“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.”