Charm City

Rosita sat on a wooden chair that needed refinishing, leaving Tess the full run of an ancient corduroy sofa that looked as if it had been stolen from a state institution. The decor, at least here in the living room, was Early Dorm: ratty furniture, an orange crate full of CDs, a portable stereo. Rosita hadn't even bothered to build bookcases out of cinderblock and boards, piling her few books on the floor. The only grace note was a poster of a pale pastel cowboy, literally disappearing into the landscape, and the view, which was toward the north and its expensive homes.

"Let's start with an obvious question. Where were you Tuesday night?"

"I thought you used to be a reporter. You should know you don't cut to the chase like that. You're suppose to lull me into a warm, expansive mood with a little nonthreatening chitchat."

"This isn't a profile," Tess said. She couldn't help sounding a little sharp. "It's report. If you don't want to talk to me, fine. I'll write that down and pass it on to your supervisors, who assured me everyone would cooperate. Let them worry why you don't want to answer the questions I ask in the order I ask them."

"Fine." Big dramatic sigh and a double eye-roll. "I was here."

"Alone? From what time on?"

"I left work at seven-thirty and stopped at the Giant for a salad, then bought some wine at the liquor store. I wasn't very happy. Remember, I thought the best story I had ever written had just been killed." Fu

"Did you get any telephone calls? Did you make any calls or have any friends drop by?"

Rosita pressed her right hand to her forehead, as if the question required deep thought. "No. No calls at all. And no visitors."

"Then you don't really have an alibi. You have a story. I mean, you can't prove you were here. And the electronic security system at the paper was down, so it's impossible to prove you weren't there unless you can prove where you were. As a reporter, you should know one can't prove a negative."

When surprised, Rosita forgot her poses and ma

"In that case, a lot of people aren't going to have alibis. Are you going to ask Feeney to prove where he was?"

"Feeney has a very satisfactory alibi, or else I wouldn't even be working on this. That would be totally unethical." Fu

"Don't be naive. There are more sets of standards at the Beacon-Light than you'll ever know."

Spare me, Tess thought. The last thing she wanted to hear was Rosita's list of grievances against her bosses. Perhaps she would do well to follow the reporter's advice after all, steering her into i

"You know, I don't pay attention to bylines as much as I should, so I'm not really sure when you started at the Beacon-Light, although I remember admiring your writing on several pieces. What has it been, a year or so?"

"Fourteen months, but I lost four months on the sports copy desk. I really wanted to cover baseball-I covered the minor league team in San Antonio, and Guy-Guy Whitman, the A.M.E. for sports and features-keeps promising me I'll have a shot at the number three slot covering the Orioles. Until then, he has me in the girl ghetto, features."

"What's wrong with features?"

"I want to be a real reporter. That's why I lobbied to get on the Wynkowski story. And I've done a good job. Feeney got the financial stuff, but I got the stuff about his marriage and his gambling problem. If you listen to what people are talking about around town, it's my part of the story."

Jesus, Tess thought, all roads led to Rosita, at least in her mind. The domestic violence was sweetly salacious, and the gambling could be a huge stumbling block, but that was nothing but hearsay. The financial angle was the real story.

"Are you from Texas?"

" Texas? Oh, because of San Antonio. God, no. I spent one year and seven months in that godforsaken place and it seemed as if the temperature was above ninety for all but three days. I'm from New England. I like seasons, and I prefer cool ones to hot ones."

" Baltimore 's summers are pretty wicked."

"Yeah, and the winters are wimpy, with people going crazy at the sight of the first snowflake. It's still an improvement, for now. I'll get to the Globe yet."

"Just the Globe? Why not the New York Times or the Washington Post?" Why not the Vatican?

For all her instructions on how to conduct an interview, Rosita wasn't a very good listener. "What I really need to do is get back into sportswriting. It's still something of a novelty act, the woman in the locker room. Some 22-year-old in overalls won a Pulitzer this year for an umpire story, for Christ's sake. No, there aren't many more female sportswriters than there were ten years ago. The difference is, editors don't feel as guilt-ridden about it.

"You sound like one of those people with a five-year plan you update every December thirty-first."

"I am. Two five-year plans, actually, one for work and one for my alleged personal life. Work is proving to be more manageable." Her smile this time wasn't her usual fake grin. It was tiny and rueful, fading away quickly, the Cheshire Cat in reverse. She glanced past Tess, who followed her eyes to the clock in the kitchen gallery. No wonder Tess had cats on the brain: the clock was one of those insanely gri

"Look, I really don't have any more time for this," Rosita said abruptly.

"Sorry, you obviously have plans. Big date?"

"No, no, just di

"God, no," Tess said.

"Boyfriend?"

"Sort of. I mean yes, yes I do. In fact, his band is playing tonight, so I have to go do the band member's girlfriend thing. Stand in a crowd, stare adoringly at him."

"In my experience, it doesn't matter what your boyfriend does. Sooner or later, you're expected to stand in a crowd and stare at him adoringly." Rosita almost seemed likable to Tess now. She was sharp, she had a certain wit. Then she reverted to being merely sharp. "Of course in Baltimore, there are no available men, not if you have standards. I'd rather be dateless."

With someone else, it might have been mere tactlessness. In this case, there was no doubt the remark was deliberately waspish, an intentional implication that Tess did not have standards.

"Protect those toenails. I'll let myself out."

It was dark now along University Parkway and Tess, a born voyeur, glanced into lighted windows as she walked to her car. This stretch of buildings was older than Rosita's tower, with the elegant touches once common to the city's apartments-dark wood paneling, high ceilings, crown moldings. Why did people's lives, captured on the sly like this, look so enticing, like old photographs unearthed in an antique store? Tess caught glimpses of women her age, yet so much more polished looking in their real Saturday night date clothes. She saw their men, in jackets and ties. Grown-ups, headed to restaurants and Center Stage, perhaps the symphony. And where was she going to be on Saturday night? Lost in the funhouse of the Floating Opera until the wee small hours of the morning, keeping company with wee small minds.