Most people don’t know anymore. He’s not even sure if Danny knows; it’s not like it used to come up in discussion over monopoly, or while watching Mulan.
Ward is his middle name.
-
“Now you try. Over, over again, come up from underneath, slide through the knot, and now you can pull it tight. Look at you! You used to play in my shoes and now you can tie a Windsor like a real man. You’ll be filling those shoes in no time.”
-
Joy is enamored with cursive. She’s been “practicing her signature” every chance she gets, big round letters with overly curled ends, painstakingly rendered in no. 2 pencil. Joy Annabelle Meachum. She enlists Ward to write names in large neat print so that she can rewrite them underneath in “pretty script” - her favorite tutor, Ms. Stacey McGill; her best friend, Daniel Thomas Rand; their father, Mr. Harold David Meachum; and of course himself, Harold Ward Meachum.
“Just like Daddy!” she exclaims, after she finishes her careful swirl on the ’m’. "But then why do we call you Ward, and Mr. Rand calls Daddy Harold?“
"Ward is my middle name, see?” He points to the Mickey Mouse looking ‘W’. “Mom used to say it was so Dad would know when she was talking to me and not him.”
“We can be called our middle names, too?” Joy turns wide eyes on the written column of her own name. “So somebody might call me Annabelle?”
“I guess you can choose,” Ward says, leaning closer to her. “But I like Joy better, do you know why?”
Her smile grows. She does know why.
“Because Joy means happiness,” she recites, “and I make Daddy happy. And you, too!”
“Happier than anything,” he agrees.
-
“Joy to the world!” Dad declares, swinging a giggling Joy up into his arms.
“Daddy, Ward said his name is actually Harold, just like you!”
“Just like me, huh? You think Ward is just like me, darling? Well, I suppose we do have the same hair.”
Joy giggles some more. “No you don’t! Your hair is different!”
“I guess it is! Well, we’re the same height.”
“No you’re not!! You’re the tallest!”
“What a fine point you make, honeybee. I’m seeing things that aren’t there yet! Your brother is still just Ward for now, but someday, you’ll both grow up big and strong, and he’ll need a man’s name then.
"Do you accept this responsibility, Ward?” Dad jokes, turning to face Ward while he shifts his grip so Joy can clamber onto his shoulders, “Your quest, to dominate the field of business, to conquer Rand Enterprises, and to become deserving of the name Harold Meachum?”
Joy is giggling again. She loves this kind of fantasy speak. Ward’s stomach is doing something funny, but he ignores it to shake Dad’s hand.
“I accept my quest, milord.”
-
Stupid Danny is skateboarding in the lobby again. Ward wishes he wouldn’t do that; Harold always rants later about unprofessional aesthetics and how Wendall needs to teach his brat some respect. Ward speed-walks to the elevators while Danny is turned away; he really doesn’t need the delay that would come with being spotted.
This tie feels like it’s choking him and standing up straight makes his back twinge painfully, but Ward does it anyway. Never show weakness; that’s how the lions get you.
Looks like He’s in a meeting. Good. Ward stops just inside the doorway and brandishes the folder in his hands. “The report you requested, Director Meachum."
Harold, much to Ward’s dismay, does not gesture for him to put it down and leave. Instead he says, "Ward, excellent! Come over here.” Ward would much rather be on his way to hide out in the copy room right now, but he goes. “My son, Ward,” Harold says, as he grips Ward’s shoulder and spins him to face the other man in the room. “James here is set to head up one of our main subsidiaries soon. Say hello, Ward.”
“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
James No-last-name, future head of Unnamed-Subsidiary-number-question-mark, laughs. “Nice to meet you, Ward. You ready to take your old man’s place yet?”
“Ah, he’s got a few more years of schooling to get through first, but he’ll be the new Harold Meachum soon, won’t you son?”
“Maybe sooner than expected, if your memory’s going so bad you’re leaving reports at home, sir,” Ward replies.
James Subsidiary-head laughs louder this time.
Harold’s grip on Ward’s shoulder tightens harshly.
-
“Harold Meachum?” the doctor asks as she enters the room. He smiles thinly.
“Please, call me Ward. Harold was my father.”
“It says here you were hit by a car.”
“And they say doctors can’t read.”
“Mr. Meachum, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that your injuries are not consistent with a standard vehicular collision.”
“I’ll be sure to add 'unusual hood ornaments’ to my charges against the driver. Now, I’m an adult and perfectly capable of checking myself out, so unless you want me to take the sizable donation I was planning on making to this fine establishment over to your competitors, I suggest you stop wasting my time. How do you think your bosses would feel about that, Linda?”
-
“You know, you surprised me when you stabbed me. I didn’t think you had the balls to get your hands dirty like that. As I fell, I thought, 'Well, what do you know? You’re almost there, Harold.’ But now I see you trembling there… look at you! You’re like a little bunny rabbit. Same old Ward.”
-
“Ward, I invested my life in you. My name, my blood, all to raise you to be a great man. You’ve been the biggest disappointment of my life.
"Joy, I apologize for choosing Ward over you. It was a mistake. Never trust him again.”
-
“I do blame you, Ward.”
Joy spits his name now, every time she says it. It’s an accusation in her mouth, a reminder; you are not your father’s son.
To her, that’s a bad thing.
-
The new prospectives file in to the small office-level conference room, past Danny’s rarely used office, Megan’s zhézhǐ covered desk, Katie’s photo frames of her multitude of baby cousins - Kirra, Liam, Olivia, Imogen, Sebastian, Fen, and Dean, nailed it - and those replaced portraits of Danny and himself, overlooking every decision made at the top of the company.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Meachum,” the representative starts, and Ward smiles as he stands to shake their hands.
“Please,” he says, “call me Ward.”