Читать книгу Molly’s Game: The Riveting Book that Inspired the Aaron Sorkin Film - Molly Bloom, Molly Bloom - Страница 10

For the first two decades of my life, I lived in Colorado, in a small town called Loveland, forty-six miles north of Denver.

My father was handsome, charismatic, and complicated. He was a practicing psychologist and a professor at Colorado State University. The education of his children was of paramount importance to him. If my brothers and I didn’t bring home A’s and B’s, we were in big trouble. That being said, he always encouraged us to pursue our dreams.

At home he was affectionate, playful, and loving, but when it came to our performance in school and athletics, he demanded excellence. He was filled with a fiery passion that at times was so intense, it was almost terrifying.

Nothing was “recreational” in our family; everything was a lesson in pushing past the limits and being the best we could possibly be. I remember one summer my father woke us up early for a family bike ride. The “ride” ended up involving a grueling vertical climb of three thousand feet at an altitude of almost eleven thousand feet. My youngest brother, Jeremy, must have been six or so, and he rode a bike without gears. I can still see him pedaling his little heart out to keep up, and my dad yelling and screaming like a banshee at him and the rest us to ride faster and push harder, and no complaining allowed. Many years later I asked my dad where his fervor came from. He paused; he had three grown kids who had far surpassed any expectations he could have dreamed of for them. At this point he was older, less fiery, and more introspective.

“It’s one of two things,” he told me. “In my life and my career, I have seen what the world can do to people, especially girls. I wanted to make sure you kids had the best possible shot.” He paused again. “Or, I saw you all as extensions of myself.”

From the other direction, my mother taught us compassion. She believed in being kind to every living thing and she led by example. My beautiful mother is the most gentle and loving person I have ever known. She is smart and competent, and instead of pushing us to conquer and win, she encouraged us to dream, and took it upon herself to nurture and facilitate those dreams. When I was very young, I loved costumes, so naturally Halloween was my favorite holiday. I would wait anxiously each year, laboring over who or what I would be that year. My fifth Halloween I couldn’t choose between a duck and a fairy. I told my mother I wanted to be a duck-fairy. My mother kept a straight face.

“Well then, duck-fairy you shall be.” She stayed up all night constructing the costume. I, of course, looked ridiculous but her nonjudgmental support of individuality inspired my brothers and me to live outside the box and forge our own paths. She fixed the cars, mowed the lawn, invented educational games, created treasure hunts, was on every PTA board, and still made sure she looked beautiful and had a drink in hand for my father when he got home from work.

My parents parented according to their strengths: my brothers and I were guided by their combined feminine and masculine energies. Their polarity molded us.

MY FAMILY WENT SKIING EVERY WEEKEND during my childhood. We would pile into the Wagoner and drive two hours to our one-bedroom condo in Keystone. No matter what the conditions were—blizzards, stomachaches, sixty below zero, we were always the first ones on the mountain. Jordan and I were talented, but my brother Jeremy was a prodigy. We all soon caught the attention of the head coach of the local mogul team and we began training and soon even competing.

During the summers, we spent our days water skiing, biking, running, hiking. My brothers played Pee Wee football, baseball, and basketball. I started competing in gymnastics and running 5K races. We were always moving, always training to go faster, be stronger, push harder. We didn’t resent any of it. It was what we knew.

At twelve, I was running a 5K when I felt a white-hot pain between my shoulder blades. After a unanimous first, second, and third opinion, I was scheduled for emergency spinal surgery. I had a rapid onset of scoliosis. My parents waited nervously during my seven-hour surgery while the doctors cut me open from neck to tailbone and carefully straightened my spine (which looked like an S and was curved at sixty-three degrees) by extracting bone from my hip, fusing the eleven curved vertebrae together, and fastening metal rods to the fused segment. Afterward, my doctor gently but firmly informed me that my competitive sports career was over. He droned on, telling me all the activities I could not do and how one can lead a very fulfilling and normal life, but I had stopped listening.

