by Sam Polk
Sloane seemed desperate to impress her father, even though he treated her with the same understated contempt with which he treated his wife. But he was impressed by Sloane. He talked constantly about her accomplishments. Also, she was the only one in the family who’d go toe-to-toe with him during arguments, and he obviously loved that about her.
Sometimes he expressed his love physically, especially when he was drunk. He was always grabbing her, or pulling her into hugs. Sometimes she struggled to break free.
I disliked Jack Taylor for how he touched and spoke to his daughter, but I also admired his accomplishments: Ivy League schools, power job, money. He was a member of two country clubs. He drove an antique Mercedes; his wife drove a brand-new SUV. Their house was expensive but understated. The carpeting and furniture were all made of soft fabrics in different patterns that somehow seemed to match. Their weekly family restaurant had a sommelier.
But it was the small things I really loved. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal were delivered to their porch each day. Their liquor cabinet was stocked with brand-name labels—Ketel One, Grey Goose. Their Sub-Zero refrigerator kept vegetables restaurant crisp. They had DVDs of movies currently in theaters. Even their Chinese takeout was somehow better. And Jack wore pressed khakis and Ralph Lauren sweaters . . . on a Saturday.
It was during this visit that I began to understand that Jack Taylor’s life is what graduating from Columbia made possible. He was a management consultant at McKinsey. McKinsey recruited on Columbia’s campus. So did Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Bain. If I could get my foot in the door at one of these firms, I could have a life like Jack Taylor’s, the life my dad always wanted, instead of the life I grew up with—rented houses, junky cars, paycheck to paycheck.
Halfway through my visit to the Taylors’, Sloane and I went out for a run, and I accidentally tracked dog shit up the stairs and into the bedroom. We didn’t discover it until her mother knocked at the bedroom; she had followed the tracks from the front door. She insisted it wasn’t a big deal and refused to let me clean it up. I saw her an hour later, sitting on the stairs, scrubbing the carpet with a brush.
I was so mortified I felt nauseous. I couldn’t even walk through a nice home without ruining it, let alone live in one. I imagined Sloane’s parents whispering about me in the privacy of their bedroom, shaking their heads.
As Sloane and I got closer and closer, I started to show a side of myself that I’d never exposed before. On Valentine’s Day, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to go all the way to the end of Manhattan to buy two dozen red roses from the flower market, then sat outside for three hours in the February snow to get free tickets to a Broadway show, and on the way home stopped to buy live lobsters from a fish store. When Sloane came home that night, I’d covered her apartment in roses and candles.
I felt something that I’d never felt before, which was that I was no longer the absolute center of my world. Now Sloane was.
I told her I loved her; she told me she loved me back.
But it wasn’t all roses and Broadway shows. She was bossy and got frustrated with me easily. She wasn’t afraid to tell me what was wrong with my clothes. The harder she was on me, the more desperately I craved her. The more I pursued, the more she pushed me away. Our most frequent struggle was around sex.
I craved sex. I wanted it more often, in more varied styles. She wanted it less often, in less varied styles. I wanted her to do things that made her uncomfortable. So we fought. When I got drunk, I angrily demanded it.
She didn’t understand how important sex was to me. Sex was the most validating thing I knew. I’d been desperate for sex since puberty but largely unsuccessful in getting it, at least from the women I wanted it from.
But in a relationship it was supposed to be different—easily accessible and frequent. After two or three days of not having sex, my resentment started to build. I’d feel angry that I wasn’t being taken care of. Each day that resentment would grow bigger and bigger. If we hadn’t had sex in a week and one of my friends made a comment about how hot Sloane was, instead of feeling pride I’d feel shame. Then anger. At her.
When we did have sex, I’d feel relief, especially if I lasted more than a few minutes. I’d be kind and sweet to Sloane, while inside I’d be patting myself on the back. Yeah, baby. Well done. Then a day or two would pass, and the resentment would start to build again.
What began as a skirmish became a full-fledged battle when Sloane and I decided to spend the summer in Los Angeles. We rented an apartment together right off the Sunset Strip, a small one bedroom with a balcony in a Melrose Place–style complex.
I got a job at a small Internet company and spent my free time on the couch smoking weed, drinking coffee, and watching old movies from Blockbuster; or, if Sloane wasn’t home, looking at porn on the computer. When Sloane was home, we fought. The same thing happened over and over again. Sloane and I started kissing on the couch. I moved to take her clothes off. She pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said, and we started again. I could tell she wasn’t into it. But I pressed on, firmly, until she said, “Stop. I can’t do this right now.”
I tried to be nice, but inside I was furious. I turned on the TV and didn’t look at her. She snuggled up close to me. I put my arm around her but wouldn’t look at her. Finally, she asked, “Are you mad?” and I said, “Not at all.” But I was.
Somehow I had to punish her for not sleeping with me, for making me feel this way. I tried again, later, when we were in bed for the night.
“Sam,” she said, “I don’t feel like it.”
