Molly's Game

by Molly Bloom

  “What’s going on, what’s he doing?” Reardon demanded.

  “He’s getting on the bus to downtown L.A.”

  “As in public transportation?”

  “Yep,” I replied as a happy and obliterated Sam waved cheerfully to me from his seat on the bus.

  “Jesus.” Reardon sighed. “Tell the Hammer to pick him up.”

  The Hammer was the guys’ security slash limo driver slash money collector. I heard he had recently gotten out of jail for something, but no one would tell me what.

  I called the Hammer, who grumpily agreed to take the “sled,” which was what Sam had named the company limo, to find Sam somewhere in the streets of downtown. When I hung up and turned around, the DJ and the girls were just about to open a thousand-dollar bottle of Louis XIII champagne.

  I swooped in and grabbed the bottle.

  “No, no, no! Time to go home, guys,” I said. I turned off the music like a parent busting up a party and ushered them out onto the street.

  I managed to get the restaurant open in time for brunch and the Hammer eventually found Sam walking the streets of Compton with a bottle of Cristal champagne and some interesting friends. It seemed like every day at the restaurant was more absurd than the last, but it wasn’t ever boring.

  Chapter 3

  You’re the worst fucking waitress we’ve ever seen,” Reardon barked to me after a shift one day. I was aware of the limitations of my aptitude for servitude, but the worst ever? Really? My stomach plunged . . . Was I getting fired?

  “The worst,” he repeated. “But there’s something about you. Everybody likes you. People come back just to talk to you.”

  “Thanks?” I said tentatively.

  “Why don’t you come work for us?”

  I looked at him in confusion.

  “For our real-estate development fund. We just raised two hundred and fifty million dollars.”

  “What would I do?” I asked, treading carefully.

  “Don’t ask stupid questions. What do you care? It’s better than serving food and you’ll learn a lot.”

  I snorted under my breath, thinking of all the ridiculous shenanigans I had seen in the last couple months.

  “Oh, you think you’re smart? You’re not fucking smart. You don’t know anything about the way the world works.”

  It wasn’t a very gracious job offer, but I wasn’t getting fired either.

  So I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “No shit,” replied Reardon.

  WORKING AT THE REAL-ESTATE FUND eliminated the other layers from my life and it was all Reardon, Sam, and Cam, all the time. They were like their own fraternity. They had their own rules, they even had their own language. It goes without saying that they were from a completely different world than I was. What seemed like once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to me—Sundance, Oscar parties, yacht trips—were their casual weekend plans. Their friends were celebrities, famous athletes, billionaires, and socialites. I began to spend my days and nights doing various tasks for them, always watching from the sidelines, secretly hoping to be invited into their club.

  Reardon would come into my office at 8:30 P.M. on a Friday and say, “Get me a reservation for nine tonight at [insert the name of the hottest, most impossible restaurant to get a reservation at here].”

  I would call and the hostess would laugh and hang up.

  “They’re fully booked,” I would tell him.

  He would then erupt in a fury: “You’re the biggest fucking idiot I’ve ever met. What’s wrong with you? How do you expect to get anywhere in life if you can’t even get a reservation at some stupid fucking restaurant.”

  He made me so nervous that I would start garbling my words or tugging on my hair.

  “Speak! Speak! Don’t touch your face. Don’t fumble around!” he would demand.

  That was the scenario for my early learning curve; every day felt like I was on the front lines of battle.

  One morning he called at five thirty, waking me up.

  “Need you in the office, now,” he ordered. “Pick up bagels.” He hung up. Reardon never said hello or good-bye. He was a straight-to-the-point kind of guy.

  I groaned and dragged myself into the shower.

  I barely had time to dry off before I received a follow-up text message.

  Where the fuck are you?

  I drove as fast as I could to the office hoping to pass a bagel shop. The only thing I saw was the Pink Dot grocery. I ran in and grabbed some bagels and cream cheese. My hair was wet and my eyes were barely open, but I made it to the office, with breakfast, in record time.

