Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

expensive for which he had absolutely no use.
    While her best customer fingered the merchandise, Faye reached back into her tote bag and drew out the most gorgeous things she had ever dug out of the ground, two matching tortoiseshell combs filigreed with finely carved scrolls and arabesques. They had been slightly etched by the sand that covered them for so long, but other than that, their graceful curves were unchanged since the day they had adorned the upswept hair of a great lady.
    Douglass caught his breath when he saw them—the man had taste—but he started shaking his head before she laid them on the table before him.
    “I’ve thought it through,” she began, with her most persuasive smile. “You need a small display acknowledging the plight of the plantation mistress.”
    “What plight? She was waited on hand and foot.”
    “That’s the stereotype, but time and again, documentary evidence shows that she worked from dark till dark, dispensing food and supplies to all the slave families, providing medical care, supervising food preservation. One woman wrote of using her spare moments to knit socks for everyone on the plantation—hundreds of people.”
    He was shaking his head.
    “Listen to me, Douglass. Women, even white women, couldn’t take a walk without a chaperone. They couldn’t own property or vote or leave the plantation without an escort. They were half-slaves themselves. Document after document shows that many of them opposed slavery, but they had no voice, so they just fed and clothed and doctored their husbands’ human possessions. Any drop of human kindness our ancestors received most likely came from them. They deserve a place in your museum, Douglass.”
    He kept shaking his head. “You make a good case, but it’s too complex an issue to tackle during the forty-five minutes people spend with my exhibits.”
    “I can’t sell them to any of my other customers. I won’t. They’ll turn around and sell them to some fat rich woman who’ll wear them to cheesy costume balls. Buy them for your wife.”
    “She couldn’t wear them. Her hair’s shorter than yours. Keep them, Faye. Put them in a glass case and enjoy owning something beautiful.”
    Faye hated herself for pushing him so hard. Now she was going to have to close this deal through tears of frustration. She carefully replaced the combs in their box and laid them in the bottom of her tote bag.
    She was reaching for the pile of goods that Douglass had rejected, but he caught her hands between his two huge ones.
    “You really need the money or you wouldn’t be selling those combs.”
    She raised her eyes, humiliated by the tears in them.
    He gathered up everything on the table, the things he’d said he wanted and the things he’d said he didn’t. “Keep the combs. I’ll take all the rest. And I’ll pay your asking price for every damn piece.”

    Douglass watched Faye drive away in her twenty-five-year-old car and he hurt for her. She had been too—too what?— too upset or embarrassed or desperate for money to stay for their usual post-negotiation chat, and he was sorry. He enjoyed Faye’s company. After they concluded their business, he always poured her a glass of sherry—good sherry because he knew she couldn’t afford nice things—but always in a tiny glass. She had to drive home, wherever home was, and he wanted her to be safe.
    He looked forward to sitting with Faye, sipping sherry and enjoying a free-ranging conversation. She was remarkably well-read and so was he, considering that they didn’t possess a college degree between the two of them, and she could be depended upon to view front-page events from a cockeyed angle that made him consider his own opinions all over again.
    Faye had her secrets and he understood that, because he had his. She filled part of the hole in his heart that should have been filled by his own children. He wished her a safe drive home. He hoped her home was a safe place, too.

    “Think,” Faye said out loud to herself. “Where will the money come from?” The wind whipping through her open car window swept her words into the hot August air.
    There was a simple answer: sell Joyeuse. Her island would make a better site for a resort than Seagreen Island. It was closer to land. It rose further out of the water. It had no beach to speak of, but that could be remedied with a judicious application of dredged sand. It was as safe from hurricanes as an island could be. Her home might be