Giant Men and Violent Women

We HATE Her

PRESLEY ANN

It's October 13. I'm sitting in the fog on the lawn of the governor's mansion, home to our newest governor because my mother has become one of them. A reggae-folk guitarist and his partner on the bongos sing softly. Sweetly. Relaxing.

"You're Bad Luck," Ashley says.

That's Ashley for you—always trying to break some girl's heart. Him calling me Bad Luck is a compliment. Women in New Hampshire who have naturally black hair, an oddity for a human to have been born with such a color, are exalted for it. Wicked beauties. Devil ladies. Bad Luck. Whatever you call us, New Hampshire men, dark and devilish by nature, love it. I was born with black hair and am called Bad Luck as a pat on the back. Way to go, love. The men whom I choose to love are subsequently called Lucky Devils.

Ashley drifts his eyes over to me, settles them on mine, and then brings a slow grin to his face. He's wearing black-framed glasses. Like he's some 1950s lawyer stuck in a courtroom at noon with no air-conditioning with rolled-up sleeves and a loosened tie.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" I ask above the boom of the fireworks.

It's the first ever Freedom Day here in Darling, New Hampshire, and we're celebrating it in grand style. Noisy and bright all day. The dozens of other distinguished people sitting around me let off gasps of awe.

Ashley considers my reincarnation question and gives me a where-did-that-come-from look, but then he realizes that he's speaking with me.

"Sure," he says, leaning back on the grass, using his hands to cushion his head.

And, why wouldn't he? Part of the reason his ancestors fought The Great Righteous War and slaughtered Roman Catholics and Protestants was that they believed in things like reincarnation.

I look him over. I wonder who he used to be. His eyes drift up through the fog and to the streaming white glows of fire floating from the sky.

"Who'd you used to be?" he asks me, as though he read my mind.

Synchronization. Ashley and I are synchronized.

Attorney Ashley Bragg. If he were a piece of art, his face and body would be considered more ancient New Hampshire than the modern ones men are walking around with these days. Broad-shouldered, hair and eyes the color of Hades' darkest river, a strong jawline, the cut body of a combatant. Not the delicate flowers or wine-sniffers most men have become. He has the face and body of The Twenty-Four when the Joki tribe called the men giants. His face, his body is pre-modern New Hampshire, almost prehistoric, if there were such a thing. Not saying he looks like a caveman, but his look reminds you of a time when men looked like men, and there was zero chance of anyone getting the matter confused. His appearance is the very reason I don't buy his gentle 1950s courtroom lawyer facade. It's also the reason I like—want to sleep with—him.

What I like about Ashley is what he might be. I'm not like everyone else here in New Hampshire who buys the handsome mountain-boy act he likes to play. I know that he makes his bones off not acting like some big city lawyer here in rugged New Hampshire. I get that; I'm not an idiot. My mother and her people are from here, so I get the New Hampshire code Ashley has to live by. In fact, I'm almost insulted that Ashley thinks I don't get it. Sure, I grew up in Boston since my dad is from there, but never forget, I am half New Hampshire.

New Hampshire is the reason Ashley wears dark plaid or gingham dress shirts with dark solid ties and dark herringbone and tweed jackets instead of the tailored gray or black suits worn by most men of his class. He's just an ordinary person wearing normal things. A mountain boy at heart. Gosh and golly. Please. I guarantee, if I were to flip over Ashley's shirt collars, I'd see a luxurious name pop up at me in bold $150 print. And I don't buy the black glasses he wears as opposed to the contacts most lawyers his age wear. He's trying to disarm us by flaunting a weakness, and I'm not too sure I buy his poor-eyesight bit. I certainly don't buy the charm he always has for any and everyone he encounters instead of the grin of superiority this Harvard boy could give the rest of these mountain boys. Nobody smiles anymore, not unless they've got something up their sleeve.