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The Moonstone Starlet

Chapter 26

The handle of the hammer felt warm in her hand as she took it out of her back pocket. Balancing on the top of a small ladder, she crouched beneath the ceiling, holding on to a small chisel locked into a shallow hole drilled into the tile. It didn't take much tapping for tile to start breaking apart, falling down in pieces, shattering against the floor and echoing through the empty bathroom. The first tile had been tedious and difficult, but once out of the way the rest would come off easily. She slid the chisel back in her pocket, and took out a scraper. Lining it up against the top of the next tile, she gently hammered the top until the tile start pulling forward. Down, down, down she slid the scraper, tapping the top of the wood handle. Whole tiles were coming off together now, breaking hard against the floor. She carefully stepped down the ladder and walked to get her phone from her room. As she walked back to the bathroom she opened the Nuvo app on her phone to turn on the house sound system. It was time for Kelly Clarkson Girl Power Radio on Pandora. Kelly Clarkson. So empowering.

With the music playing the house seemed less lonely. Elia got back to work demoing the bathroom. She had removed the sinks, counters, and tub, with help of course, but thought taking down the existing tile and re-tiling was a project she could manage. Wrecking things was one of her specialties. Moving her way around the bathroom she took out the top line of tile and moved down to the next layer. Methodically she worked, getting into a rhythm, until occasionally a song would play that required intense singing. Hammers, conveniently, could also be used as microphones, “Oooooooh she's got both feet on the ground, and she's burning it down. Oooooohhhh she's got her head in the clouds, and she's not backing down. This girl is on fiiiiiiire,” Elia sang as loud as she could. Singing always sounds better in bathrooms. With the mirrors removed already there was no way to know how ridiculous she looked.

Dinner was stopping time. She opened the pantry. So many Kraft Mac n Cheeses to choose from. Tonight would be Spiderman shapes again. She took the bowl of macaroni back to her bedroom and set it down on her desk. In the evenings she would write, her eyes fixed on the computer screen for hours, letting the words pour out through her fingers. It was a script, a story about a girl and a hockey player. So far the girl had tried to make herself happy from the outside in. She found something she wanted and molded herself to fit in with it. All she needed to do was figure out what happened after that.

It took two days to remove the tile on the walls, and a third to remove the floor tile. A contractor came in to remove the large sliding door, and frame out a partial wall with a window and a smaller glass hinged door. White subway tile went up on the walls. It was a meticulous job, requiring careful attention to detail. The mortar had to be spread out evenly, the tiles pressed into the mixture individually, placers set between them. Cleaning off the tile if any mortar oozed out from between the cracks. Waiting was the worst part. Waiting for it to dry and set. Patience was something Elia had never learned.

To pass the time she liked taking Byfuglien out for a long walk. Wicker Park contained a plethora of interesting shops and places to visit, and often the dog was allowed to come inside. They walked down Milwaukee Avenue, stopping to gaze at the silent figures in the clothing store windows, Eskell, Free People, Brooklyn Industries. Sometimes, if it wasn't busy, they would stop in to iCream and make their own ice cream flavors. Elia's favorite was a toasted marshmallow chocolate shake, and Byfuglien enjoyed the banana ice cream. They would stop in a Myopic Books and chat with the store clerk. There was a cat that lived in the store, and no matter how hard Buff tried to find it, she never could. Elia liked to walk through the twisted shelves of books and hide scraps of paper with sketches or poems inside the books. Each time she went she bought one book. Many of the books on the shelves in her house were actually fake books that had been there when she moved in. Books to give the illusion of a library when staging a house to sell. One by one she was going to replace them with legitimate words and pages.

Before she could apply grout to the tile excess mortar had to be scraped out from between the tiles. This was by far the worst part of the whole thing. The actual application of the grout was something Elia enjoyed. Finally, the finished project was coming in to view. Now there were two Ukrainian men working in the bathroom, setting up the rain shower and the steam room. Putting in the prepoured concrete counter tops and the plumbing for the faucets. Two weeks from the day it was started, the bathroom was completed.

