Baltimore Blues

She waved good-bye, wishing she could fake a few tears. Of course, trying to fake one's way into a support group was arguably much worse than running an exclusive one, but Tess was still inexplicably angry at VOMA for rejecting her. Groups for rape victims should welcome everyone.

'I guess I'll go check out the Bingers,' she said as she left. 'But they'll probably kick me out because my devotion is to Goldenberg Peanut Chews instead of doughnuts.'

Tess ran down the hall, enjoying the loud, smacking noise her shoes made on the old linoleum. Once outside she got in her car and pulled up to the corner, then turned off the engine and waited for the meeting to break up. She still wanted to find the woman quoted in the clipping. Pru, of course, would not help, although she wouldn't be surprised to find out the woman was Pru. Mousy, distracted Cece-that was another story.

All the support groups left at 9 P.M., but it was easy to spot the women from VOMA. They carried flashlights and cans of mace, held stiffly in front of them like bayonets, then linked arms, walking the member who was parked farthest away to her car, working back toward the old school. Cece drove off in an old Mustang. Tess quickly jotted down the tag numbers, which would get her the address from the MVA in case she lost her tonight. Then she pulled out behind her.

Cece headed downtown, stopping at a coffee bar. Although Baltimore was generally known as a place where trends came to die, the city had anticipated the national mania for coffee. Tess watched from the street as Cece ordered a cappuccino from the counter and took her steaming cup to a shadowy corner, wedging herself in as if she didn't like to have her back to anyone. She pulled some papers from her purse and studied them. Tess waited two minutes, then sailed in and ordered a decaf latte, ignoring Cece. If she sees me first, Tess reasoned, it will seem more like a coincidence. She sat at the counter with her profile turned toward the young woman, staring intently into space, but Cece never lifted her eyes from her work. It wasn't part of Tess's plan to dunk her biscotti, miss the glass, and spill the whole operation, but it worked. Cece's eyes met hers. She then looked away, skittish and uncomfortable, gathering up the papers spread out in front of her.

'You're the one getting married, right? Cece?' Tess said, walking up to her table.

'Cecilia. Cecilia Cesnik. Cece's a nickname I'm trying to outgrow, only no one will let me.' She blushed and looked down at the table.

If Tess hadn't met her through VOMA, she would have assumed Cecilia was one of those people who had never overcome the adolescent habit of finding everything about themselves embarrassing. There was a lot going on behind the delicate face-edginess, fear, irritation at having her solitary moment disturbed. In Cece's case- Cecilia's case-it was probably her history as a rape victim that made her want to disappear.

'I'm sorry if Pru seemed kind of rude,' Cecilia said. 'But VOMA really is very specific. It's not for everyone.'

'I felt as if I had walked in on one of those girls' clubs that were always forming in grade school.'

'It's in your best interest. I mean, it would be even worse to get into a group and find out it couldn't help you. You're not the first person Pru has turned away. Sometimes even men have tried to join.' She lowered her voice when she said 'men,' as if the word itself were an obscenity. 'We couldn't have that.'

'Why would men want to join?'

'They have daughters or wives who have been raped, and they're looking for a way to make sense of it. But VOMA isn't for them, either.'

'How long have you been a member?'

'Six years, from the beginning,' she said with a small sigh. 'Pru recruited me. The group was her idea, and she spent time at the courthouse, going through files and looking for victims whose rapists walked. I was raped almost seven years ago.'

'And now you're getting married. I bet there was a time when that seemed remote.'

'Yes. Very remote.' She laughed. 'I can't quite believe it myself.'

They sat in awkward silence. Tess wondered if her face betrayed her conflicting emotions. The idea of anyone hurting this tiny girl made her sick. She was glad, now, that she hadn't told her rehearsed story. They would have known she was making it up. This was a kind of pain one couldn't fake. Then again, VOMA, with its celebration of victimhood, gave her the creeps. She just wanted to find the woman quoted in the piece and find out if she still was harboring a grudge against Abramowitz.

She slid one of her business cards across the table. Luckily it gave nothing away. 'Well, if VOMA ever changes its policies, give me a call.' She was hoping her overture would prompt Cece to offer her number, but she just pocketed Tess's card. Then she reached toward her head to play with the hair that was no longer there. Her hand dropped abruptly back into her lap.

'You know, you actually look pretty good with such short hair,' Tess said. 'Not many women would.'

'Yeah, I had a pretty bad case.'

'Um, cancer?'

Cecilia laughed again, a full-bodied laugh this time. 'No, although you're not the first to think that. I had Highland-town hair-dyed, permed, with the little side bangs in the front and the rest hanging down to my shoulders.'

Highlandtown was an East Side working-class neighborhood, home to the city's tallest beehives and thickest accents. Tess had never heard of Highlandtown hair, but she understood instantly what Cecilia meant.

'Why did you cut it off? The neighborhood must be shocked.'

'Not as shocked as they were when I quit my secretarial job and got a scholarship to the University of Baltimore 's law school. Or when I stopped pronouncing the second ‘r' in ‘warter' and ‘ Warshington D.C. ' People told my pop I was getting uppity.' Cece-Cecilia-was suddenly sitting up straighter, and she had lost the shy, shambling style. 'They were right. I am.'

'What prompted all the changes?'

'VOMA. It brought me together with a lot of women I might not have met otherwise. Rich women, from Roland Park and Guilford. Accomplished women. Pru really encouraged me. But she thinks I'm uppity, too.'

'Why?'

Cecilia shrugged. 'It happens. Someone's your mentor, then suddenly you don't need a mentor anymore. Hey-what was yours like?'

'My mentor?'

'No, your rape.'

Tess stared into her glass, mumbling: 'Oh, typical date rape. I was helping a guy study, and we went up to his room.'

'Mine was a burglar. I asked him to…pull out. I was scared of, I don't know, pregnancy, or AIDS. I think I had this idea it would be more tolerable if he didn't come inside me. Of course he found the whole thing hilarious.'

'How did he get off?'

'His lawyer used the thing about pulling out. He said I was so calm, so thoughtful, it must have been consensual. That it was my form of birth control. But that's not the reason he got acquitted. Someone, the lab or the cops or the prosecutors, lost the physical evidence, the swab. The case fell apart without that.'

'How does VOMA help?'

'Oh, self-defense classes. Lectures. We even looked into some kind of civil suit.'

'Against the lab, for losing your results?'

'Something like that. VOMA worked pretty well.'

'Worked, past tense? Are you quitting because you're getting married, or because of law school?'

'Right. Exactly. Because I'm getting married.' Cecilia jumped to her feet, gathering up her purse and the sheaf of papers on the table. In her haste she knocked everything to the floor. When Tess tried to help her pick the fluttering papers up, she panicked.

'Don't touch anything! Just let me put it back in order!' she shouted, her voice as shrill as a police whistle. It was a commanding sound, coming from such a tiny body. But Cecilia's voice merely startled Tess into holding the papers even tighter, crumpling the sheets in her fist.

Cecilia dropped into a practiced crouch, fingers curved as if to gouge someone's eyes or stab a larynx, but her