The Moonstone Starlet

Chapter 4

Waiting in the plane for take off Kane got a text from Elia. “Take care of my interns! No really, I think I’m legally responsible for their safety ;P” He texted back “They will come back as men.” He looked over at Jonathan.
“You shouldn’t have dumped El in an ice bath,”
Jon was hoping they weren’t going to talk about it. He didn’t respond for a long time. He looked around, then turned to Kane.
“Watching Adam Burish put his hands on her makes my skin crawl.”
“That’s what that was about? Really? Why not fuckin dump Burish in the ice bath!”
“He seems a lot harder to pick up,” Kane half laughed.
“Seriously though man, she thinks you hate her.”

Jonathan nodded solemnly. Kane waited a second, but Jon was done talking. He either didn’t want to explain himself, or he was already focusing on the next game. Kane put his headphones on and leaned back in his chair to sleep.

Back in Chicago, Elia sat in her office. It was late afternoon and Elia had been editing all day, aside for a brief meeting about permits for her filming next summer. She had uploaded some more videos to the Blackhawks website, but wasn’t getting the response she had been looking for. Aside from official Blackhawks TV clips, which she kept strictly Blackhawks only, she was doing her own interviews and posting them on her personal website. She pressed play on the first one.

It opened with Elia standing outside the United Center.

“Good Morning Baseball, NHL Edition, I’m Elia Downs.” She was saying, in an overly enthusiastic voice.
“Have you ever wondered what happens at the United Center when the Bulls aren’t playing? Neither have I, but I decided to find out anyways!”

The camera cut to the inside of an office, where a man was sitting behind a desk. A title appeared over him at the bottom of the screen.
[Russell Lewis. Chief Historian, The Chicago History Museum].

“We have had a team in the National Hockey League since 1926,” He said. “They have played at the United Center since 1995. You called a meeting with me just to ask that?”

“Sometimes when you go looking for answers, all you get is more questions.” Elia said in a voiceover.

The next scene was a the outside of Lakeview High School. It cut to the inside of a gym locker, where Elia stood next to a middle aged man.

“I’m with Mr. Anderson, an expert in all sports.” Elia smiled into the camera.
“I’m a P.E. teacher.” He stated, as if confused.
“Mr. Anderson, have you ever heard of the National Hockey League?”
“Well yeah, of course.”
“And you knew they had a team here in Chicago?”
“Yes, Chicago is home to a team of every major sport, we’ve even had a major league soccer team since 1997,”
“Major league what?”

The camera was on Elia now as she drove through the city.
“I wondered when the world had gotten to be such a confusing place. I decided there was only one way to figure out this mystery. Go into the United Center. But it turns out, the hockey team wasn’t even there. They were hiding in a place called Johnnie’s Ice House. Or practicing. Probably hiding.”

Finally Elia was in Johnnie’s Ice House, standing next to Patrick Kane.
“I’m standing here with Patrick Kane, who has just admitted to me that he actually plays
in the National Hockey League.”

The video continued with introducing the basics of hockey. Elia was hoping that new fans could start at the beginning. She was actually having a lot of fun learning to play, and wondered what the games would be like once the season started. After the video uploaded to her website she clicked over to her facebook page to make sure it had posted there too. She didn’t usually mess around on the facebook page, but found herself looking at some of the new posts.

“SAM,” she called for her assistant. A young black haired girl popped into the doorway.
“Do you know where the ashtray is that used to be on my desk?”
“You told me not to let you smoke in here anymore.”
“What? When did I do that? Hey come here a second and look at this.”
Sam walked over to the desk. Elia had facebook up on one of her monitors.
“Did you put this picture of me up?” She pointed to a pic of her and Adam at a bar.
“No, Adam tagged you in it.”
“Does that mean we are friends?”
“Let me just clarify something right now. Are you trying to facebook stalk somebody?”
“...Noooooo…..Yessss….Okay let’s not,” she paused, then added “I have to break up with Jeremy.”
“For good this time?”
“Yes,”
“Is he still supposed to play Tom Buchanan…?”
“Yeah,” Elia sighed and put her head down in her hands. “You want to do some shots?”
“Fine, but I’m still not letting you smoke in here. We’ll do it in the bathroom.”

They did a couple shots of Dr. McGillicuddy’s and snuck into the bathroom with a bottle of wine and cigarettes.

“I’m going to call Jeremy right now.”
“You can’t hold a cigarette and a phone and wine. And you aren’t supposed to break up with people over the phone.”
“When I break up with him in person he just convinces me we should stay together! Here hold the wine,” She took a swig and handed it to Sam.

She dialed Jeremy’s number and waited.

