The Moonstone Starlet

Chapter 16


On New Year’s Eve the Blackhawks played the New Jersey Devils. Elia was restless and irritable all evening. Not only had she been confined to her house for several days from being sick, but she was missing the best parties in Vegas to watch a hockey game, which was technically work, and she was waiting to hear back from Harvey Weinstein about the screenplay she had emailed him. It was a great game, and Christobal Huet almost shut out the Devils before letting in a goal with a minute left in the third period. Every time someone mentioned how thrilling the game was Elia would grumble, not appreciating how everyone was in such a good mood.

At the end of the game Elia went downstairs to the trainer’s room where Pat and Jon were getting stretched and massaged. The guys were talking about the game, breaking down every play and discussing where they could improve. Elia sat in silence in the corner hitting refresh on her gmail app over and over. No news.

“El if you keep frowning your face is going to get stuck like that,” Jon said suddenly.
“I would be careful if I were you Tazer, she hasn’t had a cigarette in like a week,” Patrick suggested.

She tried to soften her face, relaxing all her muscles.

“Going cross eyed isn’t any better,” Jonathan said.

Elia knew she couldn’t punch him there, Pawel, the masseuse, would restrain her, she knew that from experience. Instead she left the room and went to find Niemi. Even though Niemi wasn’t the starting goalie, he took forever to leave after a game. Nobody really knew what he was doing either. One minute it seemed like he had left, the next he would be back at his locker fiddling with stuff. Elia often laid out on the bench as he meandered around the locker room doing Niemi things. She was doing so now, with her eyes closed, imagining it was summer and she was laying out on the beach. She could feel the spray off the lake. Except that wasn’t her day dream, something was dripping on her. She opened her eyes and Niemi was looking down at her, his hair dripping water on her from his shower.

“Are you wearing that to the club?” He asked, as if he wasn’t being weird at all. Elia sat up. She probably should change. In Patrick’s locker she found a bag with a silver sequined Blanco tunic dress, tights, and Burberry slouched boot heels. When Pat and Jon came to find her she was straddling the bench in the locker room facing Niemi as he held her face and drew eyeliner across her top lashes.

“Just when you think things can’t get any weirder,” Toews said, sighing.

The four of them found Hossa, Byfuglien and Kopecky, and headed to meet the other guys at Underground. It was almost midnight by the time they got there. A table had been reserved for them all night, and Billy Dec, the club owner, came by to wish them a Happy New Year. Kris was sitting with Camilla, Brian with his new girlfriend Lauren, Elina and Hammer, Duncan and Kelly, Burish, Abby and Sharp were there. The rest of the guys and their girls were presumably out dancing or at the bar. Elia and Kaner started doing shots, and pretty soon they were out dancing too. The DJ played Taylor Dayne “Tell it To My Heart” for Elia, and she and Patrick went crazy.

About a minute from midnight Jonny ran up to Elia with her cell phone. Harvey Weinstein was calling. She screamed and dragged Jonny to the nearest bathroom with her so she could answer the call. Jonathan felt incredibly awkward standing in the women’s bathroom with Elia as she listened to the new voicemail. Her eyes were wide as she held the phone to one ear and covered her other ear with her hand. Suddenly she started jumping up and down and then hugged Jonny.

“He said ‘Was that so hard? Better get started on your acceptance speech,’ that means he liked it!” she yelled, “Jonny you better come to all the awards ceremonies next year if I’m nominated, you helped me so much!”

She pulled back from hugging him, grinning, but when she looked up at him he wasn’t smiling. He gazed intently at her, his hands on her shoulders still. The door opened and a bouncer looked in.
“Downs, you know you can’t bring guys in the bathroom, come on don’t get me in trouble tonight. It’s almost New Year’s.”

They broke their stare and walked back to the table where someone had passed out champagne. A countdown was starting. Midnight struck and everyone cheered. Kane kissed Elia on the forehead and gave her a big hug. The group toasted to 2010, promising it would be the best year yet. They partied until the bar closed, and everyone went their separate ways. Except Elia, who walked home with Pat, saying Wicker Park was too far and Trump was so close. Jonathan walked part of the way with them before catching a cab to take him the rest of the way across the river.

The next morning Elia and Patrick woke up in a tent in his living room. Considering they were drunk when they put it up it was impressive that only one corner was sagging inward. They had taken all the cushions off the couch and shoved them into the tent. Pat taped a piece of paper to it that said “Drunk Tent”, and they left it as is in the middle of the room. There was no practice or meetings and they didn’t have to fly out to St. Louis until the next day. Elia and Patrick didn’t leave Trump Tower all day. They invited Jonathan over for brunch at Sixteen, then told him to go home because they had to go to the gym. By gym they meant sit in the steam room playing Sudoku on their phones. They watched the Winter Classic while lounging in the drunk tent, eating Kraft Mac N’ Cheese for dinner. It was the perfect lazy New Year’s Day.

Almost a week later, the Blackhawks had won three straight. The team sat in O’Hare waiting to board their flight to Boston. Versteeg, Byfuglien, Patrick and Elia sat a long, tall table charging their phones at one end. Pat and Elia were playing MASH, a game intended to tell one’s future. They had discovered that Patrick would grow up to live in a shack, become an accountant that makes $80k a year, marry Taylor Swift, have six children, and drive a Frisker Karma. Elia didn’t understand how he could find work as an accountant if he was married to Taylor Swift and somehow they couldn’t afford to move out of a shack. Pat was pleased with this future so long as he was married to Swift, and wanted to know when Elia planned on setting them up. Elia did not agree to that match up.

