The I.P.O. (24 page)

“No more barracks-style living,” Carlos said with a smile, feeling suddenly unburdened – and resigned to his fate.

“The kids are all outside right now.  Go ahead.  Take a look,” he said with the casual pride of a realtor showing off a prime property, nudging one of the doors open and flipping on the overhead light to reveal a set of wooden bunk beds and two small desks with chairs.  A couple of hand-sewn stuffed animals were poking their heads out from under the sheets of the bottom bunk, and a bulletin board on the near wall was adorned with some of the kids’ artwork. 

“We’ve got eight rooms just like this on each side of the hall.  Two kids in each room, so we can handle up to thirty-two kids, but our census usually runs in the mid twenties.”

“The two rooms in the middle on each side of the hall are for the nannies to stay in at night, and the rooms right next to those are nurseries.  There’s a door connecting them, so the nannies don’t have to go into the main hall if the babies cry at night.”

Nothing was fancy.  The drywall that partitioned the space was thin and roughly cut with no molding, the floor was polished concrete, and the doors were made from flimsy particle board, but it was a remarkable upgrade from what had been there six years earlier.

“We’ve got
two
bathrooms now – a boys’ on the right, and a girls’ on the left.  No more shifts for showers in the morning and evening.”

Annamaria involuntarily chuckled at the memory before quickly straightening her smile and continuing on down the hall toward the cafeteria.

“The kitchen’s closed off now,” Carlos continued.  “The older kids still get the opportunity to work in there, but I never liked the idea of the kids going through a line with a tray.  It felt so... institutional.  We eat family-style now.  The plates, cups and silverware are set up ahead of time.  We have one adult at each table; we even distribute the little tikes in the high chairs at different tables.  We talk, we laugh, we argue over who gets the last empanada.  It really feels like family.”

Carlos gazed around the room sadly.  “I eat here every night,” he said, missing his dinners with the kids already, trying to maintain the strained smile on his face.

“There’s one more thing I want to show you,” he said, doubling back down the long central hallway.  They exited the main door next to his office and took a right, heading down the new section of sidewalk that had originally piqued Annamaria's interest, this time making it all the way to the back of the building.

Annamaria’s heart nearly stopped as her eyes filled with tears.  Two dozen kids, who looked like they could’ve been the exact same group she’d shared three months of her life with, were joyously splashing and bobbing in a full-sized swimming pool.  Off to the side, a nanny was doting over a blissful dark-skinned  toddler outfitted in nothing but a swim-diaper, wading in a small circular baby pool, as a teenaged lifeguard, probably one of the older orphans, dutifully prowled the perimeter with a whistle around his neck, never taking his eyes off the water.

“None of this would’ve been possible without you,” Carlos whispered.

“This isn’t fair!” Annamaria shot back, her voice trembling.  She turned and stormed out of the pool area, determined not to let him see her cry.

Why couldn’t he just have been the pure evil she was expecting? 
He had no right to make this even harder on her.  What he did was inexcusable, and he had to pay for it!

Standing in the middle of the empty soccer field, she squeezed her eyes shut, losing the battle to hold back her tears.  It was clear the children were happier now than when she’d been there.  The facility was far superior in every way.  Carlos was contrite, and he’d obviously used every cent of the dividends her stock had paid out on the kids, keeping his own office in the tiny supply closet.  He’d even provided the kids with two computers that were several years newer than the one he used himself.

“Annamaria,” Carlos said, hesitantly approaching.  “You have a right to be angry.  Don’t feel guilty for that.”  He paused to give her the chance to vent if she wanted to.

“But you also have the right to feel proud.  That’s all I wanted for you.”

She squeezed her eyes and lips together even harder, to the point that she was dizzy.  “I can’t have children because of you!”

“But look at all the children you’ve helped.  You have a good heart.  Nothing that happened to you was your fault, Annamaria.  You’ll make a wonderful mother some day.”

