The week away from him helped me see the situation clearly: This man was not right for me; I deserved someone more emotionally available, someone who wanted to be with me all the time. I vowed to distance myself from him when I returned.
And then, as if he felt my change of mind, my strengthening, he called again and was kinder and warmer than he’d ever been.
“I miss you,” he said. “I really want to see you. “Will you come straight to my place and spend the night, let me take you to dinner?”
My resolve from moments before broke. I swooned. Of course I would. I paid $100 for a car to take me back to the city. A hurricane was on its way to Manhattan and even though I was safe in Westchester, I went back. “I’ll protect you,” Hiroto told me.
He met me at the door with open arms.
“Welcome home,” he said as he held me close. “Let’s go eat.”
While hugging him, I glanced at the sink. Two wine glasses rested upside down in his dish rack. He did not usually drink. A vision of a young blonde flashed through my mind. I ignored it. I went to dinner with him. I slept over. And then I allowed him to send me home in the morning—to my apartment on the thirty-seventh floor of an all-glass building—alone, with the hurricane approaching. I hunkered down in the bathroom as he ignored my calls for the next two days.
Another month rolled by, and Hiroto’s birthday approached. He wanted to spend it at an ashram in the Bahamas and was hinting to me about joining him. However, he never invited me. Instead, he went with someone else; I couldn’t bear to ask him who. The day before he left, he asked me to lunch near his apartment. After the meal, he invited me over “for a nap.” I noticed he was lost in his thoughts. His eyes were closed, and I could tell he was not present. I had no idea where he was, but it was not with me. He fell asleep, and I left. I didn’t hear from him while he was gone.
When he returned, he texted simply, I’m back.
I replied, Welcome home! Let’s go to dinner tonight, to celebrate your birthday.
I’m really tired, he wrote back. Not sure it’s a good idea.
I was crushed. I went to his class that night anyway.
After class, he ran up to me and said, “Your energy was so great tonight. I really missed you. I’d love to go to dinner with you; I changed my mind.”
“I made other plans,” I responded. I walked out to the street, and he followed me.
“I really missed you,” he said again.
I hailed a cab and jumped in. When I got home, I called him. “I don’t think we should sleep together anymore,” I said.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I just think it’s a bad idea, especially if we’re going to be business partners.” I knew the sleeping together had to end. But I still loved him and I still wanted to go into business with him and I still hoped that one day we could be together as boyfriend and girlfriend.
In November, we found a new studio space. Just as we were about to finalize the contract for the lease, Hiroto called me. He said he was panicked. He said the space was too big and the lease cost too much. He suggested I become his partner in his existing business, the one he had owned for twelve years.
It was a horrible idea. His studio was run-down. His equipment was old and broken. His books were a mess. But, I went ahead and asked my CPA to value the business. One morning, I was sitting in a coffee shop struggling with this decision. My instincts told me to run, that buying into Hiroto’s business was a terrible idea. But I didn’t trust my instincts anymore. I seriously thought my intuition was the occult trying to prevent me from becoming Enlightened.
I opened a book of poetry written by Lakshmi, randomly letting it fall open where it would. The book opened to a poem about a wasp trapped in her house. She explained how it kept tracing the same path along the ceiling and the closed window, refusing to make the simple change necessary to fly out the open door to freedom. I was still so desperate to change, to evolve, to become Enlightened. I was still so sure I had to change completely to do so. I thought maybe this was the way; never even noticing the same path I kept tracing was the path of not believing in myself, the path of allowing others to take advantage of me, the path of not standing up for myself. I believed going into business with Hiroto would change me radically. I closed the book and paid my bill and walked to his studio.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I will be your partner.”
My CPA had determined that Hiroto’s business was worth $500,000. I became a 50 percent partner by paying him $250,000.
We were going to need a full remodel, a full rebrand, software upgrades, and all new machines, so I got a $500,000 line of credit in my name. And then I worked myself to exhaustion building him the business of his dreams. I picked out paint and tiles and grout and doorknobs and toilet paper holders and lockers. I picked out furniture and toilets and sinks and faucets. I interviewed graphic artists and web designers and with them designed the website and business cards and pamphlets and advertising and logos and wall art. I planned classes and schedules. I hired a PR firm and planned a launch party. I organized his accounting and upgraded his software. I ordered all new equipment: machines, yoga mats, yoga blocks, pillows and towels. I designed company T-shirts and water bottles and bags. I interviewed photographers and had photos taken of the studio and all the staff. I found a beautiful photo of a lotus, located the photographer and got permission to blow it up seven feet wide for our back wall. I found a photo studio to print it. I rewrote the website. I created countless spreadsheets. I turned our downstairs into a staff lounge and made the trainers employees instead of independent contractors; I started looking for health insurance for them. And I oversaw every aspect of the construction. I did all of this in a month.
