Wasted (16 page)

On May 20, 1995, Anita Morales was tired. She’d had to search around for luggage to use for the trip to Cancun. Regina had told her to go by her apartment and borrow her luggage. Morales didn’t want to do that. Justin Thomas was there dropping off some of his things, and the last thing Anita wanted was to be alone with one of the two people whom she believed was destroying her best friend’s life—Justin, the man she thought was a dealer and hit man.

Anita took a plane to beautiful, sunny Cancun, Mexico, a resort made for happy times and partying. Great discos, great food, great drinks—she should have been thrilled. She wasn’t. At that time, Cancun was the last place in the world Anita Morales wanted to be. She was about to walk out of the concourse, into the sun, and see Regina . . . and Kim, the other person whom she believed was destroying her best friend’s life.

Anita had gone because Regina had always been there for her when she had needed her, and Anita had always been there for Regina when she had needed Anita. Anita could tell Regina really needed her right then. Carla Reid had figured it out, too, and pointed it out to Anita.

“Go to Cancun. Regina really needs you. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have begged you to go.”

Anita Morales didn’t know she was a last-minute replacement for Kim’s roommate Tim Gray. She did know her ticket was nonrefundable. Hartwell had told her that much of the truth.

“You have to go, Anita. The ticket’s already paid for. Are you going to make me flush $500 down the toilet? Because that’s what I’ll be doing. It’s nonrefundable.”

Regina smiled big and handed Anita a drink. Morales tried not to reveal her shock. Regina was emaciated, as though she’d been living in a concentration camp. She was probably losing a pound a day.

They rode to the plush Omni Hotel and went up to Hartwell’s room where she opened the mini-bar and handed Anita a tiny bottle of Bacardi, Anita’s favorite liquor.

“Drink it,” said Regina.

Morales did.

Regina handed her another bottle of Bacardi. “Drink it.

Morales did.

“Do you have a buzz, yet?”

“Yeah, sorta. Regina, whatever you gotta tell me, I can take it without me having a drink.”

“No, I don’t think you can,” said Hartwell.

“No, I can,” Anita Morales insisted.

Regina handed Morales a third bottle with a third order to drink. “Drink it down.”

She did. “What’s wrong?” Anita’s dark brown eyes demanded an answer.

“Well,” said Hartwell, her head down, “I’ve been going to the doctor lately.” She shoved her hands into her pockets. “And I came out HIV-positive. I won’t be around much longer. You’ve gotta swear to me that you won’t say anything.”

“Regina,” Anita begged.

“Swear. You’ve gotta swear.”

Anita Morales didn’t know what to say ... how to act ... whether or not to believe her friend. She didn’t want to believe Regina was lying, but there were old rumors that Regina liked to pick up guys and have one-night stands. There were even recent rumors of sex with guys. But ...

 

 

Regina Hartwell had lied to Jeremy Barnes. While she was in Cancun, he spotted the bag with the guns on the top shelf of her closet.

He went to Justin Thomas and fell once again into a protective parent mode. “Justin, I want these guns out of her house now. I don’t care what you have to do with them. Just get them out.”

Barnes didn’t leave any room for argument. But Thomas didn’t try to take any room; he didn’t balk at Regina’s homosexual friend. He didn’t say one unkind word to Jeremy. In fact, Justin was so kind and polite that Jeremy thought Justin Thomas, Kim LeBlanc’s homophobic boyfriend, was coming on to him.

“Regina told me that you’re her friend,” said Thomas, “and that if I’m rude to you or anything she’s gonna kick my ass when she comes back.”

Barnes laughed. That sweet, soft slur of Justin’s could charm.

 

 

At seven p.m., when Justin Thomas knocked on Jeremy Barnes’s door, Jeremy wasn’t laughing.

“I have to to get rid of these guns and get them out of the house,” said Thomas, nicely. “So can I borrow Regina’s Jeep to take them over to a friend’s house? I’ll be back in an hour.”

