The Jewels of Tessa Kent

by Judith Krantz

  “You should work for a jeweler, on commission.”

  “Oh, come on, show them to me.”

  Tessa opened another drawer in her jewel case and drew out a pair of pendant earclips, the tops made from enormous round black pearls set in marquise-shaped diamonds, from which hung splendid black pearl drops, capped by round diamonds. The earrings, which had been sold at the same auction as the necklace, matched its color perfectly. Carefully, she clipped the heavy jewels to Maggie’s small ears.

  “That’s better,” Maggie said. “But you know what? I like your white pearls and your pink pearls better. These are beautiful, but they’re sort of, well, they’re not exactly my idea of pearls.”

  “You just lost your job in the jewelry business, but I agree with you.”

  “So that means you’re going to show me something else I’ve never seen before.”

  “Does it?”

  “It seems only fair.”

  “How can I refuse when you start in on what’s fair and what’s not fair?”

  “Ha!” Maggie beamed. She always counted on Tessa’s sense of justice, and she was always honest about what she thought of the jewelry her sister showed her. When she had told Tessa that the flawless “Ashoka” diamond ring Luke had bought from Harry Winston was too long for Tessa’s finger, Tessa hadn’t protested, although she adored the elongated shape of the forty-carat, exceptionally transparent and limpid diamond that had originally come from the fabled Goloconda mines of India, and her finger was long enough for her to carry it perfectly. No, Maggie liked what she liked and she never made a judgment without providing a reason, even if she was wrong.

  “And wouldn’t it be fair if I had a pearl necklace?” Maggie continued with hope. “After all I’m a pure, young, innocent virgin like you were when you went to Tiffany’s and bought yourself that little necklace that I love best of all.”

  “No, that wouldn’t be fair. I don’t worship the goddess Diana and neither do you,” Tessa said with a laugh. “But someday, of course, you will when you’re old enough to wear jewelry, as a present from the goddess Venus.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  In the fall of 1979, when Maggie was nine, she began her fourth year at Elm Country Day. However, in the past years, she had never felt truly accepted there. None of the other girls had names like Horvath; none of the other girls was Catholic; none of the other girls lived with families that weren’t really their families; and most of the other girls had mothers and fathers who knew each other and got together for dinner parties and hunt balls and bridge games and golf and that sort of stuff. Candice and Allison, or the “gang of two” as Maggie now thought of them, who were both still at school, ignored her as if they’d never laid eyes on her before, although they were polite enough in their goody-goody way, whenever they were under Aunt Madison’s eye.

  Why, she wondered, bitterly hurt but utterly unable to ask them, why did they treat her one way at home and another way at school? Were they ashamed of her for some reason, or did they hate her because she lived with them? They never even invited her into their room or came into her room—it was as if they occupied different houses except for the dinner table. Other girls with older sisters in the school could at least count on getting their hair pulled in recognition when they passed each other in the halls—she’d settle for that, rather than the blank stares she received, even on the staircase at home when there Was no grown-up around.

  One day, passing through the locker room on her way to gym, Maggie overheard Sally Bradford, one of her classmates, tell a newcomer to the class that Maggie Horvath was “a mystery girl.”

  “What does that mean, Sally?” Maggie asked, stopping and confronting the two girls.

  “Nobody knows where you come from or who you really are,” blandly dainty Sally Bradford answered her, without a sign of embarrassment.

  “I come from California,” Maggie said fiercely. “But I live here now. ”

  “Sure, sure, but who are you really? You’re no relation at all to the Websters, she’s not your aunt and he’s not your uncle, that’s what I heard my mother say and my mother knows all about those things. You’re some kind of mysterious orphan without any real family. Did they take you in out of kindness? Or pity?”

  “I do so have my own family, I have a real sister. She’s Tessa Kent,” Maggie burst out. She’d never told anybody that before because she knew they wouldn’t believe her. “And Tessa Kent is so related to the Websters. Her husband, Luke Blake, is Uncle Tyler’s brother, I mean his stepbrother, so I’m related too.”

