Judith Krantz (7 page)

“SHIT!”

“Well, you started it. Sixty! I’m fifty-eight and you know it.”

“Who invited them?”

“Your father. You know how he is about the girls.”

“Oh, double trouble, triple shit. Shit in multiples. Shit piled upon shit. Towers and turrets and pinnacles of shit.”

“Yep. I agree. We’ll be knee deep. But it does give me a chance to do a little cooking around here. Thank God I’m not a member of this family.”

“You might as well be,” Jazz said gloomily. “You’ve been around long enough.”

“No thanks.”

“How wise you are.”

Jazz’s appetite almost disappeared at the mention of her half sisters, who were no doubt in mid-flight at this very moment from their homes in Manhattan. Of course she must have known they would be coming for the Fiesta. She just hadn’t wanted to face the thought of the two daughters of her father’s first marriage: Valerie, who was forty-two, and Fernanda, who was thirty-nine.

Throughout Jazz’s childhood the two older girls had spent weeks at the ranch during each summer as well as a long week during both the Christmas and Easter vacations. They had gone to boarding school in the East, although their mother, Lydia Henry Stack, of an old Philadelphia family, had moved to Marbella, on the coast of Spain, after her divorce from Mike Kilkullen in 1960.

There was nothing that coven of two could do or say to her now, Jazz thought, that could hurt her as they had when she had been too young to defend herself, but their arrival meant a weekend of false and forced politeness covering dislike and mutual mistrust.

And all the sugar coating was put on for her father’s sake, Jazz thought. He had never known how his older daughters treated Jazz. They had always made certain to be enchantingly sweet to her whenever he was around, and she, proud and stubborn, had chosen never to complain to him when they wounded her. Their weapons had been many, including jibes about her own mother, Sylvie Norberg, whom Mike Kilkullen had married immediately after his divorce. The Swedish actress, like a shooting star, had changed the face of film for ten years, until her death in 1969, when Jazz was eight.

“I forgive you, Susie,” Jazz said, getting up abruptly and giving the cook a kiss on the top of her head. “You were only trying to hide the bad news. I thought you were up to your usual intrigues.”

“A little of both,” Susie said generously to the young woman she knew she loved as much as she would love a daughter, assuming she’d ever had one, instead of three sons.

“I’ll go look for Dad.”

Jazz went to her room to change into jeans, so that she could ride up to the wide, shallow, natural bowl in which the Fiesta would be held. The bowl lay high in the mesas beyond the hacienda, and her Thunderbird was too precious to be used on the dirt road that led to the Fiesta grounds.

In the stables Jazz looked for Limonada, her favorite horse, a strawberry roan her father kept for her although she hadn’t lived at the ranch for twelve years. Limonada, he insisted, reminded him of Jazz, since her bright coat was a mixture of unnameable colors from dark honey to currant jam. Quickly Jazz saddled the fine-boned, alert mare, who curvetted and stamped and pranced in impatience. Riding like smoke, she reached the rim of the bowl in a few minutes. Jazz reined her horse in behind a sycamore above the bowl and, peeking out, surveyed the scene, looking for her father.

Dozens of caterer’s workmen were busy, some hammering on wooden grandstands, some erecting tents made of blue and white canvas, others busy setting up dozens of round tables and hundreds of folding chairs under the tents, so that they would be ready for the blue-and-white tablecloths the next day.

Jazz recognized a few familiar ranch employees among them. She knew their names as a child would know her uncles. Jose had taught her how to rope a calf with a reata, Luis and Pedro and Juan had taught her rough-and-ready Spanish during those hours when they’d had time to go fishing and taken her along; twice she’d been allowed to go looking for a mountain lion with those great shots, Tiano and Ysidor. They
were all vaqueros, cowboys who worked on the ranch year round, as had their fathers and grandfathers.

Yet nothing seemed ready, Jazz thought, as she looked at the scene, not the dance floor or the horseshoe-throwing contest ground, not the barbecue pits or the trapshooting area. Even the space for the grand parade and roping contest hadn’t been cleared. The bowl looked as if anything could happen in it, a picnic, a rodeo or a horse race, but Jazz knew that by Sunday night the Fiesta would be as efficiently organized as ever, and the guests, many of whom came from out of state and even from foreign countries just for the occasion, would never dream of the amount of work that went into this one remaining evidence of the scope of old-time hospitality.