“No,” said Barnes.

“C’mon. Just for an hour.”

“No.”

“That’s all I need it for. Just for an hour.”

“No,” said Barnes, again.

“I just need it long enough to go get rid of the guns. You want them out of her house.”

Barnes said no to Thomas five times before finally giving in. “Okay, if you take the guns and get rid of them and come right back.”

Eight o’clock came, and there was no Justin. Barnes was ticked. Nine o’clock. Jeremy was dying with nervousness. Ten o’clock came, and there was a knock on his door. Justin Thomas ... with a friend. As a rule, Barnes thought Thomas generally looked a bit worn from drugs, but he certainly didn’t look like anyone to fear. His friend, however, was another matter. To Jeremy, the son of a military mom, Justin’s friend was thuggish, white trash, scum of the earth.

“The alarm’s going off on Regina’s Jeep,” said Thomas, again politely. “I can’t get it to stop, and with the alarm on, the Jeep won’t start.”

Barnes knew how to turn it off.

“Come go with us, and you can just drive the Jeep back.”

Jeremy reluctantly got into a pickup truck with Thomas and his thuggish friend.
God, just get me through this,
he prayed. The friend drove like a bat out of hell.
God, please, just hold my hand and get me through this,
Jeremy prayed more fervently.

They pulled up to an apartment complex. Barnes got out, turned off the alarm, and noticed that the face plate for Hartwell’s compact disc player was missing. He searched around until he found it hidden underneath the tire of a nearby car.

“One of your friends was planning on stealing Reg’s stereo,” said Barnes to Thomas. “I’m taking the Jeep. I don’t care how you get home, but if you don’t come with me right now, then I’m out of here.”

Justin and his friend both rode back with Jeremy.

Barnes pulled into the Château parking lot, turned off the Jeep, turned on the alarm, went to his apartment, and stayed up all night watching Regina’s beloved car. He was terrified they were going to try to take it.

 

 

Anita Morales felt as though she were living in the middle of a horror movie about an American tourist on a nightmarish foreign vacation, and she didn’t know why she was in it.

Days were miserable. Nights were rotten. Kim LeBlanc cried constantly. Regina Hartwell cried continually. They all fought constantly. And all anyone wanted was for everyone to be happy and have a good time because Regina was dying and they wanted their friend to go out happy.

“You’re not having fun. You’re not having fun,” said Regina to Kim.

“Regina, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say,” Kim answered, frustrated.

Angry, Regina turned to Anita. “What do you want to do? What do you want to do?”

“Regina, what do you want to do? We’re going to do whatever you want to do. We’re here. You wanted us here. So anything you want to do, let’s go do it. Let’s go on the Seadoos. Let’s go windsurfing. Let’s go snorkeling. Let’s do whatever. Let’s go do whatever you want to do.”

“Well, you’re not having fun.”

With that, Morales pulled Hartwell off to the side and yelled, “You’re too busy taking care of other people to take care of yourself, and worrying about whether the other person is happy or having fun. You’re not worried about yourself. You’re not taking care of yourself. You never take care of yourself. You care more about other people than yourself. It’s time you start taking care of yourself. We want you happy just as much as you want other people happy.”

It was the biggest argument of their six-year friendship. It was also the only time that Anita was on Kim’s side because Kim was saying the same thing to Regina as Anita was.

“Regina, we want you to be happy. We want you to do what you want to do.”

Apparently what Regina Hartwell wanted to do was drugs. Hartwell and LeBlanc never did drugs in front of Morales on that trip, but she knew what was going on. Regina barely ate. In fact, all the morsels of food Regina swallowed in three days totaled perhaps one meal.

When the three petite, young, women frequented Cancun’s marketplace, Hartwell disappeared down back alleys for an hour at a time, with people she didn’t know, to buy drugs for another cocaine spree.