  “Where are my bagels?” said Reardon, in lieu of “good morning.”

  I placed the bag on his desk.

  He ripped open the bag. Reardon never just opened things, he annihilated everything in his path.

  “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” he yelled.

  I jumped. By now I should have been used to the sudden fury that Rear-don could unleash, but it still took me by surprise sometimes.

  “Are these from PINK DOT?” Apparently Pink Dot was a low-rent, late-night kind of grocery store.

  “You might as well have stopped at a FUCKING homeless shelter!” he screamed. “I DO NOT EAT FUCKING BAGELS FROM FUCKING PINK DOT. THESE ARE FUCKING POOR PEOPLE BAGELS.” He hurled the bag at me. I ducked just in time.

  “Where would you like me to get your bagels in the future?” I asked in a deliberately calm voice, hoping my adultlike tone would allow him to see he was behaving like a temperamental two-year-old.

  “Go get the car,” he barked.

  I chauffeured him to Greenblatt’s to pick up bagels for real “players.”

  He had me drop him off at his meeting.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  “For how long?” I asked.

  “Until I come back, stupid.” He laughed, slamming the door.

  EVENTUALLY REARDON STARTED BRINGING ME to the meetings instead of making me wait outside. I observed him closely. Reardon was a master negotiator. He was able to convince really smart people to make really stupid decisions. He would walk into a meeting, and by the time he walked out, he was carrying signed agreements that met all of his insane demands: he would assume none of the risk and had the final say in all decisions. It didn’t matter who his opponent was, he outplayed them every time. I came to recognize the checkmate moment in which the Ivy League guy with his custom suit and air of arrogance would suddenly realize the guy wearing army fatigues and a skull T-shirt, who had partied his way through a state university, had just crushed him. I had to hide my smile as Mr. Pedigree’s elitist expression deflated into withering defeat.

  There was no university on the planet that could have prepared me for the education I got from Reardon. It was baptism by fire. It was frustrating, and it was challenging, but I loved every class. I loved the show. I loved watching him succeed. In order to survive in his world, I had to learn how to operate well under pressure, and so he tightened the screws in order to teach me. Reardon was like a more extreme version of my father, always pushing me, never allowing me to take it easy, wanting to make me tough. He gave me a Wall Street–style education, the kind that guys give guys down on the floor or at the trading desk, the kind that women rarely get. I started to see the world for what it was, or at least his world. I also saw that there were more than just the traditional, safe routes to success.

  Reardon became my grad school and I studied how he operated. Law school wasn’t even on my radar anymore. Reardon was a master strategist. He knew how to analyze a deal, and if he recognized opportunity, he would capitalize on it. It didn’t matter if it was something he had no experience in, he would learn. Study it day and night, until he figured it out.

  The lessons I got from Reardon on how to actually conduct business were, however, ludicrously short on detail.

  “We’re going to Monaco, Molly. Take care of the company.”

  They’d go party for four weeks; all the while documents tha
t needed their signatures would be piling up.

  “Hey, Molly, take care of the escrow.”

  “What’s an escrow?”

  “Fucking figure it out, stupid.”

  If I didn’t get or do exactly what Reardon wanted, he would go crazy, and when he finally dismissed me, I would go home and turn off all the lights, get in the bathtub, and cry. Or I would drink wine with Blair after she had come home from being at an actual party with actual people, or on an actual date, and weep to her about my nonexistent social life.

  “So come out,” she would say, shaking her head at my stupidity. I wasn’t even being paid that well; she couldn’t understand why I was hanging on so tightly to something that was making me so miserable.

  Blair didn’t see what I saw. As much as I had intended on spending my year in L.A. being young, spontaneous, and carefree, my gut told me to stick it out.