She searched awhile for her father, and once she’d found him she remained where she was, watching him. Mike Kilkullen was a massive man, broader and much taller than any of the other men around him. He was so clearly in charge that only the fact that he had been standing behind the grandstand until a moment before had kept her from spotting him instantaneously.

He was a chieftain, she thought, a chieftain born and a chieftain bred. Could any photographer, even Karsh of Ottawa, who had distilled all of Churchill’s fighting tenacity by snatching away the Prime Minister’s cigar, have managed to search out her father’s essence indoors in a studio? Mike Kilkullen was utterly a man of the outdoors. He had been born to this land just as he had been born to command. Right now he was merely directing a group of men who were putting up the long buffet tables, but from a distance his rapid, positive gestures could have been those of a general disposing his troops on the eve of battle.

His hair, so thick that he rarely covered his head against the sun in a place where most other men never went out without a hat, was entirely white and cut very short, but his fierce eyebrows remained as black as ever over eyes Jazz couldn’t see from the distance, eyes of a blue so incorruptible that they seemed ferocious
to people who met him for the first time. Below his aquiline nose, his mouth was set in a firmly uncompromising line unless he was smiling, and he was slower to smile than most men were. To strangers he would seem almost as intimidating as he was impressive. Only a few, more perceptive, would sense the hidden sadness and sweetness in the man.

Mike Kilkullen, at sixty-five, cared nothing for the pleasures of any city in the world. In recent years he left the ranch infrequently, mostly to go to the bull auctions in San Francisco’s Cow Palace, or to attend important Democratic state functions. Rarely did he attend the many parties he was invited to by the growing number of accomplished hostesses of Orange County.

Mike Kilkullen had been an only child, his parents had died early, his few friends were drawn from the families of local landowners he’d known all his life, but only his daughters called forth those deep emotions that otherwise he invested entirely in his ranch.

The Kilkullens of past generations had produced numerous daughters but just one son in each of four generations. These sons, whether firstborn or not, had inherited the entire ranch, while the daughters had had to be content with gifts of silver and jewelry on the occasions of their marriages, and a portion of cash when their parents died. British though it was, primogeniture, the aristocratic custom of the eldest male inheriting all of the land, had somehow prevailed in a now far-from-humble Irish family in Orange County.

Jazz waited awhile longer, until she saw her father mount his horse. Then she gently gave Limonada a signal and, at a gallop, swooped down into the bowl, stopping smartly level with his mount.

“What were you doing up there, Juanita Isabella, counting the chairs?” Mike Kilkullen demanded as he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her, almost pulling her off her saddle.

“How did you know? I can swear you never looked up.”

“I’ll teach you how someday. Old Indian lore.” He laughed at his youngest daughter, kissed both of her fresh, sun-warmed cheeks, and all the sternness left his face, all the sadness that underlay his commander-in-chief demeanor disappeared. “What the hell is that thing you’ve got on?” he asked. “It looks like Halloween.”

“You know perfectly well,” Jazz said, preening in the purple and gold satin official Lakers jacket that her assistants had given her for Christmas. “You just pretend to be ignorant.”

“I like to tease you. What else is a worthless daughter good for?”

“With Valerie and Fernanda coming, you’ll have your fill of daughters all weekend,” Jazz answered. “Why don’t you hold it till they get here?”

“They’d never rise to the bait as easily as you do, little girl. Anyway, they’re perfect.”

“True, too true,” Jazz said.

“I hope you brought a dress. We have four bands—two mariachis, one for country-western, and another for ballroom dancing.”

“Why no rock and roll?”

“It’s my party, Jazzbo, and I don’t admit the existence of rock and roll.”

“No reggae? No Top Forty?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, ballroom dancing’s back in style. I read about it in the
Register
, so I figured I’d make you happy.”

“Bullshit, you hired that band so you can dance for a change. Lord save us, the former foxtrot king of Orange County is back in town, and he’s forgotten nothing important. Ladies, lock up your daughters!”

Mike Kilkullen pinched her lightly. “You bringing a boyfriend?”

