Free Date With the Devil by Don Lasseter

piled into a four-bedroom place. They supported themselves as waitresses in the numerous restaurants that line the harbor. Kristin worked too, took classes, and spent as much time as she could sunning on the sand. It was a typical lifestyle for fun-loving young women, eighteen or twenty years old.”
    If Kristin had thought of breaking into the entertainment industry, as her sister Robin and Jennifer Gootsan mentioned, Peter Means didn’t think she ever set earnest goals in that direction. “She never really indicated a serious desire to get into show business. But like most girls, she thought it looked glamorous and easy. If you hit it right and become a star, you can make a lot of money. But as we know, it’s a tough business to break into, and if you don’t know people who can help, success isn’t very likely. It is nepotism and who you know. I think she liked the idea, but never really attempted it. She was in a couple of high-school plays, but never did any serious acting. For her, it was more of a dream than a real goal.”
    After about eighteen months, Kristin dropped out of college, preferring to work full-time. With her good looks and gregarious personality, tips from restaurant patrons came easily and generously. The money, surfing, tanning, and social activities didn’t allow enough time for stuffy classrooms. She kept in contact with her three siblings, Robin, Rick, and Stephanie. Robin had stayed in the San Fernando Valley area to work, while Stephanie continued her education. Rick had found a niche in the food-service business, specializing as a banquet captain. In January 1991, he moved to Hawaii, the Big Island, and worked steadily in hotel dining rooms.
    â€œI’m the one,” Rick later stated, “who convinced Kristin to move over there. I was talking to her on the phone and said, ‘You would love it. Come on over. You will really dig it. With your experience, you can get a job in a restaurant.’” Kristin followed Rick’s advice in the spring of 1991. She first stayed with Julie Henson, a woman who would become their sister-in-law when her brother married Robin. Julie had been a classmate of Rick and Robin’s at Westlake High School.
    Kristin decided that the island of Maui offered the best opportunities to earn a living. In the popular tourist city of Lahaina, she found a roommate and a job serving tables at one of the busy restaurants. According to Rick, newcomers who settle in the Islands don’t find it easy in the beginning. “It’s kind of hard at first because you don’t know anyone and you don’t have many friends. In Lahaina, apartments are really expensive, so most of the people who work there can’t live in town. You share apartments and do whatever you have to do to survive. And Kristin went through that period, living in the next village, Kahana. She made it, though, and just like I told her, really loved the atmosphere.”
    Even though Kristin enjoyed soaking up sun, swimming, and surfing, she never avoided work. Peter Means respected her industrious efforts. “In addition to serving tables in restaurants, she supplemented her income as a salesclerk in a few of those little gift shops, where they sell puka shell jewelry and other tourist trinkets. In waitress’s lives, they get good shifts and bad shifts, where the tips are smaller. She did well at that, but was also willing to work in the gift shops, which certainly did not pay high wages. Hawaii is not a cheap place to live.”
    It didn’t take long for the “aloha” spirit of conviviality, and the “hang loose” attitude of many locals, to possess Kristin. She found those qualities even more prevalent “up country.” Maui residents give that sobriquet to higher elevations and small villages along roads leading up to Haleakala, a towering volcano dominating Maui’s eastern end.
    New friends spoke to Kristin of a