Chapter Eighteen Elise
“Hey! You’re calling me!” I squeal, surprised to see Randall’s name on my phone screen. “I thought your phone was locked in a vault. Aren’t you in the middle of a series?”
A shallow laugh trickles from the speaker, the kind that isn’t humorous at all.
“Phone abstinence didn’t work this time, so I figure fuck it.”
“What do you mean it didn’t work?”
I shut my laptop screen and close my strained eyes, realizing how nice it is to sit in the dark and hear a familiar voice.
I had been copyediting the marketing materials to be distributed to local media this week, leading up to the show. Since I’m not a dead white male playwright—Shakespeare has it so good—it appears my second job is to sell the damn tickets. My input and presence, in the form of interviews and post-show talks, is required to promote Blood Will Have Blood.
“Bombed the first two games and got benched by a third string goalie from the fucking minors. We’re about to get swept,” he declares as a matter of unfortunate fact, like reporting bad weather in Columbus.
I’m quiet for a while, absorbing the bitterness of his summary.
Randall’s voice is barely recognizable, defeat muffling the playfulness that comes naturally.
I’m worried about the grimness of his prediction, but I don’t turn away from it. It’s so unusual, his melancholy feels like a secret he’s revealing only to me.
“What do you mean you bombed the first two games?”
“Didn’t make the saves I should have made. If Jeremy was around…”
“The injured goalie.”
“Yeah. He wouldn’t have allowed three goals in two games.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he snaps. Then, more gently, “Sorry, Elise. Maybe it’s a bad idea to call when I’m like this. I…I just wanted to hear your voice.”
The admission tugs at my chest. Of course I’m here as a voice, a shoulder, a friend.
What can I really offer, after all? I know nothing about sports. Yet something is bothering me.
“You said about to get swept? Future. You haven’t lost the series.”
“We’re down three to zero in a best of seven. One more win for Miami—we’re playing in their arena again—and it’s done.”
“When is the game?”
“Tomorrow. Look, as talented as you are with pep talks, that’s not why I called. Distract me. Tell me about the play. How are rehearsals? Did you fix the lighting?”
I’m touched by the detailed questions. Randall is a great listener.
“At this point, rehearsals are in a cycle of repeat, repeat, repeat.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I guess.”
“Elise? What are you not telling me?”
How does he do that? How does he intuit the inner workings of my mind with barely a hint, with nothing more than the briefest hesitation?
Suddenly, I have no choice but to unleash the nagging mind fuck that has kept me up at night.
“There’s one scene that I want to revise. It’s when Joy—that’s my lead—sees the ghost of her mentor. It’s supposed to be a moment of fear and reckoning, but I want to infuse it with something different. Slow it down. Give it more context that I didn’t realize it needed when I wrote it.”
“What do you mean?” He asks eagerly.
I hear the ruffle of cloth from his end, as if he sat up on a bed. It’s late, after all. Nearly midnight, which is when we’ve usually found the time to connect.
Randall on a bed. Sprawled and eager. What a thought.
“Tell me. Get it off your chest.” His solicitous tone jars me from thoughts I shouldn’t have.
“I want to add a sequence that shows the beginning of their relationship as an older white woman taking a young Asian girl under her wing as they, um, as they face the brutal corporate world of Wall Street,” I blurt in a rush.
He makes sounds like uh-hm and go on. I continue.
“What makes this relationship so special is precisely that the dynamic between women in the workforce, especially in the eighties, was unique. They don’t have a boys’ club; they have each other. I want to step back from all the somber gloom that has been looming over the tragedy. There has to be a jarring shift in this scene. A completely new setting in tone and appearance. I want the moment to relive what was fresh and affectionate and playful about their original collaboration. I want it to be light in the middle of the dark. An alternative that was snuffed out by greed and competition and pressure. Something special co-created by women was always possible. For a while, these two women pushed against the dog-eat-dog world of the men. They had a collaboration that didn’t duplicate patriarchy’s brutal mindsets. I want to provide a glimpse of that authentic connection, fleeting but real.”
I’m running my mouth like there’s a rabbit I’m chasing and if I don’t pounce on it, the rabbit will disappear back under cover. My idea has been buried under my impulse to follow rules, to fit in, to please everyone. Adding something now is the opposite of that impulse.
“Randall?”
“Jesus, Elise. That fucking blew me away, baby.” His voice has lowered yet intensified, full of quiet intimacy. My body shivers with the pleasure of his praise.
“In a good way?”
“In a great way. I know you’re inspired by Shakespeare and all, but what I love most is the way it doesn’t just say fuck you to the boys’ club of eighties corporate America, it’s kind of a fuck you to Macbeth, too, isn’t it? Or am I getting that wrong?”
I’m bursting. Truly, my heart is going to explode because I’m thrilled by how much Randall gets it.
“Yes! Yes, that’s exactly it! An alternative to the tragedy, right in the middle of the tragedy.”
“Do it. It’s so fucking smart. Just do it.”
“Rewriting a scene is one thing. Adding a new one with a setting change and tone shift is flirting with disaster.”
“You’re a good flirt. Hasn’t led to disaster, as far as I can tell.”
I ignore the innuendo of our brief fling because, to be honest, I don’t mind it. I love how he can let me be serious and playful, thoughtful and casual, all at the same time.
“Haha, you say that to all the directors, I’m sure.”
“Absolutely, though I should point out that I only know one.”
“Anyway, I’ve been staying up at night polishing the scene but haven’t had the courage to propose it this late in the game. Nothing says amateur director like a last-minute scene addition.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is talented director. You already polished the scene, why not share it?”
“Because they’ll say no.”
“Make them say no,” he bursts with vigor, as if he’s looming over the artistic director, daring him to contradict me. “If they say no, that’s their loss. Don’t say no for them.”
My throat clogs with pent-up emotion. He’s right that I’ve been in a vicious cycle of working on the scene and then talking myself out of it.
Don’t say no for them.
“If I didn’t know about your day job, I’d swear you do this professionally: say all the right things.”
“No, but I might need a new job if my hockey gig doesn’t work out. Maybe consider my prospects in the motivational speaking circuit.”
His cynicism rattles me. As if something so many people admire and applaud is a mere “gig.” Being a goaltender for a professional team isn’t something you stumble into; even I know that. It’s a remarkable privilege he earned through superior skill and hard work.
It occurs to me that Randall might take his own advice.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“If I make this preposterous proposal that could risk my integrity and fuck up the play, will you do me a favor in return?”
“Not sure what I can do from here, but I’ll try.”
“Make those saves like you did when you made me wear your jersey. Play like you want everyone to know your name. Will you do that for me, Haughland?”
He makes a sound I can’t quite identify. Something between a choke and a chuckle. A long pause follows in which we both relish the words that passed between us. Things we wanted to say and wanted to hear, sentences that flowed like nourishing water, encouragement that makes anything seem possible.
“I’m not the only one who says the right things,” he mutters. “Thanks, Elise.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“The motivational speaking circuit is big enough for the two of us.”
“Not today, Satan. Not today, not tomorrow, not any time soon.”
“Does that mean you’re wearing my jersey tomorrow night, while I’m playing?”
“I’ll wear it all day and night. I’ll wear it when I make my pitch.”
I had brought it with me to Cleveland because it makes me smile every time I put it on.
“I’m going to need proof that you’re wearing it.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I trust you. I just like seeing you in it.”
“So, we’ve got a deal?”
“You pitch your scene the first chance you get, and I’ll leave everything on the ice tomorrow night. Yeah, Elise, we’ve got a deal.”