For two weeks the guys had barely heard from Elia at all. There were no new mentions of her in the newspaper, blogs, or on television. It had been a week since she had responded to any text messages or answered any calls. Her twitter account had been quiet, with only two new updates. A favorite for Biznasty's tweet: “Brad Marchand is the biggest idiot on the planet, RT if you agree @eldowns.” And shortly there after her own tweet “#betrayed, found out my best friend has been cheating on me w/ some guy named Joakim @88pkane #88sAndHeartbreak.” But both of those had been over a week ago. So it was a surprise when Elia popped in to the locker room one Sunday night after the Blackhawks game against the Flames.

For the first time ever she was being quiet, and it wasn't until Quenneville walked into the room that she was noticed. He looked over at her, “Elia, it's always such a nice surprise to see you. Surprising because I know your press pass expired last season.” She just laughed, “Oh, I don't need a press pass to get in here. You are so funny. Congratulations by the way, 600th win!” Elia hugged Quennville, who was trying to brush off the compliment. She was wearing jeans with a flannel shirt, scarf, beat up old winter boots and a huge smile. Elia walked through the locker room, stopping to chat with various guys as they were changing out of their uniforms. Jon was finishing up answering some questions to the press across the room. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Elia paused next to Dan Carcillo. He had sat out the game with an injury but still joined the team before and after the game. Elia was shaking her head now, looking at Dan musingly. He thought he saw her say, “That sounds fun.” They were exchanging phone numbers. The journalist repeated his question and Jon realized he had stopped talking. He quickly finished the interview and went to say hello to Elia, who was now sitting with Pat and pulling something out of an envelope.

They both looked up as Jon approached, and Elia jumped up to hug him hello. “The finished pictures from our Tom Ford campaign came in,” she said. “This one looks like I'm having sex with myself on your lap Kaner,” she said showing them the picture they had taken on the couch. “Uhh, yes. Yes it does...” was all Pat could say about it. “Wow...” was all Jon could think to say. It made him a little uncomfortable to look at them while he stood wearing nothing but an Under Armour shirt and compression shorts. That picture would be primarily used in fashion magazines, Vogue, GQ, Elle. The other, less provocative, photo would be on billboards and poster advertisements in L.A., New York, Chicago and other major cities. Except one place.

“They're going to put that picture with the sheer top on a billboard outside the TD Garden. It wasn't my idea but not going to lie I am kind of enjoying the thought of Marchand and his new girlfriend having to see that every time they go to a home game, in a very passive aggressive kind of way.”
Jonathan was still holding the picture when Dave Bolland walked over. He took the picture out of Jon's hands.
“Huh, I didn't think you had fake boobs,” he said analyzing the picture.
“Uh, that is an 8 of 10 on the inappropriate scale Bolly. And they are real, what are you talking about?” Elia said, bending the picture in his hand so she could look too.
“No, see, they don't go to the side.” They argued for a few minutes before Elia took the picture back and told Bolland to go back to his side of the locker room.
She put the pictures back in their envelope, shaking her head and laughing. Jon was surprised to see her in a good mood. “What's been up with you the past couple weeks, you haven't answered your phone or anything.” He asked. Her eyes widened like she had just remembered something, “I'm so sorry! I put my phone through the washing machine, and I wanted to give it a while to see if it chose to live. It didn't though, it accepted death. I got a new one today though!” She told Jon and Pat how she had been renovating her master bath.
“I spent a lot of time in the bathroom recently, and I realized that baths are not comforting or relaxing in any way. Now, I have a mother fucking sauna. It's like a Roman caldariumup in my bathroom. Oh, guess what else! I was talking to Stan during intermission, great game by the way guys, and he said I could come with to your game in Pittsburgh!”
From across the room Carcillo called to Elia, “Hey, are we going to go?” She called back “Yeah, just a minute,” and started to stand up. Jon stood up too. He wanted to ask what she was doing with Carcillo, but Elia spoke first. “Hey, can we meet up before we go to the airport tomorrow?” Pat was going for breakfast with Amanda before leaving, but Jon suggested they meet up at his condo. Elia agreed and said she'd call him in the morning. She started to walk out, waving goodbye over her shoulder before meeting up with Dan at the door.

