Immaculate Spirit c1-242

by Newbiel

  "Nathaniel? We are here." Jesse said.

  "I know, just let me finish that real quick and then I'm with you four." Nathaniel said absentmindedly.

  Hearing that, all of them exchanged surprised glances, thinking the same thing. His piano was oriented at the opposite door and they were sure that he never turn his head once.

  "How did you know we were four?" Ask Michael.

  "Easy, I just count the number of footsteps and divide by two." He responded seemingly non pulse.

  A few seconds later, he finally raised his head and could not help but to chuckle seeing their face.

  "Or I just saw you coming when I looked at your reflexion in the mirror." He said with mirth pointing to his right.

  Looking where he was pointing, they realise there really was a mirror here albeit a small one. Thinking about it, they realize it was more realistic than his previous answer and laughed too. The director quickly came back to what he wanted to talk about previously.

  "I knew that you are a singer but I didn't know you were that good, Nathaniel. I'm impressed."

  "Thanks Louis."

  "Did you write it?" Isla asked.

  "I'm currently writing it. It still a working project." He precise.

  "Project? It's not finished?" Michael asks.

  "No, there are still some inconsistencies I want to change in the lyrics and the melody."

  "Seriously? I loved it, I think the music is great!" Isla exclaimed.

  "I agree." Michael added.

  "Yeah it's good but not to my liking yet. Give me three more days and it would be perfect."

  "How much will you need to present a finished product?" Louis asked.

  "That depends if the finished product you are talking about is with or without a video clip."

  "Without." He added.

  "With our current schedule, I would say a week, maybe a bit more. Why?" Nathaniel asks with an eyebrow raised.

  "I think the music would fit really well with the movie and I want it in it. At first we didn't have the budget to have someone good making music for the movie but with that song, I believe the studio would finance it. What are you saying?" Louis demands.

  "I'm in!" Nathaniel responded excitedly.

  "Good! I would schedule an appointment with the studio in ten days. Would that be enough time for you?"

  "Yes, I believe it will. My label as a studio here in LA, I would use their facility."

  "What if your label is not okay with that?" Michael asks.

  "My family name is on the front door, trust me, nobody will try to stop me" He said with humor.

  "You have a point there." Jesse said laughing.

  "Good, I will leave you to it, I have work." Louis excused himself before leaving with Michael.

  Jesse and Isla stay a little longer talking with him until they were all called to film a scene. They ended up finishing their day at two in the morning the next day. His co-stars were exhausted and even Nathaniel was a little tired. Busy days like that one were rare but when they happened it was exhausting to say the least. Luckily in cases like that, the studio provides a driver to bring the actor back to their home or in case of Nathaniel is hotel room.

  He was alone there as Maggie came back to NY a while ago. She had a teenage daughter at home who was under the care of her mother when she was away but Nathaniel insisted she go back. He didn't need her beside him at the moment as she could do her job perfectly on the phone. They would usually talk once a day to review things and make some decisions. Nathaniel knew in the future she would have to be with him more often and be away from her daughter. Based on what Nathaniel knew, she was fifteen and would be in college in two years time. At that point in time, she would go away from her in college so he was encouraging them to spend as much time together as they could.

  Certains people would object to leaving a sixteen year old actor in Hollywood to his own devices as a recipe for disaster but even his overprotective mothers realize that he could take care of himself alone and so let him be. They knew that he was impervious to money and hated with forced drugs or alcohol so they were not worried about him succumbing to the tentation of Hollywood. Coming inside his hotel chamber, he fires up his laptop. Looking through his mail, he realized he received the one he was waiting for.

  Chapter 44: :

  The mail that he was waiting for the last three weeks was the one which contained the result of his LSAT test. Getting excited, Nathaniel hastily clicked on the link and froze on the spot, his mouth agape. He looked again for confirmation and finally came to the realisation that what he was seeing was real. He had achieved a perfect score! The number in the end was even more clear as it displayed a beautiful 180/180. To be honest, when he took the test he found it quite easy but to have a perfect score like that was still surprising to say the least. There were a lot of examples of people finding a subject easy and getting an F at the end because of some misunderstanding, it was something that was on his mind for the past three weeks.

  Now, he was just happy to have succeeded and the worry that plagued him finally disappeared. Taking a quick screen of the result and with a bit of editing to cross off everything sensitive, he planned to post it on his twitter account. His number of followers was still increasing every day with the help of his interview in Ellen Show who got a decent amount of attention. He was nearing two million now. He was rather active on his twitter these days, posting one or two tweets per day. He had around a hundred mentions per day and liked to respond with something funny at some of them.

  He knew that he had a lot of fans who were girls, principally between fourteen and twenty years old and they were the most active on social media. He was getting a lot of cute mentions every day saying he was handsome, a good singer or all of the above. He had also a lot of marriage proposals coming from girls and guys which made him laugh goodnaturedly. At other times, he got some interesting questions and answered truthfully each time.

