The Jewels of Tessa Kent (44 page)

I
t had been a year, Tessa realized, one whole year since she’d met Sam Conway. Her thirty-eighth birthday had come a few weeks ago with the end of the summer of 1993, but in her happiness she hadn’t given a thought to something as unimportant as a birthday. Sam and she had been inseparable since that night they’d gone ice skating. No one could slide a piece of paper between them, Tessa told herself, hugging the thought, no one could break into their universe.

She’d fallen in love twice in her life, both times at first sight. How many women had ever been that fortunate? Apparently that kind of sudden, certain, all-consuming emotion wasn’t reserved only for the very young.

The girl who’d known instantly that Luke Blake was the man for her had become a woman of thirty-seven, a woman who lived alone, a woman who’d learned to get through each day, forcing herself to act courageous until she became truly courageous. She had spent five years without Luke, years in which no other man had entered her consciousness.

And then Sam. Such a different man from Luke, this new love of hers. And yet, in certain ways, so much the
same. Bold, inwardly directed, used to authority, heedless of opinion—they had all those qualities in common.

But Sam was not a restless rover over the face of the earth, absorbed by making things happen, commanding hundreds of men, forever seeking new ventures, new areas to conquer. His strong sense of self had nothing to do with money or possessions or the ability to make other men follow him.

Sam, Tessa had discovered, was a contemplative man who found his deepest satisfaction in teaching and writing. His antic sense of humor, his essential boyishness, and his love of mischief masked the fact that he measured success by his own sure standards: delivering a good lecture, inspiring his students to ask thoughtful questions, finishing a chapter of his new book. Even one good page was enough to bring him deep pleasure.

They lived life at a slower, quieter pace than she’d been used to since she’d made her first film, more than twenty years ago. Sam’s work at Columbia had kept them in New York during the academic year. Over the summer they’d gone to seminars at Aspen and Berkeley, where he’d been a guest speaker, and she’d managed to get him to Los Angeles for a few weeks, long enough for Sam to get to know Fiona and Aaron as well as the brilliant scriptwriter, Eli Bernstein, who was working ten hours a day turning
The Life of Lady Cassandra Lennox
into a film.

“I’d rather not meet him,” Sam had said. “Who wants to meet the man who’s chopping up your beloved child into little bits and pieces and relishing every minute of it?”

But when the two men had met they’d liked each other immediately and plunged into a conversation about the psychology of Cassie that continued for days. Afterward, Sam felt that he and Eli agreed entirely on what made Cassie tick. Even if he was going to have to use only the highlights of the book to make the script short enough to work for a movie, it would still be an epic film.

That script should be finished soon, Tessa realized, as
she returned to her apartment in the Carlyle after a day of lazy shopping while Sam worked in his office at Columbia. She bought only casual clothes now for her new understated world.

Sam’s friends, of whom there were a bewildering quantity, had been guarded when he first introduced her to them, and they’d taken their time to look her over. She had used all her art to underdress without looking as if she’d worked at it. Yes, she was a movie star, she couldn’t pretend she’d wasn’t, fame clung to her as naturally as her fingernails, but she never once made other women feel dowdy—that had been her aim. And she treated everyone with the same warmth and friendliness. Sam’s friends were important enough in their own fields to slowly grow to accept Tessa as a human being, not an incomprehensible creature from an alien world.

Tessa’s jewels, except for a few basic pieces, like her triple strand of pearls and the engagement ring she always wore, were put away in their bank vaults. She’d bought no new jewels. She’d gone to no auctions, looked at no catalogs; she’d utterly lost interest in more acquisition of gemstones.

Nevertheless, Tessa clung to the existence of her own jewels in memory of Luke’s love and that major portion of her own existence that was embodied in them. Her jewels were the twelve years of her life with Luke, they were the personal collection she’d amassed to try to comfort herself after his death. In ways too complicated and symbolic for her to put into words, her jewels were an absolute extension of herself, Tessa recognized. Whether she wore them or not, whether she left them in the vault, a secret treasure, or sported them every night, their existence was an intrinsic part of her own sense of identity, they were an indispensible layer of her selfhood.

