The Jewels of Tessa Kent

by Judith Krantz

It could not, it could not possibly be as bad as all that, she thought, with sudden, clear conviction, pulling on heavy socks. It couldn’t be a death sentence, not because she had bad cramps. Helen Lawrence, Dr. Wing, Dr. Susan Hill, what did they know? Tomorrow she’d go to see some good doctors, better doctors, doctors who would tell her that the needle biopsy had been a mistake, that she had fallen into a nest of the worst, most unprofessional medical frauds you could find in the City of New York. Look how they all knew each other and passed her from one to another. She shook with hatred as she thought of them, people who hung a dozen diplomas on their walls and then lied and lied and lied for no reason at all except to frighten her.

  Lied for no reason at all.

  Fuck! If she could only manage to believe that. If she could only prove it. But they were all first-class physicians, each one of them, and she knew it, Tessa admitted, any other idea was absurd. She stared in utter confusion at her image in her mirror. She didn’t look like a woman with no more than two years to live. If she was lucky, two years and a few months. If she wasn’t, a year and a half. She’d only just turned thirty-eight. In two years she’d just reach forty. Forty was nothing! She looked like someone who’d spent a night with some brutal stranger she should never have gone home with, badly bruised around the eyelids, nostrils raw, cheeks mashed, her whole face disheveled and glazed but unquestionably very alive.

  But she’d never reach forty. She’d never celebrate the birthday that foolish, lucky women complained about in make-believe misery, even lied about. Why did people lie about their age? Why wasn’t every birthday a brilliant triumph to be toasted and celebrated, another year you could boast about because you’d survived? Were people utterly crazy, not to realize that survival was a gift of the gods, to take it for granted, to actually feel bad about getting older? About having lived more life? What were wrinkles, what were forty extra pounds or weakened muscles or gray hair, except signs of the best of good luck?

  It was too much to bear. It was too unfair. It was the most unfair thing she’d ever heard of happening to anybody, nothing that had ever happened was unfair compared to this, not even Luke’s death. It was the ultimate unfairness and no one to blame but some cells gone mad. She felt knocked to her knees by the unfairness, yanked and punished and dragged like a wet mop across the floor, skinned alive, gashed all over her body, gutted like a fish, yes, even nailed to a cross—that unfair, exactly that unfair, not a bit less, and not for any reason, any deed, any thing she’d ever done or said or thought. At least Christ had convictions He knew were worth dying for.

  She wished, for the first time, that she hadn’t lost her faith after Luke had died. Maybe then someone could try to convince her that this unfairness was for a purpose, but she knew it was random, she knew it was impersonal. Yet Tessa felt as if she’d been targeted, as if it were focused, as if some malevolent force loathed her, specifically her, with a direct, evil calculation that had already measured out the dose of poison that would kill her twice over. Random and targeted at the same time … that shouldn’t make sense but it did.

  She’d go back to the church and never miss an early morning mass or a Holy Day of Obligation or a single weekly confession if she could reach forty-five. All she asked was to be middle-aged … that unattainable heaven that other actresses dreaded. She’d never make love to Sam again if she could reach forty-five, or eat another good thing or drink another drink or buy another flower, if she could reach forty-five: she’d give up her work and give up Sam and slave in a homeless shelter eighty hours—a hundred and twenty hours—a week, she’d do anything … become a nun … if she could reach forty-five. Become a nun? As if they’d take her. Tessa had to smile bitterly at her own craziness. A nun indeed.

  Tessa realized suddenly that she must have been steadily ripping apart a gauzy, sequined white dancing dress she’d bought earlier. It lay all around her in shreds and strips. She hadn’t known she was doing it, she hadn’t known she had that much strength in her hands. Was that what people meant when they talked about a frenzy of grief? Had she been rending her fucking garments? Well, she damn well wasn’t going to do any more of that, she thought, angrily throwing the entire heap of clothes onto the floor of the nearest closet.

