The Midnight Dance — Behind the Scenes: Chapters 12 - 14
Chapter 12
In this chapter, Elam receives the “I’m sorry I was such an asshole” gift from Charles. I chose Hamilton for the tickets because they would be the most impressive gift to get hold of, knowing what demand was like in 2018, and it’s also a musical that even people who don’t like musicals generally know about.
I must admit that I enjoyed writing Charles just digging a bigger hole for himself throughout this conversation. He’s inexperienced at romance and it shows.
“So apologize. I’m not saying I don’t agree with the card, or that I wouldn’t love to see Hamilton on Broadway, but neither of those things are an actual apology.”
We see this again and again with Elam. He’s not materialistic. The thought really is what counts and he’s not going to let Charles get away with throwing money at the problem.
In this conversation, Elam also says, “You know you’re extremely good looking, right? Like, if you’d gone into that club alone, you would have still left with someone, no problem? I’m not the one who’s the catch. And don’t think I’m flattering you, because I’m still angry with you so I don’t have any reason to. It’s just a fact. And if you’re only picking up con artists then that’s on you, because you could have anyone you liked.”
To which Charles responds, “I’m not”.
Elam isn’t sure which part he’s referring to here. He’s referring to the good looking part. He does’t think he’s good looking because he’s never received attention. He’s never received attention because he’s pushed everyone away and been a grumpy sod.
Also, I picture his college years were just him in his room studying and toying with the idea for Hedgemoney. He’s never really had friends and he’s never really been out to clubs or anything, so how was he supposed to meet people? Plus, his idea of beauty is Elam which is very different from what he sees in the mirror.
“Oh I think I’d prefer to see how your drama plays out.”
A sneaky little Hamilton reference from Cynthia here. It’s a play on a quote from Hamilton: “I look forward to seeing your strategy play out” (said by Burr to Washington).
Chapter 13
In this chapter, Charles and Elam go to see Hamilton. Fun fact: I was writing this scene at the time that Hamilton was released on Disney+, so I also got to watch it at pretty much the same time as they did. Fate.
This is where we first establish that Elam has no winter jacket. He’s numb to the cold because of his upbringing (in more ways than one). Is it realistic? Probably not. But art.
“I’m standing close enough that I can see he’s wearing makeup. It’s just a thin line of kohl around his eyes, but it triggers absolute chaos inside me.”
This is also the first time that we see Elam in makeup. I wanted to emphasize how Elam is effeminate but that Charles actually really likes that, despite his internalised homophobia. Makeup is also another way that Elam brings color to Charles’s world on both a literal and symbolic level.
Blois the client
I imagined Charles’s client as an extremely camp theater man who somehow Charles doesn’t clock as gay, even though he knows he’s a patron of the arts and notices how nicely dressed he is. When it comes to his sexuality, Charles is afraid of his own shadow (literally).
I originally wanted Blois to play a larger role in the story. He was going to be the guy who gave Elam his big break later on. But it would have just been to convoluted to bring him back into the plot for that. So, he’s waiting in the wings and maybe he’ll turn up again in future.
“So, you’re a dancer, Mister Ascher? Would I have seen you in anything?”
Elam looks alarmed at this, because he realizes that if he really was a rising talent then Blois would have definitely seen him in something… unless he was a foreign talent. So he very quickly reaches for the only foreign language he knows (from school) and tries French… not thinking this guy’s name is Blois. He says: I don’t understand.
Blois is, of course, delighted that he speaks French and is ready to have a whole conversation about ballet in French (Oh you’re French, that’s my language of preference!), but Elam’s high school French is totally not up to the task and he falls back on the tourist phrasebook and asks Charles where the bathrooms are and politely tells Blois it was great meeting him.
I made the french get increasingly complicated to make this encounter confusing for both character and reader. Blois’s parting remark is something along the lines of: That’s all right, talk to you soon, enjoy the show.
Charles’s come-to-Broadway moment
Elam is quite blunt and forceful with Charles after the encounter with Blois.
Part of the reason is that he’s embarrassed. He would have liked to meet and speak to Blois, but Charles’s lie made it impossible. He’s also hurt by it because he doesn’t want to be a dirty secret.
Elam and Charles are both quite immature in how they handle big emotions. I think that if I made Elam too sweet and kind (like Cinderella traditionally is), it would be difficult to get behind the relationship with Charles. They’re both a handful sometimes, equally, and that’s okay. They’ll learn together.
In this case, Elam’s forcefulness was needed because it’s only by pushing the point that we really learn about Charles’s internalised homophobia and how he doesn’t understand that his sexuality doesn’t have to define his whole personality. He’s not suddenly going to lose who he is if he admits who he’s attracted to.
This conversation was a tricky one to write and it took a few drafts.
In talking about Charles being able to hang on to his masculinity while still being gay, I wanted to be very careful about not implying that masc gay is in any way better, but I also wanted to acknowledge that this is an issue in the gay community. Charles isn’t the only one with internalized misogyny in this conversation. But we see here that while Elam may wish that he was more masc, Charles loves everything about how he is and wouldn’t have him any other way.
“You think there’s no place for you in this world if you let any tiny piece of that masculinity slip. But you’re wrong. You can’t be happy when you’re living a lie.”
This is the theme of Charles’s character arc. In order to be happy, he has to embrace who he is even though that will require sacrifice. Charles doesn’t sit stunned because Elam has been ranting at him, but because Elam delivered a lot of home truths and he feels truly seen. We’ll gradually see him letting his rigid ideas of gender fall away (starting with seeing Elam in makeup at the start of this chapter) and with it a greater acceptance of his own identity.
While Elam says here that ‘big boys don’t cry’ according to the patriarchy, in the very next chapter, we see Charles crying.
Chapter 14
Some fun facts about the Hamilton stuff:
The scene that has them both tearing up is, of course, It’s Quiet Uptown
When Elam enthusiastically points out details that Charles didn’t notice, this includes: That whenever a particular dancer interacted with someone, it meant that they were about to die and that Lafayette started off barely able to speak English and ended up performing the fastest rap number in Broadway history.
The things that they buy were things actually available from the merch stand. Here’s what they bought:
Duality
“What a strange creature Elam is. One minute, he’s mincing around tossing his hair and telling me exactly what he thinks of me, the next he’s this delicate uncertain thing with the big blue eyes and an anxious furrow in his brow. The other Elam was the one I was drawn to that night, with the rainbow explosion of a cocktail and the hypnotic hips. This was the Elam who stared up at me as I moved inside him, whose lips I couldn’t stop kissing. ”
The imagery of duality came up again and again in this book, which I found interesting at first and then leaned into. It’s the black and white swan that Elam mentions on the very first page, it’s the jokes about the twins (and even the real twins).
This is, at its heart, a book about identity. Both of these characters are struggling to marry their disparate identities into a true self that they’ve been denied previously. Charles is guilty of the exact same duality that he sees in Elam here.