87. Swagger and Self-love
SWAGGER AND SELF-LOVE
LIVY
“Yes, I heard. It is great news.” Not that it’s surprising at all. My sister is always accomplishing something.
“Can you believe they named her partner at such a young age? The youngest ever at the firm. And not just any firm—the most prestigious in New York. Your mother and I are impressed and so proud.” I can barely hear my father’s voice since he rarely joins my mother who uses speakerphone to communicate. He can hear, and that’s enough for him.
My mother, on the other hand, speaks directly into the microphone. “That’s how one earns her way, Olivia, tenacity, work ethic, daily excellence. You’ve both accomplished so much, and we’re proud of you equally.”
There it is…
My mother trying to fairly distribute the compliments and praise to allow for our differences, while my father fully appreciates commercial success. One that he doesn’t acknowledge in my case.
“This is about Tally,” I offer, veering the conversation back to why they called. “I’m so happy for her. I guess she clenched the Schweitzer merger, then?”
My father pipes in, “Natalia negotiated better terms than the company or the firm expected. It had something to do with stock shares they were able to split or acquire. She was able to bill an additional nine hundred thousand for the firm beyond their negotiated fee. She’s proven herself invaluable to the business. ”
“I’m proud of her.” Well, I am and I’m not.
Tally is driven and successful but has absolutely zero balance in her life.
She will accomplish anything she sets her mind to because she will grind her bones to dust doing it.
She’ll forsake her physical health and her mental health in pursuit of accomplishment itself, not simply the end goal.
She will look up and have missed her twenties and thirties, and I suspect her forties, too, just from working herself into exhaustion and an early death.
Even my mother won’t acknowledge that. My parents’ strict New England pedigrees won’t allow for play, only work.
I didn’t take dance; I pursued ballet. Tally played soccer because the coach’s father-in-law was on the board of admissions for Wellesley. We weren’t allowed to join after-school clubs for interest… we built résumés for college.
They can’t be surprised by our high achievements since they created the habits and behaviors they wanted others to envy and ones we’d need in our work lives.
Tally more so than me. She wears suits, keeps her hair in a tight chignon, has a driver to take her to work, and requires a personal shopper for her groceries.
Now, she’s the youngest partner ever with the number three law firm on the planet.
A knock sounds on my door. “Mother, Father, I have a client. Talk soon.”
“Call to congratulate Natalia.”
“Yes, sir.” There’s no point in any other response. It’s what he expects. I disconnect, wondering if we’ll ever have a normal phone conversation.
Did they ask how I am? Did they ask about being on staff of an NFL team? Did they ask about my success? No, but I’ve stopped expecting that. Once I chose a “lesser field of study”—their term—like PT, instead of medicine, they all but said I wasted my talent and tuition money.
“Come in,” I say to the door and lean back onto my desk.
Layton Ranger’s ego pushes into the room ahead of him. If he were a cartoon character, a swirling cloud of red hearts would surround him, kept in motion by swagger and self-love.
He steps just inside the door, bag on his shoulder, making his contempt for our appointment apparent.
“Please come in.” I wave a hand to the chair and table in front of my desk. It’s his to choose.
He sits, avoiding the table, placing his bag beside his chair, looking imposing and dominant from his seat.
“I’m Livy Morgan.” I extend a hand that he shakes.
“Layton Ranger.”
“What was the hardest part of today for you?” I ask, still leaning against the desk, hands gripping the wood at my hips.
“Nothing.”
“It’s strength training, and you’re an athlete who chose to forego it, so there must’ve been some challenge.”
He frowns and shakes his head.
“You must know that everyone is a novice when they start anything new. You didn’t run a 4.4 40 your first time out.”
“4.37.”
“Do you remember running a 4.4 or a 4.5?”
He nods his head a single time, looking exasperated at the question.
“And you trained to get faster? Maybe improved your form or chose a different technique?”
“Obviously.”
“And you were better after one hundred reps than you were after the first… better after a thousand than one hundred.”
“Of course.”
“But you expected a yoga practice, you’ve never attempted or studied, to be easy with no training required.”
He shrugs.
I shift from the desk and move to stand in front of him. “What if I told you it would make you run faster, that your oxygenation would be more efficient, and it could lessen injury times?”
His eyes lift and hold mine. They’re hard and annoyed. “I’d laugh in your face.”
