by Dan Koontz
“Who is this?” Ryan asked.
“You texted me!”
“What are you talking about?” Ryan scoffed. Then his face sank. He wouldn’t.
Ryan looked down at his phone and saw the caller’s 212 number. He’d only seen it once, several months ago, but he recognized it instantly. He was on the phone with arguably the world’s top supermodel.
He wanted so badly to respond with the disdain he’d always held for her, but, finding himself incapable of not picturing her on the other end of the line, he instead felt his pulse quicken and his mouth dry, as he started stumbling for words. Why couldn’t she have just texted back?
“You said you wanted to meet me?” Annamaria asked forcefully, as she grabbed her keys and slid on her Cartier sunglasses on her way to the hotel elevator.
“Yes. Yes, I did,” Ryan stammered, cursing himself for coming off as such a starstruck dweeb. “When are you available?” Ugh! He sounded pathetic. He should be dictating the terms!
“I’m in New York. I’m just getting in my car now. You are in Boston, no?” Annamaria asked.
Dammit! She even sounds sexy! “Yes, I’m in Boston,” Ryan answered mechanically in a full sweat, futilely trying to relax. “It’ll take you about 4 hours to get here. I’m not sure if you know the city. Maybe we could meet at a coffee shop or restaurant?”
“I know the city,” Annamaria answered bluntly. “But I can’t just show up at a restaurant. I will be noticed.”
“We could meet at the Widener Library,” Ryan said. “Everyone pretty much minds their own business...”
“Don’t you have an apartment or something?” Annamaria interrupted. “I assume you want to keep this private too?”
“Uh...” and with that, Ryan came officially unhinged, with a lump in his throat so big it rendered him temporarily mute. She’d completely taken control of the conversation, and he couldn’t believe he was reacting this way. “I guess we could meet at my place,” he managed. “Just put the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Dunster Street in your GPS, and call me when you get close. I’ll direct you from there.”
“OK,” Annamaria said resolutely. “I’ll see you in about three hours. I drive very fast.”
“Bye,” Ryan said, just as his phone beeped to indicate the call was over. And finally, his shoulders dropped and the blush started to fade from his cheeks. He could breathe again.
After a quick pause to collect himself, he whipped out his walkie-talkie. “Dillon! Come in! I know you’re there!” No answer.
~~~
Annamaria parked her convertible Mini Cooper on Dunster Street and brushed right by the meter on the curb behind her rear bumper, not giving the first thought to paying it.
As she hurried up the red brick sidewalk toward Massachusetts Avenue, she caught her first glimpse into Harvard Yard. The timeless, classic brick buildings on the periphery circumscribed a yard of bright green grass that was speckled with towering oak trees and streaked with black walking paths, crisscrossing at sharp angles in every direction. She’d traveled all over the world and had gained access to places most people would never see, but this still impressed her. Growing up in small-town Panama, most people hadn’t heard of Stanford or Yale or Princeton. They all knew Harvard.
And while she had more money in the bank and a higher future earning potential than 99% of the students bustling by her in both directions on the crowded walk, she felt somehow out of place, self-conscious even.
Ryan had spent the better part of the past three hours scouring the internet, reminding himself why he’d never had any interest in contacting this hollow social butterfly and convincing himself that it was not he who should be intimidated. Especially on his home turf. This time he was prepared for her call when it came.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“It’s me,” Annamaria whispered into her phone, almost demurely. “I’m at kind of a triple archway on Massachusetts Avenue at the entrance to Harvard Yard. Do you go here?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said coldly. “Stay there. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Click – he hung up his phone, leaving the prima donna no time to protest. Now that’s how it’s done, he thought.
Ryan slowly descended the steps of his dorm, exited out onto the yard and strolled at a deliberately lazy pace toward Mass Ave, fighting the urge to peek toward the arched gate. As he walked through, he found Annamaria sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with her back resting against one of the brick archways.
“I’m Ryan,” he deadpanned. “Follow me.”