“Don’t you ever do that. You’re being stupid,” said Anita Morales.

But that didn’t stop Hartwell. At night, in the discos, she took off again with strangers to buy drugs.

And she bitched at LeBlanc. “Kim, you’re not dancing. You’re not having fun. Go dance.”

Kim got up and danced.

“You’re only dancing because I want you to dance,” Regina groaned.

“Regina,” Kim answered, “what do you want me to do?” There was just no winning with Regina. “How do you want me to be?”

Morales noticed that there was no winning. She also noticed how Hartwell expected certain things from LeBlanc, how Hartwell was too sensitive and took things too personally. And she noticed how hard LeBlanc tried to please Hartwell on that trip.

Regina looked down at Kim’s hands. “Where’s my mother’s ring?”

“It’s at home,” said Kim.

“Why don’t you have it on?”

“It really doesn’t fit me.”

“I told you to get it fixed.”

“It’s your mom’s ring, Regina, I’m not gonna go get that fixed.”

“I told you I wanted you to have it. It’s yours. So you need to go get it fixed.”

That started another argument, and Anita Morales left the room. The argument lasted throughout the long Cancun night.

 

 

“Anita,” said Kim, as she cried, again, “I’ve got to get out, and I don’t know how.” The two sat alone.

“If you don’t do it now,” Anita answered, “which I think would be the best thing, not only for you, but also for Regina, and I really want to see Regina happy again, then I think you should do it, because Regina will never do it.”

It was the first time Kim and Anita ever had a real conversation. It temporarily changed Morales’s opinion of Kim LeBlanc a little bit.

When Anita finally walked toward that hotel door to escape to a plane that was headed for South Texas and the sanctity of her parents, she left wondering, believing that Kim actually did care for Regina, but not in a sexual way. Kim LeBlanc cared because Regina Hartwell took care of her. She cared for Regina as a friend she could count on, like a sister. In fact, for a while, Regina had referred to Kim as her “little sister.” Kim, at one time, had sent Regina roses with a card signed, “Your little sis.”

Morales wondered if Regina was the one making things hard on herself, instead of Kim.

“I’m leaving, too,” said LeBlanc, as she threw her clothes into her bag.

“Why are you saying that?” pleaded Regina. “What do you mean?”

Kim turned to face Regina, red eyes to red eyes. “Regina, you expect me to be all okay about this, and you don’t even give me time to deal with this on my own. I need some time to myself to deal with this. You tell me you’re HIV-positive, and you expect me to be, ‘Everything’s fine, let’s have a good time, we’re in Cancun.’”

Kim LeBlanc left Cancun to go home to Austin.

Regina Hartwell stayed in Cancun for a couple more days. She brought three bottles of Jean Paul Gaultier back to Austin. One bottle was for Anita Morales and Carla Reid, one was for herself, and she planned to give one huge bottle to Kim’s mother, Cathy LeBlanc.

But when Regina Hartwell died on June 29, 1995, there were two cannisters of Jean Paul Gaultier on her bathroom cabinet, one small, one large.

Regina Hartwell was tired when she got back from Cancun. “Kim and I had a really good time,” she said to Jeremy Barnes. “We fought once or twice the first few days, but I’m glad we got away. Kim and I really became friends.”

Not only Kim and Regina, but Justin and Regina appeared to have become friends, too. Upon her return home, Thomas presented Regina with a black, leather recliner. However, he told his aunt Bonnie that Regina had given the recliner to him, proof that Regina and Justin really liked each other and that they weren’t jealous of each other.

“Regina’s the coke queen of Austin. She feeds Kim coke, and Kim feeds me coke,” he also told Bonnie. “Regina used to be worth $9 million, but she only has $3 million left,” Thomas told Bonnie and Jim.

“Those girls are gonna get you in trouble,” said Jim. “I’m warning you, get away from them.”

Justin gave Kim a titanium navel ring. He also gave her roses, tulips, candles, and balloons. They were her nineteenth-birthday present from him.

