The Jewels of Tessa Kent (6 page)

Secretly thrilled by the prospect of a grandson, a grandson to continue his name and his blood, Sandor quickly discovered a teaching position in the music department of the Harvard School, a well-known private boys’ school in Los Angeles. It didn’t pay as much as his present job, but it answered the problem of putting distance between his family and everyone they knew, and it was available immediately.

Within weeks the Horvaths moved to a small rented house in Reseda, a ranchlike section of the San Fernando Valley that was still so rustic that the streets had no pavement. The house had the additional advantage of being surrounded by an acre of scrubby land. Agnes had made her family believe, that the move was prompted by an offer so magnificent that she couldn’t ask Sandor to turn it down. Only Mimi Peterson, of all the people in Greenwich, knew the truth. She and Teresa parted in tears, knowing that they’d never be allowed to
be together again after this stolen moment in the locker room of the Sacred Heart gym.

“Can’t you at least send me a message when the baby’s born, so I’ll know you’re okay?” Mimi asked.

“I’ll try, but don’t write back, whatever you do. I’ll know how you feel, I’ll know you’re thinking of me.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mimi sobbed, “I’m not going to have sex until I’m married.”

“I’m not going to have sex ever.”

“Don’t be such a dope.”

“Oh, Mimi. I’ll never forget you.”

The months in Reseda passed more slowly than Teresa would have believed possible. She couldn’t go to school, nor could she walk around window shopping on any of the main streets of the nearby small towns where a decidedly pregnant teenager would turn heads.

Throughout the long winter months of her pregnancy she was a prisoner at home, with only the few uplifting paperbacks her mother grudgingly bought her, the local newspaper, and daytime television to keep her company. She was allowed to walk back and forth in those areas of the backyard that were screened from the neighbors, but otherwise there was nothing to do but wait, often alone, since her mother had bought a small, secondhand car and distracted herself by driving around the never-never land of Beverly Hills, on the other side of the Mulholland pass. She never asked Teresa to go with her on these drives and Teresa didn’t dare to suggest it, although, once in the car, she wouldn’t have been noticed.

Teresa’s most lonely moment of each week came on Sunday morning when her parents got into her father’s car and left her alone while they went to mass in the Reseda Catholic Church. She longed to be allowed to go with them, parched for the human contact and warmth of the service, aching for the consolation of communion, but of course it was impossible to show herself and arouse curiosity.

“Isn’t it a sin for me to miss mass, especially on the Holy Days of Obligation?” she asked her mother, still permitting herself a crumb of hope.

“You’re sick with the baby, you’re allowed to miss it,” her mother snapped. “You know that perfectly well. You’re a hypocrite to worry about such minor sins under the circumstances.”

Teresa lived for the single Friday or Saturday night each weekend when her father took her out for a drive after dark, stopping at a place that served ice cream sodas at the car. He would touch her hand gently from time to time, but, silent man that he was, he had become even more reserved. Teresa wanted desperately to throw herself into Sandor’s arms and be held there and comforted, as she had been, from time to time, when she was a little girl with a little sorrow, but she felt his deep reluctance to touch her because of her swollen breasts and her swollen belly.

She sat quietly by his side, her head turned away, so he wouldn’t see the tears of wishful need that filled her eyes. Her only experience with friendly touch was what she could extract from hugging herself tightly in her own arms or patting her stomach gently as she lay in bed at night and whispering to the dark room, “It’s going to be all right, little baby, it’s going to be all right.”

Teresa tried to attract as little of Agnes’s attention as possible, since her mother’s rage had only deepened with the isolation and the strangeness of California. Once Teresa’s morning sickness had passed, she felt her robust health return. Neither mother nor daughter mentioned the need to see a doctor until Teresa felt the child move within her.

“Oh! It just kicked me,” Teresa exclaimed, with excitement and wonder.

“Isn’t that nice for you.” Agnes turned away, shaking her head in disgust.

“Shouldn’t I go to a doctor, just to see if everything’s all right?”

“You look fine to me.” She was twice as beautiful as ever, Agnes thought, the lines of her features were immaculate, exquisite and composed, above her disgusting body.

“But, Mother, I’ve never been to a doctor. Don’t you think I should? If I’m too sick to go to mass, aren’t I sick enough to need a doctor?”

“Nonsense. You’re sleeping well, you’re eating like a horse, you’re getting exercise, your ankles aren’t even swollen, you say you feel fine, why do you need to see a doctor at this point? Having a baby is a perfectly natural process.”

“But shouldn’t I find out if the baby’s all right?”

“Of course it’s all right. A baby is always all right when it isn’t wanted, every woman knows that, the only ones you lose are the ones you’re dying to have,” Agnes said with a bitter laugh. “Don’t you realize that there’s a good reason why you can’t have medical records? A doctor would only ask questions you must never answer, starting with your age. Any doctor will remember your face and your youth. This baby is going to be born in the county hospital under my name and the less trace there is of it in connection with you, the better.”

“You still have hopes for my future, or you wouldn’t bother being so secretive,” Teresa said, suddenly illuminated with knowledge.

“Of course I do. As far as I’m concerned, they’re more important than ever. Look at all I’ve done to give you an intact future, to provide you with a blank slate so you can make something of yourself. Do you realize how much you have to thank me for?
Do you
?”

“Yes, Mother. I do. I always will.”

The baby born on June 15, 1970, to Agnes Patricia Riley Horvath and Sandor Horvath, was a girl. One busy intern remarked to a busier nurse that the mothers were getting younger every year, but otherwise it was an
unremarkable birth of a healthy baby on an unremarkable morning after an unremarkable labor.