The next morning Elia showed up unexpectedly bright and early to Jon's, possibly earlier than he had ever seen her awake. The building doorman was always supposed to call him if visitors arrived, and was especially not supposed to just let random people up, but there was Elia, knocking. He answered the door in a pair of boxer shorts. “Good morning sunshine, nice outfit,” Elia said, walking inside and setting a bag down beside the door. She put her hand on Jon's chest, “Do you wax this?” He took a step away from her, “Can you not touch me right now?” He started walking down the hallway to the kitchen, and Elia followed behind him. “I'm just wondering, cause you can grow facial hair now, but you still don't have chest hair,” she was saying. “Not going to talk about that with you!” Jon replied, turning in to his bedroom to get some clothes. Elia was setting up her laptop on the kitchen island when he came back in with jeans on and a t-shirt. She was sitting on a bar stool, wearing jeans with a grey t-shirt and a panama hat. When she saw him come in she motioned for him to come over.


Being the responsible guys that they were, the Pens didn't want to stay out late the night before a game, and Sidney dropped Elia back off at the hotel around 8:30 p.m. She went back to Kane and Toews' room for a while. Kane was updating his fantasy football team roster and watching ESPN. Jon was watching scouting videos on Fleury and the other Penguins. Elia sat down and watched over his shoulder for a while. He would pause the footage every so often and elaborate on things he was looking at. “Geno's been really dominating the past few games,” Elia commented. “Yeah, do you have any insider information?” He looked over at her smiling a little. She smiled back, “No, I can't really understand anything he says when we talk. Mostly I just smile, which is easy cause you can't not smile when you look at Evgeni Malkin.” Elia's phone rang. “What's up...Yeah, what room?...Cool.” She hung up and went to the door to put her shoes back on. “I'll be back later. I have to go see Carcillo about something,” she said, and then she was gone. It was only a couple of hours before she came back, but Pat and Jon had gone to sleep. Elia quietly tucked herself into bed next to Kane.

