[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Match Donation



Three weeks earlier…

Nick

My mopey sadness had morphed into resolved annoyance by the week after Lauren had left. AJ was over, he had Ava and they were watching TV on the couch, Ava clapping along with some crappy cartoon song, and I was pacing behind them. Rochelle had made a couple dinners she wrapped in tupperware and sent over for AJ to stick in my fridge. “How do I even prove to someone I’m not self-centered?” I demanded as I walked back and forth. AJ was bouncing Ava on his knee. “I mean, seriously.”

“It’s not that hard,” AJ said, “Just do some kind of charity stuff.” He’d started to say shit but caught himself just in time.

“I do charity all the daaa--darn time.” I hated when AJ brought Ava over because it made our conversation really punctuated with replaced cuss words.

“Obviously not impressively enough,” AJ said with a shrug.

“Besides,” I said, “Even if I did some kinda charity thing, she’s gonna just say I’m being self centered if I call her and tell her about it.”

Ava was laughing loudly. “Bragging about doing charity is a pretty scummy thing to do,” AJ agreed with a nod. He grinned at Ava and made a face that made her giggle even harder.

“So what the fudge am I supposed to do then, AJ?” I asked.

AJ shrugged.

I sighed and leaned my forehead against the wall.

I should’ve called Howie or Brian. They were better at this selfless shit. They were the most selfless people I knew. I groaned and rolled my forehead over the stucco texture of the wall, hating the situation and myself for being in it.

How could I be selfish if I hated myself? I wondered. Obviously Lauren was fucked up in thinking I was selfish. I just had to make her understand that she was wrong and I was perfectly alright.

The TV show Ava was watching went on commercial break and she slid off AJ’s lap and ran off to go to the bathroom, announcing she had to tinkle. I kept my forehead on the wall. AJ shifted his weight and changed the channel to check the score on the game that was supposedly the reason he was over my place for the day. They, too, were on commercial. It was a thirty second advert trying to get people to donate to the tsunami relief fund.

The TV spot was saturating cable. I’d seen it about a hundred thousand times. There was this girl with blue hair and she was showing the effects the tsunami had had on some village in Kenya somewhere. She kept going on about resources having been lost and whatever and she walked around in a field in a dirty pair of shorts and tank top with dirt smeared on her face and some little kid that looked at the camera with startled eyes, talking about how much texting the number on your screen would help in this incredible time of need.

“Maybe you gotta do something so big it’s talked about by other people,” AJ said.

“Like what?” I asked.

AJ’s voice was excited, “This man,” he said.

I looked up. AJ was gesturing at the TV. The blue haired girl was still talking on the TV set.

"Everyone's donating to them," I said, "Why the hell would Lauren hear about if I did?"

"Nobody is matching donations made," AJ said. "They'd talk that shit all up."

I made a face, “You’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“You can put a cap on how much you’ll match to,” AJ answered with a shrug. “But they’ll still talk about it trying to get the donations to match it.”

“A cap?”

“Yeah, like you’ll match donations up to - I dunno - five hundred-thousand dollars.”

“Then I’d donate… what… a million?”

AJ nodded eagerly.

I thought about it for a minute.

“Ain’t gettin’ your life back worth a million bucks?” AJ asked, raising his eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well there ya go,” he said, “There’s how you do it for a million dollars.” He gestured at the TV again.

I stared at the TV, at the blue haired girl pleading with the camera to please think of the people of Kenya. It was true that everyone and their great aunt Sally was talking about this tsunami. Lauren herself had been moderately obsessed with the updates on TV. AJ was right. Match donations always got talked about. Lauren would hear about it on her own, I wouldn’t have to brag about donating to the tsunami relief fund. She’d think I was selfless and come back to me and my life would go back to normal.

I turned and quickly snatched my phone off the coffee table just as Ava was coming back and AJ went to change the channel. “Wait,” I said, stopping him. “Read me that number first.”

AJ’s voice carried a smirk. “1-800-....”





Kat


Once a week, Taji and I had to take the seven hour ride by dhaw to Lamu to get supplies for the village. There was no food growing in the ground, all we had was what Taji and I could buy and bring back. The organization’s funds were dwindling quick, even with donations coming in at a more steady pace than usual. The problem was that most of the donations we were receiving were small $10 here and there type things and it just wasn’t enough to feed an entire village for very long as well as build new houses. There was no hope of buying new animals at this point.

