The I.P.O. Read online

  Ryan was too confused to respond. He gave an effortful half-smile as he unbuckled himself, grabbed his oversized backpack and climbed out of the backseat.

  J.R. pulled slowly away, shaking his head in disgust. He knew he had blown it and left a lot out, but there was no right way to do this – in the history of mankind, what was about to happen to Ryan had never happened before, and time was up.

  ~~~

  James Prescott brushed past a pack of rabid financial news reporters without so much as a nod. Today was worthy of nothing less than national network coverage and a select group of news channels with international reach.

  He strode into his office and shut the door. His second cup of coffee, piping hot, was waiting for him, along with his vice president Aaron Bradford.

  Prescott had met Bradford in his final year at Northwestern. Over the years Bradford had developed into the ultimate number two man. He was 3 years behind Prescott in school, 3 inches shorter and 10 pounds heavier. He had all the work ethic and determination, but he wasn’t an idea man, which was not to say he wasn’t expert in honing and perfecting other people’s ideas.

  He wasn’t unattractive, but he certainly wasn’t striking. His hair was starting to thin on top and recede up front; his nose had never been broken but it looked like it had, deviating slightly to the left; and his effortful smile was as warm as permafrost.

  Avillage never intentionally put him in front of a camera unless he was behind Prescott. Most of his work was done behind the scenes, often dancing on the line of ethically acceptable and not infrequently crossing well over it. Even Prescott didn’t want the details of exactly what he did. “This isn’t seventh grade algebra,” Prescott would say. “Get the right answer. No partial credit for showing your work.”

  Bradford idolized Prescott, but he wasn’t a yes man. He cherished his number two role in the company and was very well compensated for it.

  “As you know, RTJ’s set to open at 3,” Bradford said. “I’ve heard some analysts going as high as 9 before the close.”

  “Sounds a bit high to me,” Prescott said disinterestedly, sifting through some intra-office mail. “But I’m not worried about this one; he’s a slam dunk. Have you got the next two nailed down? We’re gonna have to keep our momentum up. I want JQJ second.”

  “Yeah, about that. Something’s come up,” Bradford said wringing his hands. “Turns out there may be a biological father in Newark. He’s apparently gotten himself a lawyer and is pretty close to getting paternity testing.”

  Prescott’s secretary cracked the door. “They’re ready for you in makeup.”

  “Can you make it happen?” Prescott asked.

  “Of course,” Bradford said. “I just don’t know if he’ll be ready next month. We’d obviously have to disclose any loose ends. There are a couple other candidates we could...”

  “Try,” Prescott said firmly as he walked out the door.

  ~~~

  Ryan watched J.R.’s car disappear down the street and then took off in a full sprint with no idea as to where he was going. Tears streamed across his cheeks and trickled behind his ears as he ran. It was the first time he had cried since his parents’ funeral.

  Finally running out of breath, he slowed to a walk in front of a Wal-Mart, one of the few stores already open for the morning. It would be a good place to get his thoughts together. And as long as he kept within reasonable distance of a similarly-complected adult, he probably wouldn’t draw much suspicion – certainly less than wandering alone on the sidewalk in a semi-urban neighborhood.

  As he loped behind a mom who was too busy trying to corral her petulant toddler to notice she was being tailed, an escalating fear of the unknown gripped his heart and began to squeeze. What he needed was an advocate – someone who loved him – to hold him and make him believe that everything was going to turn out ok. A grown-up unquestionably on his side who could make sense of this avalanche of life-changing information he’d just been hit with. He needed his parents.

  But he knew no matter how hard he wished, no matter how hard he prayed, they were never coming back. Ever. Finality was yet another concept he had picked up earlier than most of his peers. And it was excruciating.

  The toddler he was tailing finally had a full scale meltdown, prompting her mother to speed off toward the checkout, leaving Ryan all alone in front of the electronics department, where dozens TVs of every size, all set to maximum brightness, all tuned to the same channel, beckoned him to stay. He meandered over to the largest screen, nearly as tall as he was, and happened to catch the introduction for the CEO of Avillage, Inc.

  He could hear the old man’s voice from McDonalds echoing in his head, “It’s history.”

  ~~~

  Nearly 500 miles away, James Prescott nodded to a group of media members and a handful of traders who had gathered on the floor below his podium.

  “Welcome to the opening of the Avillage Exchange,” he declared with a slow presidential cadence, eliciting uproarious applause. A large digital clock counting down behind him had just passed the two-minute mark. Prescott had no plans to say anything substantive or address any controversy; there was no reason to at this point.

  “Welcome to the dawn of a new type of investing,” he said. “One that will benefit not only the investor, but also our country, our society, and our children. Today is a proud day for me, my supportive wife and my three beautiful kids; a proud day for the amazing employees at Avillage; a proud day for the American people, whose indomitable spirit has never settled for ‘good enough.’

  “But what I’m most proud of today, is that I – or I should say – we get to help a young boy in an orphanage, who the odds say would have had almost no chance – a boy who would have been more likely to end up in prison than in college.”

  ~~~

  Out of the corner of his eye Ryan saw the mom he’d been following talking to a police officer and pointing in his direction. He covertly slipped into a small side aisle of the electronics department and wedged himself between two smaller TVs on a lower shelf, hoping to escape notice, still transfixed on the program broadcast in high definition on every screen. He had to find out what was going to happen to this orphan.

  Elite test scores and spotless medical records flashed up on the screen behind Prescott as he touted the limitless potential of this exceptional but underprivileged orphan. Then Prescott described the boy’s family.

  ~~~

  “Our initial public offering is a little boy who lost both of his parents in one tragic night three months ago,” he started in a somber tone. “Both physicians, his mother was a pediatric oncologist-in-training set to join the staff at Boston Children’s Hospital and his father, finishing his cardiology fellowship, had just been offered a position at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

  “This young boy has been languishing in an orphanage for the past three months with no family, virtually no stimulation and, the sad reality is, no hope.

  “That will change today!” Prescott paused to let the applause die down.

  ~~~

  “No!” Ryan whispered, his heart pounding harder than it had during the whole run from his school. They’re talking about me! His eyes were transfixed on the screen, round as saucers, so entranced by the story that he hadn’t even noticed the police officer approaching – until he was picking him up to carry him out.

  “Wait! That’s me!” Ryan shouted, struggling to wriggle free.

  ~~~

  “It takes money to raise a child. It takes morals, ethics and intelligence. It takes love. And, sometimes, it takes Avillage.

  “Our initial public offering will be traded under the symbol RTJ.” As the clock hit zero, Prescott tapped the opening bell with an antique wooden mallet.

  ~~~

  A nameless, coarsely pixelated copy of Ryan Tyler, Jr.’s 1st grade picture appeared on the screen, as a white 3 at the bottom left of the screen almost immediately turned to a green 4.25, then 5, then 5.75
, then 8.

  “RTJ! That’s me!” he yelled frantically, straining to see the TV. The last image he caught before the officer turned down the center aisle that led to the exit was a grainy photo of a man and a woman who must have been in their late 20s or early 30s, standing outside a large brick house in what appeared to be a quiet suburban neighborhood.

  The green number at the bottom continued to tick upward 12.21, 12.89, 13.41...

  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 t
he 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?’”