by Dan Koontz
“I think she’s got a big future in modeling. I took her pictures to a scout at a major modeling agency in New York who agrees wholeheartedly. Called her a ‘can’t miss.’ I really think this could be a huge opportunity not only for her but for us at Avillage – and of course for you and your orphanage here. I believe you are aware that you and your orphanage would be entitled to a 1.5% ownership stake for the referral?”
The young headmaster nodded hesitantly.
“Carlos, by now I’ve been involved in hundreds of these IPOs, and they’re always difficult to predict, even more so with models, since we’re legally barred from showing their pictures to investors. But with the comments I’ve gotten from the modeling agencies, I’m guessing she would open with a market cap around a million and a half, maybe two.”
Carlos’s eyes bugged involuntarily.
“So your share of the more conservative estimate would be around $25,000 – if you sold right away. Which, of course, I wouldn’t recommend. But I bet that kind of money could go pretty far in a place like this, couldn’t it?” Bradford said with a salesman’s grin, raising one eyebrow.
“It would be a godsend,” the headmaster whispered guiltily, staring vacantly at Annamaria, innocently laughing and bounding after a group of boys half her age.
“After a few minor cosmetic adjustments, we could be talking about significantly more than that. I anticipate you could potentially see upwards of $25,000 a year in dividends for several years.”
“What do you mean by ‘minor cosmetic adjustments,’ Mr. Bradford?” the headmaster asked nervously.
“Oh, nothing that would be dangerous to her. Don’t worry about that. Actually, it would probably help with her confidence. The only thing I could really foresee would be a minor augmentation – she’d need at least a full B cup to...”
“You’re talking about a boob job for a 13-year-old!” the headmaster gasped, eyes ablaze.
“I know, I know. I don’t like it either. I hate it,” Bradford said, shaking his head. “But the modeling industry is extremely competitive. If she’s going to be a star, which I assure you she will be, she’ll need just a little nudge from us. And we’re not talking about major surgery here. It’s laparoscopic – one tiny incision – two at the most. The procedure has fewer risks and a shorter recovery time than having your wisdom teeth pulled.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” the headmaster said, deeply regretting his decision to have contacted Avillage in the first place.
“Carlos, listen. You’re doing the best job that you can down here. Anyone can see that. Don’t put this all on you. And please don’t look at her as a sacrificial lamb for the rest of the orphans here. She’ll be getting the best deal of all. She’s going to get a first-rate American education. She’ll be part of a family. She’ll get to travel the world. She’ll have more money than she’s ever even thought about. And she’ll be able to give more back to the orphanage than she possibly could by staying here. You can’t match that offer. Look at how much she loves these kids,” Bradford said pseudo-empathetically, pointing out the small window. “In her heart of hearts, what do you think she would do?”
“She’d do anything,” the headmaster said flatly after a long pause, emotionally spent. “I think she would do it.”
“She can’t do it though. We have to,” Bradford urged, leaning in for the kill and bringing his hand up to his mouth to cover the smile he wasn’t sure he could continue to suppress.
Bradford finished up by detailing the next steps they’d need to take. Avillage obviously could not be the ones to sign off on the surgery. The headmaster as her current legal guardian would have to sign the consent forms. Bradford would, however, find “the best surgeon available” and cover the costs immediately with cash. The adoption would occur only after the surgery was complete.
The headmaster opened the door to his office, physically ill but convinced he had to proceed.
~~~
Back on the ground in New York, Bradford slid his finger across the face of his phone to turn “airplane mode” off. As the bars at the top right corner of the display filled in blue, a chime alerted him to a new voice mail. Then another, and another, and another. All marked urgent, all from his office, and all in the last 20 minutes.
He casually tapped his voicemail icon, rolling his eyes, wondering what in the world his secretary was overreacting to now.
“Mr. Bradford, this is urgent! Please call back as soon as you can. J’Quarius Jones is in the hospital!” his secretary stammered, her voice cracking as she left the number to the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital.
Bradford’s pulse quickened, his eyes widened, and he began to feel suddenly claustrophobic on the plane. J was Avillage’s biggest success to date, by far.
A graduating senior in high school, J’Quarius was on cruise-control toward being the first overall pick in the NBA draft, but Bradford had lucrative plans for him even before that.
The three-time high school All-American and reigning national high school player of the year had received scholarship offers from Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Duke, UCLA, and several other basketball powerhouses. But Bradford had blocked all of them by refusing to release his medical records.
There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that J’Quarius was going to be the typical one-and-done college basketball star, so Bradford saw no value in his spending a year in college, where he might get injured and he definitely wouldn’t make any money.
The NBA had long since prohibited players’ from entering the draft straight out of high school though, so Bradford had arranged for J’Quarius to sign an eye-popping 23 million dollar single-year contract with CSKA Moscow to play in both the Russian league and, more importantly, the wider Euroleague.
And while the salary was immense, the biggest draw of going pro would be that it would allow him to start pursuing endorsement deals immediately. If everything went as planned, J’Quarius would be the first player ever to enter the NBA already a global icon. And 90% of everything he made over $1 million in after-tax income would be appropriated to Avillage. As chairman of the board with a 5% stake, Bradford stood to take home annual dividends in excess of a million dollars.