The weekend before our opening, Hiroto freaked out. He was barely there. I stayed late into the night cleaning and organizing, filling paper towel holders and soap dispensers, assembling furniture and breaking down boxes, all alone. I was exhausted. And I was furious that I was doing it alone. He was shaky and distracted when we opened. He wanted to go back to business as usual for him, but everything was different. He had scheduled a teacher training during the opening week, so he spent most of each day teaching a small group of teachers in the back of the studio. Overtired and trembling, I worked out the kinks at the front desk.
Halfway through our opening week, Veronica, a young girl from the dojo, walked in. She had a huge smile on her face. She said Hiroto had invited her to his class. She did not pay. And then she ran up to him with love in her eyes and threw herself into his arms. It broke my heart. She was adorable, voluptuous, with a beautiful smile, and easily twenty years younger than he. The image of the upside down wine glasses flashed through my mind.
Oh my God, I thought.
I grabbed my coat, walked out of the studio, and went home. I cried my eyes out. I instantly knew they were lovers, that they must have been for a while, and I was crushed that he invited her to our studio for opening week when he knew I was in love with him.
He called me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“No,” I responded. “I’m going to work from home from now on. That was our deal, anyway. I do the back end; you run the shop.”
Maybe if I never saw him, it would be easier for me.
He said, “Okay, that is probably best.”
But, he was not ready to hang up the phone.
“Also,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I am used to getting paid weekly from the studio. This is not happening now, so I have nothing to live off of.”
What about the $250,000? I thought.
“Could I get paid a salary in advance?” he continued.
Too worried about alienating him, I never suggested he live off of the $250,000. He asked for $58,000. I gave it to him the following day in one lump sum from the line of credit.
“Also,” he said, “when I teach private lessons and teacher trainings, I’m going to keep the money, okay?”
“Sure,”
I responded.
He now had $250,000 plus $58,000 in cash, plus a weekly income from private lessons. Not only did I get no pay, but I also honored all the classes that students had purchased before I came on board; that money was long gone, but I still had to pay the instructors. Naïve, insecure, afraid of confrontation, and trusting, I kept using the money from our line of credit.
Within a week of receiving his salary, he stopped showing up to the studio completely, even though he lived above it. The staff began to feel like Hiroto and I didn’t care, so why should they? I was never there (they did not know I was running everything from home), and now he was never there. They started slacking off. I would walk in and find a vase of dead flowers on the front table, bathrooms with no paper towels or toilet paper, yoga mats and pillows all over the floor and weird music playing. The trainers would be sitting on the machines eating lunch and gossiping. It was a disaster.
I called a meeting with some of the trainers. They told me stories that made me cringe. It became clear how many of them detested Hiroto, how much disrespect they had for him. I had never noticed before. Utterly in love with Hiroto, I had never thought to interview the entire staff before I bought into the business; I had just hung on the words of the few I met during his party, the few that adored him. I had messages from clients who left the studio. I met with them and heard more stories about Hiroto and his interactions with them that were appalling. I had gone into business with a monster.
The signs had always been there; I had just refused to see them. Denial is powerful, and I simply did not want to believe this man was anything but my soul mate, no matter how many different ways he showed me. But with these crying women in front of me, telling me tales I did not want to hear, I could no longer ignore the obvious.
Meanwhile, I had asked Hiroto to get rid of all our coupon deals because once we upgraded the space and the machines, discount first-timers were not our target market; when he did, the studio emptied out. I had no idea the group classes were filled with first timers. Suddenly, we had no business.
I was falling apart. I was still trying to make it through the program at Stern. Still trying to get my black belt in karate. Still meditating two hours a day. I had listed my California house for rent because it was not selling, so I was dealing with tenants and being a landlord. I was still on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit. And I was spending close to twelve hours a day building our new business. I was exhausted. I was not eating enough, not sleeping enough. I had lost weight and was close to ninety pounds. And now I had to admit my business partner was not at all who I thought he was. I had made a huge mistake.
I pulled Hiroto aside. “I want answers,” I said. I began telling him what I had heard.
He looked at me with contempt in his eyes and said, “I am not who you think I am. I have been trying to tell you this since we met. I cannot change. I will not change. You keep trying to change me, and it will never happen.”
Defeated, I decided I would let him run the studio his way. I would retreat.
His way was to scrap my idea of our target market and go back to filling the studio with coupon users, to heavily discount our lessons. Each group class was taught randomly, with no plan and no progression for the clients. He paid our employees less and not at all if their classes were empty. He treated them as independent contractors so we did not have to offer benefits. He wanted to show up whenever he felt like it and to not be around when he didn’t. He wanted to treat customers poorly if he was in a bad mood. And he didn’t want me there at all, ever. I figured, if he went back to the way he was used to, he’d show up to work more; he’d be happier.
But he didn’t show up to work more. He wasn’t happier.
I went to his karate class one night and listened to him give his usual speech about integrity and honor at the end. I watched the students look up to him with admiration, buying his act hook, line, and sinker, as I had done. As we all stood in line to bow to him at the end of class, I was disgusted and heartbroken and afraid.
What the hell had I been thinking? What the hell was I doing intertwining my life with this person? He was a total stranger. I was in deep trouble. It took a long time coming, but suddenly it was crystal clear: the reason it hadn’t been working wasn’t because I was defective and not trying hard enough. The reason it hadn’t been working was because this man was a monster.