Because of his injury, Sid was sitting with the team front office staff in the one of the upper level suites. He invited Elia to join him, and she hadn't seen a reason not to. Especially since those usually came stocked with food. Sidney was full of interesting commentary and hockey facts. He made sure to point out the Blackhawks hadn't beat the Penguins in regulation in Pittsburgh since 1997. Midway through the first period John Scott started a fight with Deryk Engelland after Engelland hit Marcus Kruger in the head. Elia winced. The game got a little crazy after that, with guys hooking all over the place and a few tripping penalties here and there. The Penguins were up 3-0 after two periods, and Sidney was not letting Elia forget it. She found it conflicting. On one hand, she loved Marc Andre-Fleury. But on the other hand, she loved the Blackhawks. Finally in the beginning of the third Jon put a goal in. Elia jumped out of her seat and started yelling “TAZERRRRR!” until Sidney physically made her sit back down. Five minutes later Stalberg scored and she tried to stand up and yell “VIKTORRRYY” but Sid held her shoulders. The Hawks played a strong third but couldn't overcome the first two periods. The Penguins won.
Everyone was in a somber mood on the plane ride back to Chicago that night. Everyone except Elia. She was pumped up from the game still. She had also beat Sidney in a game of words with friends while they waited for the teams to finish changing. That was really hard to do. Elia sat with Jon again on the plane. They were watching an episode of 30 Rock on Jon's tablet, each taking one half of a headphone set.
“I had a lot of fun coming with to watch the game. Thanks for letting me come with,” Elia said in between episodes.
“To be honest, I have missed having you as the team tag-along.” He replied. Elia didn't like the idea that she was a tag-along, but she accepted the sentiment anyway.
“You know, I was actually not allowed to go to Bruins games?” She said quietly. He looked at her, surprised.
“I know, I should have realized then that it would never work with Marchand. When I look back on it all, I feel so stupid.”
He frowned, and took out his ear piece, “Don't say that.”
“It's true though. We didn't have like...anything in common. At all. Like, Brad's favorite movie is Pulp Fiction. I fucking hate Quentin Tarantino. Passionately.”
“You were in Inglourious Basterds.”
“Totally irrelevant.”
Jon disagreed but let her continue.
“I kind of feel like I was trying to be someone I wasn't. Remember how I told you Pat felt like he had a role to fill and he had to act a certain way? I think I wanted to be in a picture perfect relationship and I was trying to make myself fit into it. I think Brad was right. I think I was acting.”
He wanted to tell her that she was perfect. Even with all her strange idiosyncrasies. It came out a little differently.
“You're a paradox.”
She looked at him quizzically.
“Thanks, I guess.”
“You know, regardless of what you did, he shouldn't have done what he did. You know that right?”
She nodded. “He's not a villain though. Everyone keeps texting me that they are going to try and fight him next time they play the Bruins. I'm not a hockey player, I don't need an enforcer. Scott Hartnell texted me he was going to. Did you see what happened in the Bruins/Flyers game a few days ago?”
Jonathan shook his head.
“It was ridiculous. So many fights. Nobody got Brad to fight. He ended up with a hat trick instead. What kind of bullshit is that?” She laughed. “I really don't want anyone to try and fight him, I don't want anyone getting hurt or suspended over it.”
“I would still try to fight him if I got the chance.” Jon said. Elia looked at him. Despite Jon having a height advantage, she couldn't see that ending well for him.
“Please don't ever do that. When I saw you fight David Backes that one time I had to cover my eyes.”
Jonathan laughed, “Why?”
“I don't know, I just had a very strong emotional reaction...It's not funny stop laughing!”
They sat in silence for a moment, their arms sharing an arm rest, their minds thinking opposite things.
“Okay, can I tell you one thing? You can't tell anyone else about this. Pinky swear?”
Jon pinky swore.
“The Bruins are visiting the White House next month you know? Because they won the Cup. And, Obama, who happens to be an old friend of mine, texted me about it saying, 'I've been informed that Brad Marchand has been randomly selected for a full body cavity search. Standard security procedure. Let me know if you have any reason to believe his visa should be revoked.' Yeah, I don't fuck around with my revenge Jon. I'll just have him deported if I'm feeling especially pissed.”
Jon laughed. Then he wondered if she could really have that done. She said no more about Brad Marchand after that. They ended up falling asleep after a another 30 Rock episode, and once again Jon woke up to Elia leaning on his shoulder.