With the high school season finished, J’Quarius had two more games with his AAU regional team before his first major payday.
The first of those games would have just ended, Bradford thought. From the aisle of the plane, he dialed the hospital.
~~~
“Hello, I’m Dr. Bennett. And you must be... Mr. Bradford?” The doctor asked, looking down at his clipboard on his way into the waiting room from the echocardiography lab.
“No,” a frightened Hansford Washington said softly, extending his cool, clammy hand to greet the doctor. “I’m Hansford Washington and this is my wife Arlene. J’Quarius is our son.”
“Oh,” the doctor said, looking perplexedly back down at his clipboard. “The chart says that his legal guardian is an Aaron Bradford?”
“Well, yes, technically, but J’Quarius lives with us. He’s been with us for the past five years. Feel free to ask him. He’ll tell you who his parents are,” Hansford said desperately. “Doctor, did you find out what’s wrong?”
Dr. Bennett sighed. “I’m really sorry, but legally I can’t share that information with you until I get permission from his legal guardian. All I can tell you is that his condition right now is stable.”
“Can’t you at least tell him? He’s got a right to know if there’s anything wrong with his own body!” Arlene pleaded.
“I’m sorry. I really am. But he’s still a minor. By law I need to talk to Mr. Bradford first.”
Just as the doctor completed his sentence, his pager began to vibrate. He plucked it off his belt to look down at the message, and held up an optimistic index finger. “This might be him,” he said with a reassuring smile and retreated back into the lab.
Behind the closed door, he grabbed the nearest phone at the nurse’s station and
dialed the 212 number. “This is Dr. Bennett, returning a page.”
“Yes, hello. This is Aaron Bradford. I’m J’Quarius Jones’ legal guardian. Is he ok?”
He certainly sounded concerned, Dr. Bennett thought. “First of all, yes. He’s ok. J’Quarius is resting comfortably in stable condition.
“Earlier tonight at his basketball game he was walking up to the free throw line to shoot a foul shot when, without warning, he passed out. The trainer in the gym responded immediately and brought out an AED – basically a portable defibrillator. Thankfully, by the time he reached him, J’Quarius was already coming to, so he didn’t have to use it.
“As you might expect, J’Quarius was a little confused to find himself on the ground, but he wasn’t injured. The paramedics just brought him into the hospital as a precautionary measure.
“Now, we just completed an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of the heart, and it did show an abnormality. We’ve discovered that he has a condition called hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. ‘HOCM’ for short.”
“Well what’s the prognosis? Is he going to be able to play basketball again? Why didn’t this show up on any of his physical exams?” Bradford asked without pausing for answers.
“The prognosis is good overall, but I would strongly recommend against his playing basketball – or any other strenuous sport for that matter – ever again, even recreationally. This is something that may not show up on routine exams, which is why some advocacy groups have been pushing for screening EKGs for all kids before starting high school sports. The arrhythmias – abnormal heart rhythms – that this can cause can even be fatal. J’Quarius is a very lucky young man.”
“So this doesn’t show up on routine physical exams?” Bradford clarified, his mind having already raced ahead to the upcoming mandatory physical J’Quarius had to undergo before signing with CSKA Moscow.
“Nope. This wasn’t an oversight of any of his pediatricians or anything they could have possibly predicted. Nobody did anything wrong here,” Dr. Bennett said, incorrectly inferring where Bradford was going with his line of questioning.
“So what would the odds be of something like this, or worse, happening if he were to play basketball again?” Bradford probed.
“The risk that this would happen again is high. The American Academy of Cardiology has published a guideline that participation in sports be stopped immediately,” Dr. Bennett said definitively.
“But wouldn’t that decision ultimately be left to the parents?” Bradford asked, keyed in on the fluidity of the word ‘guideline.’
Dr. Bennett was aghast. “Mr. Bradford, did I not make myself clear that this is a potentially life-threatening condition? He might get away with one game or two or even ten, but it’s Russian roulette. Yes, technically the decision is up to the parents, but there’s no decision to be made here. Now, do you want to break this news to him, or do you want me to do it?”
“I will!” Bradford blurted out. “He hasn’t heard anything yet, correct?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Bennett said. “For now, would you mind if I at least let the Washingtons know what’s going on? They’re scared to death.”
“Actually I would. What I would expect is that you comply with the law and keep all of this information private. Thank you,” Bradford said, hanging up his phone. This was potentially disastrous, but if he could just get him through one more game and then the Russian team’s physical in 2 weeks, he could at least turn a substantial profit before shutting him down.
~~~
“Olivera?” the nurse called out impersonally through the swinging double doors, failing to recognize that there was only one patient seated in the waiting room.
Annamaria slowly rose to a stand, self-consciously holding the back of her hospital gown together to make sure she was fully covered, and hesitantly shuffled toward the door. She had already been through the most thorough physical of her life, and her upper arms were throbbing from all of the vaccinations she’d received. She couldn’t imagine what else they could have planned for her.