Quitting skiing was simply not an option. It was woven too tightly into the fabric of my family. I spent a year recovering. I was homeschooled and I had to spend most of the day in bed. I watched longingly as my family left every weekend without me, sitting in bed while they flew down the slopes or went out on the lake. I felt ashamed of my brace and my physical limitations. I felt like an outsider. I became even more determined to not let my surgery affect my life. I longed to feel a part of my family again; to feel the pride and hear the praise of my father, instead of the pity. With each lonely day I grew more and more determined to never again sit life out. As soon as the X-rays showed that my vertebrae had successfully fused, I was back on the mountain, skiing with a fierce determination, and by midseason I was winning in my age division. By then, my younger brother Jeremy had taken the freestyle skiing world by storm. He was ten years old and already dominating the sport. He was also exceptional in track and football. His coaches told my father they had never seen anyone as talented as Jeremy. He was our golden boy.

My brother Jordan was also a talented athlete, but his mind was his greatest attribute. He loved to learn. He loved to take things apart and figure out how to put them back together. He didn’t want to hear imaginary bedtime stories; he wanted to hear stories about real people in history. My mom had a new story every night for him, about great world leaders or visionary scientists, and she researched the facts and wove them into engaging tales.

From a very young age, Jordan knew he wanted to be a surgeon. I remember his favorite stuffed animal, Sir Dog. Sir Dog was Jordan’s first patient and underwent so many procedures he began to look like Frankenstein. My dad was delighted with his brilliant son and his ambition.

My brothers’ talents and ambitions presented early and I watched those gifts earn them the accolades that I desperately wanted. I loved to read and write, and when I was young I lived half my life in books, movies, and my imagination. In elementary school I didn’t want to play with other kids; I was shy and sensitive and I found them intimidating. So my mom spoke to the school librarian. Tina Sekavic agreed to allow me to hang out in the library, so I spent the next few years reading biographies about women who had changed the world like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth, and others. (My mom had initially suggested this, but I quickly became fascinated.) I was moved by their bravery and determination, and I decided right then and there, I didn’t want to settle for an ordinary life. I craved adventure; I wanted to leave my mark.

When my brothers and I reached our teenage years, Jordan’s academic prowess continued to surpass his peers. He was two years younger than I was when he tested out of his grade’s science and math classes and was placed in mine. Jeremy broke records in track, led the football team to the state championship, and was a local hero. My grades were high, and I was a good, sometimes great, athlete. But still, I hadn’t unearthed any talent as impressive as those of my brothers. The feelings of inadequacy increased and drove me almost obsessively to somehow prove my worth.

As we got older, I watched my father invest himself more and more in my brothers’ goals and dreams. I became tired of always being on the outside, I wanted the attention and approval too. The issue was that I was a dreamer, and inspired by the heroines in my books. I had grand ambitions that fell far outside my father’s pragmatism. But I still desperately craved his approval.

“Jeremy is going to be an Olympian, and Jordan will be a doctor. What should I be, Dad?” I asked him on an early morning chairlift.

“Well, you like to read and argue,” he started, which felt like a thorny compliment. In fairness, I was that annoying teenager who questioned every opinion or decision my parents made.

“You should be an attorney.”

And so it was decreed.

I went off to college, I studied political science, and I continued to compete in skiing. I pledged a sorority, in an effort to be well rounded, but when the organization’s mandatory social requirements got in the way of my real goals, I quit. I had to work hard for my grades, and even harder to overcome my physical limitations in skiing. I was obsessed with success, I was driven by an innate ambition, but more than that by a need for praise and recognition

The year I made the U.S. national ski team, my dad had a sit-down with me.

“Shouldn’t you focus on school, Molly? I mean how far are you going to go with this thing? You have far exceeded any expectations anyone had of you.” Though they never said it, everyone had pretty much stopped taking my skiing career seriously after my back surgery.