“Nice to meet you,” Annamaria smiled, jumping up to a stand. “This place is amazing. I’ve never been here before. Any chance you could give me a quick tour on the way back to your place? And maybe we could just pick up a little snack? I’m starving.”
“You eat?” Ryan sneered.
“I’m not that skinny!” Annamaria shot back playfully.
“No, certainly not everywhere,” Ryan said, looking her up and down, convinced that she’d had some work done. “You are definitely uniquely proportioned,” he muttered just loudly enough that he hoped she would hear.
They walked on in uncomfortable silence through the Yard for another sixty seconds.
“See that there?” Ryan said condescendingly, pointing toward Widener library. “That’s a library. You may or may not be familiar with one of those. It is a place of learning, full of books. One of the books inside is an original Gutenberg Bible. The Bible is a popular religious text that I’m almost certain you’re not familiar with.”
“What the hell is your problem?” Annamaria snapped. “You contacted me!”
“Someone contacted you on my behalf,” Ryan clarified. “I thought it would be a waste of my time – and yours.”
“Oh, I see. So you think you know me?” Annamaria asked, her Spanish accent intensifying with her anger. “Please, don’t pretend that you know me,” she continued without giving him a chance to respond. “You get more looks around here than I do. How would you like it if I asked one of these ass-kissers about you, and I based my whole impression of you on that?”
I don’t give a damn what you think about me, he thought before thinking better of actually saying it aloud. “You’re right,” he conceded half-heartedly. “I don’t know you.”
He pointed out the statue of John Harvard and a few buildings of interest as they continued the awkward tour toward one of the science buildings where they ducked in to grab a snack before doubling back to Ryan’s dorm on the south end of the Yard.
Ryan’s “single,” a privilege of upperclassmen, was on the third floor of Wigglesworth dormitory. The unadorned walls were coated with thick white paint that had been caked on progressively thicker over the decades. A few of the beams of the original hardwood floor were just starting to buckle upward, but the floor was clear of clutter and his twin bed neatly made, an unusual state for his room – one which he’d argue to his death had more to do with the fact that he had a guest than with who that guest may be. A microwave rested on top of his perpetually empty dorm fridge at the foot of his bed, and his black wooden Harvard chair was pushed up tidily to his desk under the room’s lone window that looked down on the peaceful Yard below.
Ryan unlocked the door and invited Annamaria to have a seat wherever she liked, as he mulled over how much he wanted to reveal to her. From the doorway he could see that his laptop was still open, displaying a picture of a bikini-clad Annamaria on the cover of some trashy tabloid, toting some sort of fruity alcoholic drink across some generic tropical beach while flirtatiously smirking at a throng of salivating suitors. The headline teased “Off Again?” suggesting that her currently-rumored relationship with her Hollywood boyfriend du jour had ended.
Annamaria gazed over to the laptop with a hint of disappointment on her face as Ryan rushed over to close it. She shed her hat and her sweatshirt, under which she wore a form-fitting plain white T-shirt, and sat down on the side of the bed, curling one foot up underneath her as she poppe
d open a can of Coke.
Ryan sat facing her in his black wooden chair, thinking about where he should begin (and grudgingly admiring the fact that she didn’t drink diet) when she completely disarmed him by speaking first.
“Tell me about your parents,” she said, sliding off her sunglasses for the first time, and looking him straight in the eye, as if the argument they’d just had had never taken place. The sincerity in her eyes was undeniable, and the depth was hypnotizing – like a bottomless volcanic lake in the dead of a moonless night.
The tabloid covers instantly vanished from his mind, and he was forcefully struck with the realization that the two of them shared a terrible, powerful, character-defining history.
He hadn’t talked about his birth parents to anyone for years, but not a single day had passed that he hadn’t thought of them.
“My dad runs a hedge fund,” he started, with a last-ditch effort to evade her question.
“Your real parents,” she interrupted, still staring directly in his eyes intently – but tenderly.