  She knew only one thing with any certainty. She wasn’t going to have any treatment. No chemo, no radiation. She wasn’t interested in spending one second in a hospital or a doctor’s office to see her nonexistent granddaughter get married. She’d never have another wedding anniversary or see anyone she loved graduate or celebrate a new decade of life. There would be no future of simple, daily joys with Sam, no more major markers in her life’s history, no “remember-whens” to be talked about with Fiona when they were both wise enough to get out of the industry. She’d never face the need to think about a face-lift, she’d never know the regret of being over the hill, she’d never decide to take character roles—oh, she’d give anything to be too old to play another romantic part, too old to play a character part, the right age to play a crone, a withered crone, without makeup and have it believable!

  She felt a blanket of the blackest depression, bleak, dismal, and hopeless, start to sneak over her, smothering and all-but-irresistible, and Tessa knew that if she didn’t think of something else quickly, the two years she still had left could be spent, would be spent, in a hell of self-pity. She had used up years of her life mourning Luke. After he’d died, she’d actually believed she had no reason to live. How stupid she’d been! How wasteful! All those priceless days thrown away on grief. There was no time left, not a day, not a minute, to mourn for herself. It was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  What did she have left? she asked herself, trying to focus. Sam? But how long could she keep this from him … how long could they love each other without the shadow of the future spoiling every minute? Her work? She couldn’t play Cassie, she couldn’t count on having the time to finish the film; they’d never get insurance on her now anyway. So, at best, she could assist Fiona in some way, and watch Streep play Cassandra Lennox, or if not Streep, another actress. All her friends in California and New York? Friends, Sam, work. Wasn’t that more than a lot of people ever had? It was, she tried to tell herself, it really was. She’d had decades of stardom to look back on … Luke, she’d had her life with Luke. She’d had her year with Sam. How many women could say as much? Wasn’t that enough? No, it wasn’t. It was not enough.

  She was going to be denied most of the experiences of a mature woman, there was no getting away from that. She would have no forties, no fifties, no sixties, no three score and ten. She would never accept it, she could never forgive it, but she knew it was a fact she had to bite into with all the power left to her.

  Tessa saw her life stretching forward, a narrow ribbon, a short strip, with a sharp snip cutting it off not far from her feet, the ribbon curling back on itself. But narrow ribbon or not, she vowed, she would make it so full of reality that it would count as much as a longer stretch of time. For a moment she let herself make believe that nothing had happened, that she could release herself into the casual, unthinking dailiness of life, but she couldn’t sustain the idea. The ribbon kept snapping and curling backward.

  But … but … there existed one essential transaction she must make, a way to control her short future, one single thing she could do, one thing she still had time for, one experience no one could refuse her, one way to still create, to leave something behind that would show that she had lived a life outside of her films, some bit of her that would survive and make a difference.

  She could make her peace with Maggie. She could know her daughter again. She could try to heal the rift between them.

  There was time, Tessa thought, plenty of time for that. Her life had been cut short, but it hadn’t been abruptly terminated, like her parents’ lives, like Luke’s life. There was still time, time for Maggie.

  Maggie. She had a daughter and her daughter would have a daughter or a son some day. No cancer could take that chance awa
y from her. A daughter who had inherited half of whatever she was would eventually, inevitably, have children of her own, descendants … her descendants, who would know that Tessa Kent had lived.…

  Her excited thoughts slowed down. It had been roughly five years since Maggie had refused to accept the millions Luke had left her. Maggie would have had a yearly income of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Had she even stopped to think of what she was turning down in her haste to have nothing to do with anything that linked her to her mother? Probably not in such detail. She was too young to understand the financial consequences of what she had done, but the gesture said clearly that she was not too young to have made up her mind, once and for all, that her mother was cast out of her life.

  But that could not be allowed to stand. She would not permit it! She had her rights, damn it, cancer or not, and Maggie would have to admit them, whether she wanted to or not.