“I might
never
be able to have children!” she growled, trying to keep her voice down for the children’s sake.  “What?  You think the reversals are a hundred percent?  They’re not even close!”

“Reversals?” Carlos asked, genuinely confused.

“Getting my tubes untied!” she hissed.  “What do you think?”

“Getting your...”  Carlos stopped mid-sentence, bringing a trembling hand up to his mouth.  “Annamaria, I had no idea.  I never would have...”

“Don't try and deny it now.  I had a private investigator track down the consent forms for my procedures, and your signature is all over them.”

“They promised me the procedure would be purely cosmetic.  The forms were all in English.  I didn’t...”

“You said it yourself, Carlos,” Annamaria said resolutely but with an aching heart.  “You were responsible for protecting me from people like Aaron Bradford.  And you failed.”

His shoulders drooped, as she brushed past him on her way back to the cab, knowing that there was nothing he could say at that point to make things any better.

~~~

A blast of heat and humidity hit Ryan as he walked through the sliding doors of the George Town airport on an uncharacteristically breezeless day, wearing a plain white T-shirt, navy blue athletic shorts, a pair of aviator sunglasses and flip-flops, carrying a backpack half full of the winter clothes he’d been wearing at the start of his trip.

His “garden view” hotel room half a mile away had no frills, no character, and certainly no view, but it was the only place he could find that, one, had availability and, two, was close to J.R.’s address.  And, he reminded himself, he wasn’t there on vacation.  He threw his backpack onto his double bed and turned right back toward the door to start his search.

J.R.’s apartment was a third of a mile inland up a slight incline.  Keeping up a brisk pace, his eyes constantly darting side-to-side behind his shades, Ryan noticed a gradual increase in the state of disrepair of the neighborhood (and the road itself) as the street numbers inched upward toward J.R.'s address.  By the time he was halfway there, there wasn’t a tourist in sight.  But he’d been over the route so many times on his computer, he almost felt like a local himself.

As he approached a dilapidated two-story apartment building, he squinted to confirm the faded number 616 painted on the curb out front.  J.R. certainly didn’t appear to be living a life of luxury, sheltering millions in one of the Caymans’ famous banks. 

The probably-once-stately building’s soiled white paint was cracking and peeling off of the brick façade, and it seemed every third shingle on the roof was missing.  A couple of window-mounted air-conditioning units outlined in thick layers of duct tape jutted out conspicuously from the windows on the far side of the first and second floors, while every other window had been left wide open, the thin white curtains inside lying perfectly motionless in the still, tropical air.  A vacancy sign that looked like it hadn’t been removed for years was planted in the middle of the parched lawn, next to a cracked front walkway.

J.R. was in apartment 2C.  The idea that there could be a “C” at all, implying that there were at least three separate domiciles crammed onto the second floor of the compact building, was in and of itself remarkable. 

With his heart rate rising, more from anticipation than anxiety, Ryan strode confidently through the front door and bounded up the steps two at a time.  Without pause, he knocked confidently, loudly, on the green door marked 2C, which from the orientation of its entryway seemed to overlook the street.

“Restraint,” he whispered to himself.

No answer.  The door had no peephole, and Ryan was pretty sure he hadn’t been spotted on his way in.  He  gave the door one more good knock, jiggled the handle for good measure, and yelled, “Dr. Ralston?”

Again no answer.  Ryan checked his phone – 6:15.  Maybe he was out getting something to eat, which didn’t strike Ryan as a bad idea.  He hadn’t eaten since Miami six hours earlier, and he’d noticed an English pub across the street.  Maybe he could even pick up a little info on J.R. from the locals. 

On his way out, Ryan stopped at the base of the stairs and pulled a solitary letter halfway out of 2C’s mail slot.  The postmark was recent, and it was addressed to Jared Ralston.  This was definitely the right place.

