Steve's grandmother was a forthright woman who never let a chance go by to speak her mind. Her family loved her for it, though there were times when they probably wished Grandma would just shut up. One of those times took place in Alaska in Sharon Hume's kitchen when the family was enjoying a salmon dinner.
The “boys”—Steve, his childhood buddy Mike Mason, and his cousin, Mike Gardner—talked about heading up north to stay in Mason's father's cabin. It would be a couple of days of hanging out, just like they used to do before wives and children.
Everyone was up for it, but Steve was reluctant. He hemmed and hawed and just couldn't commit.
“Well,” he said, “I don't know. I'll have to check with Mary Kay—”
Nadine blew up. “God,” she said, “are you so damned pussy-whipped?”
Everyone laughed and Steve turned red. Later, his grandmother told him she was sorry.
“But I think you are. She's got the upper hand and she knows how to use it,” the old woman said.
Steve just shook his head.
Chapter 22
TURNING NORTH ON Thirty-fifth Avenue SW from Roxbury is a straight shot from White Center and the problems that come with that territory. With each block toward the central business district, “the Junction,” of West Seattle, come better homes, nicer yards, and that elusive pride of ownership. Thirty-fifth Avenue is lined with trees; rows of green-dipped paintbrushes in spring, yellow flames in fall. The houses are older, some approaching a century old. Little Northwest bungalows sit up high off the street in yards with lawns that drop perpendicular to the sidewalk. So steep are the yards that some homeowners hitch a rope to their mowers to drop them down and reel them up. No person could walk the edge.
The Hogden house was a pretty lemony shade of yellow that brought cheer in the winter and complemented the turning leaves that marched up the avenue in the fall. The home of Lee and Judy Hogden and their twelve-year-old daughter, Katie, sat like the others high up off the street. It was a house full of love with no shortage of pets.
The heart of their home was the kitchen, a wonderful room of clutter and computers. A kitchen island inset with a slab of marble dominated the center of the room; above the island was a canopy of pots and pans. A row of family photos mingled with eight-by-ten glossies of film and television stars—a gift from a movie director friend of Judy's. The prize of the gallery was the signed photo of Bette Davis; the River Phoenix image had never been taken from the envelope.
Someday, Judy, an accountant, would get around to it. But in September of 1995 she was focused on her daughter and her education, as she had been since kindergarten. She didn't know it then, but Katie's sixth-grade teacher, Mary Letourneau, would have a profound impact on her daughter—in ways she couldn't have imagined, or wanted.
Up a narrow staircase was Katie's bedroom, a small space made larger by the high ceilings of a vintage home. Hers was the room of a young girl with deep emotions. Framed photos of her friends, classmates, Mary Letourneau, and Vili Fualaau were pinned above the dresser. CDs filled a shelf. Candles topped a nightstand.
Classroom 39 was never neat. It held the clutter of a woman too busy to be bothered with housekeeping when there were projects to be created and lessons to be learned. An ancient map of Washington State flanked by green chalkboards and bulletin boards that never went unadorned hung in the front of the room. A sink and soap dispenser got plenty of use in that classroom. Tempera paint splattered the wall and sponges were stained the color of the rainbows. Beams were painted with the hues of the Seattle football team, the Seahawks. The gridiron theme was the legacy of a previous teacher from days when teachers were able to give rooms a personal touch.
The annex was isolated from the rest of the school and Mary Kay's room was on the western-most end of the building. Two fifty-year-old cedars blocked the view to the courtyard area and the classrooms across the way. The setting suited the teacher's style. She was a hands-on educator who believed that experiences count as much, if not more, than what can be found on the pages of a book. If that meant noise, that was just part of the deal.
In the 1995–96 school year, as in other years, Mary Kay had a table set up where a group of kids could sit and work together. The kids at the “Round Table” were an exclusive lot. They were the chosen. Mary Letourneau had a warm word for all of the children in the class, but Vili Fualaau, Katie Hogden, and one of Vili's cousins, Tony, were a little bit more special. As Katie saw it, Mary did her best to make the other kids “feel like they were close to her.” But there was a slight distance in those relationships. Those kids wanted to be close with their teacher, but she didn't allow it. Not in the same way that she did with Katie and the two boys. Katie didn't see the relationship between Mary Letourneau and the kids outside of the Round Table as “friendships.”