha say that.”
“I don’t deserve thanks for that,” Morgan half-growls. “The bar is subterranean.”
It kind of catches me off guard, how sincere she is about this. “Well… thanks anyway. Y’know, I kinda wish I’d been born an alpha.” I offer a rueful chuckle. “Then at least I could have protected my mother.”
I’m not quite sure why I expected this remark to be a humorous change of subject. I think because of the sheer ridiculousness of somebody like me being an alpha.
Morgan looks thoughtful. “You wouldn’t be you if you were an alpha. And I’d hate to be deprived. Leave the blame resting squarely where it belongs—on your father.”
I scan Morgan’s face. I don’t think that before this conversation I would have described Morgan as someone who felt responsible for other people. Maybe in an abstract sense, the company-as-an-organism thing.
But she’s lowered the mask for now, and her face is almost raw. I see the tension in her jaw, the faraway look in her eyes, and I get the sense that her feelings of responsibility are a greater burden than she’s willing to admit.
A quiet thought asks, does she feel responsible for me?
I push it aside. I’m an employee, an asset in this campaign, and nothing more. Tobias made that clear.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a downer,” I say, reaching for the first subject that comes to mind. “But, um, Eileen said you have a philosophical streak?”
Morgan’s eyes brighten, and the mask returns. “Oh? Pertaining to what?”
“Your life of spurious excess.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of them. Shit. I’m drunk again.
Morgan laughs. “What about it? Is this excessive?” She waves a hand at the ocean view. “We can leave if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I mutter, hoping she doesn’t notice the color rising to my cheeks. But between the wine and Morgan’s look of challenge, I go on. “I mean more like… the private jet. Do you really need one to yourself?”
“I’m sharing it with you, aren’t I?”
I keep looking at Morgan like she hasn’t said anything yet.
She holds me in a stare.
I don’t back down.
A smile pulls at her lips. She says, “My time is the most valuable asset Artemis has. The jet is an investment in keeping as much of my time as possible dedicated to the business. While others are waiting at baggage claim, I’m securing acquisition deals.”
“And the suites?”
“Research shows that high ceilings encourage more creative thinking. The outward space encourages inward expansiveness. Artemis needs my creative thinking.”
“You could just go for a walk outside.”
“And relinquish my precious attention to distractions and disruptions? I think not.”
“Other people go for walks.”
“Other people don’t have the sense of smell we do, the sharpness of vision.”
“And I suppose that’s your excuse for all the extravagant dining? And the fine wine? Your super-sensitive palate can’t handle plebeian food?”
Morgan shrugs lightly. “See, it’s really quite obvious.”
I huff. “How do you—how do you know your time is the most valuable asset? How do you know that—that taking all those things out of your life isn’t… missing something important?”
“The Artemis stock price proves it’s a sound investment.”
“But what if life is more than a stock price?!”
Morgan chuckles. “Jamie, do you feel bad for me?”
“You don’t even watch TV,” I half-whine. “And you’re lonely enough to cart me around.”
“Oh, I’m lonely? That’s why you’re here?” There’s an edge in her tone.
I squirm a little. Shit, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like—just—well—everyone gets lonely, right? Why… why else would I be here?”
“Why else would you be here?” Morgan asks with a smile on her lips, but I don’t quite catch her meaning. The PR campaign. Business. Networking. I don’t know. Maybe she’s telling me to stay on-track?
I sigh. “I know the whole ‘virtuous poor’ thing is a bit tired. But still, I feel a little guilty being somewhere like here when there are so many kids out there just… struggling to survive.”
“Name a charity, name an amount. I’ll make a donation.”
I roll my eyes. “Like you’re really going to donate a million dollars to ORC just because I said—”
Morgan pulls out her phone. “To be clear, that’s the Omega Resource Center?”
They got Mom and me out of a tough spot once, and they’re under-funded. “Yeah, but—”
Morgan spins her phone around and shows me a receipt. “Twenty thousand is the maximum amount I can wire instantly. The remaining nine hundred and eighty thousand will be in their account within the week.”
I can’t quite breathe. My head is spinning. I should be grateful. I should be cheering. I’m nauseous.
“Thank you,” I force out.
“Now, did doing that make me a good person?” Morgan asks. Calculated.
This feels important. Like a test. “No.”
“But it’s a sum you’d be lucky to make in ten years, let alone donate. Did I not just do more good than you could hope to?”
“It didn’t cost you anything.”
“So only suffering is noble? Only self-deprivation is generous?”
The words squirm under my skin, cracking away my surface-level arguments. She was right before about my martyr complex.
“It’s not that.”
“Then why?”
“You did it to end a conversation. Gain the upper hand. Does that usually work on people?”
“Yes,” she says, and something dances at the edge of her eyes. “Now, did it make you happy?”
“No,” I breathe.
“Why? Is ORC not deserving?”
“They are.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’m second-guessing myself. I feel like I should have done more research. Are they even ready to use that much money? Would it go further somewhere else? Should it help as many people as possible, or a few most profoundly?”
Morgan’s eyes twinkle. “There are, what, almost ten billion people on the earth? I could sell Artemis to someone who’s going to run it into the ground, and I could give each person one US dollar. Sure, that would go further in some markets than in others. Should I do that?”
Irritation prickles under my skin. “That’s not the point.”
“Isn’t it? Well, maybe I just need more money before I do that, then. After all, if I’d done that ten years ago, I would’ve hardly had a penny for each person. The bigger my investments grow, the more I’ll have to donate when I die. Effective altruism.”
“That’s still not the point.” God, Morgan is lightning-quick. It’d be all too easy to be swept along by her confidence, but this is important to me. And maybe I’m trying to remind myself why someone like her would never really want someone like me.
“So you want me to live as an ascetic? Symbolic denial? Regardless of whether it really makes a material difference in anyone else’s life? My personal spending is a drop in the bucket compared to what Artemis spends on research and development.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying—”
“Then what’s the point, Jamie? What would you do in my spuriously expensive shoes?”