“Fuck, what if I get his voicemail? Crap!” She looked at Sam in panic, “Hey Renner, it’s El, you know...I just don’t think that this is a good situation, to be in? Sooo...This is me saying it’s over between us. Uhhh…” She ran out of things to say and hung up, taking a quick inhale of her cigarette.

“You’re going to have really bad dating karma for the next 7 years.” Sam said, tapping her cigarette ash into the sink.
“That’s not a thing. And bad dating karma is probably what got me into this relationship. Do we have his contract for the film?”
“Yeah, but I’m sure he will try to get out of it now, especially if he sees you running around with this mullet guy Adam Burish.”
“I’m not hooking up with the mullet guy. Can we not call him the mullet guy?”
“I agree, you shouldn’t hook up with mullet guy, you should hook up with Patrick Sharp, he is...divine.”
“He’s practically married.”
“Then let’s hope he’s not faithful.”
“And that is why you are being quarantined from hockey players,”

The door swung open. The security guard had caught them again.

“Girl, I told you before you can’t be drinking and smoking in here. Why the hell don’t you get up in the club, this is a bathroom!”
“Sorry Glenda.”

Sufficiently shamed they walked down the hall back to the office. Once they finished the wine it was decided that work was over for the day. Sam went home, and Elia wasn’t sure what to do. Her friends in Chicago all had jobs with regular working hours. She sat at her computer a while, reviewing some Hawks footage. She stopped at the film from the Frog Bar that first night. Jonathan looked happy as he was singing “I find it very, very easy to be true, I find myself alone when each day is through, Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you,”. What had pissed him off so much, Elia wondered. She closed the file and packed up some notes and the external hard drive. It would be a good time to take a break in the suburbs for a few days.

The drive out to the suburbs was slow and monotonous in the darkening sky. Elia drank in the back of the limo and listened to the fresh rain fall down on the car. The sound of the windshield wipers swishing back and forth, back and forth, seemed to be getting louder and louder in her head. She raised the partition and laid down.

She woke to her driver telling her they were there. She sat up and rubbed her face, feeling a little drunk. Her driver had gotten out of the car and came around with an umbrella for her. As she got out he carried her bag for her. When they reached the barn door he asked if she needed anything else. She shook her head and opened the door. The rain sounded even louder inside the barn. The smell of hay and horses awakened her senses. It was surprisingly quiet for a Wednesday night. Elia had purchased a 50 acre farm about an hour outside the city. It had a large indoor arena, and outdoor arena, and a small training track. With 4 barns it could housed about fifty horses. In the beginning, she spent most of her time there, riding and hanging out with boarders, teaching lessons and training horses. The less she was able to ride the more she stayed in the city. It was easier that way. She walked down the aisle in the six stall foaling barn. In the last stall on the right was her coal black mare. Amaryllis. Elia opened the door and stepped inside. Ama came to greet her right away. She sat down in the corner of the stall and started writing in her journal.

Elia didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until the next morning when someone came by to throw some hay into the stall.

“Ay dios mio Elia!” a startled groom shouted when he opened the door up and saw her.
“Siento que me quedé dormido! Está lloviendo?”
“No, es muy bonito.”

Elia stood up and brushed off the pine shavings. She took the halter off the stall door and slipped it over Amaryllis’ head. Now that there was fresh hay and grain, Ama wasn’t as excited to leave, but she followed Elia out of the stall. The large barn doors had been slid open for the morning. After a few tries Elia managed to pull herself up and they walked out into the dawn. The ground was wet from the night’s rain and the October air felt crisp and cool. After Amaryllis was retired from racing, she was supposed to enter her next phase of life as a broodmare. For unknown reasons, she never conceived. They were both stunted.

Some of the leaves were starting to turn along the lane that led off the property and into the neighboring forest preserve. A group of weanlings in the pasture next to them raced along the fences towards them, exciting Amaryllis. She still wanted to race. Elia let her pull out into a short jog, Ama tossing her head and trying to get a larger looser rein. Even with just a halter on Elia wasn’t worried. Ama had only tossed her off once, and that was a long time ago. At the end of the fence line they turned into the forest. It was colder in the shade and Elia wished she had brought a jacket. Through the forest they would trek for about a mile, when they would come to an open field. From there they would find several different trails that wound through streams, trees and meadows.

The sun was high overhead when they finally came back to the barn. Elia was cold and hungry, having not eaten since the day before. She dreaded heading to her house. Empty and dark and full of memories long forgotten. She pulled her phone out of her pocket. There were 43 text messages waiting to be read. Ignoring them she called her driver. It would be better in the city.

Notes