But what Thomas didn’t tell his father was about the many times Justin had been the one to present the girls with an ounce of cocaine at ten or eleven in the morning, and how by six or seven in the evening the cocaine was gone, snorted up the noses of the two just-barely-five-feet-tall young women.

 

 

Memorial Day weekend, the Thomas family loaded up their pickup trucks and moved from their tiny apartment in South Austin into their new home in Garfield, on the banks of the Colorado River, near the community of Del Valle.

They left behind a place where they had been a family, where Justin and Jim Thomas had finally had some good father-and-son talks, where Justin had quietly come in late at night, fixed his pallet on the floor next to the couch where his aunt Bonnie had slept, and had risen the next day to say to Bonnie, “Momma B, did I disturb you last night?”

They left behind a place where Justin Thomas had been a pussycat.

“You’re more of a mother to me than my own mother,” he had told Bonnie. She loved him for that. She also loved the way he had wrestled with her son J. R., as though Justin and J. R. were brothers. She loved to laugh at the way she had had to take a broom after Justin to sweep him and J. R. outside as they had wrestled on the floor. J. R. had always put up a fight, but Justin had always been the victor. It was his size that had won out.

Justin Thomas could put up a tough front for people he wanted to impress.

But the Thomases were also thrilled to be getting out of that one-bedroom apartment. “Can you please be a little tidier?” Jim Thomas had asked of his family. He loved a clean, organized kitchen, bathroom, home.

The house in Garfield, with its stilts, three floors of rooms, and a view of the river, country, and sky was James Thomas’s dream home. It was quiet. It was a place to drink, to relax, to fish, to listen to the wind in the trees, and to watch the fireflies at night. It was a place where the crickets chirped, the bullfrogs burped, and the dogs were free to run.

Life couldn’t get much better than that.

 

 

For Tim Gray, Kim LeBlanc’s roommate, life couldn’t get much worse. First, he’d had it out with Regina Hartwell so that she’d cancelled his trip to Cancun. Then he’d had it up to his eyeballs with Justin Thomas, his drugs, and his guns. “I’m sorry, Kim,” he said, “but I’m gonna move out. This is getting too crazy.”

Tim Gray eventually moved back to the safety of his family.

 

 

But Justin Thomas didn’t help his family move that Memorial Day weekend. As far as his family knew, he spent the weekend with Kim and Regina.

On Monday, Memorial Day, May 29, 1995, Regina was without Kim and Justin, at least for a while. As usual, when she was without Kim, she was upset.

Carla Reid was upset, too. She hadn’t seen Anita Morales in weeks, not with Anita’s travels to Mexico to see Regina and to South Texas to see her family. Now Anita was coming home, and Regina was already calling for Anita and already on her way over.
Can’t she give us any time alone?
Reid wondered.

When Morales walked into her apartment, Hartwell was sitting there waiting for her. Regina reached into her pocket and threw Anita a baggie. “That’s what they’re into now.”

“Who?” asked Morales.

“Jay. And that’s what he’s getting Kim into. You know what this is?”

“No.”

“It’s called crystal meth. This drug is, like, totally evil and it keeps you up for days and it’s really bad.”

Anita sat down, staring at the bag. “Well, you’re not doing it are you?”

“No.”

“Then let me have that then.” She reached for it.

Hartwell’s thin hands quivered. “Nah, I’ll just take it with me. You don’t need to have it in your house.”

“Well, no,” said Morales. “I was just gonna flush it.”

Regina took it from Anita. She talked on and on about Kim. Then she left, crystal meth in jittering hands.

Morales looked at Carla Reid, sadness as dark as her brown eyes. “She’s doing it.” She shook her head. “This is just Regina’s subtle way of saying, ‘This is what I’m doing.’”

