Sex. Murder. Mystery(143)
“I kept thinking in my own mind there are so many classes they offer and you have to take however many to get the [right] number of credits. Logistically, you don't have a good record for making it. You'll lose your license if you don't get them now.”
Mary Kay gave in to reason and stayed with her schedule at the community college. She had another motive for it, anyway. She was going to mentor Vili Fualaau by taking some art classes with him. She had even arranged for a $200 grant for a “child at risk.” Besides, he needed a way to get there, and she would drive.
The summer of 1996 was unsettling for the neighborhood kids. Where at one time the Letourneau household was one that invited children with a Kool-Aid mom and all the things that went with that, it was decidedly different with Vili and his older brother Perry over there all the time. Vili, in fact, the Letourneau kids said, spent the night frequently. It was a holdover from the final part of the school year when student and teacher burned the midnight oil getting the sixth-grade yearbook ready for the copy center.
Ellen Douglas's ten-year-old daughter, Jennifer, came home upset one afternoon and told her mother that she didn't like Mary Claire's baby-sitter, Perry Fualaau. Mary Kay was letting the teenager drink beer and smoke in the house. Schoolteacher Ellen gave her head a shake. She knew the Fualaau boys were hanging around, but smoking and drinking? It just didn't sound like Mary Kay at all. The next time she had the opportunity to bring it up, she asked her friend about it.
“Well,” Mary Kay explained, shrugging it off, “it's so nice that he's doing me a favor that I don't want to say anything about it.”
Mary Kay and the Fish twins from the Kent condominium renewed their friendship and talked on the phone more than they had in the past year. Topics always ricocheted with Mary Kay—“What did you have for dinner?” would turn into what she had had for dinner three weeks ago and every day since. But one subject all enjoyed discussing was the world of art. Mary Kay was especially pleased that both Amber and Angie had enrolled in the Seattle Art Institute. Amber was majoring in music and promotion and Angie was aiming for a career in video/film editing. Mary Kay recalled the fantastic job the girls had done on their high school video yearbook. She had spotted their talent back then. And, she told them, she had a new protégé of sorts.
“Yeah,” she said, “I have this friend from school that I'd like to get into the Art Institute or Cornish.” She went on to explain how talented her friend was and how she was even taking art classes with him at Highline Community College and at Daniel Smith, a Seattle art store, to support his dreams. The future for the student/friend was unlimited.
Amber and Angie talked about it later. They were amazed by Mary Kay's dedication.
“I knew she didn't have enough time for her family and school, and here she was taking classes with this student,” Angie said. “What kind of teacher goes to classes with her student?”
Angie later remembered calling Mary Kay in July 1996 to arrange for a visit.
“We wanted to see them. It was almost an excitement when she would hear from us. 'Oh, hello! We want to see you!' It was a thrill for us because we loved the family. I would usually make Amber call; I hated calling because I didn't want to get stuck on the phone with her for an hour. She just wouldn't shut up. She'd talk about everything and anything.”
The girls took Steven, eleven, Mary Claire, nine, and Nicky, almost five, to the Burien Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. They left toddler Jackie with her mother at home. It was a good time, like the old times. Mary Claire chattered on about anything and everything and Steven was excited about Amber's new Ford Escort.
“He was just getting into music and he really liked the new stereo,” Amber recalled.
The following month, Mary Kay called and arranged for her two youngest children to be baby-sat by Amber and Angie at Carriage Row.
As the twins entertained the children they asked what their parents had been up to.
“Daddy doesn't like the brown boy who smokes,” Nicky said. “Mommy and Daddy fight about the brown boy.”
Amber and Angie didn't know what to make of the remark. They asked if the “brown boy” was their regular baby-sitter.
Nicky said no.
“Why are they fighting?”
The little boy said he didn't know, and the girls just dropped it.
Chapter 27
AND AS THE days went on during the summer of 1996, Mary Kay Letourneau and her now-thirteen-year-old protégé, Vili Fualaau, seemed inseparable. Vili's brother filled in as a baby-sitter when teacher and student took art classes, went to art supply stores, and visited galleries in Seattle. As a mother, Mary Kay had never been the type to hang out around the house and vacuum; she was always coordinating some activity. But that summer those activities always involved Vili.