  “Yeah, and I’m my own grandma. Tessa Kent! The movie star? Do you expect us to believe that? Tessa Kent’s sister! Why are you telling such a lie, Maggie Horvath, Horvath, Horvath, and what kind of name is Horvath, Horvath, Horvath anyway?”

  “It’s a Hungarian name and it’s as good as Bradford, you bitch!”

  “You called me a bitch! Naturally, you don’t have any breeding, do you? I’m going to tell the teacher.”

  “Go on, tell her, I don’t give a rat’s ass, I don’t give a flying fuck, you double triple bitch!” Maggie retorted in a rage.

  “Oh, are you in big trouble now, Maggie Horvath, Horvath, Horvath!”

  Several days later, when Tessa made her weekly phone call to Maggie, Madison asked for a word with her.

  “Would you excuse me, Maggie, while I talk to your sister?”

  “Excuse you?”

  “I mean I’d like to talk to her privately.”

  “Oh, all right. I’m going upstairs anyway,” Maggie said, and fled to her room. “Rat’s ass” wasn’t such a terrible thing to say, she told herself, Roddy said it all the time, and certainly “bitch” was really bad, but Sally deserved it. Yet the teacher had never said a word to her, not even about “flying fuck,” which was so absolutely terrible she still couldn’t believe she’d said it, so why was Aunt Madison going to tell on her?

  “Tessa, I hate to bother you when Maggie is doing so well at school, but Miss Anderson, her homeroom teacher, called me and said that there’d been a spot of trouble between Maggie and another girl.”

  “Trouble? What’s going on, Madison?”

  “It seems that Maggie got into an argument with little Sally Bradford, and she told her that you’re her sister, which Sally didn’t believe, so Maggie swore at Sally. It all rather escalated, although no blows were exchanged. Anyway, Miss Anderson said that Maggie’s getting a reputation as a liar, it’s spreading around the school.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I’m afraid so. You know how kids are, and with your names being different and everything, well, apparently Maggie was called a mystery orphan without any family, or something equally absurd.”

  “I can imagine. What little wretches,” Tessa said grimly. “I’m coming to visit the school next week. I’d come sooner but I have to work every day until Wednesday when they shoot the fight scene. I’ll leave right after I’m finished on Tuesday, spend the night at the Carlyle, drive out to school in the afternoon and then fly back in plenty of time to show up on the set Friday. Please tell that headmistress, Miss Dodd, isn’t that her name, that I’ll be there after lunch and ask her to give Maggie time off from class to accompany me on my inspection tour. In fact, I think it would be a good idea if I spoke at an assembly to the whole school. I’ll talk about, let’s see, yes, the truth behind the Hollywood myth, that sounds about right. But I’d like my visit to be a surprise, so would you ask Miss Dodd not to announce it? Could you arrange all the details, please, Madison?”

  “Of course, I’ll call the headmistress right away.”

  “And Madison, I’m going to have to give serious thought about sending Maggie to a good boarding school if she isn’t happy at Elm Country Day.”

  “Oh, good grief no, Tessa, this is just one of those little things that could happen in any school,” Madison said, disguising her terror. The last thing she wanted was to have Maggie snatched away from her house. Ty
ler would be furious, Luke would … she had no idea what Luke would do, and that frightened her more than anything else.

  “Miss Dodd tells me that Maggie’s exceptionally bright and she’s very popular there, it’s only that they find it hard to believe that you two are sisters.”

  “I’ll take care of that. Do you happen to know what Maggie said when she swore at Sally?”

  “Well … she did use the ‘F’ word.”

  “She must have been severely provoked, I’ve never heard her use it … but of course, hanging around Luke … these crude Australians, and Roddy, these crude Hollywood types …” Tessa began to shake with soundless laughter. Good show, Maggie, she thought, you have to defend yourself from the Sally Bradfords of this world.

