CHAPTER 2
A brilliant white light illuminated her face, enveloping her with an almost angelic aura, serene and surreal in the storm. Her eyes, finally finding his, relaxed, widening almost imperceptibly, while her lips fell together and just started to curl at the corners with the inception of a smile. Her expression softened and her shoulders dropped gently as the tension fled from her muscles. Somewhere in the transition from expectant to elated, her countenance found peace; love; contentment.
CRASH!
He was awake, sitting straight up again, but not breathless today.
Ryan looked up at the clock – six forty-five. Better. Most of the other kids were stirring, and he could hear the faint splatter of the shower echoing from the tiled bathroom.
The first few seconds of every morning were always disorienting, waking up in the middle of a half-heartedly renovated gym instead of his old, cozy bedroom. But surprisingly, nothing felt remarkably different than the day before. Maybe that hadn’t been him on TV yesterday. After all, the picture was essentially unrecognizable, and RTJ weren’t even his initials. The part about the kid’s parents though was what he couldn’t resolve. That had to have been him.
After the police officer had picked him up at Wal-Mart and delivered him back to school, he’d fabricated a story about swearing he’d seen his mom in a car that looked just like the one she used to drive. He’d run after it and eventually lost sight of it but found it again in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He’d gone inside to try to find his mom.
His tears were real, and everyone bought the story. The principal was more than happy to turn the case over to the school counselor without doling out any punishment, and the story got J.R. off the hook too.
Ryan took a quick cool shower with the fading remains of the hot water and returned to his small space in the middle of the cavernous barrack, occupied by a heavy trunk and a metal-framed bed. As he was rifling through the trunk that held all of his worldly possessions, the same nanny who had scolded him for taking too much time in the shower the day before appeared beside him.
“You’re popular,” she said. “More guests today.”
“Did you say guests? With an ‘s?’” He only knew one adult.
“That’s what I said. Now hurry up. They’re waiting. And your bus is going to be here in 15 minutes.”
Eager to find out who had come to see him, he threw on a T-shirt and shorts, slipped on a pair of white tube socks, and grabbed his shoes. As he was pulling the laces tight on his second shoe, kneeling on the floor behind his trunk, he turned his gaze toward the window to the lobby, where he caught a brief glimpse of a man and woman just turning to face him.
He’d seen them before!
Pale-faced and expressionless, he dropped all the way to the polished concrete floor, pretty sure he hadn’t been spotted, suddenly disturbingly aware of his heartbeat pounding from his chest into his head. It was the couple from the grainy photo he’d seen standing in front of the brick house on the TV screens as he was being dragged out of the store!
The windows in the converted gymnasium were all at least 20 feet off the ground and the only other way out was through the lobby. There would be no escape. Still, he had to buy some time to think.
“Now where is he off to?” he heard the headmistress say, leading the couple ever closer to his space. “He is going to be so thrilled. We do our best to give the boys everything they need here, but we know it’s not home.”
He silently slid himself under his bed as the footsteps passed by. He’d have maybe a minute to figure out how to handle this. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for approaching feet as his mind raced. He had no idea what an initial public offering was, what J.R. had meant about his parents’ having been chosen for him, why the old man had said that the opening of Avillage was historic, and most of all why or how
he
was integrally involved. And he was desperate for answers.
The footsteps stopped at the opening to the bathroom.
“Ryan? Are you in there?” the headmistress called.
The echo of her voice was the only reply.
“Hmm. Tell you what, I’ll just to go fetch one of the nannies to check.”
“Or I could just...” the man’s voice started.
“I’m sorry,” the headmistress interrupted, her thin lips struggling to maintain a smile. “Our policy strictly forbids non-employees from entering the children’s bathroom – for our protection... and yours. I’ll just go get one of the nannies.” Ryan listened as her heeled shoes clacked quickly back toward the lobby.
Maybe he could get some answers out of the man and woman who had apparently come to claim him. They had to be in on this somehow. That would be a big gamble though. Once he’d revealed his hand, he couldn’t possibly undo it.
Alternatively, if he appeared oblivious for the time being, he could always divulge any or all of what he knew at some point down the road. Plus, he thought, he had to find out if he could trust these people. The one guy he did trust had to have known at least
something
about this. J.R. had somehow known he was going to be adopted this week. He’d try to talk to him first.
A loud creak from the frame of the bed interrupted his thoughts as the mattress sagged in the middle, lowering the springs close to his face. He turned his head to the right and then quickly to the left, but he couldn’t see anyone.
“Hi!” came a woman’s voice from his right.
Startled, he yanked his head back to the right and saw the upside down smiling visage of a woman who appeared to be in her early 30s hanging her head off the bed, her sandy blonde hair just sweeping the floor next to him.
“Hi,” he said, blushing behind a guilty smile, suddenly much less anxious.
“I’m Sara. Wanna come up and talk?”
~~~
James Prescott sat in the armchair opposite his host and casually crossed his right leg over his left. A stagehand deftly slipped her arm over his shoulder, affixed a small microphone to his lapel, and scurried away.
“And we’re on in 3, 2, 1...” came the producer’s voice from off set.
“Welcome back to A.M. America. I’m Blake Everton,” the host crooned with a voice like silk, resting an empty mug on a homey coffee table in front of them. “With me today is James Prescott, founder and CEO of Avillage, Incorporated.” He turned toward his guest, and the two exchanged cordial smiles.
Prescott, without any pretense of confrontation, maintained an unbroken eye contact with Blake – just long enough to effect the slightest unease in his host, quickly establishing that although he was the interviewee, he was the one in charge.
