“Ewww, best wishes?” I wince. “Burn. You struck out hard.” I can’t help my laugh at her witty, dry humor, especially in her email signature ‘sent via The Plate Bar.’ The web wasn’t nearly as accessible back then as it is now. Thirty years ago, the world was just on the precipice of the digital age. I recently did a story about advanced technology versus the gadgets of the eighties, nineties, and even the early 2000s. Most born past the millennium—including me—couldn’t identify what many of them were, let alone figure out how to use them. At this stage, I can’t imagine what little to no access life was like.
These thirty-year-old emails are proof of just how advanced we’ve become. That life existed without one-touch convenience.
Fascinated but hesitant, I briefly battle the churning in my gut, a sure sign that what I’m doing is wrong in more ways than one. Unease bubbling, I consider closing out the window and returning to the task my father charged me with.
I’m supposed to be searching the paper’s archives for excerpts from articles for Speak’s thirtieth anniversary edition printing this fall. Years ago, Dad hired a tech team to transfer everything Austin Speak to our current mainframe, including every article circulated. Apparently, the transfer also extracted everything from his dinosaur laptop—including ancient Austin Speak email chains. He didn’t oversee the project himself. His priority was the stories of today rather than yesteryear. I’m not sure he’s aware his email chains were included in the transfer, tucked away in a marked file in the archives. A file I stumbled into minutes ago and haven’t been able to click out of, while morally warring with myself to move on. But it’s the subject line of the following email that has me prying further—an email dating back to November, twenty-nine years ago.
Nate Butler
Subject: Trick? or Treat?
November 1, 2005, 10:00 a.m.
Miss Emerson,
Did I dream last night? Images keep flitting through my mind of a dark-haired, curvy temptress rolling around my office to “Xanadu” in white roller skates.
Nate Butler
Editor in Chief, Austin Speak
I pause, a dangerous inkling coursing through me while a bold line comes into clear view in my mind. Just as I acknowledge it, my curiosity blurs it, and I step over, unable to stop myself.
Stella Emerson
Subject: Trick? or Treat?
November 1, 2005, 10:01 a.m.
Sir,
I’m going to keep your psychotic break in confidence as I need this job and the platform it provides me as a budding journalist. I assure you that I have no idea (buffs roller skates) about what you’re referring to. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a deadline and a very anal editor to report to. I can’t afford to entertain your delusions any further.
Stella
Xanadu Enthusiast, Austin Speak
Nate Butler
Subject: Trick? or Treat?
November 1, 2005, 10:03 a.m.
In my office now, Right Girl, and lock the fucking door behind you.
Nate Butler
Editor in Chief, Austin Speak
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I exhale in a barely audible whisper as I briefly kick back in my seat.
They were involved.
Gaping at the revelation, I again glance up to see Dad still occupied in his chair.
My dad and Stella Emerson, now Stella Emerson Crowne, wife to one of the biggest rock legends in history, were involved romantically.
Shock vibrates through me as I scroll through endless emails between them. There are hundreds—if not thousands—of emails spanning over four years from my father to a woman who isn’t my mother. Years of emails from one of my heroes to another. Years of his life where he was clearly infatuated and crazy in love with Stella Emerson Crowne.
Not Addison Warner Hearst, my mother, his wife.
It’s no secret amongst us who work at Austin Speak that Stella was one of the foundational blocks who aided the paper in becoming a reputable and well-respected local news source. In fact, whenever Stella’s been mentioned, Dad’s been completely transparent about that aspect of her time here and her contributions. Thinking back, not once has he ever mentioned he was involved with her personally.
Not once.
I would have remembered that, considering I’ve idolized her career as one to aspire to, along with any other ambitious journalist. But back when they were involved, the social media revolution hadn’t yet begun, and there were no online pictures, nor was there a digital footprint of the progression of their relationship. At that time, there was a considerable amount of control on what surfaced on the web, on access itself. Dad never had a Facebook for anything other than the paper, and apps like Insta didn’t exist yet. The two of them weren’t newsworthy then…but Reid Crowne was.
Even so, Dad has purposefully kept their involvement under wraps, but why? Dad and I share everything. He’s been an open book to me my whole life. Granted, relationships are different, but he’s been pretty candid about those, or at least I thought so. Thinking back now, I can’t really remember him referencing a specific ex.
Feeling a little betrayed—knowing I really don’t have much of a right to be due to the personal nature—I decide not to torture myself and respect his privacy enough to scroll to the last few emails. If anything, I need to know how and why it ended and, more specifically, who ended it. I skip forward nearly five years to read the last few.
Stella Emerson
Subject: I’m Here
September 11, 2010, 6:02 p.m.
Nate,
I’m almost embarrassed to admit I’m scared, but I’ve never been able to hide the truth from you. Even if I didn’t admit it, you’d be able to read between these lines somehow. I’ve strayed halfway across the country from everything I’ve ever known and everyone who truly knows me.
But I guess the meaning of home is subjective now, isn’t it?
When the wheels touched down in Seattle, it sort of felt like walking into a warm embrace. Nothing was familiar, and yet being here feels like déjà vu. Like my life here, my chapters were already written, and the city was just waiting for me to begin to live them. Even the overgrown elm tree next to my apartment building is oddly recognizable. Or maybe I’m romanticizing myself in my new life here. I’m sure you’re thinking that right now as you read this, though I’m more the cosmic believer of the two of us. As crazy as it may seem to the rationalist you are, I can sense I’m starting the life I was meant to. Though I have to admit, certain parts of me are still trying to make peace with leaving.
During the flight, I drew upon memories that made Texas feel most like home. One of them was the day we spent at the farmer’s market beneath the sun, sharing food and smiles while switching papers. A day that remains one of my favorites. I already miss Texas, and I’m nervous about starting the job at Seattle Waves because I have a feeling that I’ll hate my new editor. My last one is irreplaceable. I miss him every single day. But I feel…safe here.
Love,
Stella
Nate Butler
RE: Subject: I’m Here
September 12, 2010, 8:04 a.m.
Go with your gut; know it’s a good one to trust because it brought you where you are. If you get overwhelmed, just remember how far you’ve come from that day you waltzed in here wearing a Pulp Fiction, Samuel Jackson “Tasty Burger” T-shirt and demanding that I take you seriously. I was just at the market yesterday and thought of that day too. It’s definitely a Stella thing.
What have I told you about starting sentences with the word but?
I can’t be sure, but I feel your old editor really doesn’t miss your bullshit, or your defense of Stellisms, you know, the words you bent and tried to pass for English that don’t exist in the dictionary. Nor does he miss schooling you on proper news etiquette. Or maybe he does. One thing is certain.
Texas misses you.
I fucking miss you.
Always,
Nate Butler
Editor in Chief, Austin Speak