Anita reached for a cigarette as the Cancun nightmare replayed in her mind. “You know, Kim may be selfish, Kim may be a bitch, but in a way, I can see how she can’t get out of this so easily, even if she wants to, because Regina has a strong hold on her.”

Anita Morales jotted in her calendar, “Regina came over to talk, talk, talk about Kim.”

 

 

Regina Hartwell phoned Pam Carson in San Antonio.

“I’ve been working out,” she said, her body vibrating from crystal meth. “I want to get back into school. I realize I was obsessed with Kim, and it’s over. I’ve stopped hanging out with Kim entirely. I’ve bought a jet ski, and I want you to come up for Splash.” Splash was an annual gay celebration of sun and fun on Lake Travis, the same Lake Travis Kim LeBlanc’s high school was named for. “I want us to play on the jet ski. I can’t wait for you to come up.”

Hartwell was different than she’d recently been with Carson. Gone were the anger, the insults, the cutting remarks. Present was Regina’s wonderful heart. They talked and talked.

“Marion’s coming home soon from Europe,” said Pam.

“She’s going to break your heart,” said Regina.

“No, no, no, she’s not.”

“Pam, I tell you. Marion’s going to break your heart. I know, and I don’t want to see her do that. I don’t want to see you hurt like that. But she’s going to break up with you when she gets back from Europe.”

“No, no, no,” insisted Carson.

“Pam, I just want you to know I love you so much. You’re just so special to me. I’m really sorry that for the last year we’ve argued.”

An hour and a half later, they closed. “I can’t wait for you to come up,” said Regina. “I love you.”

 

 

It was almost as if Regina knew something was going to happen to her.

 

 

Regina Hartwell traveled back to her old home in Pasadena, the little, pink, brick house with the three white columns on the quiet street in the alleged land of rednecks and hicks, the home of recreated fantasies of a perfect mom who loved her daughter more than life itself.

She stopped by to visit her neighbors, the Seymoures. “If I had found the right guy who really loved me,” Regina said to Mrs. Seymoure, “I’d probably switch over.”

Mrs. Seymoure didn’t know if what Regina said was true or if the sweet, lonely, abandoned child was just telling her that to make the kind, Christian woman happy. After all, Regina had once told her father that she was a born-again Christian attending the University of Texas.

But that last conversation between Regina and Mrs. Seymoure was tender and loving, just as their conversations had always been. And as always, Mrs. Seymoure tried to be a bit of a mother to Regina.

Then Amy happened to stop by, and she and Regina talked in the driveway, just as they had as little kids.
Regina looks better than she has,
thought Amy. Gone were the white, white makeup and the dark, dark lipstick. Regina’s hair wasn’t dyed as darkly black, and there was nothing dark or serious or heavy to the conversation. There was absolutely no mention of Kim LeBlanc or Justin Thomas.

“I love you. Take care of yourself,” said Amy to Regina.

They were the last words she ever spoke to her friend.

 

 

Regina Hartwell became nearly impossible to reach. She cut off her friends, even her cocaine-using friends. She barely returned phone calls. The only person she saw each day was her drug dealer Diva. Her life became Kim, Justin, and crystal meth. Her philosophy became, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

Hartwell was beginning to get what she thought she wanted: Kim and a lifetime connection to Kim. Regina just didn’t comprehend the cost.

 

 

“Dad, the girls want to go swimming,” said Justin to Jim Thomas. “Can I have them out?”

Jim Thomas looked hard at his son. He wanted his boy away from those girls. They were no good and up to no good. But at the same time, he liked Regina. They got along well, like peas and cornbread. Regina had Valium, and Jim liked Valium. Jim shook his sad eyes. “Just for a little while, a couple of hours maybe.”

Soon, Kim LeBlanc and Regina Hartwell roared up to Jim Thomas’s quiet retreat. They ran into the bathroom, changed into their swimsuits, and came out wrapped in Bonnie’s best bath towels, recently purchased.

“Uh-uh, no, ma’am,” said Bonnie to the girls.