  Tessa was glad that it was a crisp fall day when she visited Elm Country Day. Indian summer would not have suited the ultimately glamorous impression she intended to make. She put on a breathtakingly well tailored Givenchy suit in melting shades of beige tweed, adorned with a sumptuous collar and wide, notched lapels of the darkest Russian sable. The cuffs of the jacket were five inches deep in more sable, and she wore a tiny sable beret, perched on the side of her beautifully done hair. Shades of Anna Karenina, Tessa thought as she put on her perfect dark brown alligator pumps and added the extraordinary, triple-strand necklace of perfectly matched natural pearls over her cream silk blouse. Normally she would only wear them in the daytime for a meeting with Lew Wasserman. But no diamonds in the daytime, she reminded herself, choosing the simplest of the three pairs of pearl earrings that had taken months to match to the two-million-dollar necklace Luke had recently given her for her twenty-fourth birthday.

  She applied her makeup perfectly, so that it could be seen from the last row of the assembly room. Understatement would not be the watchword today. She was as well groomed and marvelously dressed as she’d ever been in her life, she thought, giving herself a final inspection. The rest would take care of itself.

  To drive out to Elm Country Day, Tessa had hired an enormous dark green Rolls and a smartly uniformed driver from a New York rental agency, the sort of equipage she normally would go out of her way to avoid, a touch of pure Hollywood that would leave girls’ mouths gaping.

  As Tessa arrived at the school and was assisted out of the car by her driver, a group of preteenagers were clattering out of the front entrance. As a group they stopped dead and stared.

  “Good afternoon,” Tessa said to one of them. “Could you tell me where Miss Dodd’s office is, please? I’ve come to visit the school.”

  “But you’re Tessa Kent!”

  “Well … yes, I am, but actually I’m Maggie Horvath’s sister.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” The girl’s hand flew to her mouth.

  “Doesn’t she even acknowledge me?” Tessa asked, raising her eyebrows in amused surprise.

  “No … yes … a little while ago.”

  “Ashamed of her sister, is she, the little devil?”

  “No. Of course not, oh, my goodness.”

  “Miss Dodd’s office?” Tessa reminded her gently.

  “I’ll show you the way. Oh, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming!”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”

  Tessa chatted calmly with the thrilled, flustered girl until she reached her destination.

  “Ah, Miss Dodd,” Tessa said, shaking hands and responding to the headmistress’s greeting, “I know I should have come to visit sooner but one thing and another has kept me away, and Madison Webster has always spoken so highly of you that I felt sure Maggie would love it here.”

  “Oh, she does. And we love her,” responded the lean, gray-haired woman who looked as if she must have won a title at Wimbleton many years earlier. She was used to dealing with the high-powered local socialite mothers, but the vision of Tessa made her gasp. She’d never believed real people could look like this.

  “I’m delighted to hear that. I hope you were able to excuse Maggie from her classes this afternoon so she can show me around. And were you able to arrange an assembly?”

  “Indeed yes, at four o’clock. Oh, here’s Maggie now.”

  Maggie jumped into Tessa’s arms with a shout of joy and held on tightly.

  “Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” Maggie whispered, almost in tears at an apparition she’d never expected to appear in Miss Dodd’s office. “You look like a real movie star.”

  “That’s the general idea, darling,” Tessa said into Maggie’s ear, giving her a kiss and smoothing her hair. “Now, if Miss Dodd doesn’t mind, why don’t you take me to your classroom and introduce me to your classmates?”

  “They’re all in the lab now, we’re doing experiments.”

  “Then let’s go there, I want to see everything, but first, your friends. You show me the way,” Tessa said, taking Maggie’s slightly grubby hand and swinging it playfully.

  In the lab all experiments came to a halt as Maggie led Tessa around the room. Maggie watched, entranced and grinning widely, as one by one her classmates mumbled their awed hellos and Tessa easily found something different to say to each one of them.

  “Oh, so you’re Sally Bradford,” Tessa said, taking the dainty, blond girl’s hand. Her voice carried to every corner of the room although she wasn’t speaking loudly. “How interesting to meet you. I understand from my sister, Maggie, that your mother’s an expert in genealogy?”

  “Well, she sort of likes to know who’s who, if that’s what you mean,” Sally muttered, turning red.