When it was Elia’s turn, her first choice for husband options was Drake.

Dustin laughed next to them. “You’ve really got a thing for ugly guys from teen television shows, don’t you?” Kris laughed too, high fiving Buff.
“How could you guys not want to be serenaded by Drake every night, do you have no soul?” Elia asked.
Patrick told Elia to pick four more guys. She selected Michael Fassbender, then struggled to think of any more.
“You don’t have any crushes besides Drake and Fassy?” He asked in disbelief.
“Kaner, when you’re on the A-list, you don’t have crushes. They become hook-ups very quickly. It’s like fishing with dynamite out there.”
“Then why haven’t you hooked up with Drake?” Byfuglien asked, laughing again.

Elia sighed. She had tried multiple times, unsuccessfully. “You’re pouring salt in my wounds Buff. I thought we were friends. Okay, I’m going to pick guys from the team.”

She turned around on her chair and looked at the players.
“Bolly.” Dave looked up at her, wondering why she called his name.
“Your first pick you’re going with Bolly?” Buff questioned.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that fire in his eyes. He could tear a girl up.” She said looking at him. Bolland grinned and nodded. “I would.” He shouted to her.
Patrick wrote it down, disturbed.
“Next, I’m taking Kopecky...I mean, look at him. If we ever produced children they would have the most exquisite cheek bones known to mankind and the angels would come down from heaven to sing and rejoice in their splendor.”

Pat didn’t ask questions, just laughed and wrote it down. When she hesitated to pick someone else Patrick put down Toews. They had several more categories to fill out. Five cars, five numbers of children, five careers and five salaries.

From the other end of the table near the outlet, a phone buzzed and vibrated.

"El, you got a text," Versteeg called from the end of the table.
"Can you see what it says?" Elia replied. She was watching Kaner make his way around the MASH page.
Versteeg unlocked the phone and went to the messages. His face broke into a huge grin.
"Uh it's from ‘B-Marsh-Bootycall’?" He said laughing, "'going 2 b in Rockford that near chicago?' Do you want me to text back to fuck off until he can spell out words properly?”

The guys all knew Elia wouldn’t respond to text messages that had letters in place of words.

“Oh wait he or she just texted again 'would've called b4 but you lied to me about youre name' El who is this?!" Kris exclaimed, even more intrigued.

Elia had jumped off her chair and tried to grab her phone. Versteeg held it back looking at the message more. She finally grabbed it from him and studied the text.

“Ugh, the fucking irony of this situation right now,” she muttered anxiously.
“What’s the 902 area code?” Versteeg asked. Byfuglien started googling on his phone.
“That’s Canadian!”

Versteeg and Byfuglien started grilling Elia trying to find out who it was. Elia insisted that they wouldn’t know who he was anyways so she wasn’t going to tell them. Just because the area code may or may not have been from Canada, didn’t mean that it was a hockey player. Lots of people come from Canada that don’t play hockey, Elia said. He was a guy she hooked up with over the summer, she hadn’t heard from him since.

“Why don’t you want us to know who it is, are you embarrassed?” Kris asked.
“Of course I am, look at how these are typed!” She yelled.
"Girl, how many pots do you have on the stove right now? Crosby, Burish, this guy," Byfuglien asked, astonished.

They stopped teasing her once they saw how red she was getting, but still wanted to know why he accused her of lying to him. Elia explained that sometimes when she was out and met guys she would tell them her name was Allie Felckowski. People often didn’t recognize her in real life where there was no professional makeup artist and professional hair stylist and photoshop expert making her look perfect. Especially when she had her glasses on, people just didn’t notice her. When Elia Downs gave her phone number to a guy, they always called or texted her, usually that same night. When Allie Felckowski gave her number to a guy, they rarely followed up. Kris didn’t understand why she wouldn’t want guys to call her.

“Don’t you ever want to know if someone likes you for you or if they just want to get with you because you play hockey and make a lot of money?” Elia asked him.
“Uh, no, because then they might wonder if I’m only with them because they are hot.”
“Oh jeez, you are hopeless.”
“I’ve finished,” Patrick interrupted. “You are going to live in a house, make two mil a year as a senator, have two kids, drive a Prius and marry Jonathan.”
“Even in MASH I can’t get with Drake,” Elia said, disappointed. She wanted a do-over as soon as they got to their seats.

The plane boarded a few minutes later, and she settled into her seat next to Patrick. She stared at her phone with the last text from ‘B-Marsh-Bootycall?’, wondering what to reply. Patrick leaned over and whispered to her.
“El, you had a boyfriend over the summer. So when exactly did you meet this random?”
“It was after I broke up with Jeremy. I wasn’t looking to meet someone, and I saw this guy one night when I was out, and it was just...Like, have you ever seen someone and just known you had to have them? I don’t even know why. We hooked up, and I haven’t heard from him until now.”
“Do you think you’re going to see him again?”
“I don’t know, he’s not really someone I could see myself dating or anything. But I really want him.”

Patrick knew Elia had a sort of crush on Adam, but the way she was around Adam and the way she was acting now just from a text was very different. There was a nervous excitement about her. He didn’t ask her who the guy was. He knew he wouldn’t get an answer right now. But he was going to find out eventually.

Notes