I knew I wasn’t being the guy I wanted to be. I was drinking too much and smoking lots of weed. I was aware that what I was doing in the bedroom was inconsistent with being in love. But I couldn’t stop pushing Sloane for sex. I needed the feeling that came after I fucked her. I needed it to fill the void.
After months of this, she said enough and insisted I go with her to see her counselor, Linda Redford, for couples counseling.
CHAPTER 13
Spiritual Counselor
¤
Linda was around fifty, with a gangly California look. She was six feet tall and had long blond hair. When we walked into her office, she enveloped Sloane in a hug. Then she looked at me, and I knew she wanted to hug me, too. I turned away and sat down on the white couch. Sloane sat next to me. Linda sat in a soft armchair facing us.
“So,” she said, putting her hands on her knees, “first I want to thank you for coming, Sam. That took courage.”
I told her I had a few questions. “Where did you get your PhD?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“I don’t have a PhD,” Linda said. “Or a masters. I completed a three-year program in psychosynthesis, and I have a Certificate of Ordainment from the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person,” she said.
I almost laughed out loud. Um, the Association of what? She hadn’t even gone through an accredited program.
“Well,” I said, shooting Sloane a look, “then how is it that you are a therapist?”
Sloane glared at me.
Linda smiled.
“I am not a therapist. I am a spiritual counselor. I’m a Cherokee by descent, and my teachings are based in Native American philosophy and traditions.”
I’m pretty sure insurance is not going to cover this.
“My practice runs on word of mouth,” continued Linda. “People find me when they need me. I help make them whole again.”
I didn’t understand what she meant by making people whole, and I didn’t really care about Native American philosophy. I was about to say something to this effect, when I remembered the chill in the air between Sloane and me at breakfast that morning. We hadn’t had sex for weeks. We’d fought the night before because she wanted to watch Felicity and I wanted t
o watch Law & Order. We were dropping into longer and longer silences.
I saw Linda watching me.
“Do you have any more questions, Sam?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m good. We can start.”
“Good. Sam, since it’s your first time, why don’t you begin? You can talk about whatever is going on with you.”
“Just talk about anything?” I asked.
“Yes,” Linda said. “I’d like to learn a little about where you are.”
I laughed, exasperated.
“Um, okay,” I said. “Sam in a few words. I don’t have many friends. I’m at couples therapy with my girlfriend, with whom I fight all the time. Mostly, I’m alone. Other than that, things are great.”
When she didn’t respond and just kept looking at me with a warm smile, I realized I’d been waiting for a rebuke. She nodded, as if to encourage me. To fill the silence, I started talking again.
I talked about the fights Sloane and I were getting into, how insecure I was when we accompanied her parents for cocktails at their friends’ mansions, me wearing my only nice sweater, which had a hole in it. I talked about my family, how my twin brother hadn’t spoken to me for four years, and the recent revelation of my father’s long-term affair.
“How did you feel when you learned of the affair?” Linda asked.
Growing up in LA you learn what earthquakes feel like. Mostly, they’re not like they are in movies—walls don’t crumble, massive fissures don’t appear in the ground. Instead, you feel a powerful but distant rumbling. A deep vibration that is not violent in itself but in what it reveals—which is that solid ground, the very foundation upon which we build our lives, is not so solid after all. Earthquakes aren’t scary because the ground shakes a lot; they’re scary because the ground shakes at all. Learning about my dad’s affair felt like an earthquake—distant, but powerful.
Linda motioned for me to continue. While I talked, I kept my eyes down. Sometimes I’d lift them to find Linda looking at me, her eyes kind. She’d nod encouragingly. She’d chuckle when I said something funny.
I talked and talked and talked. Words poured out unprompted, like they’d been bottled and shaken. We had two hours scheduled, and I’d been sure we wouldn’t be able to fill all that time. When I glanced at the clock, I saw that an hour and a half had passed. I realized with horror how long I’d been talking, and clamped my mouth shut.
Linda smiled.
“I’m so glad you felt safe enough to share that with us, Sam. I’m sure Sloane is as well.” I looked at Sloane, who smiled at me. I was mortified.
“Now, there is something Sloane would like to discuss,” Linda said. “Okay if we change subjects?”
I was exhausted. I nodded.
“Would you feel comfortable,” Linda asked me, “sharing a little about what the issues around sex have been like for you and Sloane?”
Um, no.
“Well, here’s an example,” I said. “When I came to LA over Christmas, Sloane picked me up at the airport. When we got to her house, no one was home. We went upstairs to her room. We hadn’t seen each other in three weeks. And I wanted to have sex. I mean, it had been a long time!”
Linda nodded.
“We start kissing, but after a minute Sloane pulls away and gets out of bed and starts organizing her drawers. I’m like, What the fuck? in my mind. If there is any time, now should be it, but she doesn’t want to. It sucked.”
I’d worked myself into a huff. I glared at Sloane.
Linda said that sounded really hard for me.
Then Linda turned to Sloane. “What did it feel like to hear Sam say that?” Sloane looked like she was going to cry.
“It’s true,” Sloane said. “I feel so terrible about it. I want to have sex. I want to want to have sex. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I just shut down.” She turned to look directly at me. “I’m really sorry that it’s so hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. I feel like something is wrong with me.”