I was devastated. Instead of the visions I had of my father looking at me with the same proud smile he gave Jeremy the year before when he had made the national team, he was trying to talk me out of it.

The hurt only further fueled my determination. If no one else would believe in me, I would believe in myself.

That year Jeremy finished third overall in the country, and to the shock of my family, so did I. I remember standing tall on the podium, a medal around my neck and my long hair in a ponytail.

I got home that night and ignored the pain in my back and neck. I was tired of living with pain and pretending it wasn’t there. I was exhausted from trying to keep up with my superstar brother and I was especially tired of feeling like I had to constantly prove myself. Still, I had made the U.S. Ski Team and I had placed third overall. I felt satisfied. It was time to move on—on my own terms now.

I RETIRED FROM SKIING. I didn’t really want to be around for the fallout from that decision, though I suspected that despite my third-place finish, my father would still be relieved. To get away, I signed up for a study abroad in Greece. I instantly fell in love with the unfamiliarity and uncertainty involved in being in a foreign place. Everything was a discovery, a riddle to solve. Suddenly my world became a lot bigger than seeking my father’s approval. Somewhere, someone else was winning a blue ribbon in women’s moguls, or acing an exam, but frankly I didn’t care. I was especially enamored with the Gypsies in Greece. When I think about them now, they weren’t so unlike gamblers—seeking out angles, adventure, ignoring rules, and living an unfettered, free life. I made friends with some Gypsy kids in Crete. Their parents had been rounded up and shipped back to Serbia, so they were on their own. The Greeks are very wary of foreigners, understandable for a nation that has had a long history of occupation. I bought these kids food, and medicine for their baby. I spoke conversational Greek, and their Gypsy dialect was similar enough that we were able to communicate. The leader of the Gypsies’ tribe heard about what I had done for the children and invited me to their camp. That was an amazing experience. I decided to do my honors thesis on the legal treatment of nomadic people. It saddened me that these people couldn’t travel freely, as they had done for hundreds of years, and it seemed they had no advocates or representation. Their way of life was entirely free. It was so different from the life I had known. They loved music, food, dancing, falling in love, and when a place became stale they went somewhere else. This particular tribe was opposed to stealing, and instead focused on art and commerce to make their living.

I spent an extra three months after my program ended traveling by myself, staying in hostels, meeting interesting people, and exploring new places. I returned to the States a different girl. I still cared about school, but now I cared just as much about life experience and adventure. And then I met Chad.

Chad was good-looking, fast-talking, and brilliant. He was a deal maker and a hustler. He taught me about wine, took me to expensive restaurants, took me to my first opera, gave me amazing books to read.

Chad is the one who took me to California for the first time. I’ll never forget the drive along the Pacific Coast Highway. I couldn’t believe this place was real. We went to Rodeo Drive, had lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Time seemed to slow down, as if Los Angeles was one never-ending perfect day. I watched the beautiful people—they all seemed so content and happy.

Los Angeles felt almost dreamlike and not governed by reality. I had started to rethink my plan to live in Greece, and Los Angeles solidified my thoughts; I wanted to take a year off to be free, no plan, no structure, and just live. I had chased winter (even during the summers my brother and I would attend ski camp on the glaciers in British Columbia) and the dreams of what I thought my father had in store for me for as long as I could remember. I was filled with excitement at the idea of an uncharted path. Law school could wait, it was just a year.

Chad tried everything to get me to stay in Colorado, including buying me an adorable beagle puppy. But my mind was made up. I appreciated what Chad had given me—which were the tools to create a new life—but I didn’t love him.

He let me keep the dog. I named her Lucy. She was so badly behaved that she got kicked out of every puppy day care and obedience class I took her to. But she was sweet and smart and she loved and needed me. It was nice to be needed.

No matter how much I tried to explain my decision, my parents refused to fund my undefined California hiatus. I had saved about $2,000 from a babysitting job I had taken over the summer. I had one friend in L.A. named Steve, who had been on the ski team with me. He had reluctantly agreed to a limited stay on his couch.