I called Hiroto after class that night and told him I wanted out. I could not be his business partner anymore. I said I would give him the studio, pay off half the money we had taken from the line of credit minus his $58,000 salary, and that he could take two years to pay off the other half. All I wanted was my initial investment back—the $250,000 I had given him just three months before, and I wanted the studio out of my name. I had to leave for Chile and Argentina that week, for a study tour with NYU, and I told him we could work out all the details of my leaving when I returned.
He agreed that I should leave the business. “You have been blocking me. I feel like I cannot be who I truly am when you are around. I agree it’s for the best.”
It was decided. I was out. Thank God. Hallelujah. Amen.
While I was in Chile, Hiroto and I were in contact through e-mail. He seemed a lot happier. His e-mails were light and jovial and full of energy, reminding me of the Hiroto I first met, but eventually our e-mails grew angrier. When I got to my apartment immediately after returning to New York, after traveling for close to twenty-four hours, I checked my e-mail to see what had come in while I was en route. Hiroto had e-mailed to say I was irresponsible for not checking my e-mail in the last twenty-four hours, for having an autoresponder that said I was out of the office, and that he had never been unavailable in the twelve years he had run the studio. Then he added that he would not return any of my money.
Not return my money? How was that possible? I was giving him back the studio. Why would he keep the $250,000? It made no sense. Without even changing clothes or brushing my teeth, I jumped in a cab and travelled an hour in rush hour traffic to our studio. I had to see him. I had to talk to him face to face. He was walking down the street toward the front door as I got out of the taxi.
“Hiroto,” I said. He looked at me. He opened the door to walk into the studio. “Stop,” I said. He stopped. “What is going on?” I asked.
“I don’t have time for this; I have to teach,” he said. He would not look into my eyes. He looked down at the sidewalk.
“Are you really not going to return any of my money?” I asked him. “Do you really think that is fair?”
“I don’t have time to talk right now,” he repeated. “I have to go teach.”
“I need you to look in my eyes and tell me you really won’t return my money,” I said.
No response.
“I don’t understand. I have given you everything. What more do you want from me?”
He looked up at me. His eyes were the same color Lakshmi’s had been the morning after Shiva died—an evil green, filled with hate. He said, “I need another $100,000. To make this work, to get this studio back to how it was before you ruined it, I need more money.” Then he walked into the studio and shut the door in my face.
By this point, we had pulled $290,000 from my line of credit—$58,000 for his salary and $232,000 for the remodel, $100,000 of which went toward new equipment. Even if he returned my $250,000, he still had $58,000 in cash plus a brand-new studio, a brand-new website, and a PR launch party on the way. The founder of the exercise method had been so impressed with our new studio that he scheduled to teach a workshop there, his first workshop in the US for years. I had paid all the outstanding bills and had put money aside for payroll for two more months. How could he possibly need more money?
I hailed a cab home. I was dumbfounded. We’ll work this out, I thought to myself. It’s a mess, but we’ll work it out. I’ll be fair. I’ll give him the business, and I’ll pay off half of the loan. That’s more than fair. We’ll find an amicable way to sort this out. He
’s just not thinking clearly. I walked into my apartment. I took a long hot shower. I made breakfast and put on Mozart. I sat on my sofa and the phone rang.
Chapter 28 Shattered
“THAT MONEY IS GONE, JACK!” he screams into the phone, his thick New York accent venomous with rage. “THAT MONEY IS GONE, JACK!” he yells. “I SPENT IT!” he screams. “I SPENT IT AND YOU CAN’T EVEN ASK ME WHAT I SPENT IT ON! THAT MONEY IS GONE, JACK!” Over and over he yells the same thing. Like a CD with a scratch repeating a phrase indefinitely.
The afternoon sun is streaming into my apartment, filling the space around me with gold light. Mozart plays quietly in the background. I close my eyes and hold love in my heart. It is all I can think to do as my world crumbles around me.
What a bizarre dichotomy, I think, as time appears to stand still. There is so much light, so much peace, so much stillness, and yet the man I loved and trusted and gave close to $300,000 dollars to has, in less than twenty-four hours, turned into a psychopath.
I let him scream for a while, knowing that interrupting him would be futile. Then his story changes: “I GAVE IT TO SOMEONE TO HIDE AND COULDN’T GET IT BACK EVEN IF I WANTED TO!” he yells. “YOU RUINED MY LIFE! YOU TRIED TO BUY MY LOVE! YOU USED ME!” he shouts. “THAT MONEY IS GONE, JACK!”
I still did not say anything. I waited until he wore himself out, wondering why on earth he kept calling me Jack. And then, once he paused, I said calmly, “Hiroto, you’re not showing up for work. You’re never there. I’m doing everything. That was not part of our deal. Are you really surprised that I want to leave?”
“Did you expect me to do as much work as I did before, now that I have a partner?” he asked me.
The Burn Zone Page 21