Frequently, when Sam was teaching a late class and she found herself alone, she thought about them, visualizing each piece safe in the shelter of its velvet box, and wondered how it would feel to wear them again in public. Had there really been a day when, wearing lilac satin
and illuminated by a historic web of Fabergé diamonds, she’d presented an Oscar in front of the world? Many, many times Tessa went to the vaults she rented and visited her jewels, played with them in a private room lined in beige velvet, tried them on, one marvel after another, and gazed at herself in the mirror that stood on a large table. In those hours she became another Tessa Kent, Tessa Kent who had existed in a triumphant whirl she’d thought would last forever, a Tessa Kent she knew too well not to miss keenly in spite of Sam. Oh, yes, she loved all her jewels deeply, still, and forever, every last one of them.
Her jewels were her autobiography
.

Yet since she’d met Sam, Tessa had automatically refused all film offers, even those that would be shot in Manhattan, because she hadn’t wanted to alter the rhythm of her new life with him.

However, once Eli completed the script, and that shouldn’t take more than a few months, she’d have to go to the Coast for the casting process—Lady Cassandra’s lovers demanded a full roster of strong leading men—and inevitably, a start date would be set. The locations of the film were all English and European. How many of them would require her to travel and how many interiors could be reproduced in Hollywood? she wondered. She was torn already between the prospects of a role she’d been born to play and a man she didn’t want to leave, not for a day.

Resolving not to worry about something that hadn’t happened yet, Tessa kicked off her shoes, stretched till her bones cracked, and rang for tea. The room-service waiter who brought it also brought a dinner menu.

“I thought I’d leave this for you and Dr. Conway,” he said, “unless you’re going out tonight.”

“Thanks, Joseph. We’ll order later.” One of the joys of the hotel was twenty-four-hour room service, Tessa thought, and one of the joys of Sam Conway was that he was sure enough of himself to allow her to corrupt him in unimportant ways, to live there with her and not ask her to move into his bachelor apartment on Riverside Drive,
because of some stiff-necked principle. But she would have, if it had been important to him. She’d do anything for Sam Conway, Tessa told herself, with the shy, secret, brimming emotion of a girl thinking about a lover. She would have cleaned for him, she would even have cooked. Well … she would have given it a try, at least. Who knows, she might have turned out to be a natural.

“Do you know anything better than Midol for cramps?” Tessa asked Fiona, a few days later toward the end of one of their frequent, coast-to-coast phone conversations about the progress of the script.

“Midol and gin,” Fiona answered. “Why?”

“I’ve got them bad, really worse than ever,” Tessa said miserably, her brow wrinkled in pain.

“Haven’t you seen your doctor?” Fiona questioned.

“A year ago to get another prescription for the Pill, right after I met Sam. I figured I didn’t want to get pregnant and have another miscarriage. I had my annual checkup then, Pap smear, and a mammogram too. You know I’ve always been a bit paranoid about my health. But my cramps weren’t bothering me all that much at the time.”

“This is what my mother did,” Fiona advised. “She’d take three Midol, fix a glass of room-temperature gin and plenty of it, put it on her bedside table, wrap herself around a hot-water bottle, and tell the family to leave her alone. She was usually all right by the next day. As I remember, she had three periods a month, just for a little peace and quiet.”

“Room-temperature gin? Ugh. I can’t even stand the smell of it in a cold martini,” Tessa responded.

“That was her absolute prescription, just the way it comes out of the bottle. It has to be gin, Tessa, sorry, but it’s a well-known home remedy.”

“I can order some in a minute, from room service.”

“Well, take a good slug, just remember to hold your nose when you swallow,” Fiona advised, “and you
should feel better soon. What about a hot-water bottle? As I remember, you don’t have one.”

“I’ll have them send to the nearest drugstore. Sam would go, but he’s at Yale for a week, giving a seminar. I knew I’d get my period now so I didn’t go with him.”

The next day Tessa, haggard and weak, answered Fiona’s phone call.

“Well?” Fiona asked, anxiously.

“Now I have a truly hideous hangover on top of the cramps,” Tessa said, “and I don’t want anything but a Bloody Mary. I refuse to drink gin again, ever. It’s poison. Your mother should be ashamed of herself.”

“Tessa, you’ve simply got to see your gynecologist.”

“If she says warm gin, I’ll be surprised. Home remedy, indeed!”

Dr. Helen Lawrence, whom Tessa saw the next day, was a small, middle-aged woman with a pleasant manner, and she had the reputation for doing the most gentle pelvic exams in town. After Tessa dressed, Dr. Lawrence invited her into her office.