“You need to have a plan,” he lectured me over the phone one day while I was driving on the highway to Los Angeles. “L.A. isn’t like Colorado, nobody will notice you here,” he said, trying to prepare me for the harsh reality of this place. But when I put my mind to something, nothing and nobody can dissuade me; it’s been a strength and, at times, a huge detriment.

“Mmm-hmm,” I said, staring at the desert horizon, halfway to my next adventure.

Lucy sat copilot, sleeping.

“What is your plan? Do you even have one?” Steve asked.

“Of course, I’ll get a job and get off your couch, and then I’ll take over the world,” I joked.

He sighed. “Drive safely,” he said. Steve always had been risk-averse.

I hung up the phone and fixed my eyes on the road ahead.

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT when the 405 started descending into Los Angeles. There were so many lights, and each light had a story. It was so unlike the stretches of darkness in Colorado. In L.A., the light far outweighed the dark—the lights represented a whole world waiting to be discovered. Steve had made up the couch for Lucy and me and we crashed hard after our seventeen-hour drive. I woke up early, and the sun was streaming through the windows. I took Lucy outside for a walk. L.A. smelled heavenly, like sunshine and flowers. But if I wanted to stay, I needed to get a job STAT. I had a little waitressing experience and I felt like that was my best bet since you could make tips right away as opposed to waiting for a weekly paycheck. Steve was up when I returned.

“Welcome to L.A.,” he said.

“Thanks, Steve. Where do you think is the best place for me to get a waitressing job?”

“Beverly Hills would be the best, but it’s really hard. Every pretty girl is an out-of-work actress or model and they are all waitresses, it’s not like—”

“I know, Steve, I know it’s not Colorado.” I smiled. “How do I get to Beverly Hills?”

He gave me directions and wished me luck with doubtful eyes.

He was right, most places I tried were not hiring. I was greeted icily by one pretty hostess after another who gave me a disdainful once-over and explained haughtily that they were fully staffed and I could fill out an application but it would be a waste of time because there were so many other applicants.

I was starting to lose hope as I walked into a last restaurant on the street.

“Hi! Are you hiring?” I asked with my biggest, brightest, most hopeful smile.

Instead of being a slender, perfectly put-together mean girl, the person in front of me was a man in his ’forties. “Are you an actress?” he asked suspiciously.

“No.”

“Model?”

“No.” I laughed. I was five four on my tallest day.

“Is there any reason you would ever have to go to a casting?”

“Sir, I don’t even know what that means.”

His face relaxed.

“I have a breakfast shift. You need to be here at five A.M., and when I say five A.M., I mean four forty-five A.M.”

I smiled bigger to conceal my horror at this ungodly hour.

“No problem,” I said firmly.

“You’re hired,” he said, then explained to me about the uniform, which was a pressed, heavily starched, white dress shirt, a tie, and black pants. “Don’t be late, I don’t tolerate tardiness.” he said, and walked away quickly to berate some poor employee.

IT WAS STILL DARK when I drove to the restaurant. I had borrowed an oversized shirt and tie from Steve. I looked like a puffy penguin.

My new boss, Ed, was already inside, along with another waitress. There was only one customer. He led me through the restaurant explaining my duties and informing me proudly that he had worked there for fifteen years, and he basically, as far as I was concerned, owned the place. He was the only one who had the ear of the owner, who was very rich and very important, and if I saw him I was never to address him unless Ed had instructed me to do so. The owner had many rich, important friends, known as VIP’s, and we were to treat them all like God.

After my training session, Ed dispatched me to serve.

“VIP,” Ed mouthed dramatically.

I gave him a thumbs-up, trying to hide my contempt.

The customer was a cute little old man.

I walked up with a megawatt smile. “Hi there! How is your morning so far?”

He looked up, his pale watery eyes squinting at me. “Aren’t you something. Are you new?”

