If Loving You Is Wrong (51 page)

James Kent was bewildered and phoned Susan Howards to sort out the mess. According to the BBC producer, the Boston lawyer was in the dark, too.

“What wasn't made clear to Susan Howards was that Robert Huff would retain under his contract all media liaison between subjects and the media. All contractual deals, any money all went through Robert Huff. Susan Howards wasn't aware of that until it became clear that he did have those rights and again the BBC had a little problem,” James Kent said later.

It was the modern version of an age-old tabloid story. Lawyers and members of the media tripped over each other in pursuit of who would talk and who would broadcast or write about what was said. In this case, James Kent felt great sympathy for the subject of his film. She said she wanted to do the BBC film, but her hands were tied, though to what degree she was uncertain.

It was frustrating and a complete waste of time for many of those who had come to Seattle to tell the story and head back home. Home to New York, Santa Monica, or London. If someone had only made the terms clear, some like the BBC producer Kent would have backed off. But no one could. And sadly for the BBC—and ultimately Mary Kay Letourneau—James Kent was under the pressure of a deadline. With money already spent and no conclusive hope that Mary would face his camera, he had to move on and look for another way to tell the story.

“But of course within the contract there were also things, I assume, that were not to be made public, and even when she asked for the contract at least to be given to her new lawyer Susan Howards, this seemed to be so long in coming that we had to proceed on the basis in the end that we wouldn't get her.”

James Kent was very disappointed. He had come to Seattle with the promise and understanding that an interview with Mary would be forthcoming. He had wanted to be fair to the woman embroiled in the story her handlers were making more unseemly every day. He had wanted to look into her eyes and make an assessment based upon the hours he had spent on the case and the years he had spent interviewing people. He wanted to provide his audience with the complete, true picture of the American teacher who said she fell in love with her student.

The way he viewed it, Mary Letourneau had a media battle to win and he was just the producer to lead the charge. But as the days and weeks passed none of what he could do for her mattered. And in the end, he just couldn't fathom the way it had turned out and the role of those around her. He was the uninvited guest at everyone's dinner table.

“I couldn't believe the BBC having been treated like this. Having the doors been opened, invite us in, take our coat, sit us down at the table and say, 'You aren't expecting any food, are you?' “

At one point, James Kent recalled Susan Howards telling him in a phone conversation that he had “progressed this film prematurely—before having all the consents.”

He found the statement outrageous.

“Hold on,” he said he told the Boston attorney, “I have a go-ahead from her lawyer. I have a go-ahead from the subject of the film. I've spoken to the subject of the film repeatedly who told me an interview would happen, but to just be patient. I've got access to her good friends. At what point does one embark on a film?”

James Kent had a thought that he knew was as true as anything he learned about the Letourneau case:
She was let down by those around her
.

* * *

Within the group of “friends” who became enmeshed with Mary Kay Letourneau, cause célèbre, there was one whom the others would consider a traitor—Maxwell McNab. As Kate saw the situation, Max was a “starving writer” who ingratiated himself, won the confidence of Mary Kay and her supporters, and burned them with a tell-all article in
Mirabella
. Mary Kay felt that she and her friends had been used and betrayed. Max had said he was writing a screenplay.

“He got close to her and sold his soul for seven grand to
Mirabella
and wrote an article that he never acknowledged he would write,” Kate said later, still bitter.

But Maxwell went further, an irritation that outraged her friends and harmed the convicted teacher's “fund-raising” efforts. Kate heard from other media sources how Maxwell had continued to peddle his so-called inside information to other shows. A&E producer Jeff Tarkington called Kate in Chicago about McNab and his offer of material for money.

“Do I need him?” he asked.

“No,” Kate said firmly. “He's an outsider and he's trying to get back inside. He was on the inside and he twisted the knife. I'll give you all the information you need.”

Articles about Mary Kay Letourneau were translated into German, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Outside of America it was seen as a love story, pure and simple. The idea that Americans passed judgment on it had more to do with a gut reaction springing from antiquated, deep-in-the-culture, puritanical roots than whether it was really wrong.

It seemed to Mary Kay that the lack of understanding surrounding her story was driven by the media. Whenever information about her love for Vili came out, it brought knowing snickers.

She and Vili had a secret code, a way to say “I love you” without others knowing. It was through a look or things they did—anything at all—with their left hands.

“I know some think that sounds juvenile, but I don't care. It is quite pathetic that people take everything, dissect it, and pronounce its worth by calling it juvenile. It was a way for us to say we loved each other, and we'll use the same ways when I'm a hundred years old,” Mary Kay said later.

Chapter 78

THE SEATTLE FREELANCER for
Spin
magazine, Matthew Stadler, had been a friendly contact for many of the journalists stopping off in Seattle to court Mary Letourneau, and more critically it seemed, her lawyers. Among those he met with was James Kent, whom he found very straightforward and ethical, nearly an island in the sea of garbage that had accumulated around the story since it went worldwide with the second arrest and the disclosure of her second pregnancy.

James Kent later refused to say much about his Seattle meeting with book ghostwriter Bob Graham, other than to say the tabloid reporter was “very dismissive of the BBC and said, 'Go home, boy.' “

Matthew Stadler called it a setup arranged by Bob Huff. “It was dinner at the 'OK Corral.' He literally told James to get out of town, this was his. It was humiliating and horrible and he hated not only Graham, but Huff for setting the whole thing up.”

Bob Huff later admitted that it was important to send a message that the Letourneau story was not for the taking.

