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“Of course, Bella.” And the staff roared, because who else would she trust to bring up her hat? I brought up her hat! carried it on the goddamn plane in a box very careful, brought it to my house and Martin picked it up. Okay.

Let me tell you a little bit about Ryan and Bella. When the gerrymander took place redistricting, Bella's district was cut up. I was given a part of it; part of it went to Staten Island, and part of it was added to the district that Ryan had. And one could say that it was a gerrymander directed at Bella, but that's not true. Bella happened to be the newest member of Congress from the area, so in terms of the way things were done in the past, it's the newest member who generally suffers -- that's number one -- and secondly, there was no other way that they thought that they really could do this. The borough of Manhattan had lost population and was no longer entitled to four full seats. It was only entitled to about three and a half seats, and therefore we had to be attached to at least one other borough. We were attached to two -- Staten Island and the Bronx, Riverdale -- under the new lines. And Bella had an option. She could have run against any one of the three of us. She could have run against me, and she desperately wanted to, because she doesn't like me, even though philosophically, as our votes go, we're quite close. There are distinctions, but we are quite close. But she took a poll and it showed I'd cream her, which