She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [71]
Although Timberlawn’s patients often remained only weeks in outpatient care, Celeste arranged to continue for months, rotating in and out of the hospital, with one crisis after another. With Steve paying the bills, there was no worry that insurance would be cut off. In her chart, a therapist noted that Celeste would be staying on for an unspecified period “to work on the hard issues.”
Just days after she left Dallas, Tracey returned to BookPeople. At the store, she bought Celeste a note card with a jumping dog. “You are so beautiful,” she wrote. “I think about your long, silky body and your incredible long legs and I just can’t stand it. And then I think of your incredible face and I want to get in my car and drive to Dallas …please take care of yourself, do your work, and get better. I love you, T.”
Despite Tracey’s fears, it would turn out that their separations were short.
In the leather family date book, Steve wrote “Celeste Home” on Saturdays. He didn’t know she actually left Dallas on Fridays. When Celeste flew into Austin, Tracey picked her up at the airport and brought her to her house for the night. The following morning, Kristina came for her, telling Steve she’d picked her up at the airport. One morning, when no one at Tracey’s answered, Kristina used a key she’d been given to watch over the cats while Tracey was at Timberlawn. She’d often asked her mother where she slept at Tracey’s—since only one bedroom had a bed—and Celeste always answered on the couch. But that day Kristina found the two women in bed and under the covers together; her mother, who always wore pink pajamas at home, had bare shoulders and her head on Tracey’s shoulder.
After a lifetime of looking the other way, Kristina found it a hard habit to break. “I tried not to think about it,” she says. Her mother had told her that Tracey was in love with her. “She’s a bull dyke,” Celeste said, laughing like it was the most hilarious of jokes.
Saturdays in Austin, Celeste ran between appointments, having her nails and hair done and shopping. Evenings, she had dinner and cocktails with Steve. After he passed out, she left, driving herself or having the teens drop her at Jimmy’s or Tracey’s.
On Sundays she flew back to Dallas for another week of sessions at Timberlawn.
In many ways Celeste’s life was increasingly complicated. Where in the past she’d only had Steve and Jimmy to juggle, Tracey was now added to the mix. To keep track, Celeste kept a purse-size date book far from Steve’s eyes. On the calendar pages, she scribbled her plans, the ones that didn’t include him. She also recorded appointments she made for Tracey: “Tracey haircut 4:00, Tracey dermatologist 1:15.”
At Tramps, Denise, Celeste’s hairdresser, put highlights in Tracey’s hair, and Terry Meyer, her manicurist, preened her nails. Tracey’s staff noticed the change. Their bohemian leader started showing up with manicured nails, carrying a purse, and in freshly pressed Ralph Lauren shirts. More than one noted that they were pink, not knowing that since childhood that had been Celeste’s signature color.
Her gay friends, too, started talking about the changes in Tracey when she and Celeste attended a beer garden fundraiser for Project Transitions, an AIDS hospice. Decked out in a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit with a flared skirt, Celeste had bought Tracey a matching cowboy shirt with pearl snaps, something Tracey would have ridiculed in the past. Throughout the evening, she fawned over Celeste, lighting her cigarettes and running to get her drinks. “It was like Tracey was putty and Celeste was rebuilding her,” says Pat Brooks. “She didn’t even look like Tracey anymore.”
As usual, Celeste entertained the table. Wielding an imaginary spatula in one hand and a glass of vodka in the other, she blew out her cheeks to look fat and mimicked Steve flipping burgers. The entire time, she tittered with delight at