The Moonstone Starlet

Chapter 13

Jonathan and Patrick stood on the curb for a few minutes staring at the empty space on the street. Pat tried calling Elia’s emergency phone but she wasn’t answering. He called her assistant Sam, who hadn’t heard from her but said it was normal for Elia to disappear for a while. Once she had gone camping with Emile Hirsch and didn’t turn up again for a month. The guys were surprised by how little she was concerned. Patrick called Elia’s in-case-of-emergency contact, which was Colin Farrell, but it went to voicemail. Ultimately, they had nothing else to do but head back to the hotel. Adam and Kris were nowhere to be found, but they rounded up the rest of the group and left.

The final day of the Fathers trip was a day of golfing at the Los Angeles Country Club. All the players and their Dads were having breakfast at the country club before teeing off. The guys had gathered in a large banquet room and stood around the drink table catching up with Adam and Kris. Both had gone home with actresses from the club, Adam with a woman named Diana Gettinger who apparently worked on the CW’s 90210, and Kris with Camilla Belle who wanted him to call her. Everyone was amused that Adam’s girl apparently did not desire to see him again. Jon and Patrick weren’t very interested, still wondering where Elia was.

“Wow, Girl Kane, you look like a lady today,” They heard Dave Bolland say behind them. They turned to see Elia walking in wearing a yellow Kate Spade dress with black embroidery around the collar. Her hair was down in loose curls. She stopped to talk to Bolland, lightly punching him on the shoulder and laughing.

When she reached Pat and Jon she gave them both a huge hug at the same time. Patrick told her she looked really nice.
“Thanks, I’ve been kicked out of this place twice already, I can’t afford to rebel against the dress code. Can I talk to you guys for a second before breakfast?”

She led them into a smaller dining room. They sat down at a table. The east facing windows let in the morning light, and they could see that Elia was wearing a lot more makeup than normal, especially under her eyes.

“Where the fuck did you go last night?” Toews asked before anyone else could speak. She started shuffling around in her purse.
“First I went to the Viper Room, cause I knew I could get some of this,” she threw three small bags on the table, two filled with pills and another with white powder.
“Jesus Elia are you trying to get kicked out again!” Jonny yelled as he tried to cover them with a napkin.
A server stopped by the table.
“Hey, do you think you can, you know,” She looked up at the server, gesturing to the bags. The server looked up across the room, and without saying anything slid the bags into his pocket.
“Can I start you off with some drinks today?”
Elia ordered a coffee as if nothing had happened. After the server walked away Kane and Toews were livid.
“Guys, come on, it's a country club. All these douchey rich white bastards do blow, and all their wives do pharmaceuticals, that isn’t what I came here to talk about.”

She continued with her story. Leaving Greystone Manor she took a cab to the Viper Room. New owners had cleared out much of the old staff and a lot of the regulars patrons weren’t hanging out. None the less she had no problem buying some Oxycontin, Valium and cocaine. She had never done coke before. For a long time she sat in the bathroom, staring at the red tiles covered in stickers. The lights overhead kept flickering, waiting for one of the bulbs to go out. She thought about the moment, many years ago, when she finally accepted she had to quit doing opioids. She may have quit the drugs back then, but she had never actually quit trying to self destruct. Girls came in and out of the bathroom. Time was passing in fast motion. She had to face the fact that she was a coward, and instead of facing obstacles she ran from them. But she couldn't. Elia opened the bag of Oxy and poured three pills into her hand, staring at them. She turned them over, looking at the cursive V, imagining the way it would feel when she swallowed it, imagined the tingling feeling that would start creeping down her legs, and the wave of calm that would travel back up her body. The peace that would envelope her mind as she sunk into nothingness. Jonny’s voice rang in her head “You’re strong enough.” She wasn't. A hair dryer sputtered on.

“I’m not going to pout anymore. I’m going to be stronger,” She locked eyes with Jonathan as she said it. He stared back at her earnestly. She continued, “Harvey Weinstein wants to put me on the penalty kill? He can go fuck himself I’ll score a shorty.”

The server came back with her coffee and told her she can’t swear in the country club. Patrick and Jonathan didn't understand why Weinstein would make a change that could hurt the movie. It was simple, Elia said, having the upper hand was more important than art to Harvey.

“Wait, what happened after you left the Viper Room? You still didn’t come back last night,” Kane asked.
“Oh, right, well I was still really drunk and then also super pumped up so I took a cab to Shia Labeouf’s for some ex-sex.” She poured a creamer into her coffee.
“You hooked up with that tool Even Stevens?” Jonathan shook his head.
“Do you really want to go down this road? You’re dating an underwear model who can’t figure out the difference between there and their.” She shot Jonathan a dirty look. “Anyways, he was actually really insightful about this Zac Efron thing. He pointed out that I have never had to struggle to be taken seriously as an actor and I should be more open minded about his ability. We were up all night and watched ‘17 Again’ which is actually really good.”

