She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [50]
After he passed out at night, Celeste threw off her bathrobe. Underneath she wore her clothes for the evening, either something to wear out with friends or to meet Jimmy. One day she talked with the girls’ friend, Amy, raving about the sex. Suddenly she looked worried. “Steve and I have a prenup,” she said. “If he divorces me, I won’t get any money. If he asks if I’m having an affair, will you lie for me?”
Amy didn’t hesitate. “No,” she said. “I don’t lie for anyone.”
Celeste became suddenly silent.
The possibility that Steve might ask didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. He’d begun acting suspicious about Celeste’s whereabouts, asking her where she was off to, dressed up to go out. “To get my hair done,” or “Just out with friends,” she’d say, pausing to peck him on the cheek on her way out the door.
Despite Amy’s insistence that she wouldn’t lie for her, Celeste continued to confide in all the teens, and didn’t appear worried that she’d lose control over them. Amy was there the day Celeste ordered Kristina to grind up sleeping pills and mix them into Steve’s food. For one of the few times in her life, Kristina refused. Celeste then insisted Amy do it. “I wouldn’t do it, either,” she says. “So Celeste did it. The whole time, she was cackling, like she thought it was really amusing.”
That same month, Celeste, the teens, and a group of her friends from Tramps—including Denise and Terry Meyer, Celeste’s manicurist—drove to Houston on an antiquing trip. When they arrived at the Doubletree Hotel across from the city’s Galleria shopping complex, Celeste plopped down her credit card and paid for the rooms. When the charge was rejected by the credit card company, she said, “Try this one,” and rattled off another number. That credit card was accepted. On the way to the room, she laughed and told the teens, “That’s Steve’s. It always works.”
At a large warehouse complex dedicated to antique dealers, the women shopped. Many collected antique pickle jars, and Celeste bought the most expensive one they found that day, made out of cranberry glass, for $950. That night, the twins went to the Galleria to eat at the food court, while Celeste, Denise, and the others had reservations at Café Annie, a rosewood-paneled restaurant that caters to Houstonians who make the society column. At dinner, Celeste rattled on about Jimmy.
“Are you having an affair with him?” Denise asked.
“No,” Celeste lied. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re divorced.”
At the bar, Celeste struck up a conversation with two well-heeled men in business suits. The men followed them to a disco, where the women drank and Celeste danced with both. Before long she told Denise they were taking her back to the hotel, but that night she didn’t return to the room the two women shared. In the morning, Celeste arrived at the room she’d booked for the twins and their friends. “It’s too embarrassing to show up in the same clothes I had on last night,” she said, laughing. “Tell Denise I slept here.”
She never asked if they’d go along with the ruse, and they did as they were told.
Still, the twins struggled with lying, especially to Steve. Months earlier Celeste had told them that he wanted to adopt them but he wanted them to ask him to do it, to be certain it was what they wanted. That day, Jennifer and Kristina walked outside and sat down next to him. “We’d like you to adopt us,” Jennifer said. “We love you.”
Tears filled his eyes. “I love you both, too,” he said.
Weeks later they officially became his daughters.
In February the twins celebrated their eighteenth birthday. That night the teens, Celeste, Steve, and Al and Nancy had dinner at the country club, then gathered at the Toro Canyon house to open presents. As Celeste handed them to the girls, she told Steve who’d sent them. More than once she lied, about gifts from Jimmy, saying they were from Dawn or another friend.
The following night she rented a private dining room at Dick