The Jewels of Tessa Kent (25 page)

“Nope, they usually don’t get this size,” Tessa said, thinking of the rarity of the necklace, in which the smallest of the graduated pearls was two millimeters larger than the largest black pearl normally found and the central pearl, at nineteen millimeters, was one of the largest ever offered for sale.

“Are all black pearls this color?” Maggie asked.

“They come in about seventy different shades of black, which makes it very hard to match them,” Tessa said casually of the necklace that had cost Luke three-quarters of a million dollars at a Sotheby’s auction two months earlier. “Do you remember what I told you about how to take care of pearls?”

“Don’t keep them in a very warm place because pearls are two percent water and they’ll dry out and crack; wear them a lot to keep them glowing and happy;
clean them to get rid of sweat by stirring them lightly in potato flour, whatever that is; have them restrung every six months; and, oh, never, ever put them on your neck if you have perfume there, or any kind of lotion, because that can spoil their color. And of course, don’t spray your hair when you have your pearls on, because that’s the dumbest, it’ll ruin their luster for sure …”

“Anything else?”

“Hmmm—oh, I remember, don’t roll them up when you put them away. Use the case they came in.”

“You get an A plus in pearl care,” Tessa said with a hug. “Do you know why people used to think the pearl was sacred to the goddess Diana?”

“Nope,” Maggie answered, tipping her head back to look adoringly at Tessa.

“Way back, when people worshiped gods and goddesses, Diana was the deity of the woods and of young girls, and pearls were considered to be the sign of innocence, peace, and purity. Pearls were Diana’s emblem, and girls, pure, innocent virgins, wore them to put themselves under her protection.”

“Oh.” Maggie frowned, considering the idea. “So little girls got pearl necklaces?”

“Probably earrings more than necklaces. But the odd thing is that just as long ago, thousands and thousands of years ago, pearls were also connected to the moon and the goddess Venus, and Venus and the moon are connected to lovers, so if a woman wanted a man to fall in love with her, she’d buy a powder made of ground pearls and get him to drink it in a glass of wine. They called that a love potion.”

“Did it work?” Maggie asked, fascinated.

“I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. Personally I think it takes more than that or everybody’d be doing it and a cute man might find himself in love with a dozen women at once, with a terrible hangover. Doctors used to put powdered pearls in medicines to cure heart problems, and ground-up pearls—not the beautiful ones they could sell, but the ugly ones, about ten percent of what the oysters
make—were used for ladies’ face powder a few hundred years ago. Even today there are cosmetics, creams and powders, that contain powdered pearls and …”

“And?”

“Some Chinese used to think that when dragons are fighting each other in the sky, pearls and rain fall to the earth. I find that a little hard to believe.”

“It could be true. How do you know for sure there aren’t dragons in the sky? There are angels, so there might be dragons.”

“In China anyway,” Tessa agreed, taking off the pearls and fastening them around Maggie’s neck. “How do you like them?”

“Hmm.” Maggie inspected herself closely and then from a distance, revolving in front of a full-length mirror. “I’m not sure. Don’t you have earrings to go with them?”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“I know you have earrings,” Maggie crowed gleefully. “You have to have, or what else would go with them? And you have to wear earrings, you can’t just walk around with naked earlobes, you’ve told me that a hundred times.”

“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. Tyler 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.”