Free War by Shannon Dianne

came, the bed and breakfast attracted one politico after the next. Soon the Fletchers closed the bed and breakfast to anyone who wasn’t a government official and within a few years it became the go-to spot for governors, presidents, mayors and Senators.
    The Fletchers had arrived.
    Dena became friends with the daughters of presidents, governors and mayors as they ran around the farm together. She became a debutante, like them. She became a Kappa Chi, like them. She became a member of my circle, like them. Unlike them, she became my wife.
                  But I didn’t love her. I wanted them .
                  “Doesn’t matter,” my father said one night. It was the night that Dena and my parents sat us both down and told us that we were to marry within the year. “The Fletchers know every fucking body. You marry Dena-Jo, you’re immediately a household name, from the council members on up to the President.” He leaned back in his office chair and puffed smoked out of his cigar. “You’re marrying her.”
                  “Listen Dad, I was just thinking I’d marry someone more…or someone less…naive.”
                  “Son, every man wants slick pussy. I get that. You can still marry Dena-Jo and have what you want. No big deal.” He smiled and puffed on his cigar again. Malcolm’s father and my father are best friends but when it comes to women, they’re worlds apart. My father discreetly cheats on my mother without her knowing. He likes ‘slick pussy’. Uncle Wynston’s different. ‘You’ve had one pussy, you’ve had ‘em all,’ he told Mac and me one day, ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it. Pussy’ll get you in trouble every time.’ And while I know my father wanted to soften the blow of me having to marry Dena, I wasn’t thrilled about cheating on the woman I was set to marry. It’s just not…me. I don’t have it in me. So, I asked Dena to marry me, realizing that there would be no other woman, ever, besides her.
    My father was right; she was good for business.
    She and I had an old-time love, to say the least. She was a virgin who left her dorm every Friday to go back home and help her parents around the farm. I’d come out to Cambridge during the weekends and watch her with the horses as she spoke to them in her Cajun French, her waist-length hair in one long black braid tossed over her shoulder. She liked that I was 6’2 ”,  since she was 5’7”. She liked that I knew folk music, since it was secretly her favorite:
                  “I love Bob Dylan, but that’s between us,” she said to me one night.
                  My grandparents were big into the New York folk scene in the 60’s; I grew up on the sounds of Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary. Dena liked that.
    She prefers drive-in movie theaters to cinemas, so I’d fly in from Princeton most weekends and take her to one. Afterwards, we’d sit in my car listening to a mix of old and new folk music, outside of her parents bed and breakfast, as governors and presidents laughed loudly inside. We’d be in the comfort of rolling fields of green grass, crickets chirping, stars shining, the moon glaring, the fireflies lightening up the space around us. It would be during those times when I’d look at Dena and think, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can love her. No, she wasn’t the stiletto-wearing girls that Mac, Cadence, Jake and I always liked. The three of them were about to marry Laura, Winnie and Lola, the kind of women we all liked: Old Money girls from old families who wore high heels and French perfume. Dena wore shoes she referred to as ballet flats and smelled like lavender and rose oil. But maybe I could give up the idea of the city-slick Boston girl and love Dena-Jo, I thought.
    So she and I would sit in my car on the weekends, listening to politicos sing American classics from inside the Fletcher bed and breakfast. Songs like This Land Is