DISPATCH: The Computer Room Launch Party at Story Parlor (Asheville)

Poems, stories, songs & Labubus to celebrate Emma Ensley's debut story collection

The last and only time I was at Story Parlor before was for Emma and Kate’s wedding in January. There were similarities between this evening and that beautiful blur of a winter night — we were celebrating a big life moment; Emma and Kate would read on the same stage where they read their vows and had their first dance; and the Sims were in the room with us. On wedding night, the Sims game was projected on the wall upstairs, and each attendee had a personalized Sim that was part of the scene. We talked while our Sims talked and danced while our Sims danced. I recall a moment where I went up to the second floor, taking a break from dancing to grab a piece of cake. I was the only person up there, and my Sim was the only Sim on the screen. I looked at her while she looked into the void, moving her arms like she was doing the wave all by herself. I moved my arms with her in unison, alone but not alone, and giggled before joining the party again downstairs.

Tonight, I spotted Kate right as I walked through the door, then Emma, who was wearing the silicone Sims baby I got her off of Etsy for secret santa last year on the belt loop of her pants, where she might usually clip her keys. “Wearing Rose like a Labubu,” she texted me at 5:13pm, 47 minutes before the doors to her sold out launch party opened. The iconic Sims hot tub adorned The Computer Room’s cover, baseball caps at the merch table upstairs, and temporary tattoos that were also for sale, one of which was now a part of Emma’s upper left arm. There were two plates of cupcakes that Kate made and decorated with the Sims green diamond icon, and a full round cake that they had gotten at Harris Teeter that day, also adorned in a larger green diamond with the words “CONGRATS EMMA!” etched in icing.

The room was a mixture of friends and new faces. I roamed around, said my hellos, and got myself a beer. I was not reading or performing but I was writing this dispatch and my armpits were sweaty and my chest felt hot and red. Everyone expressed feeling nervous when it was their turn on the stage, except for Emma. Kate Wheeler started by saying that they were really nervous, but promised Emma they would do this, making us in the crowd smile and laugh. We soon discovered we would not stop smiling and laughing as Kate read an entry from one of their old journals about never having had sex before. At the end, while crying and laughing — just as we were in the crowd — they said “I’m really proud of Emma!”

CB Wilson got up to the stage and described Kate’s journal entry as the “perfect poem.” The room felt soft, vulnerable. CB expressed feeling shy and awkward as the pink lights reflected off the white paper. “Everyone reading from paper,” I wrote in my notebook. Some people listened to the poems with their eyes closed, focused, maybe visualizing something, or maybe colors just danced behind their eyelids. LORG was up next and performed four songs, and in the midst of the set said to the crowd, “you guys wouldn’t care if it went wrong,” a declaration and a question. Someone in the audience answered, “we don’t care!!”

Emma read three stories from her debut collection: the opener “Thick Fish”, the title story “The Computer Room”, and the closing piece “Epilogue”. I got a shoutout before she read the title story, gesturing to the silicone baby Rose dangling from her hip — the same name she gives the Sims baby in the story. This story always makes me cry no matter how many times I hear it, and I prepare myself for the part that mentions my name. She reads, “The baby is named Mackenzie, which I think is just beautiful. I’ve never heard of anyone with such a pretty name.” I smile and blush, the outer corners of my eyes dampening. “I close out of tlc.com, returning to the homepage and type into the search bar, ‘baby names,’ using just my index fingers. I learn that the name Mackenzie means ‘son of Kenneth.’ Ew, who is Kenneth?” I laugh a big laugh and a couple tears form, preparing their descent. I don’t know who Kenneth is either.

Tonight was my first time reading or hearing the epilogue. I listen to the words and look at Emma, the ceiling, the wall, but images flash in my head — of my sister, my dead guinea pigs, turning eleven in the summertime. I see my sister holding a box of Dots, her favorite candy as a teen. I see her bedroom, the one I moved into when I was eight after she went to college, each wall painted a different color. I see my first digital camera, how recording my tween life in a small town helped give it meaning. Emma reaches and recites the last line in the book: “I thought about crying.” I cried, and I clapped, and I smiled real big to keep from crying way too much. I walked over to Kate and our friend Ryan, who were also crying, and placed my hand on Kate’s upper back, rubbing gently.