  I NEEDED TO STAY BALANCED, though, so I decided to volunteer at the local hospital. I wanted to work with the kids. Volunteering had always been important in my family, and my mom often took us to feed the homeless, or visit nursing homes. The children’s ward felt very personal to me, because I had spent several months in and out of the hospital after my spinal surgery. I’d had very serious complications from the surgery. When I came off the operating table, my liver was failing and my gallbladder was severely infected. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. They even had a theory at one point that I had contracted a mysterious infection while being cut open, so I was placed in the isolation ward. It looked like something out of a movie. The doctors wore hazmat suits and the whole ward felt like a giant bubble that I was trapped in. No visitors were allowed. I remember being afraid that I would die in there all by myself.

  With the exception of those days in isolation, my mom never left my side. In the children’s ward, it broke my heart to see how hard it was for the kids who didn’t have that type of support. I was lucky enough to make a full recovery from my surgery, but the memory never left me.

  Once I’d finished my training at the hospital, I began to spend a couple days a week after work with the kids who were terminally ill. We were warned that most of them would die, but nothing prepares you for the actual event. Despite being pale and weak, they were beautiful, happy little spirits. It was inspiring and humbling.

  After a few weeks, I met a little girl named Grace, and despite her frail body, she was full of boundless energy and big dreams. She hadn’t been outside in a very long time, and all she wanted in the world was to be an archaeologist, discovering lost cities. I begged and pleaded to be able to wheel her outside. Finally I got the approval.

  I raced to the basement the following day, and her room was empty.

  “She passed, Molly,” my favorite nurse, Patrick, told me with a hand on my shoulder. Even though my supervisor had warned me about this moment, and asked that all the volunteers do their grieving in private and remain strong for the kids and their family, I lost it. Patrick walked me into the bathroom.

  “It is part of the job. You have to be strong for the others. Take a moment,” he said gently, and left me to sob on the bathroom floor.

  While there was often heartbreak and tragedy, sometimes there were little miracles. One of the young boys, Christopher, was actually beating his death sentence and getting better every day. The light was coming back into his eyes and his paper-white skin was turning pink. He walked around the halls telling the other kids his story and giving them hope. Christopher’s courage and optimism helped me maintain a healthy perspective in my new crazy world.

  Chapter 4

  Over time, and under the pressure of Reardon’s forceful tutelage, I became the assistant who could do anything.

  Skipping to the front of a waiting list for the latest overpriced watch, reserving a car during the New York City transit strike, one-night-stand removal: I could figure anything out. I could manage escrow accounts and secure reservations at restaurants that were booked out for months.

  Now when Reardon asked for the impossible, I would just smile, nod, and call the restaurant.

  “Hi, I’m just calling to confirm my reservation for dinner tonight.”

  “Sorry, we don’t have it.”

  Pause.

  “But I made this reservation ten months ago. It’s my boss’s birthday, and he flew his closest friends in from New York! Oh, my god, he’s going to fire me. Please can you help?” I’d respond, adding some sniffles if needed.

  Pause.

  “What was your name again?”

  “Molly Bloom.”

  “Okay, Miss Bloom. I see it here. Four people for eight P.M.”

  “Six.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Six. Thank you, Miss Bloom. We’re so sorry for the confusion.”

  ONE EVENING, I WAS FILING PAPERS, listening to the guys laughing and reminiscing in Reardon’s office. Cam and Sam had grown up together, and Sam and Reardon had gone to college together. After finishing school, they realized that besides being great at partying together, they could build a company based on what each one brought to the table, and their partnership was born. Tonight they were in a great mood, celebrating another huge deal they had just closed.

  “We like the Hunny, right, player?” asked Sam. “Hunny” meant money.

  “Remember when you shot the moon man?” Sam asked Cam. “That was so roguish.”

  They laughed. I could hear them pouring another round.

  “You have to tell Molly that story,” said Sam.

  My ears perked up, and I rushed into the room.

