“But she wanted to make it her business. She wanted the money,” Nadine said later.
“It was money that she should have paid for Steve to go to college,” Mary insisted.
Nadine looked at her and snapped, “Look, Steven is married. What do you mean?”
“She should be paying for his college education.”
“She doesn't owe him anything. For your information, you've got it all wrong. Who paid for yours?”
“Grants, student loans,” Mary Kay said.
“Which Steven is still paying for! Loans after loans!”
“Well, I differ,” Mary Kay said.
Nadine had had it with her grandson's wife.
“You can differ all you want, little girl, but I really don't care,” she said.
By the spring of 1991, Mary Kay was twenty-nine and expecting her third baby. She loved being pregnant. She was not one of those complainers about morning sickness, feeling bloated or fat. In fact, she seemed to thrive on the pregnancies.
“She was cute pregnant,” Angie Fish recalled. “She had all these cool maternity outfits.”
Amber corrected her sister. Those weren't maternity clothes at all.
“All the clothes she wore could be worn as maternity clothes. A lot of the time she would wear Steve's T-shirt with pants. She wore her 'maternity clothes' even when she wasn't pregnant, like a red jumper. She could pull it off.”
Chapter 18
MANY OF THE neighbors at Carriage Row would agree that Mary Kay and Steve Letourneau and their children were nothing short of a beautiful family, all golden. Even so, no one could deny that the Letourneau children were allowed to run around the complex with little supervision. It wasn't that Mary Kay really lost track of her kids. As one neighbor put it, “They were in different directions.” Life at the Letourneaus' was tumultuous. It would become even more so in September of 1991 when Mary Kay and Steve prepared to welcome their third child. As always, there was never enough time to get everything done. Mary Kay even worked the morning she went into labor.
“Steve,” said Shorewood's principal at the time, when she reached him on the phone, “you better get in here and get Mary and get her to the hospital. If you don't, she's going to have the baby in the classroom.”
At ten pounds, Nicholas was Mary Kay's biggest baby.
Mary Kay told all her sitters that she had some rules. The kids didn't get any junk food. No one could chew mint gum in the house (“I hate the smell!”) No soda pop. For snacks, she preferred graham crackers, honey, and lots of cheese. In fact, the Letourneaus often made the trek to Costco to buy a mammoth brick of cheddar and a stack of tortillas for quesadillas—a family standby. Halloween candy was rationed for more than a month. And the kids seldom had McDonald's or other fast food, unless someone other than their parents took them.
There were plenty more “Letourneauisms,” according to the Fish twins. “Bum” was used for “butt” or “bottom.” Rules were posted on the fridge and children were marched over to the refrigerator for refresher courses in how to get along. Art was loved. Music was played. And fun always ruled.
Amber Fish defended Mary Kay later when people questioned her parenting skills.
“I still think she was an awesome mother, but as far as running the house it was really hectic.”
The family tried having pets a few times, but given the way the Letourneaus ran the house, they couldn't make a go of taking care of anything. It was hard enough to take care of themselves. A pair of rabbits lasted a few months, before going over to live at the Fish condo.
But more than anything, the biggest factor in their lives was their inability to make it anywhere on time. Mary Kay, friends used to joke, would be a day late to her own funeral. Like others who would come in and out of their lives, the twins learned Letourneau Time. No one bore the brunt of the tardiness more than the baby-sitters. They learned to add an hour or two to Steve and Mary Kay's estimated return time, but even that usually wasn't enough. And most annoying of all, there was never a call to say they were running late.
Amber blew it off and accepted the tardiness as “just the way they were,” but Angie let it get to her.
No one else's time seemed to matter.
“Mary Kay would come home after being two hours late and sit in her car for a half hour and go through mail and papers, and I'd be just sitting there waiting to go home. After the kids were sleeping… I was just sitting there. She would irritate me.”
The lateness was in the coming and going. Often, the twins would get an urgent call asking them to hurry over to help get the Letourneaus out the door for church or a party or a family gathering at Grandma Nadine's in Puyallup. The chronic tardiness was as puzzling as it was irritating. It wasn't that Mary Kay and Steve were running late because they'd overslept or had forgotten the time of the event. It seemed like pure disorganization. A gift was being wrapped in one corner by Mary Kay while she was doing her hair; at the same time, one of the little ones was instructed where to hunt for a missing shoe. Steve was helping iron a shirt while making a snack because one of the kids was hungry.