Bodies started getting up from their seats and the room became alive with movement again. I went upstairs to buy more merch and have Emma sign my book. I guess I never really prepared myself for this exact moment in any particular way, the moment one of your best friends signs your copy of their first published book, but as I watched her move the Sharpie over the title page, something in me clicked. Mmm, yes, I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. CB had free zines at the merch table that got a little messed up in the printer, a delight to me. I picked one up and got it signed, CB sealing it with a kiss that left a lipstick stain like the emoji.

I lingered until almost everyone had left, paid for my merch and chatted with Andrew Mack, the founder of Loblolly Press who published The Computer Room, reminiscing about another Loblolly reading we had met at before, when this very night was still far off into the future. Kate and Lorg were folding chairs on the first floor and stacking them one on top of the other. I asked if they needed help and they said I should go meet Emma at the bar. Kevin and I took the cake, remaining plate of cupcakes, and balloons and walked them through the wet evening to our car. As we passed by the taco place down the street a stranger shouted “BALLOONS!” and I shouted “BALLOOOONS!” back, but then it was quiet.

At the bar, Emma, Ryan, and Logan sat at the same long table arrangement where we celebrated Emma’s birthday last year, but this time there was a “reserved” tag holding the space for us. We marvelled at this. “Have you ever seen one of these here before?” Here we are at the same bar where we always go, and yet there’s something new, something special to commemorate this night. CB arrived and sat next to Emma at the end of the table so we formed a small circle. We talked about the title story, the one about Sim babies and baby names and the hot tub, and why it made us all feel so sad even though we laughed a lot, why we want to take care of the eight-year-old in the story. “She’s trying so hard to be nurturing but isn’t being nurtured herself”, Emma said. Ryan cradles baby Rose in her hands and says that she wants to take care of her. Kate and Lorg arrive, Lorg sitting next to Kate, and Kate sitting next to Emma across from me.

That night, several of us met our first real Labubu, clipped to Kate’s tiny backpack. We took turns holding it, growing an affinity for it. We discovered that its head can turn around 360 degrees, like I grew up thinking owls’ could do. Live Polka music from the front of the building played loudly, stopping and starting as the band switched songs and took breaks. CB left to go buy a rotisserie chicken. When all the remaining cupcakes had been eaten and it was time to cut the cake, I went up to the bar and asked if they had any utensils. They had one pair of chopsticks and a butter knife with candle wax stuck to it. I declined, went back to the table and we debated if either available utensil could be useful. Kate said, probably the butter knife with wax on it? But before we had to settle, there was a stray plastic fork found in a friend’s bag. Kate used the handle part of the fork to cut the cake and we lifted the chocolate pieces with our hands. Lorg and Kate didn’t realize until the end of the night that the Polka music was actually live and coming from the front of the bar, not playing on the speaker near where we sat.

When it came time to go, Kate made sure that Emma had grabbed the reserved sign, like how you’d save a concert or movie ticket as a memento of the night. Emma said she had only had cake for dinner, so Kate and Emma, Lorg, and Kevin and I drove separately up the road to get slices of pizza. Cheese and pepperoni all around. We stood right by the door and continued to recap the night. Kevin used a for-here water cup to get root beer, and Kate filled a to-go water cup with ice water. I leaned by the countertop that looked out on our three cars. I thought about nurturing and being nurtured. I thought about my friends and how happy I was to be getting pizza with them late on a Thursday night. I thought about being younger, going back in time, the little me in our family computer “room,” the little cut out just off the kitchen that housed the desktop and the landline. I thought about being young now, feeling young now, maybe younger than I’ve ever felt or tried to feel. I hadn’t looked at my phone in hours — didn’t even know what time it was.