The Jewels of Tessa Kent (9 page)

He stood up and walked over to her. “Fly on the wall?”

“You’d walk right past me, Roddy, don’t say you wouldn’t.”

“But this room is a little too small for star power, Glenda. Lose it, darling, or I’m giving you the boot.”

“But of course,” she said, losing it with a small satisfied smile. She did adore Roddy, he never disappointed her, Glenda thought, looking vaguely in the direction of her feet.

“Are we all ready now?” Peggy asked patiently.

“Yup,” Roddy said.

When Tessa entered, Peggy introduced Roddy, who stood up, shook her hand, and smiled at her as if he’d never been so delighted to meet anyone in his life. She smiled back at him, thinking how much younger he looked than she’d expected. He’d directed a lot of movies she loved, but she’d never seen a photograph of him. His thick, messy hair, already lightly streaked with gray, fell carelessly to his shoulders, and he wore enormously thick glasses that were a droll contrast to his slightly monkey-like features. His skinny, tall frame was carelessly covered in jeans and a baggy old sweater that
had once been either white or yellow. Roddy Fensterwald, Tessa thought, would not reassure her mother.

“I know how hard this is, Tessa,” he said, “but all I really care about today is getting an idea of who you are and who you could be, under the right circumstances. This isn’t about showing me how you’d act in front of a camera, or about becoming Jo March on screen, even though you’ll be reading lines in the context of the scene. For the next few minutes it’s not acting nearly as much as being Tessa Horvath, the one part you’ve been playing all your life, the one part you can’t help but be perfect in, can you, no matter what you do? So consider that you’ve already got that A in drama.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fensterwald,” Tessa said, visibly relaxing.

“Call me Roddy. Everybody does.”

“I’ll try, but I can’t promise.”

“Well, as long as you don’t call me ‘Sister Elizabeth’ we’re fine.”

As Peggy laughed along with the others, she thought that no other name could possibly be as appropriate, and, of course he knew it and knew they knew it.

“Did you get a chance to study the new sides, Tessa?” Peggy asked.

“Yes, I’ve memorized them.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you to do that. You must have been up all night.”

“I had it memorized before dinner. But I was up all night anyway, too excited to sleep.”

“Well, don’t try to do this from memory,” Roddy said. “It just makes it more of a trial, and I want you to be comfortable. Would you like some water?”

“Yes, please.”

Fiona poured the water while Tessa gazed nervously around the room. Why hadn’t they introduced the slim woman taking notes in the corner? Was she someone important? Even sitting down she had important posture, straight, alert, commanding.

“Before we start reading,” Roddy said, taking the sides from Fiona, “here’s the situation.” Peggy and Fiona darted their eyes at each other in surprise. Usually the director would just sit quietly during an audition, watching with every ounce of his attention and forming an opinion. Roddy was known to be a fine actor, but this was the first time he’d ever read in their office. It was Fiona’s, or, in some cases, Peggy’s job to read with the actor under consideration. As Roddy started to speak, both women sat as expressionlessly as if they weren’t in the room.

“All right, Tessa, this is what’s happened up till now. Jo, and Meg, her older sister, have been invited to an evening party, a New Year’s Eve dance. They each have only one good dress to wear—they’re very poor, you see, but still ladies. The problem is that Jo’s dress has been scorched in the back when she stood in front of a fire, and it’s been mended in a way that would show if she were to dance. She doesn’t really care about things like that, but Meg is so self-conscious that she has made Jo promise to keep the back of her dress out of sight. So not only is Jo out of her element to begin with, but her style is really cramped, because there’s no place she can possibly stand except up against a wall. She feels absolutely out of place and pretty soon she finds herself alone, watching other people enjoying themselves, a total wallflower. Then, to her horror, she spots a boy walking in her direction as if he were going to ask her to dance. She quickly and bashfully disappears behind some curtains.

“But lo and behold, there’s another person there, Laurie Laurence, the boy who lives next door. Jo barely knows him, although they’ve met before when he brought her wandering cat home. He’s hiding in the curtains because he’s been living abroad, at school, and doesn’t know American manners. As they meet, the scene begins. Start whenever you’re ready.”

Tessa looked around the room as she thought over what Roddy had told her. She stood up and started to speak, stammering in surprise.

“Dear me, I didn’t know anyone was here!”

“Don’t mind me, stay if you like,” Roddy said, looking startled but laughing.

“Shan’t I disturb you?”

“Not a bit. I only came here because I don’t know many people and felt rather strange at first, you know.”

“So did I. Don’t go away please, unless you’d rather.”

As the scene continued, they became more and more friendly, exchanging confidences and information about their lives, until Laurie asked Jo to dance. Jo explained why she couldn’t move about in her dress.

“Though it’s nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still so no one would see it. You may laugh if you want to. It is funny, I know,” Tessa said, as she spoke the last line of the pages she’d been given.

Roddy Fensterwald looked closely into her eyes, judging her ability to be surprised. He grabbed the script out of her hand and threw it, with his own, into the air and swept her into an approximation of a swinging, springing, breathless polka, with which the actual scene in the book ended. Peggy and Fiona continued to sit absolutely still, although they were both resisting the urge to cheer.

Roddy bowed to Tessa and led her ceremoniously to the office door. “Wait outside, Tessa, while we huddle, will you?”

“Thank you, Roddy! I’ve never had so much fun!” Tessa exclaimed. “Oh! Would you mind—could I just have a second to ask Miss Bancroft for her autograph before I leave?”

“Miss Bancroft?”

“I was wondering who she was, and then when she caught my eye, just before we started the scene, of course I knew immediately,” Tessa explained, suddenly shy. “After all, there isn’t another pair of eyes in the world like hers, is there?”

“Go on, get your autograph and then scoot.”