“They were both doctors,” he said, turning toward the window as tears began to well on his lower lids. “I remember every moment I spent with them from the time I first started to form memories.”
His voice stayed steady as an occasional tear trickled down his cheek and Annamaria listened. “My dad was a huge Cleveland Browns fan. Every Sunday at 1:00, without fail, we would park ourselves on the couch, eat popcorn, and watch the game together – the whole game – no matter how bad the score got. He told me when he was finally done with all of his training and making a real doctor’s salary, we were gonna go to a game and sit at the fifty yard line, no matter what it cost.
“My mom was busy, but she never let me feel it. She’d work on Saturdays if she had to to make it to my school so I’d have someone there on days parents were invited. She taught me to read and how to ride a bike.
“When I was scared or sick, one of them would come and stay in my bed with me and then go to work at the crack of dawn the next day on essentially no sleep. They loved me. Unconditionally.
“I was an only child. When they died, I was completely alone – devastated.
“I was seven, and...” he drew in a deep breath before continuing. “I saw it. I saw it happen. For the next few months I woke up with nightmares of that scene every morning.” He shook his head slowly. “It was terrible.
“But honestly,” he said, turning to Annamaria, “it was even worse when they stopped – when the images weren’t as vivid, and the pain wasn’t as intense. My parents didn’t have anyone else in the world either. I was their entire legacy, and as hard as I tried not to, I could feel myself... forgetting them – at least emotionally.”
“My dad worked security at the Canal,” Annamaria jumped in, sensing he was reaching his limit. She hadn’t talked about her family for years either – since she’d left Panama. “And my mom stayed home with my little brothers. We weren’t poor by Panamanian standards, but we didn’t have much. I shared a room with my two little brothers, and we’d converted our living room into a third bedroom for my grandmother.
“They all died in a massive earthquake when I was thirteen.”
Ryan reached down for her hand and squeezed it gently.
“For a few days I was overwhelmed with guilt for not being with them when it hit. But then I was thrown into an overcrowded orphanage with a bunch of other new orphans, mostly younger and even more confused and heartbroken than I was, and surprisingly, I was ok.
“I had a purpose. Those kids loved me. They needed me. And I needed them.” Her voice trailed off as if she were just realizing this for the first time.
“And that’s when Bradford stepped in?” Ryan asked, reaching for a box of tissues.
She pulled out a few tissues and nodded her head with a polite smile, too choked up to continue speaking. Ryan sat down next to her on the bed and gently wrapped his arm around her just as her trembling shoulders slumped forward, and she buried her face in her hands.
When the sobs finally stopped, she raised her head and looked at Ryan with red, swollen eyes that were infinitely more endearing than any photo shoot she’d ever done. “Do you know why I got my reputation as a party girl?” she asked
“Uh, are the all the tabloid stories true?” Ryan asked cautiously.
“Yes,” she answered flatly.
“Well...” Ryan started to squirm. His arm around her shoulder suddenly felt awkward, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“I asked, ‘Do you know why I got my reputation?’" she repeated gritting her teeth, silently pleading with him – begging him to get her.
“I was trying to get pregnant!” she finally blurted out. “I wanted to have someone I knew I could trust in my life; someone whose love I never had to question; someone that I could love without worrying about what I might find out about them later on – or what they might find out about me.
“But I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
She opened up the laptop cover and looked at the girl in the tabloid photo with equal parts shame and sympathy. “Whatever anyone has ever thought about me, I promise you I’ve thought worse. The alcohol is pretty much the only thing that makes it tolerable,” she mused.
“Two days after Bradford left, I got those,” she said, pointing to her sparsely covered chest on the computer screen.
“Wait!” Ryan exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “You got those after Bradford came to the orphanage?”
“Of course!” she gasped. “I was thirteen!”
“No, I mean right after?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know dates?” Ryan asked.
“I couldn’t forget that day if I tried. It was exactly two weeks before I was adopted. But I don’t even know which hospital I was in – somewhere in Panama City.”