“I’d like you to have an abdominal and pelvic ultrasound, Tessa. It’s possible that you might have endometriosis. In any case, that’s the first thing to rule out.”

“Endometriosis? What’s that?”

“One of the most common causes of painful periods. Some of the uterine lining gets outside the uterus and develops implants, which bleed into the abdominal cavity.”

“Does the test hurt?”

“Ultrasound? Not in the slightest,” Dr. Lawrence said, handing Tessa a card for an outpatient radiology facility where the test could be performed.

“Does it take long?”

“No. I’ll go ahead and make an appointment for you. There’s a very good radiologist there, Doctor Henry Wing.”

“Please, Helen, just let me know when. I want to get this over with before my guy comes back. ”

“Miss Kent? It’s Doctor Wing.”

“Yes,” Tessa said anxiously. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Do I have endometriosis?”

“No, there’s no sign of it.”

“But there’s got to be something!” Tessa exploded, as much in anger at not getting a quick answer as in fear at what no answer might mean.

“I do see some evidence of an enlarged pancreas, Miss Kent.”

“Is that the problem? Cramps from the pancreas? I’ve never heard of that. ”

“No, there’s no connection.”

“Oh, for the love of God, what the devil do I do now? Why did I ever start this nonsense anyway?” “Miss Kent, I’d like you to go for a test called Computerized Tomography, a CT for short. While the doctor is at it, he’ll do a CT-guided needle biopsy.”

“A … biopsy …?” Tessa asked. What the hell did this doctor know, suggesting a biopsy. “A biopsy of what?” she asked, keeping her voice as level as she could make it. A flutter of confused apprehension began to rise in her stomach, like a bad smell she couldn’t avoid.

“Of your pancreas.”

“Why?” she demanded, fear of her fear making her sound bold.

“The pancreas is, as I said, enlarged. We have to find out why. ”

“Oh, this is so typical! You go to a doctor for a pimple and the next thing you know he sends you to a leper colony! What if I don’t choose to go, Doctor Wing?”

“I think you should talk it over with Doctor Lawrence, before you make any decision. I can only tell you what the ultrasound showed.”

“I certainly will! Good-bye, Doctor Wing,” Tessa said, narrowly preventing herself from slamming down
the receiver. It was natural and normal to feel apprehension about another of their damn tests, Tessa told herself, who wouldn’t? One test always led to another, nothing ever had a simple answer. But mostly, she told herself, she was furious at the medical profession, every last one of them. Christ, she hated doctors!

“Well, Fiona, the good news is the lining of my uterus is staying right where it should be and not creeping around my belly. The bad news is I have to have something called a CT and a fucking CT-guided needle biopsy, whatever the hell that is,” Tessa reported as soon as she’d talked to Helen Lawrence, who had insisted on the necessity of additional tests.

“What’s a CT?” Fiona asked, her lips white. She refused to say the word “biopsy,” phone or no phone.

“It’s short for Computerized Tomography. Naturally that doesn’t leave me any smarter and frankly, I didn’t want to ask for too many details. For all their future-world terminology, wouldn’t you know that they still have to use needles? Doctors! Damn them all to everlasting hell. But Helen won’t take no for an answer and I have to admit that she’s the best gynecologist in New York. She says it’s only slightly uncomfortable, they use a local anesthetic before they stick you with the needle. I’m going tomorrow. I want to get this nonsense all over with before Sam gets back.”

“Tessa, I want you to see one more doctor,” Helen Lawrence said calmly, after she’d learned the results of the CT and the biopsy. “Her name is Susan Hill.”

“Not another doctor! I don’t believe it! My God, Helen, all I came in for was cramps! I should have stuck with the gin and the hot-water bottle!”

“Well, that’s been known to work, but you really need to see Doctor Hill.”

“What kind of doctor is she?”

“A medical oncologist,” Helen Lawrence said quietly.

“An oncologist?” Tessa said, so stunned that she could feel her heart turn over in her chest. “But … but Helen, an oncologist’s a cancer doctor! Is that what you’re suggesting? You know perfectly well I couldn’t possibly have cancer.
That’s out of the question
. How could I possibly need to go to a cancer doctor for cramps? This whole thing has gone beyond ridiculous!”