Tessa collected her autograph from a subdued Glenda Bancroft and left the room as quickly as possible.

“Peggy and Fiona, could you leave us for a minute?” Roddy asked quietly.

“ ‘Caught her eye’!” he stormed, as soon as they had gone. “Damn it, Glenda! Caught her eye! How could you be such a thundering bitch? If there was one thing calculated to throw her off, that was it. It’s unforgivable, I’ll never trust you again,” Roddy raged.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, lover, it was an accident. Did you expect me not to peek to see what that girl looked like? She happened to catch me just when I was looking at her, that’s all. And anyway, don’t carry on as if anything could stop all that tiresome inexhaustible energy. Jesus, Roddy, what a heap of ingenuous, innocent gaiety. It’s just as well something got her off the ceiling and down to business. You’re not actually thinking of casting her, are you?”

“That’s none of your business, Glenda.”

“Roddy, I want this picture to be a success even more than you do. We agreed it was an ensemble piece—that great big, enthusiastic girl would throw it entirely off balance. I’m not saying she’s not beautiful, I’m not saying she can’t act, I’m not even saying I don’t wish I were her age, for the love of God! But she’s too bloody much! She eats up all the air in the room, she’s a stage actress, not a film actress, she doesn’t have the right
dimensions
. She’s as big a presence as … as Ethel Merman! She’s a talent, I admit that willingly, but not for this particular picture and not until she gets some experience in acting for a camera. You know that as well as I do.”

“Glenda, go home before I forget I’m a gent and hit you, will you darling?”

“What am I seeing here, Roddy, a little tiny crush on a great big tomboy? Roddy Fensterwald in love? Don’t tell me that’s making you lose your judgment.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he grinned thoughtfully. “Interesting interpretation—but why not? We’re all capable of anything, under the right circumstances, I always say. So this is what love feels like! Be still my heart. No wonder people carry on the way they do. But
just think, if even I could go for this girl, how will every other man in America feel?”

“
Little Women
is a fucking woman’s movie, Roddy. And that fucking girl’s too old for me to play her fucking mother!”

“Glenda, as I said before, go home so you can have this particular fit with your agent. He gets paid enough to listen to you. But remember that your contract isn’t signed yet.”

“That’s unworthy of you,” Glenda retorted with dignity.

“I love you when you try to be grand. And, sweetie, I adore your getup. Especially the head scarf. It’s a whole new you. I’ve always insisted you had untapped range, no matter what anyone else said. Will you send Peggy and Fiona in on your way out?”

T
essa woke up one summer morning in 1974 feeling defiant before her feet hit the floor. She was going to be nineteen in six weeks, but her life was three times as full of things she was obliged to do as it had been when she was still a schoolgirl at Marymount.

Today was Saturday, a day on which, by rights, she should have at least a few free hours to herself. But every single minute was scheduled. Right after breakfast she had a riding lesson, a new skill her agent insisted she needed to develop; then home to shower again and change for a talk with her business manager over lunch, a meeting her father had arranged and sternly told her not to forget. After lunch she had to go back home again to change once more for an interview set up by the producers of her new film,
Gemini Summer
. The interviewer, a French journalist from
Paris Match
, would be accompanied by a photographer who wanted to “follow her around” all afternoon. As soon as that major ordeal was over, her mother expected her home for dinner, here in Santa Monica. There was no space for
her
in her day, Tessa realized, as she brushed the hair that fell in a
drifting cascade of natural waves no studio hairdresser would ever try to subdue.

Even worse, she thought, she loathed horses; she wasn’t interested in “equity diversification,” the subject her business manager was going to try to explain to her once again; and she was intimidated by the idea of the interview with the man from
Paris Match
and his inquisitive photographer. She’d rather have a cavity filled.

Novocain and drilling, a mere pinprick followed by an annoying noise that was over in a half hour, would be better than picking her way across a tightrope without losing her balance during three hours with a reporter-photographer combination, particularly when they’d told the PR people that they wanted to watch her “being herself.” Holy Mother, she thought, wasn’t it just plain crazy to expect her to be herself—whoever that was, anyway?—when
they
knew that
she
knew that the camera was capturing every move she made and the interviewer was recording every remark she made, no matter how silly?

Feeling more put upon by the minute, Tessa reminded herself that tomorrow, Sunday, when she’d finally have a few free hours after mass followed by the obligatory family lunch, all the stores in Beverly Hills would be closed.

Yet this past March, on Oscar night, when she’d won the Best Supporting Actress award for
Little Women
, Tessa had promised herself a present. She’d had to postpone buying it because of the demands on her time, and the longer she waited, the more alluring it became. She craved it, this gift from herself to herself, the Oscar present and the major nineteenth-birthday present she wouldn’t be anywhere near Tiffany & Co. to buy on her actual birthday. Tessa came to a decision. She was going to play hooky. She was going to Tiffany’s this morning and that was that.

She picked up the phone that had been recently installed in her bedroom and called Fiona Bridges, her
just-as-recent personal assistant, and told her that she thought she might be coming down with a cold and that her riding lesson had better be canceled. She hated to lie, but she didn’t want even Fiona to go with her when she bought her present. It should be a private moment, a secret delight, with nobody looking on and giving advice. She didn’t need advice, Tessa assured herself. She’d know it as soon as she saw it—it would leap out at her.

Tessa carefully considered what to wear. She wanted to look like someone who had every right to expect service at Tiffany’s and at the same time she didn’t want to risk being recognized, something that was happening to her more and more often whenever she went out in public. Hastily she went through all the new clothes that Fiona had helped her to buy and realized that none of them would do. They had been purchased for special events and were all meant for the late afternoon or evening. Like every other California kid, her normal wear consisted of jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts, and shorts.