well, we're assuming all along that Merina owes Bradford $2000, because in the 1st scenario, she was going to pay twice $1000.
on the 2nd scenario, she'll be paying the same $2000 but split 7 months from now and then 7 months later, same 2000 bucks, at which point Bradford applied 8.5% interest.
using those assumptions, since the wording is not quite clear, we can say that Merina is simply paying 2000 bucks plus the 8.5%