The next day the Blackhawks played the Canadiens. Instead of going to the game, Elia went to the Sharp's house to watch with Abby and the baby. She brought take out from the Wicker Park restaurant Big Star for them to eat for dinner. They sat in the living room with the food on the coffee table and turned on the game. Abby wanted to know what was going on out in the world. What was happening to people that had lives outside of feeding a baby every few hours? Elia wished she had something more interesting to tell her. She had been spending the past couple weeks mostly working on herself.
“I'm glad to see you are handling the break up so well. I can't believe Brad did that to you. And then to immediately turn around and start flaunting his new girlfriend? You're better off without him El,” Abby said.
“Yeah, I think it is for the best. Wait, what do you mean flaunting?” Elia asked.
Abby looked at her, thinking she maybe shouldn't have said that. Elia obviously didn't know. Well, she should know, Abby decided, sooner rather than later.
“Here, hold Maddie,” Abby said, putting the baby in Elia's arms. Elia stared down at the baby, uncomfortable. Babies this small seemed too delicate, Elia was always afraid of dropping them. Abby came back with a laptop. She showed her the Bruins' website. There was a slideshow of their holiday party, and there was Brad, skating around the ice with her replacement. Smiling, laughing. Not a care in the world. Abby was talking, but Elia wasn't listening. It had been easy to pretend she was over it when she didn't have to see him. But now there he was, looking as great as ever, over her and going on with his life. How was it so easy for him? What did she have that Elia didn't? Baby Madelyn started to cry. Elia moved the baby up against her, so her head was resting just above her chest. She looked down, “It's okay little glowworm.” The baby started to settle. Abby said she was probably getting tired, and took Madelyn back to put down to sleep.
By the time she was back the second period of the game was starting. The first period had been scoreless, but the second period started with Montreal scoring. “How can he not even care anymore?” Elia asked out of nowhere. Abby scooted over to her on the couch and gave her a hug.
“I'm sorry I showed that to you,” she said.
“No, I think it's better. Now I know we'll never get back together. Like that was ever a possibility anyway...” Elia said, trailing off. “I know we weren't right for each other. Even if that's what I wanted.”
“It's okay to not be okay you know.”
Andrew Brunette put a goal in, and less than a minute later so did Patrick Sharp. That was eight goals in the last ten games for Pat, Abby pointed out. The Canadiens wouldn't score again in the game, and in the third the Blackhawks added three more goals. Stalberg, Toews and Bickell. Abby had fallen asleep during the second intermission though, and didn't wake up until the game had ended. Elia understood, and let her sleep. New momma needed to get rest when she could.


There was a relatively long break until the Blackhawks next game, so Elia came up with a list of new activities to try with Toews. Jon wasn't sure if Elia wanted to hang out with him, or if had just become a replacement for Kaner, who had been spending all his free time with Amanda. He tried not to worry about it. Thursday morning they drove to Ignite Glass Studios, not far from the United Center in the Near West Side. The glass workshop was a large cinder block warehouse with cement floors. There were several large furnaces with thick, iron sliding windows.
Their instructor was a burly man with a beard and long hair, more suited to a metal band than a glass making class. He started out going over safety and demonstrated how they were going to make their first object, a simple bubble. Half of the class would go first, and then they would switch. Elia volunteered Jon to be in the first group. The first furnace was full of molten glass. To start they took a long iron pole and stuck it into the furnace to collect some glass. Then, they would roll it in some color material, and put it into the next furnace. To shape the glass they rolled the hot ball on a cool steel marver, and then rested the pole on a stand to literally blow air through. Jon scowled as he pulled the glass out of the furnace, slowly walking over to the marver. Every movement he made was slow and meticulous. Blowing out the glass went even slower. He kept stopping to try and get a better view of his progress, but the glass started to cool and he ended up with a lumpy bubble. The instructor stood with him for a while, showing him where he went wrong. Jon listened, standing with his eyebrows arched up and his mouth slightly open. Elia took a picture of him, laughing. “You really are adorable when you don't know what you're doing.” He pretended not to hear her, but his lips slightly curled as if trying not to smile. Over the course of several hours they made half a dozen glass balls, and Jon managed to make a lopsided vase.
“That was actually fun,” Jon said as they drove back to his place.
“You seemed to get pretty into it at the end. You are the only one in our class that tried to make something besides a ball.”
“Yeah, I would be interested in trying the level 1 class but it's 6 weeks long.”
“In a shocking move, Jonathan Toews quits hockey to pursue a career as a glass blower,” Elia said, mimicking a news reporter.
He looked over at her, smiling. “I just have to follow my dreams. My dreams of making glass balls better than anyone else.”

They watched Rock n Rolla when they got back to Jon's. He already had plans that evening, going out to dinner with a girl named Lindsay. Elia told him to make sure he mentioned to her how good he was at glass blowing. That would really impress her. On Saturday Elia had signed them up for another class, this time an introduction to woodworking. Although the woodworking class wasn't as fun, they agreed that it was probably more useful than glass blowing. One day they might be able to make furniture, or a shelf to hold all the glass balls they were going to make.