“Then you’re not who I thought you were, Mr. Ranger.
I was told you would do anything to improve your time, that you would invest whatever it took to be better.
I’m sorry to hear that status quo is good enough.
If 4.36 or, even better, 4.29 were your goal, I could help you get there. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
More accurately, he’s wasted mine, so I indicate the door, as I turn my back to him and take a seat at my desk, moving through my computer screens.
He stands and heads for the door, pausing as he does. I can see the wheels turning, but his ego swirls, and that cartoon cloud of swagger won’t allow for the humility necessary to ask for help.
“Please close the door on your way out.”
I’m not being harsh, but like anyone who wants to improve but refuses to take any steps to do so, it’s not worth my time until he’s ready.
Layton Ranger is an exceptional athlete. If he can run faster or be more efficient, he won’t pass that up. But he’ll have to check his ego at the door. It’ll happen, and it’ll be fun to watch when he does.
Layton
How in the world does the pixie think she can make me faster?
She can’t be fast. Then again, I guess she’s not even five-two if she stretches as tall as she can make herself.
She’s toned. Hell, her abs are visible when she moves.
That little sports bra left zero to the imagination and revealed tanned skin with freckles that were distracting as fuck.
I can’t think about her in yoga pants. I don’t know if they’d fit over my calves.
Besides, if I think about her body for too long, the oxygen I’m using will run to my dick and wave at people walking down the hall.
I head for the film room and am surprised to find our quarterback there.
“What’s up, Reed?”
He offers me a fist bump as I take a seat. His eyes flit back to the screen.
“That play-off game is eating at me. This interception—” He waves at the monitor. “How did I not read that?”
“Because Dickinson is a freak of nature and has a vertical of ten feet?”
“He is, but it wasn’t that.”
“It’s a lot of that,” I retort. Reed watches film religiously during football season, but it’s March, and he’s usually better about letting things go.
“Look.” He zooms in at the recorded look on his face. It’s odd. It’s one I’ve never seen before. “What is that?”
I can’t decide if he looks unfocused, confused, or fearful, but something is there that isn’t the cock-sure league MVP that I know. Hell, the pocket is solid and he’s well-defended, so fear shouldn’t be etched on his face period.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen that look before.”
“Tell me straight, Ranger. Am I getting too old for this sport?”
“We’re all too old by twenty-eight. We’re dinosaurs by thirty.
At least, it feels that way. It seems the players we idolized growing up lasted longer.
But the game is different, man. You know that.
The D lines are corn-fed beasts who can move.
When we watched them as kids, they were big, but they lumbered.
They weren’t off the line in less than a second waiting to thrash anyone who moved near them. ”
“It’s harder than it used to be.” His voice is almost a whisper.
“Are you thinking about retirement?”
“I’m always thinking about retirement. I’m one hit away from having pudding for brains or a permanent limp.”
“Our line is solid. They’ll protect you. And they’re only getting stronger.”
He nods. “Just having a day, I guess.”
I slap him on the back. “I get it. Let’s get out of here and go for a run.”
“Are you trying to make me feel old and slow?”
“I didn’t say race. I’m not cruel.”
“Fucker.”
“Come on. Beach or track?”
He glances at his watch. “Beach. But can we meet farther south so I can avoid traffic?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll meet you in thirty at the pier near the Arabel Lighthouse.”
“I’ll be there.”
He leaves, and I reach into my bag for my keys, still wondering if Livy and her yoga could make me faster.
I stand on the pier, stretching my quads. I’m decent at this. It isn’t the deep stretch the athletic trainers provide, but I won’t be doing what they usually prep me for or what they follow up on.
Reed steps out of a sleek black sports car that oozes money and meets me on the pier.
“New Lambo?”
“Yeah. It’s ridiculously fast.”
“Do you ever get to open it up?”
“Rarely. Traffic means I recreate the opening scene in Office Space most days on the way to work.”
I laugh at that. Classic movie. “Sorry. A gorgeous machine like that should be free to run.” In fact, it reminds me of our horses on the ranch. They were made for it and are best when they are free to.
I chin check the Lamborghini after eyeing my two-year-old Raptor. “What was it about that one you couldn’t resist?”
“Charlie says I need to look like a winner. Fucker. As if I’m not or that the Maz made me look like a loser. I don’t know. This is the kind of shit that wears on me.”