The previous day, she had dutifully boarded a cab for Panama City after a morning of tearful goodbyes to the other children and the staff at the orphanage. The headmaster, unable to come up with a sensitive way to break the news to her, had essentially run out of time, so, despite his best intentions, he’d broken the news to her that she’d be leaving the day before it was scheduled to happen. And the only part of it that he could find the words to express was that she was being adopted by an American couple. Nothing else. Certain he would never be forgiven, he only hoped she wouldn’t hold it against the orphanage.
Annamaria hadn’t wanted to leave, but she hadn’t fought it. Told in a nebulous manner that she could help more by leaving than by staying, she had readily agreed. But her heart was broken. It had taken everything she had to keep her chin up and give comforting smiles to the whimpering preschoolers, as she lugged her backpack to the cab. Once inside though, she had sobbed the entire 90-minute ride to Panama City.
Multiple times throughout the day, she had regretted her decision to leave the orphanage and had been able to reason her way through it, but lying there alone on a gurney, as a 20-gauge needle connected to an IV line sunk into a vein in her right arm, she hit a breaking point. Her eyes nearly bulging out of her their sockets, her chest gripped with fear, she screamed, “Stop! What are you doing to me?”
But before her scream had even finished echoing off the pale blue-green tiles of the pre-op room, she felt her heart rate begin to slow. And she was enveloped by a mysterious warmth.
Overwhelmed by the urge to sleep, she felt herself being wheeled through another set of doors, where a shining stainless steel tray covered with glistening surgical tools stood out on a drab green cloth. She still didn’t know what was happening to her. But with her IV running, she didn’t care
Nurses on either side of her clumsily lowered the rails on the sides of the gurney with a loud clang. The last thing she remembered was a man in hospital scrubs and a surgical mask tugging on her gown, leaving her exposed from the waist up. But in her unnaturally relaxed state, even that didn’t seem to merit maintaining wakefulness.
~~~
“My chest hurts,” Annamaria quietly moaned, gradually coming to. “And my stomach.”
A nurse hurried over to hush the agitated beeping of her IV pump, and within thirty seconds, she was peacefully back to sleep.
CHAPTER 7
“At six feet, ten inches, power forward, J’Quarius Jones, cum laude,” the principal shouted, his voice building to a crescendo that couldn’t come close to matching the volume of the amped up crowd, who easily overwhelmed the high school gym’s basic sound system and drowned out the mention of the academic accolade.
A beaming J’Quarius, wearing a Magic Johnson-like smile, floated across the stage in his double-XL black gown, which barely stretched down to his knees, and gave an appreciative tip of his cap to the crowd, squinting into the stands, trying to pick out his parents as he walked.
After a hearty handshake from the principal, he waved one last time to the crowd before quickly descending the steps on the far side of the stage cradling his diploma. As proud as he was, he didn’t want to take the spotlight off the graduates behind him. The next time he was called on to a stage though – when the NBA commissioner was the one waiting to shake his hand – that he would take time to savor.
Twelve rows up at center court, while his wife struggled to get a decent angle on a picture, Hansford Washington stopped clapping, just long enough to brush a tear from his eye. This had been a long time coming. He hadn’t walked at his high school graduation because of some stupid decisions he’d made, and his biological son had had his opportunity tragically ripped away by a drunk driver two years shy of his graduation ceremony.
When all was said and done, this probably wouldn’t end up ranking in the top fifty of J’Quarius’s biggest accomplishments, but the moment couldn’t have meant more t
o Hansford. He went on clapping right through the next graduate’s announcement, until J’Quarius finally spotted him in the crowd. Matching his son’s smile, he nodded and signaled a proud double-thumbs-up across the gym.
Later that evening, as was tradition the night before a game, Arlene Washington cooked the family a big pasta dinner. Tonight it was spaghetti with meatballs – J’Quarius’s choice.
“You’re gonna miss these in Russia, JQ,” Arlene said, piling a fourth massive meatball on the heaping mound of pasta that would be his typical first serving.
“Yeah,” he said dispassionately, keeping his gaze fixed down on his plate. “There’s a lot I’m gonna miss.”
“Come on, now. It’s only a year, and we’ll be over there on every break we get during the school year,” Hansford said. Then he lowered his head, and with his jaws clenched together and his eyebrows mischievously raised, he covertly mumbled without moving his lips, “And sun of those fretty Russian girls night vee very haffy to neet you,” intending his wife not to hear. The sharp smack that jarred his whole head forward, almost into his plate of spaghetti, indicated that she had.
J’Quarius laughed, as his dad rubbed the back of his head. Then he went right back to picking at his pasta.
“You’re not worried about tomorrow night are you?” Arlene asked, sensing something more was bothering him. Normally he’d have been be on his second helping by now.
“A little,” he said, as he mechanically sawed off a couple slices of bread and passed one over to each of his parents.
“Mr. Bradford said that was just a one-time deal what happened at the last game. A freak thing,” Hansford said, brushing it off. He and his wife had told J’Quarius all about Aaron Bradford and Avillage when the college scholarship offers had started rolling in.
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I really trust him,” J’Quarius said meekly.