I smiled. “I am. It’s my first day.”

He nodded. “Thought so, turn around,” he demanded, tracing a circle in the air with bony fingers.

I turned around, and looked at the front of the restaurant, trying to see what he wanted me to see. There was nothing of note.

I looked back at him, confused.

He was nodding in approval.

“I’d like you to be my special friend,” he said. “I’ll pay your bills and you can help me out.” He winked.

Now I was utterly confused, and my face must have shown it.

“I’m a diabetic,” he began. “So I can’t even get it up,” he continued, reassuring me. “I just want affection and attention.”

My expression went from confused to aghast. Oh my God, this old man who could’ve have been my grandfather was propositioning me. I was mortified. I felt the blood rush to my face. I wanted to tell him off, but I had been taught to always respect my elders. I wasn’t sure how to handle this. I had to find Ed.

I mumbled something and rushed off.

I approached Ed, my face burning.

“Ed, I know he’s a VIP but he …” and I whispered the proposal into Ed’s ear.

Ed looked at me blankly

“So what’s the problem? I thought I discussed the policy on VIP’s.”

I looked at him incredulously. “Are you serious? I’m definitely NOT going back over there. Can someone else take the table?” I asked.

“Molly, it’s not even two hours into your shift and you’re already causing problems. You should count yourself lucky that one of the VIP’s has taken a liking to you.”

I felt my chest fill with hot anger.

Ed looked at me with a sneer. “That offer might be the best you will ever have in this town.”

I rushed out of that restaurant as fast as I could, but the tears were coming hard and fast. I ducked into an alley and tried to pull myself together.

STILL WEARING MY UNIFORM, I walked toward my car.

A shiny silver Mercedes sped by at an alarming speed and pulled onto the sidewalk in front of me, nearly obliterating me.

Perfect. Could this day get any worse? A young, good-looking guy wearing army fatigues and a rhinestone-skull T-shirt exited the coupe, slamming the door and shouting at his cell phone.

He stopped screaming as I passed him.

“Hey, are you a waitress?”

I looked down at my uniform.

“No. Yes. Well, I mean, I …” I stumbled for words.

“You either are or you’re not, it’s not a hard question,” he demanded impatiently

“Okay, yes,” I said.

“Stay there,” he ordered.

“ANDREW!” he yelled.

A man in a chef’s coat walked out of a restaurant and approached us.

“Look, I found you your waitress, so stop crying. FUCK! Do I have to do everything around here?”

“Does she have experience?”

“How the fuck should I know?” the man barked.

Andrew sighed and said, “Come with me.”

We walked inside a restaurant, which was filled with frenetic energy: the construction workers—drilling, pounding, polishing; the designer in midtizzy because he ordered powder-pink peonies, and not soft pink, bartenders stocking the bar, and the waiters doing side work. “Our soft opening is tonight,” said Andrew. “We’re short-staffed and construction isn’t even finished.” He wasn’t complaining. He was just worn down.

I followed him into a beautiful vine-covered courtyard, an oasis amid the chaos. We sat on a wooden bench, and he began to grill me.

“How do you know Reardon?” he asked.

I assumed that Reardon was the terrifying man with the silver Mercedes.

“Um, he almost hit me with his car,” I answered,

Andrew laughed appreciatively. “Sounds about right,”

“How long have you been in L.A.?” he asked kindly

“About thirty-six hours,” “I said.

“From where?”

“Colorado.”

“Something tells me you don’t have fine dining experience.”

“My mom taught the manners class at my school, and I’m a fast learner,” I offered.

He laughed.

“Okay, Colorado, I have a feeling I’m going to regret it, but we will give you a shot.”

“What’s your policy on VIP’s?” I asked.

“It’s Beverly Hills. Everyone is a fucking VIP,” he said.

“So hypothetically, if a gross, perverted old man tries to solicit you, do you have to wait on them?”

“I’ll throw them out on their old ass,”

I smiled. “When do I start?”