Ryan seated himself in a booth in a back corner of the sparsely-populated, entirely
un
authentic English pub.  A glass display case featuring large plastic bottles of well liquor hung above the bar, while spigots for the low-budget American and Caribbean beers on tap peeked up from underneath.  Against the far wall, one patron had apparently called it an early night, already face-down on the bar.

Ryan ordered a can of Coke, no ice to be safe, and a basket of fish and chips, which all came out together in less than five minutes. 

Too hungry just to walk away, he doused the limp planks of fish with malt vinegar and salt, more to ensure they were sanitized than to flavor them, and managed to choke down about half his order.

“Anything else?” his waitress asked briskly as he finished up, hoping he’d take the hint to ask for the check.

“No, I’m all set,” he answered, handing her his credit card without asking to see the bill, equally anxious to get the hell out of there.  He didn’t want to miss an opportunity though.

“Actually,” he  called out, “there is one more thing.”

The waitress, already halfway to the register, rolled her eyes before effortfully faking a smile and spinning back around.

Ryan waved her over closer to the table, which seemed to strain her insincere smile even further.

“I’m looking for an old family friend,” he whispered.  “You wouldn’t happen to know an American by the name of Dr. Jared Ralston?”

The waitress politely shook her head no and started to turn back toward the register.

“Or he might go by the name of J. R.?” Ryan added.  “I was told he lives right across the street.”

With that, the waitress’s smile widened, and she threw her head back, cackling loudly.  “You mean
him?
” she howled, pointing to the drunk at the end of the bar.  “Hey
doc!
” she shouted mockingly.  “Wake up!  You got company!”

He didn’t budge.  “Paging Dr. Cuervo!” she yelled, delivering a swift kick to the back leg of his barstool.  By now everyone in the pub was laughing, except Ryan and the passed-out drunk.

The drunk yanked his head up off his folded arms, his lids only half open, and took a clumsy swipe at the waitress, nearly falling off his stool in the process.

“That him?” the waitress called out.

He seemed to have aged a good twenty-five years in the eleven years since Ryan had last seen him.  But his face was unmistakable.  This was it – the moment Ryan had been waiting for for years. 

His gut reaction was to take a quick survey of the room to see if there was anyone in the place who would be physically able to prevent him from picking up a pool cue and bludgeoning him to death with it.  His best guess was no.  But he forced himself to take a deep breath and count to five – just as he’d rehearsed.

He stood slowly from his seat, stretched out his arms and clenched and unclenched both fists a couple times, cracking his knuckles in the process. 

The rest of the pub disappeared, as he narrowed his sights on J.R. 

Taking slow, controlled breaths through his nose, he strode slowly but confidently across the bar area, never taking his sights off his target who had just warily turned his head in Ryan’s direction.

Stopping a few paces short, Ryan dropped his jaw.  “J.R.!  Is that you?” he exclaimed, feigning a smile.

“Who wants to know?” J.R. slurred, squinting and shielding his eyes from the dim overhead lights.

“It’s me.  Ryan Ewing –  Ryan Tyler.”

“Ryan?” J.R. gushed.  “Little Ryan?  You’ve grown up, kid!  You’re bigger’n I am now!”  He struggled to his feet and leaned in to give Ryan an awkward hug, slapping him on the back a few times.  He reeked of alcohol.

“Yep, all grown up,” Ryan said, trying to keep up his chipper tone and pretending not to take note of any of the glaring stigmata of chronic alcoholism staring him in the face.  He yelled down to the waitress to add J.R.’s tab onto his card.  “I’m down here on spring break from Hah-vahd.  You still on faculty at the medical school?  I didn’t see you on the website last time I checked.”

“Nah, I’m done with that.  I gave up my twenties and thirties to the practice of medicine.”  He brought his closed hand up to his mouth as he ducked his chin, futilely trying to suppress a belch.  “And even when I wasn’t at the hospital, I was answering their stupid pages all day and night.  I finally said, ‘Enough!’ and checked out for good.”