New Year's Eve took the group of friends out to the suburbs. Joakim Noah was having a party at his house and had invited Patrick Kane, who had invited the entire team, of which Jonathan Toews, Dan Carcillo and Corey Crawford were up for going. Amanda, Elia and Sylvie completed the group. Elia's driver took them out in a limo, and drinks were passed around on the way there. Noah lived in a large but understated home. He didn't collect cars, he didn't have over the top appliances or gold encrusted chandeliers. Modesty was normally a virtue which Elia valued, however, she was still reluctant to have to share Patrick Kane with him. Jonathan watched amusedly all night as Elia tried unsuccessfully to avoid getting along with Noah. At one point he found Elia sitting on a stool in the kitchen eating a sandwich.
She passed half of it to him, “Joakim heard me say I was hungry and made me a fucking sandwich, can you believe that guy?”
“So you're friends now?”
“Yeah, but I'm not going to be happy about it.”
Later on he saw her playing pool with Noah against Carcillo and Kane and looked perfectly happy about it. Jonathan took a walk outside just before midnight. Chicago was having a mild winter. In fact, meteorologist Tom Skilling was predicting it would end up as one of the warmest winters on record. It was a nice night to be outside, cold enough to warrant a jacket but not uncomfortable. A large hammock hung between the trees at the back of Joakim's yard. He lay down, looking up at the dark night sky and his breath dissipating in the cold air. “You're going to miss the countdown,” Elia called to him, standing in the yard with someone else's coat on. “That's okay,” he called back to her. She walked over and carefully got into the hammock with him. “This is our third New Year's as friends.” Elia declared as she passed him a bottle of champagne she had brought out with her. He asked her what she had done for New Year's last year. Elia thought back to the year before. It seemed like such a long time ago. She was with Brad at a party in New York, in a hotel overlooking Times Square. “Something super lame and bougie. What did you do?” “Same.” He took a drink and passed the champagne back to her. Elia took a swig and set the bottle down at her side and pulling her hands inside the coat sleeves.
“We should just always do New Year's together,” she said.
“Sounds good.” Jon replied.

They stayed outside until midnight, watching the seconds tick down on Jonathan's watch, telling each other their hopes and goals for the year. Jon slid his hand down between them and took Elia's hand in his. The clock hit midnight. "El," Jon started to say, turning to look at Elia. He paused, hearing a strange whirring sound, Elia heard it too and looked around. Suddenly a cascade of light exploded in the sky with a boom. Sparks fell to the ground all around them. Another whirring, a boom. They were lighting off fireworks from the deck. Jon an Elia flipped off the hammock and ran to the deck. Elia was screaming at them about safety and laughing. Across the deck Amanda and Pat were starting to make out as Noah and some of his friends lit more fireworks off the railing. Carcillo and Elia were lighting sparklers now. They stepped back from everyone as the sticks ignited, and wrote things in the air with the glittering light. Dan started playing sparkler air guitar until Elia challenged him to a sparkler sword fight. His sparkler stopped in the middle and Elia declared victory. She stood in the lawn with her sparkler pointed in the air as fireworks continued to explode over head. Dan grabbed her hand from behind and Elia screamed. “You're going to burn us!” She was yelling, as they wrestled. Jonathan turned away from the deck and walked back into the house.

Notes

Comments

Well. There goes my reason for coming to the site. Brava on being done! Hope you find inspiration to write another story.

DELETED DELETED
4/27/15

omg its done.... what am i gonna read now :( So good girl!

hockeygirl07 hockeygirl07
4/26/15

What an amazing story. I can't believe it is over.

runawaycherry93 runawaycherry93
4/26/15

aweeeeeeeee

hockeygirl07 hockeygirl07
4/26/15

That was beautiful!!! Made me teary. Is this the end?

KWeber8771 KWeber8771
4/26/15