Was Reid a choice? Was the choice made easier for Stella because Reid is a rock star? As the thought occurs, some of my hero worship for Stella Emerson Crowne dims.
I should be thankful she did what she did. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t exist.
“Would you believe I’m oddly sentimental today?” I lie to my father a second time—a rarity—knowing that the anxiety etched on his face is because visible signs of emotion are an anomaly for me.
Though his expression calls bullshit, he heads toward my office door anyway, giving me the space I need to come to him, if and when I’m ready. That’s our relationship. He stops at the threshold and glances over his shoulder one last time. “Give it some more time, if you need it.”
He thinks I’m still mourning my breakup with Carson when, oddly, I’m mourning his.
“Heals all wounds, right?” I prod as subtly as I can manage.
The crease between his brows deepens. “Right.”
“But in your experience, does it really?”
He pauses briefly and grins. “The only truth about time is that it flies. Just yesterday, you were bitching about the way I was braiding your hair because you,” he lifts his fingers in air quotes, “‘want them to be as pretty as Macey Mc Callister’s.’”
“Was I that much of a brat?”
“You were and are the perfect child. That’s why you’re an only.” He taps the frame of the door. “I’m taking off. See you tomorrow.”
“Night, Daddy.”
Taking his leave, he walks over to his office, grabs his jacket from the back of his chair, and turns out the light. The second he disappears into the lobby, I divert my attention back to the screen housing the pinned folder that holds more details of my father’s personal past.
The battle begins as unanswered questions begin rotating in my head.
What the hell happened between my father and Stella Emerson Crowne?
My gut tells me that even if I did ask him outright, he still wouldn’t be the credible source in finding the whole of the story. If I want the whole truth, I’ll have to open the file and further invade his privacy or find another source.
Twenty minutes later, I stop the debate and reopen the archives, dangerously assuring myself before I do. “Just a few more.”
Anytime
Brian McKnight
Natalie
Tossing away my blanket in irritation, I click off the flatscreen as the credits roll on Drive, a screenplay Stella wrote over two decades ago about her start and evolution as a journalist. The movie also includes her husband, Reid’s coinciding journey as the drummer of the Dead Sergeants and the band’s history leading up to the height of their stardom.
While Stella and Reid’s love story played a large part in the movie, my father wasn’t mentioned, and the paper was thoroughly glossed over. Though one thing remains certain—Reid and Stella met around or close to the time Stella started working for Austin Speak.
In fact, it was Stella’s feature in Speak about the Dead Sergeants that drew a Sony executive’s attention, eventually getting them signed. Ironically, just before that twist of fate, Reid left Stella holding the bag of their budding relationship to move home and provide for his alcoholic parents. Thus, portraying him every bit the desperate, starving artist who was giving up on his dreams.
Even as Reid broke her heart, Stella made him promise not to give up. She even went so far as to have an expensive drum kit she won by chance delivered to where he fled to encourage him to keep believing. A few months after their breakup, the Sony exec attended a show, and the Sergeants, Reid included, were signed. Just after, Reid went on tour with the band, which led to years of separation between him and Stella. Years I conclude that she dated my father.
At the end of the movie, Stella and Reid reunite after the most incredible of coincidences in Seattle—half a country away from where their story began here, in Austin. Stella was house hunting—as she’d reported to Dad via email—when she stumbled upon Reid at an open house. Reid just so happened to be accompanying his lead guitar player, Rye Wheeler, who was interested in the now-famous A-frame Stella and Reid became cemented at.
Shortly after the mind-boggling, seemingly fated reunion, Stella and Reid got engaged, and Dad cut all ties with her.
The movie highly romanticizes Stella’s belief in fate and destiny and the part they played in Stella and Reid’s relationship throughout without a single hint of the fallout—my father and his broken heart.
On a mission for more, I grab my phone to start a Google search, and my heart skips a beat when I catch the time displayed in large numbers on my home screen.