“I know we’re not rich dad, but you’ve never heard me complain. We might not have as many nice things as some other families do, but I wouldn’t trade my family for the richest family in the world. You guys are the best in my book. But what does that have to do with this woman?”
“To be perfectly honest, we’re not even sure it’s a woman you’ll be meeting. It was a woman who approached us earlier today but now that I think about it, she never gave us her name and she said only that a representative would meet with you.”
“Well what’s this all about dad, mom?”
“We wish we could tell you son,” his mother echoed. “But we had to agree in advance to disclose nothing until you have met with them. Listen carefully to what they have to say and always remember who you are and who you represent.” She continued.
“That’s right, son.” Injected his dad. “Go inside past the front desk. Make your first right and look for conference room number seven. No need to knock. They’re expecting you so just go right in.”
“You’re not coming in with me?” He asked.
“”I’m afraid we can’t. That’s part of the deal that we agreed to. You must go in alone and make this important decision all on your own. We are forbidden to influence you in any way.” His dad affirmed.
“Your father and I will be waiting for you right here. Now go on and remember we’re behind you one hundred percent.” She iterated.
With his head spinning, Vance exited the car and looked back at his concerned parents, right before entering the hotel lobby. He gave them a quick smile and wave and they quickly reciprocated.
It was a stately hotel, one that Vance had never visited before, but he could follow directions. He located conference room number seven in short order and turned the handle. Unsure what to expect, he walked in, only to see a single table about fifty feet inside off to the left. A lone woman was seated between the wall and the table and a single chair awaited him opposite her. As he approached, he saw, from his perspective, one of the most beautiful blonde headed women he had ever seen in his life. She was not slutty or sexy in any way, merely classically beautiful and she nearly took his breath away. She was dressed conservatively, so he wasn’t going to be getting any sneak peeks but puberty was working him effectively. He thought her to be a goddess. That is until she spoke.
As he approached the table he held out his hand to shake and politely said, “Hello, I’m Vance….” She interrupted him.
“Yes I know, you’re Vance Rayle.” She totally ignored his congenial gesture and gave him a quick once over and exhaled a disappointing sigh. “Just take a seat boy and let me see what we’ve got here.”
Stunned by her rudeness, he smiled and took the seat as directed, remembering his parents’ instructions. She seemed to be reviewing a fairly large file.
“Says here your grades are garbage. So you’re a lazy-ass good for nothing, is that about right?”
“Ma’am, I….what…well…” He struggled desperately to formulate some kind of response. He represented his parents here in this room and even though they were waiting for him outside, he was going to be polite in the face of these horrendous comments even if it killed him.
“I don’t quite know what to say to that, ma’am.”
“There’s nothing to say moron. I’m just calling a spade a spade. And from everything I see on all of your report cards, all I see is a no good loser. Is that what you are?”
“No ma’am! I’m not a loser and I think you are being very impolite for some reason. Have we met before? Have I done something to you?”
“No. If we had, I’m sure you would have remembered me.” She retorted with a smirk.
“Why am I here, Ms……?”
“You don’t need to know my name. Who I am is not important nor relevant to your situation right now. From my perspective looking over your VERY unimpressive records and even seeing you now in person, I personally think you are a waste of human flesh and are not worth a second of my valuable time. However, your benefactor, for reasons TOTALLY unknown to me, believes that there is a spark of potential buried deeply in your vacuous brain.”
There were two bottles of water sitting on the table. One was open and half empty sitting in front of her. The other remained unopened and directly before him. Doing everything to assuage his anger at her condescending personal insults, Vance asked, “Is this water for me?”
“Wow, we have a regular Sherlock Holmes here. Go ahead, help yourself boy.”
He hated the way she was sarcastically calling him a boy. He decided to drink some water to buy him some time to pull himself together before continuing.
“A benefactor?” He repeated, hoping for explanation.
“Yes, and what the hell this benefactor sees in you is beyond me. But it’s not my call. I just represent your benefactor and am here as his representative to offer you an undeserved proposition.”
“Okay.”
“Here’s the deal. You just barely graduated junior high school today and are now facing four years of high school. Right?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Do you have any plans for college or beyond as to how you plan to deal with and provide for your future?”
“Well, I haven’t really given the rest of my life a lot of thought just yet. I’m still real young after all.”
“That’s what I thought. No ambition, no goals, no plan, no brains. LOSER!”
“Now just a minute….” He said.
She interrupted him. “Shut up you bumbling fool and listen. You’ve got one shot and only one shot. If you take it, you just might have the slimmest of chances of making something of yourself. If you refuse, you can walk out that door the same way you came in, dumb and stupid and stay that way the rest of your life for all I care.”
“One shot at what?”
“One of the finest educational opportunities available in this country, certainly a better education than you would otherwise be able to achieve on your own without our help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about the possibility of you getting a degree from Harvard University, young man.”
“Why me? But how? I can’t afford…..”
She interrupted him again. “Ah, there’s the rub now, isn’t it? You’ll have to get that degree the old fashioned way. Hard work, serious study, nose to the grindstone and all that goes with it. You can’t play around and goof off like you have so far in your life. So let me ask you, would getting a degree from Harvard University, easily worth a quarter of a million dollars but at zero cost to you or your family be something that appeals to you?”
“Well of course it would. But….”
She once more interrupted him, “But you don’t have a clue what to do or how to get there from here. I know that.” The blonde headed bitch, as he now thought of her in his mind, slid a piece of paper over to him and continued. Here is a list of courses that you will need to take this summer, during your high school’s summer session. Once you complete the summer school session, you’ll be signed up for a heavy course load for your regular course work in your ninth grade school year, chock full of mathematics and economics.”
“But I hate math, and economics?”