I must have looked incredulous, because she sort of pulled back. But I wasn’t angry; I was shocked. I’d assumed she didn’t like sex sort of how I don’t like Brussels sprouts. I hadn’t imagined that she was upset about it, too. For a moment I understood what a bully I’d been.
Linda asked Sloane if she wanted to share with me some of the things that were going on with her. Sloane nodded and she pulled her knees up to her chest with her feet under her. She looked like a little girl. She said she was working through some stuff with her dad. While she was working on this stuff, she said, being sexual felt uncomfortable.
“Do you understand, Sam?” asked Linda.
“Not really,” I said.
“Let me explain a few things,” Linda said. “Sloane’s father has some trouble seeing how his actions impact his children. Sloane is dealing with some boundary violations that have had a significant impact on her.”
My body was tense. I knew I’d done some boundary violating of my own.
“I’m not her dad,” I said.
“That’s true, Sam. And it’s Sloane’s responsibility to not put her feelings toward him on you. Sometimes she struggles with that. Like everything, it’s a process. But there are certain similarities between you and her father. That is one of the reasons you two are together. Sometimes, if we have a wound inside us that we need to heal, we seek out situations or partners with whom we can re-create that historical dynamic. That’s one of the reasons Sloane was attracted to you, and the same likely holds true for you.”
Parents, parents, parents. I’m an adult, and this is bullshit.
I checked my watch—only fifteen minutes to go.
CHAPTER 14
Like Father, Like Son
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Six months later, Sloane left to study abroad in Florence. I was glad. I’d had my eyes on two girls whose glances had lingered on mine in the library, and by the time Sloane called from Florence two weeks into the semester, I’d slept with both of them. Sloane was in tears—she said she’d made a mistake going to Italy. She asked if I would come visit her. I smiled as I felt the power shift to my side. I coolly told her time apart would be good for us.
This was perfect. When Sloane came back, we’d get back together. In the meantime, my focus would be on getting a high-caliber summer internship, so I could start building toward a life like Jack Taylor’s.
In the spring, companies descend on Columbia’s campus, recruiting for summer internships. There were several types of internships available—consulting, investment banking—but I’d known I wanted to work on a trading floor since I’d read Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis the year before. As he unveiled life on a trading floor—the card games during the workday, huge platters of onion cheeseburgers arriving at 10:00 a.m., the freedom to scream into your phone and slam it dramatically into the cradle—I thought, People actually get paid for this? They did. A lot. I was sold.
I’d applied to the trading department at every investment bank, but my sub-3.0 GPA made me an unlikely candidate. In the end I only got interviews at CSFB and Goldman Sachs. For Goldman, the GPA was ultimately a deal breaker. But CSFB was impressed with my entrepreneurial experience, and they invited me to the final vetting process known as Super Day.
That morning I took the subway from Columbia to CSFB’s downtown headquarters for five back-to-back interviews. I was given a sticker with my name and college printed on it and led to the waiting area, where my fellow interviewees from schools like Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Chicago huddled nervously around the silver coffee dispensers and fresh fruit. Every few minutes the pretty young women of the human resources department came in, scanned the name-tagged students, and led the next interviewee away.
My first four interviews were mixed: some of the traders were impressed by my work experience, others by my stint as a Division I wrestler; all of them were c
oncerned about my GPA. My final interviewer, a director named Taylor Madsen, was a former football star at Yale. As he walked in, I noted the caramel tan of a two-round-a-week golfer. From the nonchalance with which he held his finger up, cutting me off midsentence to take a call from his wife, I knew that this was the guy I needed to impress.
When he got off the phone, he scanned my resume. My stomach dropped. In addition to abysmal grades, my resume was littered with half-truths and obfuscations. I’d left out the fact I’d been suspended from Columbia and fired from ON24.
Taylor Madsen looked up from my resume and smiled.
“This work experience is amazing,” he said. “And your timing is incredible. You left San Francisco a month before the dot-com boom ended!”
I nodded, terrified. My resume: a house of cards.
“Your grades suck,” he continued, “but you’re a wrestler so I know you’re driven.”
He paused.
“I like you,” he said. “I’m going to get you this job.”
I hadn’t said a word. I started to thank him. He held his finger up, freezing me midsentence again, put his phone to his ear, and walked out of the room.
Years later I’d think back to that moment—how despite my poor grades and the lies on my resume, I’d gotten one of the most competitive internships in the world without speaking a word. It was as if the universe knew that I needed to go to Wall Street, needed to glimpse, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, what was really behind the curtain.
The next few months were spectacular. With a summer internship in my back pocket, I spent most of my time at bars, chasing girls, drinking, and occasionally dabbling in drugs.
I started to dream about Sloane. She’d walk toward me, a glint in her eye, a pouty smile on her lips. She’d wrap her arms around my neck and kiss me softly. If I half woke up, I’d try to go back to sleep to get back in the dream. She was the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing I thought about at night. I thought about her when I was with other women.