  In five years, Tessa calculated, on fire with her idea, Maggie must have changed, must have mellowed. Five years were forever, she knew that now. Maggie was an adult, she’d passed her twenty-third birthday months ago. Tomorrow, yes tomorrow, she’d go to see her, go straight up to that apartment she was living in, that apartment Tessa had never ceased to have quietly checked out by a private investigator every six months, and confront Maggie, yes, have that confrontation she’d never dared to risk before because she believed that Maggie would shut the door in her face and that had seemed too much to endure. What a vile coward she’d been, to let so much time go by. She’d tell Maggie that she only had a short time to live, force her, force her, to listen, just to listen. That’s all she asked.

  No one could turn down a dying woman.

  31

  When Tessa woke up, after a few hours of fitful sleep, later that morning she knew, even before she opened her eyes, that the confrontation with Maggie she had been so convinced about in the middle of the night was a lousy idea.

  If she presented herself as a dying woman, as a case for pity, no real relationship could be established between them, much less any honesty. It was hard enough, if an incurable disease struck one loving partner and not the other, to maintain the former balance between them. And she and Maggie were not, had never been, partners. Sisters, unequal sisters, but adults together, never. There must be another way to reach Maggie, a way that didn’t involve anything to do with her health.

  Maggie’s work at S & S—that was the only path left to her, Tessa realized as she ate breakfast. She’d known Liz Sinclair socially and casually for years. They had many of the same acquaintances from the days when Luke was alive, and there wasn’t anyone important in the auction business she didn’t know.

  Why? How? What reason could she give Liz Sinclair to explain that she had to talk to Maggie Horvath, had to see Maggie Horvath?

  Suddenly Tessa knew what to do. She had Liz Sinclair on the phone in minutes.

  “Tessa Kent, what a lovely surprise! I couldn’t imagine how you’d managed to disappear from sight in the last year, although I did hear something about a devastating professor, hmm? How are you, Tessa? It’s been so long, Hamilton was just saying—”

  “Liz, I haven’t time to be polite. Just assume we’ve had ten minutes of charming small talk. I intend to auction my jewels, everything but my green diamond and a few strings of pearls.”

  “Tessa!”

  “For charity, of course. That goes without saying. S and S has the auction … no Liz, don’t interrupt, there’s no need to compete with another auction house, no need to give me a guarantee, it’s yours on one single condition. I don’t want to work with Lee Maine on the publicity. She’s tremendously good, I know, but I want to work exclusively with Maggie Horvath. Why? Liz, I know that Maggie’s made it a point of pride never to trade on it, but she’s my younger sister. I was born Teresa Horvath.”

  “What! Good grief, Tessa, I had no idea …”

  “I know you didn’t. Maggie and I have actually been, well, I suppose one could call it, at arm’s length, for the past few years. Actually an estrangement. We haven’t spoken, can you imagine? Silly family stuff. I want to end that. Now. Quickly.”

  “But, but … sell all your jewels! Tessa, are you sure? You could never duplicate …”

  “Liz, what a tender-hearted woman you turn out to be,” Tessa said, impatiently. “Hamilton would be shocked if he heard you. Of course I’m sure. They’re only … things. Very lovely things, but they don’t have hearts.”

  “Well, no, of course not, Tessa—” Liz said, still almost dumbstruck by this turn of fortune.

  “I expect you to make it the biggest single-owner auction since the Duchess of Windsor’s,” Tessa continued. “My jewels are easily equal in quality to anything she had, and there are a great many more of them. And I’m alive, Liz. Not a dead duchess. I can publicize the sale from here to Saudi Arabia and I will. But it all depends on your delivering Maggie to work on the publicity with me. She won’t want to do it, I’m pretty sure of that. And if she refuses, I won’t sell the jewels, not anywhere. It’s either S and S or no one. And it has to be quick, within six months, no more. I know that’s short notice, less than you need for your usual preparation, but that’s the way it has to be,” Tessa said firmly. If she allowed more time, how much would she have left in which to be with Maggie, be with her as a proper mother! S & S could do it in six months if they pulled out all the stops.