“If that was before you were adopted, then who paid for the surgery? And who gave consent?” Ryan asked, his mind whirring.
“I can only assume the headmaster at the orphanage did,” Annamaria said, shaking her head disgustedly. “He was the one who met with Bradford; he must have made some deal with him. He sent me to the hospital alone – I’d never even been in a hospital before. No one told me what I was there for, and I woke up still all alone, with terrible pains in my chest and my stomach I’ll never forget.”
“Your stomach?” Ryan asked. That didn’t make any sense.
“That’s how they get the implants in without leaving any obvious scars. I’ve got one right here,” she said lifting her shirt a few inches to reveal a tiny scar just inside her belly button. “And two right here,” she added, flipping her waistband down to reveal two more tiny scars, one on each side.”
Ryan’s face went white as a sheet. “That’s not how they put implants in,” he whispered.
“Maybe not in the U.S., but I woke up with those three scars and these,” she said cupping her augmented breasts, “at the same time.”
“Annamaria, I’m so sorry,” Ryan said softly. “But I think I know why you’ve never gotten pregnant.”
CHAPTER 10
“You ok?” Ryan asked after a full minute of silence.
“No,” Annamaria answered tersely, her heartache drowned under a roiling sea of anger.
“It was probably a tubal ligation,” Ryan whispered, proceeding with extreme caution. “Those can usually...”
“You said someone contacted me on your behalf,” Annamaria said, her eyes ablaze. “When we were walking outside. You said it wasn’t your idea to contact me. Whose was it?” she demanded.
Given the opportunity to drag Dillon into this, Ryan didn't hesitate. “It was this geeky computer guy at MIT. He hacked into Avillage’s system and got the names and contact info of all the orphans. He’s actually one of us.”
“Does he know anything more about me?”
“I’d guess he probably does, but he’s pretty tight with it. I’m not sure why.”
“How far is MIT from here?” Annam
aria asked, her speech still pressured.
“Mile and a half?” Ryan guessed.
“Let’s go!” she said, reaching for her hat and glasses.
~~~
Dillon’s whole body jerked, startled by the abrupt banging on his door.
Trying to make as little noise as possible, he tiptoed over to the door and peeked into the peephole. Nothing but black. Whoever was out in the hall must’ve been covering it up. “Who is it?” he asked with a low but self-conscious, cracking voice that just screamed computer nerd.
“Open the door,” Ryan demanded, continuing to bang away.
Dillon timidly unlocked the door and cracked it a few inches to find Ryan standing in the hallway with an angry yet disconcertingly satisfied look.
“I tried to call you...” Dillon stammered.
“Hmm, that’s weird. Because I had my walkie-talkie on me all day yesterday and today, and I never heard a thing.” Ryan stared him down, inching progressively closer to the doorway.
“Oh. I was must’ve been on the wrong channel.” He was pretty sure Ryan would never resort to physical violence, but the shred of doubt that remained was enough to shoot his heart rate into the 130s.
Ryan gave him one more glare and then brusquely shoved the door wide open, to reveal a still seething Annamaria standing to his right.
Dillon staggered back a few steps, his eyes like saucers, suddenly feeling light-headed. Annamaria’s face, meanwhile, visibly sank, as if Ryan had just exposed Oz from behind the green curtain. This was their source? He was about five-four, skinnier than Annamaria, and didn’t look a day over fourteen.
Dillon held his gaze on Annamaria just long enough to register her first impression before his eyes darted sheepishly down toward the floor. A deep blush replaced the usual pallor of his cheeks – yet another face-to-face encounter he’d be forced to start in a deep hole. Always the same reaction! It seemed to hurt more each time.
Ryan walked in behind Annamaria and closed the door. “Can we talk here?” he asked, more to appease Dillon than out of any concern of his own. Dillon had been making great money for himself and his shareholders with his steady release of apps for five years now. No one in their right mind would have continued to surveil him that long without coming up with anything.