  All was not perfect of course. He also had a lot of comments which were hateful because he was LGBT friendly and just some didn't like his music. He knew right away that he would not be liked by everyone and it was pretty normal. He even responded to some people who didn't like his music when they were saying constructive things and simply blocked the other. He never had a great deal of patience with stupid and hating people and would never hesitated to silenced them when he had the chance.

  Uploading the screen of his test record, he add a message saying 'When you have a dream, work until your dream change.". Despite the hour, the post immediately start getting Rt and like at a point he stop paying attention and he log out. With his LSAT finally at hand, he could finalize his application to Columbia. He had already all the files filed and just had to upload his LSAT before sending it to Columbia which he did. Once done, he turn off his laptop and got to bed.

  ******

  Three days later, Columbia University.

  Dean Richard Curtis was a 58 years old man with grey hair and a grey beard. He was an extremely respected man in the city and in the academic domain. After being graduated at twenty two from this exact college, he spent the next twenty five years of his life as a corporate attorney in a prestigious New York firm until he retired.

  After his wife died a couple of years after his retirement from a vicious cancer, he was asked to become the dean of Columbia. As he was lonely at home and as he never had the chance to have childrens, he gracefully accepted and in the process became the father of approximately four thousand young people. And not any young people but the most gifted of the country.

  Ten years after becoming the head of this university, he had started an era of unprecedented achievement. Even if Columbia was still considered the third best university in the country behind Harvard and Yale, he considerably lowered the gap between them and accentuated the one between the third and fourth position.

  His means? First of all, he accentuated the admission of smart young people coming from lower backgrounds with the establ
ishment of more scholarship. In the process, he starts refusing young scion from an influential family with money and antagonizes a lot of people in the process. He was famous in the academic world because he was someone who put meritocracy before money.

  Out of the thirty five thousand applications they received each year, only 1 500 would be accepted. That made Columbia one of the most competitive law schools in the world. In that atmosphere and contrary to his predecessor, Richard refused to take useless young people coming from wealthy backgrounds just to gather money. After twenty years as a famous lawyer and with no son or grandson to dote one, he had well enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. The only thing that was important to him was now his reputation and his students.

  Sitting on his chair, in his opulent office, he was going through the budget of the next year when someone knocked on his door. As he had no appointment at this time and his secretaries did not announce the person knocking, only one person had that level of liberty in his fiefdom.

  "Enter Joshua." He exclaimed.

  The door opened and an attractive man around forty years old entered the room. He was imposant with his 6"2" and very muscular body. If people didn't know he was an academic, they would think he was someone working as a bodyguard or something. The truth was that he's an ex lawyer and worked with Richard for twelve years. He was also his best friend for the last nineteen years.

  When Richard was asked to become the new dean, he did it only if Joshua came with him. The council accepted as they thought it was a sound demand and not an overly expensive one. Once in control, Richard put Joshua in charge of admission, the next more important role here as he wanted someone trustworthy.

  "Hello Richard, how are you doing?" He asks, taking place in one of the chairs in front of the desk without being invited to do so.

  "Good, going through the budget for next year, it's a pain in the ass." He grumbled.

  "Well, that's why you are getting the big bucks." He joked. He knew really well that he wasn't doing that job for money.

  "Are you here for something or you just want to annoy me?"

  "As much as I love busting your chops, no, I have something important. I came here because I have a dilemma." He finished getting serious.

  "A dilemma?" Ask Richard, surprised.

  "Yeah, I received this application three days ago." Joshua said, sliding one of the folders that he has in his hand on the desk.

  Curious, Richard opened the folder and started reading it.

  "Nathaniel Abraham Lyndon… Sixteen years old… wait, sixteen years old? Why is a sixteen years old asking to become a college student? He should still be in high school." Richard said.

  "That was my exact reaction so I got curious and went to see his high school grade."

  Turning the page, Richard got even more confused.

  "Wait, there is a problem, why did the more recent grade that he had in his application go back to 2008, 7th grade?"

  "Because it's the last class that he got, for the next few years, he simply put he had health problems. He didn't even graduate from high school." Joshua said with a smile.

  "Okay, why is this crappy application on my desk and not in the trash can where it belongs?" Richard asks, starting to get angry.

  "Look at the last page on the folder." He probed.

  Richard was going to explode and curse him when he remembered what Joshua told him at the beginning about a dilemma. Thinking about it, Joshua never came to talk about an application before, getting curious, he did as he was told.

  "180!!? He ace the test!?" Richard exclaimed loudly.

  Chapter 45: :

  "Again, that was my exact reaction." Joshua said happily.

  "But how? Are you sure it's not a mistake?" Richard asks, getting his voice under control.

  "I double check, this is legit. So I thought, maybe he paid someone to take the test for him. I tracked down the person who was in charge of the test and she remembered it was indeed him who was there, she said something about someone that handsome was bound to be remembered. The security camera confirms that fact. Pretty weird right?"

