She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [72]
On the weekends, however, when Celeste sat in Denise’s chair, it wasn’t Steve she ridiculed, but Tracey. “That dyke’s in love with me,” she told Denise, laughing. “I told her, I don’t eat at the Y.”
As summer descended on Austin, bringing with it blinding sunshine and intense heat, the twins and their friends wondered about Celeste’s new relationship. Christopher, Amy, Justin, and Jennifer had all seen the signs, the way the two women looked at each other, the way they touched. “It didn’t look platonic,” says Amy.
The two boys, in particular, worried. They both had sinking feelings watching Celeste that summer. She seemed to be running too hot, as if she were headed toward a fall. “Save your money and I’ll pay for things,” Christopher told Jennifer. “You never know with Celeste when you’ll need it.” After all she’d been through with her mother, Jennifer didn’t doubt that he was right. For months she’d worked part-time at Anita’s investment firm. From that point on she deposited every dollar she made in a secret bank account.
Of them all, it was Kristina who couldn’t bring herself to address Celeste’s relationship with Tracey. In a sense, she told herself, it just didn’t matter. From the beginning she’d liked Tracey more than Jimmy or many of the other men Celeste had paraded in and out of their lives. It seemed to her that Celeste’s other friends only cared for her because she showered them with expensive gifts. Tracey, on the other hand, didn’t appear to want anything material from Celeste. “She just seemed like a sad but a good person,” says Kristina.
So, one night when Celeste called from Timberlawn saying Tracey had a gun and was threatening suicide, Kristina didn’t hesitate to drive to Tracey’s house in the family Expedition to stop her. When she arrived, Tracey sat at the kitchen table with two pistols beside her.
“I’m depressed,” she told Kristina. “I’d really just like to end it and die.”
They talked until Tracey went outside to smoke a cigarette. Judging that was her opportunity, Kristina picked up the guns. When Tracey returned, Kristina said good-bye, and quickly left. Before driving home, she found a squad car with two officers along the side of a road. Keeping her hands on the steering wheel, she said, “I have two guns on the floor that I took away from a woman who was threatening suicide.”
They confiscated the guns, and Kristina went home to bed.
The first weekend in May was the girls’ senior prom. That evening, Celeste and Steve stood together on the driveway in front of the house to wave as the girls left with their dates. To the world, they looked like proud parents watching their daughters depart on one of the most memorable events of their young lives. But as soon as Steve passed out, Celeste left, this time to Jimmy’s. The next morning, when the girls picked her up, she bragged about the sex. “Jimmy had me up all night,” she said. When Steve asked where she’d been, she told him she’d spent the night with the twins at the lake house.
The weeks were so busy she had little time for Steve. The following Friday she and Tracey met Pat and Jane at the City Grill to celebrate Tracey’s birthday. Celeste brought a present, a beautiful stainless steel watch, and a card. The standard Hallmark variety, the greeting card bore a flowered heart and the words: “A Birthday Message for the One I Love.” The inside verse read: “For bringing love to my world …And happiness to my heart …For making every day seem like a special dream come true …I hope your birthday and the year to come is filled with everything wonderful. Happy Birthday.”
She signed it: “Love, Celeste.”
Celeste gave Pat, who was celebrating her own birthday, a hundred-dollar gift certificate to an upscale hardware store. That night, Celeste and Tracey were animated, talking about their plans to attend Tracey’s niece’s wedding in Atlanta.
“I told her she doesn’t have to come,” Tracey said. “These family things aren’t fun.”
“I want to be there,” Celeste insisted.
That she spent so little time with Steve must have gnawed at him.