The patient known as Agnes Horvath was discharged from the hospital two days later and returned to Reseda with her parents. No one at the county hospital gave a thought to the whereabouts of the father. The baby’s birth certificate gave her name as Mary Margaret Horvath, daughter of Agnes Patricia Riley Horvath and Sandor Horvath.

A week later the baby was baptized. Sandor Horvath had made no intimates at Harvard School, but he had struck up a friendship with one of the history teachers, an unusually friendly chap named Brian Kelly, who, Sandor discovered, was both a good Catholic and a married man. Brian Kelly and his wife, Helen, were surprised but flattered to be asked to become the child’s godparents, to make the act of faith in the child’s name and promise that the child would renounce the devil and live according to the teachings of Christ and His Church.

“How could I not have realized you were expecting this happy event, Sandy,” he said. “You’re a dark horse, never telling me.”

“My wife is superstitious; she asked me not to talk about it until it happened,” Sandor answered. “She’s had two miscarriages since Teresa.”

“Mary Margaret is a splendid baby,” he said, carefully touching one of the few hairs on her head. “Now it’s our duty to make sure she’s brought up to be a good Catholic.”

“Only if the parents don’t do it,” Agnes laughed. “Isn’t she beautiful?” She snatched the wailing baby away from Helen Kelly as quickly as she decently could. “No, darling, don’t cry,” she crooned, “don’t cry, your mommy won’t let anything bad ever happen to you. No never, my own, sweet little Maggie will never, ever have anything to cry about.”

“Maggie? Is that what you’re going to call her?” Teresa asked her mother in amazement. Throughout the
ceremony she had stood to one side, watching quietly, wearing the best of her old Sunday dresses firmly belted around her waist, her breasts still aching dully. The worst pain of the milk that had made her breasts rock-hard and hot for three days was mercifully gone.

“It’s my grandmother’s name, you know that, Teresa,” Agnes said impatiently, too engrossed in the baby to look up.

“I guess I missed that part of the discussion,” Teresa said, feeling even more out of touch with anything to do with the baby than she had before. From the moment they had arrived home from the hospital, her mother had attended to every need, every cry, every sign of discomfort the baby had made, ordering Teresa to leave the baby alone, stay out of her way, and stop bothering her.

“Teenagers,” Sandor said indulgently. “We know about their attention span, don’t we Brian?”

“All too well.”

November 15, 1971

Dearest Mimi,

I hope you still live at your old address. Even though I always write “Please forward if necessary” on the envelope, it’s like putting a message into a bottle and throwing it in the ocean since you can’t answer me and it’s been just over two years since we came here.

Everything’s changed for the better since my last letter. We’ve moved to Santa Monica because my mother decided that Maggie should be brought up on this side of Los Angeles. It’s so pretty here and about fifteen degrees cooler than the Valley. You can easily get to the beach on the weekends, and that’s the place I feel happiest. When I take a long barefoot walk right in the edge of the water, until I fall into the rhythm of the waves, I get a blissful feeling of peace and happiness. I adore the Pacific! We’ve rented a cute little house and my father got a promotion, so now he’s head of the department again.

My big news is all about school. I’m on a full
scholarship at Marymount, where the nuns belong to the Religious Sacred Heart of Mary. It’s a
really
good school with a terrific drama department. Sister Elizabeth, who’s in charge, is a ball of fire, and I think she likes me.

The other girls, most of them anyway, are pretty snooty. They all seem to have known each other all of their lives, lots of them are very rich, and the big deal here is all about which girls, two years from now, will make their debut at a ball, with their dads in white tie and tails! Lots of them are all members of “old California families”—how old can a family be in such a new state, I’d like to know!—and their mothers and their grandmothers all went to Marymount too. The fact that I went to Sacred Heart gives me a little standing in spite of my lowly scholarship status. Luckily we all wear uniforms but you wouldn’t believe some of the dreamy cars with chauffeurs that come to pick them up after school, while I wait for the bus.

There have been a lot of sweet-sixteen parties lately, for the in-crowd, but when I turned sixteen, I didn’t say anything about it to anyone, since my mother would never have given me a party and anyway, I didn’t exactly know who to ask. Did you have a party? I like to imagine that you did and that it was absolutely wonderful. And that you missed me a little.

The amazing thing about California is that when you’re sixteen you can get a driving license. Lots of my classmates are driving! Can you believe it? My mother doesn’t trust me enough to let me get a job after school, but I bet I could earn a secondhand car in a couple of years. I still have to come home immediately after my last class unless there’s a rehearsal. And I’m not allowed to go to anyone’s house to study … so, naturally, it’s hard to make new friends. You and your big “bad influence” are never far from my parents’ minds! Ah, well, I guess I can’t
complain. But if I can’t complain to you, who can I complain to?

I’ll bet you’re wondering about Maggie. Well, you shouldn’t worry. She’s got my mother hanging over her every waking minute and lots of her sleeping minutes. My father too, when he’s home. They absolutely
adore
her. There’s no question in my mind that they’ve truly convinced themselves that she’s
their very own baby
. As I wrote you last time, my mother has never let me feed her or diaper her because I was “too clumsy” and now she’s decided that I’m “too busy” with my homework to even be allowed to
play
with Maggie … as a special treat every once in a while I get to tell her a story! I guess they think that I’ll contaminate the poor little thing.

But Maggie’s a very sweet, loving little girl who’s growing smarter and more fun every day. Remember how we used to talk about the power of positive thinking and how we could grow big breasts if we concentrated on it hard enough? I must be using this technique on myself, without realizing it, because I feel that Maggie
truly is
my sister. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed because of circumstances, but the whole maternal thing—I just don’t feel it, Mimi. Nothing. I guess it’s just as well, because otherwise I’d be too sad to stand it.