She started drinking the coffee.
“OH, and I wanted to apologize if I made you worried last night, and Jonny, I’m sorry I pushed you. It won’t happen again. I mean I’m sure there will be other scenarios in which I’ll want to physically harm you, because you’re you, but I mean….You know what I mean.”

Elia couldn’t stay for the golf games, she had her interns handling the filming. She had set up a lunch meeting with Zac, and then had to head to CBS Television City for the taping of Real Time with Bill Maher.

By the time they were on the plane heading back to Chicago, Elia was exhausted. She squeezed in to the same seat as Kane, cuddled in next to him with his arm around her and a blanket over them. Kane held one side of a book with his right hand and Elia held the other with her left hand. Jonathan sat in the seat next to them, reading a magazine and listening to their banter.
“I did my waiting, 12 years of it, in Azkaban!” Kaner would yell, and Elia would repeat the same thing before yelling “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”
Sometime over Nebraska they fell asleep.

December started off with a win against the Blue Jackets after 11 rounds of a shootout. They didn’t have another game for three days and Elia came up with a funny idea for a video. She wanted to do a parody of the Breakfast Club dance scene with the Blackhawks.

On Wednesday morning Elia handed out the cast list.

Brian Ralph Johnson ……. Patrick Kane John Bender……………….Duncan Keith Andrew "Andy" Clark……...Patrick Sharp Claire Standish…………...Jonathan Toews Allison Reynolds………….Dave Bolland
Toews was annoyed at being characterized as Molly Ringwald’s character, but it was a pretty obvious choice. They drove out to the suburbs to film at the school where the original movie was filmed. Her interns had done a great job compiling costumes to match the original characters. Versteeg was named Dance Coordinator, and was responsible for helping with the dance choreography. Jonathan looked awesome in a pink shirt and red pants, but Duncs really stole the show as as bad boy John Bender. At the end of the day Elia posted the completed cut to youtube and tweeted it to her 4 million followers.
“what happens on off days when you’ve got too much time and $20k cameras #blackhawks”

The team headed to a bar near Keith's house afterwards, the Pony, to hang out. By the end of the week the video had over seventy thousand re-tweets.

At the end of the week the Blackhawks would also lose to the Predators 4-1. Saturday morning they flew to Pittsburgh to play the Penguins, who had won the Stanley Cup the previous year. Saturday evening the Blackhawks were all eating dinner in the hotel together. Elia was sitting in between Kane and Niemi, directly across from Burish.

“So, one of the Penguins asked me out on a date this morning.” She announced part way through the first course. “I told him, ‘Sorry ‘bout ya, I’ve got dinner with my boyzzzzz’” she laughed and high fived Byfuglien and Bolland from across the table.

“Who asked you out?” Burish wanted to know. “Other teams' guys can’t just ask you out.”
“Yeah, you’re our girl that hangs out with the team for some reason!” Versteeg agreed.

In the morning Elia had gone to the Civic Arena for the Penguins morning skate. She filmed some footage for two pieces that made it on to her website, “How to Drop Gloves: A Tutorial with Matt Cooke” and “Canadian French for French Hockey Fans”.

“I was filming with their goalie, Marc Andre Fleury, who, by the way, I love. I asked him to marry me and he said no, he’s had a girlfriend since he was 15, obviously that just made me love him more.”
“What is with you and goalies?” Jonathan asked.
“Goalies are my people, back up off my love of goalies.”
“When are we playing the Rangers, we need to keep her off Lundqvuist,”
“Who asked you out?” Burish reiterated.
“Ummm...It was a guy that had a name that could also be a girl’s name? He was a captain?”
“SIDNEY CROSBY?”
“CAN I TAKE HIM OUT? I’M GOING TO PUNCH HIM.”

Elia had been taking shots on Flower when Sidney had skated up to her. He asked her where she learned to shoot, because he could show her a better way. She looked up at his big brown eyes and half smile, with his black hair dripping in sweat. His face was perfect, and she loved brown eyes, but his weren’t the right ones.

“I said Jonathan Toews taught me, the best hockey player in the league.”
“Please tell me you didn’t say that,” Jonathan said.

The guys all laughed. Patrick tried to explain to her that Sidney Crosby was the best hockey player possibly in the world. She seemed crushed to learn Jonny wasn’t number one. And if Jonny wasn’t, why wasn’t Hossa or Kane?

“Should I go out with him?” She asked, “He gave me his number.”

Everyone was against Elia going out with anyone from another team.

Kane made a good point when he said, “El, just think of it this way, if you got serious with Sidney Crosby you’d have to live in Pittsburgh.” She made a horrified face at that suggestion. None the less, she decided to text Sidney.

Notes