  "What is weird is your implication in a simple application case. In general you just threw that kind of file in the trash."

  "Yeah I know, I was the first surprised, I don't know what compelled me to look at the file. But come on, a kid who never went to high school, didn't graduate and ace the LSAT? I love solving a mystery." He said excitedly.

  "Yeah I know and now I'm interested to know what you find to be that excited." He said with a smile.

  "Okay, while I was there I was asked to be given a copy of his LSAT test. Look at it." Joshua said, opening the remaining folder in his hand and sliding files on the desk.

  Taking the files, Richard started looking threw it. His curious expression morphing into a frowning one as he was reading through the response on the test. The LSAT test was an exam that did not change from years to years so it was possible to be prepared for it even if it takes an humongous amount of time and energy. It was even possible to hire a tutor exactly to pass the test but they were quite expensive and so impossible to have for the low and middle class kid. That was why a huge percentage of wealthy kids succeed in the test compared to the middle and low class income.

  In the last ten years, Richard saw a huge number of LSAT but he never saw one like that. The kid had gone far and beyond each subject, going as far as making presumptions on a number of ancient laws that even he failed to remember.

  "It's unbelievable. A kid wrote that?" Richard says in wonder.

  "Yeah, there is more. That LSAT exam created a storm in the Law School Admission Council. They even wanted to give him a grade exceeding 180 but it was ruled down eventually. They finally agreed to write a newsletter with that test and send it to every law school in America as a textbook example."

  "Every law school in the country is going to want that kid." Richard realized.

  "It has already started. I was told that the headhunter from Harvard and Yale already took a copy of that test." Joshua nodded.

  "It's going to get ugly real fast."

  Richard knew exactly what he was talking about. There was a fierce, under the surface, competitiveness between the top university in the country to get the most exemplary student. They were willing to go to any length to have the best with advantage and sometimes even bribes to coerce students into attending their university. With the upcoming renown that kid is going to get once the newsletter is going to be published, there is going to be a huge target on his back.

  "Yes but I learned that the kid is a legacy. His mother attended Columbia, class of 1997." Joshua adds, taking another file and passing it to Richard.

  "Smart young lady I see." Richard said, looking at her grade. "What is her current occupation?"

  "Prosecutor for the district attorney here in NY, amazing reputation too. She got in the spotlight a few weeks ago when she convicted a huge russian mob, a day after an attack on her home."

  "Yeah I remember that, I read about it in the newspaper. Her name was Karine Lyndon, I remember now. What more do you have on the kid?"

  "I looked him up on google and found out that he's kind of a celebrity. He is a talented young singer with a little over 2 millions followers on Twitter. His first song was in duo with Taylor Swift and he gave the money from the sale to a foundation who help war veteran. Hard to tell if he did that because he is nice or for PR purposes. You know that health issues that he invoked for not attending high school? It checks out." Joshua finished, taking the last page that he had in his folder, and putting out on the desk. It was a page coming from a newspaper.

  "Drunk cab driver on the street, a young kid goes to the hospital in critical condition" Richard read out loud. "That was him?"

  "Yes, he then passed the next four years in a coma until he miraculously recovered six month ago. I even heard he is currently turning a movie in LA as we speak. This kid is like the wet dream of all university in the c
ountry."

  "Yes, I understand your dilemma now. He is obviously brilliant but are we ready to accept a teenage kid who did not even graduate from high school among other gifted eighteen years old students? And more importantly, is it the best thing to do for him?" Richard mused out loud, his hand on his chin, eyes seemingly lost in thought.

  "I think we should accept him." Joshua finally said.

  "Oh? Why is that?" Richard asks, refocusing to the man in front of him.

  "I look at his tweet and even his tv interviews... Yeah he did that too… and I find him really adult for his age. I think after what happened to him he matured really fast. I watched him being questioned by Ellen Degeneres and that was a walk in a park for him. It's not college kids that are going to rattle him."

  "Humm… okay. I will back you up if the council has a problem with that even if I doubt it if he is as famous as you say he is. But I want to have a meeting with him before the start of new semester." Richard demanded.

  "That would be easy enough to organize, he would have to come for the visit day before the semester begins, I will schedule it with your secretary."

  "Good, anything else?" He asked impatiently, he had work to do.

  "In fact yes, since I'm here, I could use your opinion on some matter. Since we decided to take the kid, it leaves me with only one spot and two very good candidates."

  Taking out two folders from his bag, he looked at the first one.

  "Number one: Melissa Hiddy, eighteen years old coming from Minnesota. Straight A student with two medals in regional swimming championship. Her speciality is the 400m freestyle. She scored a very respectable 172 in LSAT." Joshua said, giving the folder to Richard.

  "Number two: Na Yung Kim, eighteen years old, born and raised in South Korea but living in NY for the last month. As brilliant as Melissa but with different skills. She was the archery champion in Seoul three years in a row. Surprisingly, she uses the recurve bow and not a compound bow. She also scored a 172 on LSAT."