She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [32]
“Celeste wasn’t like the rest of our moms,” says one girl. “She was young and pretty and liked to have fun. I thought she was just the coolest mom.”
In the shadow of her mother, Kristina was Celeste’s opposite. As mercurial and outgoing as Celeste was, Kristina was soft-spoken and shy. Yet there was a connection between the mother and daughter that seemed almost unnatural. Steve’s secretary Lisa learned quickly that when Celeste was in turmoil, Kristina was the only one who could calm her. “Kris would talk to her, tell her that it would be all right,” says Lisa. “No matter how upset Celeste was, she’d calm down with Kris.”
After all he’d been through, Steve appeared both taken aback and overjoyed by the turmoil and excitement Celeste brought to his life. When he complained that he couldn’t keep toilet paper in the house, blaming Celeste for using it to T.P. the neighborhood, he’d ask, “Is this what teenagers do?” When Celeste said it was, he laughed heartily.
As always, Celeste was on overdrive, hustling through her days with enough energy to take her well into the night. With Steve, her youth brought a special charm. He was a man who saw old age staring him in the eye. Being a dad again also held its allure. He talked about Kristina with friends, discussing the differences between teenagers in the nineties and when his own daughter had entered her teen years, thirty years earlier. In the mornings, Steve drove her to school while Celeste slept in. “Steve loved Kris from the start,” says Anita. “We all did.”
On Mountain Terrace Drive their lives took on a routine. As long as the house was well cared for, Celeste was free to do as she pleased, while Kristina was at school and Steve at work. Sometimes, Steve even found himself taking over the household tasks, as on the morning Becky called and discovered her father at home. Celeste, the alleged housekeeper, was out, and he was waiting for a maid to arrive to do the actual cleaning.
Each evening at five Steve poured himself and Celeste their first cocktails of the night and started cooking dinner. While he drank martinis made with Wolfschmidt, an inexpensive vodka, and two olives, Celeste only drank top brands, usually Stoli. He wouldn’t buy it for himself, but he bought it for her. “Celeste kept up with him,” says Gene Bauman. “She matched him drink for drink.”
That summer, Steve purchased a lot in the Windermere Oaks subdivision in Spicewood, Texas, thirty-five miles west of Austin, in an unincorporated area of Burnet County, on the south shore of Lake Travis. The homes in the area started at $200,000, and his corner lot was covered with gnarled live oaks and across the street from homes that overlooked the lake. Down a winding road lay a row of covered boat slips and a pier. From dam to dam Lake Travis, a constricted stretch of the Colorado River, measured sixty-four miles, and on summers and weekends it buzzed with boats, skiers, and jet skis.
Once he had the lot, Steve hired a local home builder, Jim Madigan, to construct a one-story house. It was small, just three bedrooms and two baths, but well-appointed. Constructed of limestone, it had a solid look. Steve installed two heavy wood front doors bearing elaborate carvings of nymphs riding seahorses, and the flower beds were lined with white stone. “The idea was that it would someday be Celeste’s,” says Anita. “By then he cared about them and didn’t want Celeste and Kristina to ever be without a home.”
In August, Celeste