“Huh?” they replied. Kim and Regina were used to having what they wanted one way or the other. And they liked good things.

“You’re not taking my good towels swimming.” Bonnie took away the towels, went into the bathroom, got Kim and Regina a couple of different towels, and the girls went down to the river to swim and have a good time.

Regina left her $150 Doc Martens boots behind. They sat lined up for most of June, outside, under the carport, next to the door of Jim Thomas’s dream home.

 

 

She later told Anita Morales that the Thomas family had charged her, cornered her and frightened her, wanting drugs.

“1 don’t have any on me,” she said.

“You’re lying,” they told her.

“No, I’m not. I don’t.”

 

 

Kim LeBlanc spent more and more time with the Thomas family. “Can I help?” she said.

Bonnie stood outside, hanging clothes on the line. “Sure, Miss Kim.”

“What do I do?”

Bonnie looked at Kim. “You don’t know how to hang clothes on the line?”

LeBlanc shook her head no, flicked her cigarette to the ground, and looked down.

Bonnie glanced at Kim’s shiny, new Jeep parked next to her own Dodge Ram. Staring at the fancy Jeep, Bonnie thought Kim seemed to have it all. Looking back at Kim, Bonnie realized little Miss Kimmie was a young girl in a jungle, who had been cut loose and who didn’t know what to do. Bonnie felt a bit sad for her nephew’s girlfriend.
If Kim were just taken under the right apron strings, she might have a little horse sense,
thought Bonnie. She quickly showed LeBlanc how to hang the clothes on the line.

Kim LeBlanc began to open up to Bonnie. She told Bonnie about being molested. Bonnie was a good listener.

 

 

Just weeks earlier, Mike White had introduced Regina Hartwell to David Franks. Now it was David’s birthday, and they gathered beneath the neon lights at Manuel’s for the celebration on June 10. Regina made sure she was seated next to Mike. “I’ve rented a boat for David,” she said brightly. David, she knew, wanted a boat for Splash. “Things aren’t going well with Kim. She’s dating a guy.”

White thought about the Jeep Hartwell had bought to match LeBlanc’s. He knew she was obsessive about her girlfriends, but now Regina seemed to be taking it to a whole new level. It seemed too weird to him. He felt that Kim was using Regina.
But who hasn’t?
he thought.
Everyone has at some time or other.

“I don’t know what to do. She’s not returning my feelings. I’m not getting what I need from her.”

“Regina, just get away from her,” said White. “If you’re not getting what you need from her, get away from her. Go on a vacation. Do something. Just distance yourself from her. I’ve got a real bad feeling if she’s dating a guy and she’s trying to date you. There’s something wrong here. I just don’t like the situation. You’ve just got to let it go. There are plenty of girls out there. You’ll be fine.”

After dinner, they went to Oil Can Harry’s.

It was the last time Mike White ever saw Regina Hartwell.

 

 

Anita Morales looked over at Kim LeBlanc. It seemed rare to see her with Regina Hartwell since Justin Thomas had arrived. “Why’s Kim here?” she asked.

“She’s all worried about Justin. He went to Florida ... to do a hit.”

 

 

The weekend of June 16, Regina Hartwell returned to Manuel’s again, without Kim. That time, it was the birthday of Kelli Grand, Regina’s favorite waitress with the big, friendly smile and lots of hugs and kisses for males and females.

Hartwell wore her favorite pearl-colored blouse tied at the midriff so that her pierced belly button showed above her loose jeans. She wore a ruby ring she had once given Tim Gray and now had back. Regina looked happy, even radiant. But she told Kelli, “I’ll kill Justin because of what he’s doing to Kim with the drugs and guns.”

 

 

Kim and Regina lay on the bed in Hartwell’s apartment, coked up and naked.

“Make sure you don’t touch me,” said Regina.

Neither one of them wanted LeBlanc to get AIDS.