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 Reardon 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 that 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