The Virginity Pact

21 - playa playa

True love and betrayal. Revenge and more revenge. A heroine with an impossible goal. If only Mozart had lived on the Upper East Side. But you can keep your magic flute, Amadeus. All this queen wants is a golden ticket to Yale.

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"Holden Frasier. To what do I owe the pleasure?" The cocky voice asks sarcastically.

"Just calling to make sure you're staying at least 1000 feet from schools and parks," Holden taunts. The man exhales in annoyance and Holden stifles a laugh; he can practically feel his anger through the phone.

"What do you want?"

"I need a favor," Holden speaks firmly into the phone, getting more serious. After the failure of last week's brunch, he'd most definitely need to bend to Caesar's will and accept his money. As a result he has to start making plans to answer the big question: what about Harper?

"So you've finally come to me," the man says. "Well, I'm glad. You've been hanging this favor over my head for too long. What do you need me to do?"

Holden had caught the man, Tom, getting a little too intimate for the laws liking with a girl he knew at a Christmas party 2 years ago. Holden, then a sophomore, recognized the girl from school, which is how he knew she was only 15.

Tom, now 37, had made Holden swear to keep quiet. Holden, in a classically Holden manner, agreed when Tom promised he'd owe him something big.

Holden starts to tell Tom what it is he wants when he's cut off.

"Actually, why am I even asking?" Tom cuts him off with a low chuckle. "I heard about that disaster of a brunch last week. Frankly I'm a little offended you didn't invite me."

"Didn't want you to think your investment was your way of climbing out of the hole," Holden replies.

"Isn't that what you're calling for now? An investment?"

"No," Holden says as he leans forward in the armchair, putting his elbow on the desk and holding his head up with a closed fist. "No, I'm asking for something a little more complex."

"Jesus," Tom mutters as he shifts in his seat, anxiously anticipating an outrageous request from the 18 year old.

"I need you to start a scholarship. Something for young African American girls in Manhattan or overachieving teenage girls in New York. I don't know--get creative."

Holden spins in the chair at the desk, stopping himself by placing a foot back on the ground. He looks out the window over the manhattan landscape from 23 floors up. He's found over 18 years that it is true what they say--everything looks better higher up. But nowhere looks better than New York City. He can't wrap his head around why Harper would ever want to go to school anywhere else. Though Yale is under an hour away by plane, New Haven doesn't compare to New York.

"What are you trying to do to me, Frasier?" Tom sighs shaking his head as he thinks about it. Get familiar with all the teenage girls in the area? Is he trying to get him into trouble?

"Just let me finish," Holden says. "I need you to start a scholarship somewhere along those lines, and then notify Harper Caldwell that's she's won. You don't need to contact anyone else but her. Cut her a check for $200,000--" Holden stops and thinks about the medical bills from Harper's sister, and her having a job at the Annabelle to pay her parents back the costs of Lockwood's tuition. "Actually make it $300,000. And throw in some extra stuff to make it realistic."