Taji and I were in Lamu a couple weeks after the tsunami to get food. I stopped at the one ATM in Lamu to pull out money from the organization bank account. Five hundred dollars, which exchanged to over 50,000 shillings, was the most I could afford to pull, though. It sounds like a lot, because of the exchange rate, but it didn’t stretch as much as you would think, even though things were considerably cheaper in Kenya. We would still be eating meager at the village. The receipt came out of the ATM and I stared at it for a second, blinking in disbelief.

The balance of the Wild Heartland Organization had more zeros than I had never seen on a bank balance in my life.

“What… the hell…” I muttered, staring at it.

“What is wrong, Paka?” Taji asked, looking at me and at the machine.

“I - I don’t know. I need a phone. I need to call the office,” I stammered.

We walked from the ATM to a hotel nearby that sold international calling cards for cell phones. Then we sat in their lobby with my phone plugged in until I could add the card minutes and make a call out without the battery dying instantly. I gave Taji the rest of our money and he went to barter for the cornmeal to make ungali with at the market while I waited for the phone to charge up. When it finally had, I called the office.

“Kat!” cried Wendy, one of the volunteers that worked at the office part time sounded ecstatic to hear me when I called her. “How is everything?” She’d been among the volunteers, along with Michael, who had come to Kiwayuu to help film some footage for news outlets and TV spots. They’d only stayed a couple days. The organization just couldn’t afford to support too many volunteers over here, food wise. I couldn’t ask the people who worked for me to go hungry, but I could ask myself to, so it was just me over here now until we could get things steadied.

“Still the same as ever… Listen, Wendy, is David there?” David was our financial assistant.

“Hold on.” I heard her pass off the phone.

“Hey Kat,” David’s voice was excited, “I had a feeling you’d be calling next time you were in Lamu.”

I pulled the balance sheet out of my pocket. “David… talk to me, that’s a lot of zeros on our balance.”

“It’s accurate, Kat,” he said. “We got a huge donation this week, a match donor… He donated a hundred thousand outright, then offered to match up to five hundred thousand more.”

I think I stopped breathing. “What? Who?” I choked the words out of my empty lungs.

“His name’s Nick Carter,” said David. “He’s apparently some kind of musician. I went on iTunes and found him.”

I was dizzy.

I was dreaming. I had to be.

“N - Nick Carter?” I stammered.

“Yeah, according to Wikipedia he was a Backstreet Boy or something… You know that song I Want It That Way? Apparently that’s him.” David’s voice sounded like he was shrugging.

Like a Backstreet Boy donating to Wild Heartlands wasn’t a big deal in and of itself, regardless of how much money he’d donated.

But $100,000?

And an up-to-500,000 match?

That was over a million dollars.

“Oh my God,” I felt like the whole world was spinning about seventy-five trillion times faster than it needed to.

With over a million dollars, we could afford the building supplies we needed to rebuild the houses. We could make them out of actual wood instead of grass huts so that they could withstand more before needing repairs.

With over a million dollars, we could buy livestock - cattle and goats and chickens.

With over a million dollars, we could get the motorboat repaired, we could make it to Lamu quicker in emergencies - only three hours instead of seven.

With over a million dollars, we could fix the village, make it more vibrantly alive than ever it had been, even before the tsunami.

“He left a phone number,” David said, “He said if you need to call him --”

I leaped up and ran to the front desk, “I need a pen,” I gasped. The clerk raised his eyebrow and gave me one. “Asante.” I ran back to my perch by the wall. “David, what’s the number? I, uh, I need to call him and thank him. Formally. You know. As the director and everything.” I bit my lip.

“Sure hang on, let me get that for you.”

My head was spinning.

Not only was Kiwayuu going to be saved… but they were being saved by Nick fucking Carter. I felt like a teenager. A very, very, very, ecstatically happy teenager whose fear of letting down a village had just been soothed by one of the most famous singers in the entire world.

“Ready for the number?” David asked.

“I am so ready,” I answered.