Baltimore Blues

Donna Collington, with her innocent baby face, had known who she was and what her 'messy case' was about. Humbled, she headed back to Fells Point and her shift at the bookstore, for which she was already late.

Kitty gave her a baleful stare when she showed up at the register on a run from the bus stop. She was rearranging the children's section, setting up for a House at Pooh Corner party for the weekend. After reading a magazine article about the increasingly competitive nature of children's birthday parties, Kitty had decided to go head-to-head with Chuck E. Cheese, luring Baltimore's more bookish parents into the store for theme parties-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows. All the children received five dollar gift certificates to the store. A shrewd investment, as their parents inevitably dropped at least fifty dollars more when they came to pick the kids up.

'Kitty!' Tess said, going on the offensive. 'You're actually wearing clothes! Is officer Friendly out making Baltimore safe for democracy?'

Instead of her usual kimono Kitty wore black linen pedal pushers with tiny bows at the cuffs and a black cotton sweater several sizes too large for her small frame. It kept sliding back and forth, exposing first one shoulder, then the other. Crow, perched on a ladder in the women's fiction section, was almost dizzy from watching the sweater swoosh back and forth.

'At least I made it to my yoga class this morning,' she said. 'I don't let men disrupt my life. I disrupt theirs.'

So Jonathan's visit had not gone unnoticed. Kitty didn't disapprove of casual sex, just of Jonathan. She thought Tess could do better. Tess knew she could do worse.

'Look-some of us aren't goddesses. We have to settle.'

'Even goddesses don't always settle.' That was Crow, from his perch. 'Athena never wanted a man. The nymph Laurel turned into a tree rather than end up with Apollo. And he was a god.'

Tess ignored him, lowering her voice so only Kitty could hear. 'Jonathan's not so bad. When he's excited about something, about work, he needs someone who understands. His current girlfriend doesn't.'

'Doesn't understand that he needs to sleep with someone else? No, I suppose she doesn't.'

Crow was staring at them so intently that Tess was sure he was going to fall off the library ladder. She whispered, 'It's not really about sex. The sex is secondary, almost…perfunctory.'

'All the more reason not to have it,' Kitty said smugly.

Tired and irritable, Tess was on the verge of saying something wounding to her aunt, something she might regret, when she noticed a wan, tiny figure approaching the register. Head down, the woman moved resolutely, a posture the store's employees usually identified with someone intent on finding the Kama-sutra or a book with orgasm in the title.

But it was Cecilia, the little Kung Fu-fightin' bride-to-be from VOMA. Tess wondered what book she wanted. Kitty had an entire section about rape, including several books about trying to have a normal sex life again.

'Your card didn't say it was a bookstore,' Cecilia said. Her voice sounded faintly accusing but also confused.

'I guess it didn't.' Tess groped desperately for whatever persona she had presented the other night. What had she told her? Who had she been?

'We're partners,' Kitty said, a smooth and accomplished liar. It dated from her early days in the business when she was juggling bills and creditors.

'Oh.' Cecilia rocked on her heels in front of the counter, her eyes on the wide wooden planks beneath her feet. 'I called on the phone to get directions, but I've never been here before. I guess I wasn't sure what it was.'

Tess gave Kitty a look and she evaporated, gesturing to Crow as she retreated to her office that he should take over the cash register. Tess led Cecilia to one of the old library tables.

'At first I felt bad about the other night,' Cecilia began, her eyes studying the grain in the oak table. 'We shouldn't be in the directory-almost no one who shows up meets the criteria-and we always end up turning people away. For some of them there's not always another place to go.'

'Well, no harm done,' Tess said brightly. Apology accepted. That's that. Please leave, as I have no memory of what I told you about myself the other night. 'I'm not holding a grudge.'

'I said ‘at first.'' Suddenly Cecilia had no trouble making eye contact. Her transformation was swift and sure, much faster than it had been Monday night, when she had metamorphosed more gradually from little Cece to Cecilia. 'But then I realized you weren't really interested in joining the group. You were there to spy on us.'

'What makes you say that?' Other than the fact that it's true.

'You went to all this trouble to find VOMA and made a big stink when you couldn't join, presumably because you needed to talk about what happened to you. But in the coffee bar, when I asked you about your rape, you didn't want to talk at all. I could tell from the questions you asked me that you didn't know what it was like. You were too tentative, too polite.'

Tess said nothing.

'I want you to tell me why you were there.'

'You tell me something first. Is there a woman named Mary in your group? A woman whose rapist was represented by Michael Abramowitz?'

Cecilia smiled oddly. 'No, no Marys. But we have lots of women who know Abramowitz's work.'

'How many?'

'You haven't answered my question.'

'I'm not sure I'm going to.' Tess felt an odd power. She wasn't sure why, but she sensed Cecilia feared her. It was a novel experience, and an exhilarating one. 'How many, Cecilia?'

Cecilia looked to the ceiling and ticked the names off her fingers, as if calling roll. 'Well, there's Pru, Meredith, and Maria-but not Mary. Joan and Melody. Cynthia. Stephanie. Susan. Nancy and Hannah. Leslie, Jane, Ellen, and Lisa. Me-is that everyone? That's the nucleus. A few others come and go, but those fourteen are always there.'

'I guess that's not a coincidence,' Tess said. 'That others come and go. You seem intent on keeping it private.'

'It makes more sense if you know the real name.' Cecilia leaned across the table, as if to take Tess into her confidence. Her mood seemed lighter, more carefree. Whatever brief power Tess enjoyed had now vanished. 'Victims of Michael Abramowitz. Monday, of course, was our final meeting, our own little wake for the late, great lawyer.'

'Nice try. But I saw the group's charter, remember? You left it behind at the coffeebar. Its official name is Victims of Male Aggression, and Abramowitz filed the papers. Why would he help set up a group of women who hated him?'

Cecilia gave her an appraising look. 'Good question. It's the one I asked Pru three weeks ago, when I looked up the charter. She told me it was her own little joke. She asked Abramowitz to file the charter when he was in private practice, playing on the do-gooding instincts he carried over from the public defender's office, where he made a career out of putting rapists back on the streets.'

'So Pru put the group together and keeps everyone else out?'

'You got it. It's not enough to be a rape victim. You have to have had the singularly unpleasant experience of watching your tax dollars at work, as Public Defender Abramowitz got your rapist acquitted.'

'But that was his job,' Tess objected. 'What would you rather have-public defenders who just throw their clients on the rocks, or people who really try? He wasn't trying to hurt you. He was trying to help poor young men. It wasn't personal. Besides, he left the public defender's office years ago. Isn't it time-'

'To get on with our lives? Actually, for a while, I was getting on with my life. Then his face started showing up everywhere, and his voice. I saw him on television, heard him on the radio. I drove by his billboards on my way to work. That's when the group started-when all these women saw that face again, heard his voice. It brought it all back.'

'Wouldn't it have been healthier to stop watching those UHF channels? Switch to NPR? Find a new route to work?'

Cecilia slumped in her chair, as if worn out by the conversation. 'You're just proving Pru's point. Other people don't understand. I never thought I'd have to say this to another woman, but you just don't get it.'

No, she got it. She understood their anger and frustration. But she was uncomfortable around people who