“I remember Bob Graham and I getting pissed off at the other guys. We wanted to protect our interests. There were all these people buzzing around our pile a crap and we wanted them out of here.”

After the kiss-off from Bob Graham, ostensibly the author of the French book about Mary Kay Letourneau, James Kent's resolve became even stronger. He'd press on with the story. He flew to Chicago to see Kate, the college friend, whose frequent collect calls from Mary had been one of the chief means of information concerning Mary's support of various projects that involved her.

According to James Kent, through Kate Stewart, Mary had indicated that she still supported the BBC film and wanted to remain involved.

“I don't think I've signed away my rights,” she told Kate, who passed along the information.

After that Chicago visit, things improved considerably. Mary called James Kent “fifteen or twenty” times.

Bob Graham and the Fixot project be damned
. It didn't seem to matter, not when the BBC had Mary Kay Letourneau calling the shots from prison herself—or so James Kent had believed. But just as others found out, with the Mary Kay Letourneau story, nothing lasts forever.

Bob Graham employed tabloid tactics to ensure that his story was protected. James Kent was appalled when he learned that the ghostwriter had told principals in the Letourneau story that
Inside Story
was tabloid trash akin to
Inside Edition
. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Inside Story
was a documentary series of which there was probably no American counterpart in terms of quality. It got back to him that Bob Graham had told sources that the BBC “did hatchet jobs” on people.

Another time, James Kent received a disturbing call from the author.

“I did receive a very threatening phone call from him, telling me that I had gone around telling interviewees that it was all right for them to talk to me, the BBC, because Laffont had no objections. I never told one interviewee that. He said if that continued, he'd sue me and the BBC.”

At the same time, Bob Graham made it clear that
he
—
not Mary
—was running the show.

Mary Letourneau kept James Kent and the BBC on a string for as long as she could. No one could confirm her motives, other than that she wanted to keep her options open; she wanted to control something in which she could not fully participate. But she pulled back, away from the one producer who seemed sympathetic and genuinely concerned about her.

“That was to me a broken promise,” he said.

Something else crossed James Kent's mind. He wondered if the love affair had run its course and that was the real reason for Mary Kay's silence, and indeed the silence of others close to the case. Maybe people were keeping mum because Vili Fualaau was no longer pining for his teacher, the mother of one baby, with another on the way.

If Vili Fualaau has already found someone else, it is a bit of a mockery, isn't it? It undermines Mary Kay's case that there was a deep and meaningful love relationship, James Kent thought.

The manner in which those closest to Mary Kay doled out their attentions made many feel they were doing reporters and producers a personal favor by even entertaining the possibility of an interview. The distrust and animosity from those who were speaking on Mary Kay's behalf was uncalled for and undoubtedly detrimental to her position.

“
You are so lucky! The BBC is so lucky! You are going to get the chance to speak to Mary Kay Letourneau.
”

“Mary Kay needs the media more than the media needs Mary Kay,” James Kent said later. “This is something her attorneys fail to recognize, apart from David. She's the one in jail. No one seems interested in getting her out.”

Chapter 79

A FUNNY THING had happened to Mary Kay Letourneau on the way to prison. She had become the center of a freak show,
Globe's
favorite cover girl, an editor's antidote for flagging sales, a producer's favorite incarcerated “Get.” Mary Kay Letourneau went from person to property.
Moneymaker
. All she had wanted to do was get her message out. Bipolar or not, she wanted the world to know that she loved a boy and he returned that love. No matter what people thought the story was, she said, it was about two families and it was about love. She was hopeful that the French book would change the way some viewed her.

Lawyers Bob Huff and David Gehrke had repeatedly insisted Paris-based Fixot was a publishing company without peer in the entire world and there'd be no selling Mary Kay's story short. Bob Graham, they also said, was the right writer for the job of taking her words and formatting them into a book. But when the ghostwriter left the women's prison after a pair of interviews in 1998, she had been left holding the bag.

“I remember when Bob Graham was leaving and I told him,” she told a friend later, “ 'we haven't touched on a big part of the story.' ” According to Mary Kay, he never returned.

Mary Kay recalled how her biographer said he didn't feel she “trusted” him enough. It was true that she did have an uncomfortable feeling about the writer, but the publisher chose him. She'd had no choice. There had been no interview to see if he was compatible or even if he was a writer worthy of her story from a literary point of view.

“I was reluctant,” she said. “I have to follow my heart on some things, and I have a good sense about people... and I didn't feel good about Bob Graham from the beginning.”

As the weeks passed, Mary Kay's pregnancy brought a fullness to the gaunt features seen when she was arrested in January. Mary Kay told friends she was grateful for the baby. The pregnancy was a diversion from her own troubles as she waited for the writer to return. She had ideas; things that she wanted to say.

The summer ran into the fall, and an upbeat Mary Kay told other prisoners that she would be getting out just after the baby came. She'd be given a pardon or a trial.
Something would free her
. She saw that something as the French memoir.

As the due date of her second baby with Vili grew closer, Mary Kay began to worry and maybe even
accept
that freedom wouldn't come as quickly as hoped. She was suspicious that her stubble-bearded lawyer Bob Huff was not forthcoming about the French book and its publication schedule. When the lawyer visited her a day or two before leaving Seattle for Paris in the fall of 1998, Mary Kay would later say he was evasive. He told her he was
thinking
about going to France to determine what was going on with the book. His remarks were so casual, so off-handed. What he didn't tell her was that the book was already finished, and he had a copy.