Giant Men and Violent Women

The 3 Bs

PRESLEY ANN

We run past a group of protestors. They're chanting for everybody, anybody, somebody to sign their petition. "Pro-slave in MA!"

They're a pro-slavery group here in Massachusetts—women, men, all kinds, all types wanting to close their prisons and bring The Prison Work Program here, just like in New Hampshire. But I can't sign their petition. Ashley and I need to hurry.

Ashley's hand is on my back, and we're running through Boston Logan International Airport. My heeled boots click on the floor. His tie blows off to the side. We look important. We look like we have things to do. We look like we have yet again come to a point in our lives where we have too many tasks and too little time. People rush out of our way. Some stare at the importance of us, a tall, handsome couple—if I may say so myself—the woman in her plaid shawl and gemstones, the man in his tailored sports coat. People probably wonder where such a dignified-looking couple could be running out of the airport to.

"That ice cream shop closes in one hour," Ashley turns and says to me. "A cab!" I say as I point outside.

The glorious gleam of a yellow cab appears, as though draped in a halo of angelic white lights.

"That is our cab, Presley Ann. I shall kill the man—"

And then we see it. A man, smartly dressed, much like Ashley, along with a woman with gleaming gemstone earrings. Her wavy, dark hair blows around her as the man she's with talks to the cabbie, and she takes pictures of herself.

"No. Hell no," Ashley says.

"Ashley," I say to him, "it ain't happening, love."

"Presley Ann, in just twenty minutes, we will be dining on B-Three— brown sugar, brown butter, and brownies—ice cream. That cab is ours." We rush out of the sliding doors of the airport, and— "Congressman!" Ashley says.

The wavy-haired brunette turns and looks at us with odd amusement. Who is this handsome stranger? Her husband turns around, a little confused, and then—

"Well, I'll be goddamned!" the distinguished-looking man with a mouthful of sparkly white teeth says to Ashley as he rushes over to him. "Ashley Bragg!"

They embrace in a jock hug, one-sided. The wavy black-haired woman and I smile at each other and raise our eyebrows at the scene, as women do in solidarity when the men they're with haven't properly introduced them. The cabbie patiently looks on, seeming to realize that both men appear to be someone, especially after hearing one of them is a senator.

"Angie, take a picture of this. This is The Judge's great-grandson."

"Oh, I know who he is!" the brunette, Angie, says as she takes a picture of herself with Ashley and the senator in the background.

"Congressman," Ashley says as he turns to me, "this is my wife."

I reach out my hand for him to shake. He firmly takes it and flashes his toothy smile at me.

"Presley Ann Scots," I say to him. "Not his wife." "Yet," Ashley says.

The senator laughs enthusiastically, excitedly, as only a senator who has been on a campaign trail can. His wife joins in and reaches out her hand for me to shake, as the wife of a senator has been trained to do.

"Angie," she says to me, her handshake firm and her eyes smiling with warmth.

"Well, I could've told you that you weren't married to him," the senator says. "No way in hell this guy is getting Cherokee Scots's daughter." Hmm. The senator knows my mother.