  Cam stood up to better illustrate his tale. At ’six-foot-five, he was pure muscle, his energy was effusive, like a giant, out-of-control puppy.

  “So we were playing paintball,” said Cam, mimicking holding a rifle with which he shot each one of us. “My dad had Buzz Aldrin over, you know, that old guy who walked on the moon. So I walked right up to him and shot him, close range—BAM!” He continued to simulate the action. “And I said, Boom, got you Moon MAN!”

  They all laughed hysterically.

  I started laughing with them, picturing the absurdity of Cam blasting the legendary Buzz Aldrin with paintballs. “Pour little Molly a drink,” said Reardon. “She helped with this deal.”

  “You’re really starting to be a player, Mol,” said Sam affectionately, and handed me a Macallan 18.

  We all raised our glasses.

  I wanted so much to be part of them. I wanted to make deals, to enjoy the good life that comes with money and status. The single-malt scotch tasted like gasoline, but I smiled and forced back my urge to gag.

  THE BETTER I PERFORMED FOR THE BOYS, the more I was expected to do. But even as my responsibilities expanded, I was still responsible for Reardon’s personal life. A big part of that personal life was keeping the high turnover of girlfriends happy. I was constantly being sent on highend errands. I hadn’t really been exposed or interested in designer clothes or handbags in my Colorado life. But the luxurious gifts I picked up for Reardon’s girl of the week began to seduce me, and I started to imagine myself dressed in these clothes, wearing the beautiful shoes I delivered to Brittny and Jamie and whomever else Reardon bought consolation gifts for. It wasn’t so much that I cared about these high-priced items, it was’ that I realized people treated you differently, took you more seriously, when you had them. On this particular afternoon, Reardon sent me to a store called Valerie’s.

  It turned out that Valerie’s was a high-end makeup shop in Beverly Hills that offered makeup application and custom blends for the who’s who of Hollywood and Beverly Hills society.

  I walked into the large door and it was like walking into a fairy princess land. Gauzy drapes, soft lavender hues, cream velvet chaises, and an array of beautiful products.

  A beautiful blond woman greeted me. “Hi, I’m Valerie, how can I help you?”

  “You did all this?” I asked Valerie.

  “I created it all,” she said.

  “It’
s very beautiful,” I replied longingly.

  As she rang up the products Reardon had ordered, I almost choked—the tab was $1,000 for three things.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed. “People really pay that much for makeup?”

  She smiled, amused.

  “Come here.” She motioned me to follow her.

  She led me to her station, which looked like an old Hollywood movie star’s vanity. She whipped the chair away from the mirror and after just a few moments of brushstrokes, pencils, and mascara, she handed me a silver mirror. I was completely transformed.

  It was unbelievable, like I was looking at a different person.

  “Amazing . . .” I said, looking at myself.

  “True luxury is worth the spend.”

  I nodded, catching another glance at my transformed face.

  “Come back and see me when you’re ready.” She winked

  And although I had been told my whole life that money couldn’t buy you happiness, it was certainly clear to me that it could provide some desirable upgrades.

  THE SALARY REARDON PAID ME covered the basics, but I decided I needed to earn some extra money to upgrade my wardrobe. To supplement my income, I applied for a part-time cocktail job.

  Applying to be a cocktail waitress was a whole different world than applying for a regular restaurant job. For instance, most clubs ask for head shots.

  When I applied at Shelter, I discovered that Fred, the manager, was the very eccentric former computer programmer from the first restaurant I’d worked at. L.A. was a town full of characters who were constantly changing roles. Take Fred, for example. One day he was in glasses and a skinny tie running seminars on restaurant operating systems; the next, he was the general manager for a caveman-themed club in an Armani suit. As soon as he hired me, he explained that my uniform would be custom made and slipped me a card. The designer’s “studio” was a disheveled, tiny apartment in West Hollywood, and the designer himself was a colorful, flamboyant character who spilled his white wine spritzer on me as he took my measurements.