  “Good God Almighty, Tessa, I’m stunned. I may faint.”

  “I tend to doubt that, Liz. As soon as you’ve set up a meeting with the director of your jewelry department, you and Hamilton and I can get started. But Maggie has to be there, right from the start.”

  “I understand. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve talked to Maggie.”

  “Thank you, Liz. Use all your powers of persuasion. It’s vitally important.”

  “Never fear. I’ll make it happen or die trying.”

  “We’ll both do that, Liz.”

  “Maggie, Mrs. Sinclair wants you to go up and see her right away,” one of the assistants said, after she’d answered the interoffice phone.

  “She say why?”

  “No, just get moving.”

  “Miz Liz,” Maggie said cheerfully upon entering Liz’s office. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, sit down, Maggie, and have some tea.”

  “No tea, thanks. What’s going on?”

  “It’s complicated, Maggie. It concerns the future of the house.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You know we’re not the top dogs and never will be.”

  “S and S is still a mighty big business.”

  “How come you didn’t take that offer from Sotheby’s?”

  “You knew about that?”

  “In the auction world everybody gets to know everything, sooner or later.”

  “I simply decided I liked it better here than I could anywhere else. I’m happy as a lark. I truly love working with Lee and you and Hamilton—you’ve all been wonderful to me since my days as a temp, so why should I change all that, even for more money? Although, Liz, if you’ve called me up here to offer me a raise, I accept.”

  “I’m offering you a chance to help me with a great opportunity, one I never dreamed we’d have.”

  “An opportunity? What kind?” Maggie asked eagerly.

  “Something’s come up, something that would do more for S and S than anything else that could happen, ever. We’ve been offered a historic sale, a fantastic sale of one of the finest, most famous private collections in the world, almost certainly the finest in this country.”

  “Oh Liz, great news! What’s the sale?”

  “It’s a single-owner sale that will get us more publicity than either you or I can imagine. It’s a sale, Maggie, that will make S and S a true worldwide household word for the first time since it was founded. There’s no question that it will put us on a par, as far as status goes, with Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Smaller, yes, but just as good. That would mean ever
ything to Hamilton, and to all of us. This sale will open the door to dozens, hundreds of other great sales in the future. People will think of us who’ve never even considered consigning their property to S and S. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this sale will change our future forever.”

  “But you still haven’t told me what it is—are you trying to make me beg? And what about Lee? Why are you telling me first?”

  “Because you have it in your power to make sure that this sale takes place. You also have it in your power to prevent the sale, to keep it from ever happening.”

  “Oh, Liz! For heaven’s sake! How could that ever be?”

  “Maggie, the sale … it’s … the jewels of Tessa Kent.”

  “You … you …” Maggie stopped and looked away, shaking her head in total negation.

  “Maggie, I know she’s your sister. She called this morning and told me. I know the two of you have problems, but Maggie, dear Maggie, you see the only reason she’s willing to auction her jewels is to get a chance to be reconciled with you. She wants you, not Lee, to handle the press. How terrible can that be, Maggie? It’s a job you’re thoroughly capable of doing. Tessa said she’d never sell her jewels unless you were in charge of the publicity.”

  “No, Liz, no, she can’t get at me through you.”

  “Maggie, the older I get the more I realize that happiness depends on people, not things. You can’t get through life without family and a few good friends. Much as I adore my husband, my life has been deeply enriched by my daughters and Hamilton and Minnie more than I can tell you.”

  “No, Liz.”

  “Whatever the problem is with you and Tessa, believe me, as the two of you get older, you’ll need each other. The ancient hurts and hostilities will come to seem unimportant, even absurd. In time you’ll forget the details. But the two of you—sisters—will have something priceless together in the years to come, someone to talk to who remembers the same family things you do, who came from the same parents and grandparents, who understands you from the earliest days, who speaks your language the way no friend ever can …”