“Yesterday was a big day for you and your exchange,” Blake continued. “Now, for those of us who may not be familiar with what you do, could you give us the ‘Avillage Exchange for Dummies,’ if you will?”
“I’ll try,” Prescott said with a chuckle. “Blake, we all know that America has been suffering from an ever-widening wealth disparity – for decades now. And with that wealth disparity has come an
opportunity
disparity. What we’re attempting to do at Avillage is funnel some of that all-too-plentiful Wall Street money down to Main Street by allowing investors to put some of their savings behind some really special, but disadvantaged, young children. Now, that’s not to say investors don’t have a chance to benefit financially – of course they do. That’s what really makes this the quintessential win-win situation.”
“And how exactly do investors profit from these... these children? Last I checked, raising a kid ain’t only unprofitable, it can put you in the poor house!” Blake joked to the camera, trying to inject some levity into the vapid morning show.
“Well, any profitable company is built on capital, as you know. Now, that capital could be cash reserves or, more commonly, it can come in the form of credit. Many companies, especially young ones, operate at a loss for several years but still have plenty of money to spend on operations, development and research – so long as investors continue to see an opportunity for profit in the future. I’m sure you’ve seen the occasional stock whose price soars after announcing a quarterly
loss
because it has strong forward-looking projections?”
Blake nodded dutifully.
“So, these children initially benefit from the capital that shareholders have invested in them – or, they’re costing a fortune, as you put it. But because of their strong ‘projections’, if you will, for profitability later in life, they represent value to the investor,” Prescott explained. He tried not to sound as if he were reading from a script, but he’d gone over this so many times, it was difficult.
“So the profit comes when the shareholder sells the stock?” Blake asked, furrowing his brow and continuing to nod, reaching back for his empty coffee mug.
“That’s one way to make a profit, but that’s more of a
trading
strategy than the strategy that I hope people will choose to employ, which is
investment
. Once these children are grown and enter the workforce, a portion of their income will be appropriated to the board of directors, similar to a tax. The board, which will be chaired, at least initially, by an Avillage executive and will also include some of the larger-volume shareholders, will then direct how much of that money is reinvested in the child – well, at that point, man or woman – and how much is paid out to shareholders in the form of dividends.”
“My head is spinning. Folks, this is why I let professionals handle my finances!” Blake exclaimed to the camera. Then he turned back to Prescott with a playful smirk, “Now, I know that you probably won’t tell us, but the question on everyone’s minds is, ‘Who is RTJ?’”
Prescott raised one eyebrow and held up an emphatic index finger. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” he said sternly before finally cracking a smile. They both shared a boisterous laugh over the hackneyed turn of phrase. The inanity of the morning show, along with the wide reach of its viewership, was precisely the reason Prescott had picked this as his first post-opening interview. Low risk; high reward.
“But seriously,” Prescott continued. “The SEC has outlined very rigid privacy laws for our children, similar to the HIPAA laws that govern a patient’s right to privacy in the medical arena.”
“I notice you’re very careful not to refer to these children as ‘commodities.’ Why is that?” Blake asked, lobbing Prescott a softball.
“Thank you for noticing that, Blake. As you know, I’m a dad to an adopted child myself, and these kids – without a home, without role models, without a family – are my number one priority. They’re the reason I’ve been able to keep going, pushing for the massive policy changes that have had to take place over the last 2 decades to get this market off the ground.”
“Alright, so we don’t know who RTJ is,” Blake whined with a fabricated frown. “But what’s going to happen to him next? Where does he go from here?”
“We’ve placed him with a highly qualified mother and father, chosen specifically for him, to help maximize his strengths, develop his weaknesses, and raise him to be the productive – no – the exceptional man he has the potential to be.
“RTJ’s new mother has a masters degree in child psychology and has almost a decade’s experience teaching gifted children of all ages at a prominent, nationally-rated magnet school. Her husband is a financial executive with a remarkable educational background and, shall we say, more than a stable income.”
“Pardon me for interrupting, but how would one of our viewers at home become a parent to one of these extraordinary children?” Blake asked.
Well Blake, your lobotomized viewers at home would never stand a chance of even being introduced to one of these kids, and they’re exactly what we’re trying to prevent these kids from becoming,
Prescott thought before answering. “We have access to prospective parent profiles from all of the reputable adoption agencies. So all of these parents were looking to become parents
before
they considered becoming an Avillage parent. And we have a division of full-time employees whose only job is to match each orphan up with the perfect parents
for that individual
. Don’t call us. We’ll call you,” Prescott said, turning to the live camera with a grin and eliciting a hearty guffaw from Blake.
As Blake began to segue into a commercial break, a screen featuring the scowling face of Bloomberg’s Britt Herndon started its slow descent from the top of the set between Prescott’s seat and Blake’s. Prescott’s smooth smile belied his irritation at the site of the unexpected guest, who happened to be one of his most outspoken critics. The questions were about to get significantly more pointed.
~~~
Sara Ewing couldn’t contain her smile as she fought the urge to stare. This was the first time she’d seen him. His frazzled dark wet hair fell boyishly down almost into his fawn-like brown eyes. A few faint freckles dotted his nose, and ran down his cheeks toward a hesitant smile that was conspicuously missing two teeth, one on top and one on the bottom. (Sara briefly wondered if the tooth fairy visited places like this.) His faded blue T-shirt was a couple sizes too large, which accentuated his childish appearance and almost fully concealed his shorts. On the surface he was everyboy, but Sara knew the extraordinary potential that lay behind those bright eyes.