“Nope. Hoped I’d pick up some stray fella here. A boyfriend’d cramp my style.”

He eyed her covertly. Still no sign of getting married. What was wrong with the girl? Valerie and Fernanda had already produced six kids, but Jazz seemed to waft from guy to guy without ever taking one seriously
enough to even think of settling down. It was probably the fault of her profession. He was damn proud of her, but twenty-nine was twenty-nine.

“Kid, do you ever give any thought to your—ah—biological clock?”

“Oh my God! You’ve been reading
Cosmo
!” “No, listening to Susie. She’s my window on the world.”

“You’re indecent! Whoever invented the biological clock should be chopped into sushi and fast-frozen.”

“Just thought I should check up, make sure you knew about it. Doing my fatherly duty.”

“Consider it done for the year. For the decade.”

“Is that a hint?”

“
That’s an order
. Race you back to the stable!”

Valerie Kilkullen Malvern stared expressionlessly and unseeingly out of the glareproof windows of the chauffeur-driven limousine that her husband, Billy Malvern Jr., had hired to transport their family from the San Diego airport to the ranch. She didn’t join in the conversation her three teenagers were having with her husband, but wrapped herself in thought. Valerie knew that nothing she might observe on the trip could possibly interest her; it was an hour and a half to be endured without comment.

She sat erect, hands folded calmly in her lap, her profile betraying no emotion beyond a piercing self-assurance. She looked exactly like the pictures of her that frequently appeared on the society pages and in
Womens Wear
. Valerie Kilkullen Malvern, that well-known interior decorator, that powerful presence in New York society, had never been caught in an unflattering pose. She was always aware of her physical boundaries; she never lost a clearly directed consciousness of the impression she was making.

Years earlier she had decided on her look, knowing, as do all women of true style, that only one major visual impression can be made on people without confusing them and dissipating their interest. Valerie had
studied herself and understood that the shape of her skull was so excellent that it allowed her to wear her dark brown hair drawn back smoothly, totally flat, tucked behind her ears and fastened by a neat bow at her nape, a severe look that by its classic simplicity would always be above mere fashion. Below her fine forehead, her nose was entirely too pointed, too sharp and too long for beauty; her chin several millimeters too small.

Whenever she was anywhere near a camera—and she was never caught off guard—she unsmilingly offered it that imperfect side view until it became her trademark, and women with lovely noses and charming chins longed for an equally distinguished profile.

For daytime Valerie had adopted a deliberate uniform, wearing unadorned, dark turtleneck sweaters, or collarless blouses, to emphasize the length of her neck and the leanness of her torso, making her tiny breasts into an asset. She tucked these tops into beautifully cut, totally plain skirts or pants, wrapped a wide belt around her slim waist and never wore shoes that weren’t flat and brilliantly polished. She pushed her tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses on top of her head when she wasn’t using them, and her collection of barbaric, enormous earrings and wide cuff bracelets, studded in huge semiprecious stones, made fine jewelry seem fussy.

It was an enameled look that owed a lot to Diana Vreeland, D. D. Ryan and Mrs. Winston Guest, Valerie would acknowledge to herself, but it worked. The look sent its message to everyone and it awed many. Above all it set her totally apart from her clients, those women who, by definition, did not have enough style sense to know how to arrange their own interiors.

Her look was inexpensive in the long run, something Valerie knew no one was shrewd enough to guess. Not cheap, of course, for each separate piece was the best of its kind, but since everything she bought could be worn for years, no matter how fashion changed, she had nothing that hadn’t paid for itself many dozens of times over. This left money for her
viciously expensive, handmade embroidered evening shoes; money for her collection of impeccable Hermes bags and gloves; money for the many brilliant evening gowns she wore for charity balls, occasions at which she was wise enough to know that her uniform wouldn’t play.

Yes, she had money to dress in a way everyone associated with riches. She had managed that very well, Valerie reflected.

People thought that Mr. and Mrs. William Malvern Jr. were rich, and Valerie intended that they should never know otherwise. She too had believed, when she married, in 1969, that she would be rich, for charming, handsome, convivial Billy had inherited a fortune from his father, who had made a fortune in manufacturing during World War II.