They had gone back and forth for months over whether or not they should reach out to Annamaria. Dillon was stuck on the fact that she’d become by far the highest-profile Avillage orphan, while Ryan contended that her near 24/7 press coverage was overwhelmingly unfavorable and that anyone who was regularly referred to as a “socialite” in the tabloids wasn’t the face they needed for their cause — no matter how beautiful or famous a face it was.
Dillon, driven by a self-sustaining internal fusion reaction of anger, was running low on patience and was desperate to do something. Anything. Now. On the other hand, Ryan, who was still cautiously trying to distill the truth out of what his obviously biased source was feeding him, argued that they could potentially end up doing irreparable harm to their image if they made the wrong move. They had to be viewed from the outside as sympathetic figures — exploited orphans — not greedy, entitled rich kids who already had way more than the average American (at least partially because of opportunities that Avillage had given them) and were now trying to hoard even more money. Annamaria, whose only marketable talent seemed to be showing skin for the camera, exemplified the entitled rich kid.
Eventually Dillon couldn’t stand the inaction any longer, and texted Annamaria from his computer — using Ryan’s cell phone number.
Ryan was an even six feet tall with broad shoulders and a man’s build. At seventeen, he wouldn’t have looked completely out of place in high school, but he certainly didn’t stick out in a lecture hall full of college students in their early 20s. And his casual, confident demeanor further disguised any age discrepancy.
His dark hair was thick but neatly cropped, and his big brown eyes were as clear and bright as they’d been the day he was adopted by Avillage ten years earlier. He was thoughtful and compassionate, but often difficult to read with an expression that tended away from extremes. It was an accurate external representation of his constantly working mind, but one that was occasionally misinterpreted as cold or indifferent.
Although he held celebrity status with a few students on campus who’d either figured out or had been told by their shareholding parents who he was, he maintained a small group of close friends and a wider group of friendly acquaintances, like most of the other kids did. And since the arrival of the first freshman class near his age the previous fall, he’d had no trouble finding dates.
He had yet to find a course that he’d considered a real challenge; the most difficult decisions he faced often centered around which classmates he’d work with on group projects — a sensitive issue in a school of grade-mongers often being graded on a curve.
And even though he had more than enough credits to graduate, he kept up a heavy course load in a wide array of subjects, ranging from mathematics to psychology to history to international law, all while making good money in the stock market. And neither he nor his parents nor Avillage saw any advantage in his graduating before he was eighteen.
Away from the classroom, he’d come up with a way to combine a rough application of an incomplete-information game theory model with his unique ability to rapidly assimilate and recognize patterns in large sets of data to come up with a strategy for trading futures on the Chicago Board of Exchange. Using his method, he was reliably gaining 3% per day on 60% of his holdings, while the other 40% would end up down by the same amount. That led to a modest net increase in his bankroll of 0.6% per day. But compounding that daily over the roughly 250 trading days of the past year — a year in which the commodities markets were relatively flat — he had nearly quintupled his original bank roll, while quietly socking a portion of his profits away into a growing portfolio on the Avillage Exchange.
He was on his way out of a World War II history course taught from the various perspectives of all of the major players, contemplating how he and Dillon were a lot like the pseudo-allied United States and Russia — ideological opposites thrown into an alliance against the bigger and more immediate threat of Avillage’s Germany — when he was blindsided by a phone call from New York.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?” came the hushed but determined Latina-accented voice on the other end.
“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.