She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [73]
Angry and hurt, he shouted at Celeste, challenging her to go back to Dallas. As he saw it, she didn’t intend to spend any time with him. Enraged, Celeste left and drove back a day early. The following morning he called her at the Sumner Suites, saying that if she wanted a divorce she could have one. He was through with the marriage. That day, she wrote him a letter, blaming him for the incident. Although she spiked his cocktails, she wrote, “I think your drinking is out of control.” Then she begged him: “Steve, I love you with all of my heart. If you truly want a divorce, then please tell me on Thursday when we meet with Dr. Gotway. I will have shown him a copy of this letter, so that he is apprised as to our current status. Please don’t have me served while I am in the hospital. Tell me face to face on Thursday. I think I at least deserve that much. Love, Celeste.”
It was a tactic that had worked well in the past. When Harald refused to marry her, she’d taken him to a counselor who had urged him to trust her. The following day, Steve called Gotway, maintaining he didn’t really want a divorce but that Celeste avoided him. Gotway suggested Steve calm down and think about his actions, that perhaps it wasn’t the time to make such a drastic decision.
In Austin, Celeste dominated Tracey’s thoughts. Whether at work or at home with her dog, Wren, she couldn’t get her out of her mind. Days after Steve talked with Gotway, Tracey mailed Celeste a card. On the front were two women and a dog. Inside she wrote: “I woke up missing you with a fever better reserved for the dying. I woke up missing you and nothing I could do would shake it. Feeling like that, I would lie down and die just to smell your skin…I love you. T.”
At BookPeople, Tracey combed the shelves and mailed Celeste books on sex, especially those that discussed putting past abuse behind to enjoy a healthy sex life. In a card, she expressed her discontent with the way Celeste pulled back before orgasm: “I want to be part of your healing as we, together, explore ways to make you comfortable being intimate with me. I love you, T.”
Steve, too, must have wondered about Celeste’s sexuality, but for different reasons. One afternoon, on a weekend when she was home, he came right out and asked her something that must have been percolating within him for months, perhaps because he’d heard her talk so much of Tracey.
“Celeste, are you a lesbian?” he asked.
“I can’t believe you asked me that,” she shrieked. Then she got in the car and left, driving back to Timberlawn, where she didn’t have to answer to him.
The following weekend, on Friday, May 21, Tracey flew into Atlanta and attended her niece’s rehearsal dinner. Celeste joined her the next day. In the wedding photos, Celeste looked prim and proper in a light blue suit with matching buttons. Her blond hair was swept up, bangs brushed her forehead, and tendrils hung down her cheeks. She wore a blue sapphire pendant, and her diamond ring glistened on her hand.
Weeks before, Celeste had taken Tracey to the St. Thomas shop at Austin’s posh Arboretum to choose the black suit she wore that day. An Armani, it cost $1,200, well above Tracey’s budget on her $55,000 salary. “It was an expense the old Tracey wouldn’t even have considered,” says Pat. “But with Celeste, there were no boundaries.”
The wedding went well, and at the reception Tracey felt her family was accepting Celeste as her new girlfriend. But that night, when they went to the hotel bar, they hooked up with a group from the wedding and before long Celeste became the life of the party. She bragged about her rich husband, telling the women that her blue suit cost $2,200, then matched the men drink for drink, until