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Tessa said with her most charming smile. “Would you give her a message from me, Sally, to add to her hobby? It’s a bit complicated but I’m sure you can remember it. My husband is a man named Luke Blake. His stepbrother is Tyler Webster, Candice and Allison Webster’s father. My little sister, Maggie, is, naturally, my husband’s sister-in-law, but since she’s so young, she calls Mr. Webster ‘uncle’ and Mrs. Webster ‘aunt,’ out of courtesy. They’re not blood relations, but they are part of Maggie’s family, and she lives with them because our parents, the Horvaths, were both killed in an automobile accident four years ago. Maggie and I were left orphans. I’d already changed my name to Kent when I made my first movie, but my name is really Teresa Horvath, not Tessa Kent. Now, does that clear things up? Can you repeat it?”

  “Ah, ah … Maggie’s your sister.”

  “And?”

  “Your husband is Mr. Blake and he’s also the halfbrother of Mr. Webster …”

  “No, Sally, the stepbrother of Mr. Webster. My husband’s father married Mr. Webster’s mother after his first wife died.”

  “Oh.”

  “It is complicated, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And hard to understand, much less be expert about, especially when you have the facts all wrong. But do remember to give your mother my message and add that I send her my best regards for taking such an interest in Maggie’s family. Good-bye Sally,” Tessa said, turning away. Suddenly she stopped and stooped to look the girl in the eye. “I hope I’ve cleared up the ‘mystery.’ ”

  Looking at the floor, Sally nodded her head.

  “Good,” Tessa said crisply, going on to greet the next girl.

  18

  What a bloody bore, this Yank institution, these Oscars, this lumbering, pretentious, blatantly commercial sideshow that had managed to make itself a source of mindless, gaping worldwide attention, Luke Blake thought, as he foamed angrily around the living room of his suite at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. The television set was tuned in to the 1982 Oscars, although the sound was off and had been off since the beginning of the telecast.

  Hours earlier, in the middle of the afternoon, Tessa, dressed and ready to present the Best Picture award, had stepped into her limo, escorted by Roddy Fensterwald.

  Luke had accompanied her himself the previous year, because then she’d been up for her second Best Actress award, facing a field of rivals that included Marsha Mason, Susan Sarandon, Diane
Keaton, and Jessica Lange. Of course he’d been at her side to hold her hand. He wouldn’t have considered letting her sit there in the audience, waiting for the results throughout the endless evening, without him, but tonight Tessa wasn’t nominated for anything and her function was purely ceremonial. She’d be planted backstage for hours, gossiping with the other presenters, she’d told him, in her most persuasive tones, and there was simply no reason for him to endure hours of tedium—she knew how bored he got—just for her brief moment in the spotlight. “You’ll be so much more comfortable at home, darling, watching me on television, and the view will be better anyway.”

  She’d been an utterly improbable vision when she’d left the hotel in the brilliant spring sunshine, wearing a strapless lilac satin ball gown, with a wide sash bound tightly around her waist above a multitude of petticoats that caused the enormous skirt to move as lightly as a swaying bell. It was the first time she’d worn the latest present he’d given her, the entire Fabergé parure he’d assembled of imperial Russian jewels: the great web of a necklace that had belonged to a grand duchess, the splendid pendant earrings, the eight bracelets, and the hair ornaments like giant snowflakes. The jewels, inspired by eighteenth-century design, were made with infinite delicacy. Their deep garlands, elaborate swags, and extravagantly complicated bows made Tessa sparkle with every movement of her head, as if she’d been sprinkled with frost and ice, as if she were a princess who’d just taken two steps through fast-falling snow in order to enter a ballroom and dance all night.

  She’d turned to him, her face bright, untroubled. “Don’t even bother to turn the television on until after nine, darling,” she’d reminded him as she kissed him good-bye. “There’s no possibility that the show will run less than four hours, and I’ll be on last.”

  Did she guess, he asked himself, did she have the faintest idea of the shameful, grotesque torments of jealousy that afflicted him when he had to share her with her work? Was that why she’d spared herself his presence tonight, so that she’d be free to enjoy herself with her peers, free to bask in the roar of the crowds as she made her arrival outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion?