Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

had discussed this picnic, she knew he was thinking of a place more private and he’d been a good sport to go along with her warped sense of a good time. It was true that they had the small park to themselves, but the whine and swish of traffic on Highway 98 was everpresent. Faye’s experiences with men had not given her a trusting soul. Yet here she was, playing with fire again. She welcomed the traffic noise and its constant reminder of nearby humanity, in case this date took a disastrous turn. Help was only a couple hundred feet away.
    Would Cyril understand her affection for this park and its ruins? Would he be fascinated by the old mineral baths or repelled by the slime lining their walls? Would he be interested in the brick pavilion in the back that was sliding into the creek? Or would he be bored by the whole thing? Perhaps Faye was setting up too many tests for a first date, but she wasn’t a woman with time to waste.
    He unfolded his big frame from the driver’s seat and flashed her an easy wave without checking his car for mud or scratches. Good. Then he reached in the passenger window and pulled out two Styrofoam food boxes.
    Instead of “Hello,” he said, “Barbecued ribs. Cole slaw—the good kind with lots of onions. Hushpuppies. And French-fried sweet potatoes. I hope you like it. It’s what I always get when I’m in this neck of the woods.”
    Faye, who at the age of five had been labeled “Little Miss Standoffish” by her grandmother, heard herself say, “Anybody carrying food that good can come right over here and sit down by me.”
    The pine branches over their heads filtered out most of the sun and a sea breeze kicked up, taking the edge off the fact that both the temperature and the relative humidity had topped ninety. Faye was fairly comfortable, but Cyril was used to air conditioning. Suggesting an outdoor lunch in August was yet another test of Cyril’s mettle.
    After the initial food-related conversation—“Would you like salt and pepper?” “Is the tea sweet?”—ebbed, she said, “I’m glad you dressed for the weather. You would have died out here in a business suit.”
    Cyril glanced down at his madras shirt and tennis shorts and said, “The heat just keeps my sweet potatoes hot. People who can’t adapt to the circumstances heaven throws their way don’t get far in this world.” He began to chuckle. “I’m having a vision of some of my esteemed fellow senators sitting at this table with us, keeling over one by one because they don’t have sense enough to take off their suit coats and loosen their ties.”
    Faye lifted her tea and said, “A toast to your overheated colleagues,” and Cyril lifted his. The Styrofoam gave an unsatisfying tap as the cups clicked, but they drank deeply anyway.
    Faye said, “I can stand a powerful lot of heat if I have a good supply of iced tea.”
    Cyril nodded. “This is just the way I like it. Strong and sweet.” After a sip, he added, “I bet that’s how you like your men.”
    While his observation may have been accurate, Faye elected to sip her own tea without comment.
    “I’ve got some aides looking into your claim to the Last Isles,” Cyril said.
    She had purposely avoided speaking of her legal problems. She would put Cyril through a gauntlet of tests before she was willing to date him; she would not base her decision on his ability to grant political favors. The idea of going out with him simply because of his clout had a whorish odor to it.
    “What do your aides say?” she asked in a voice so studiedly casual that a bystander would have thought she had no more interest in regaining her family’s lands than she did in daytime television.
    “They think it’s unlikely that we’ll find evidence of property ownership so strong and so unequivocal that the courts will be willing to take the land back from a half-dozen owners—including the federal government—and give it to you.”
    Faye nibbled on her last hushpuppy and tried not to look crushed.
    “But,” Cyril said in a warm tone that made her feel a bit more hopeful, “race will continue to be a confounding issue in American politics for a couple more generations. If you’re willing to live through the hoo-ha that will ensue when the press gets ahold of this…well, you know they’ll love this story. A lone black woman fights the courts for her rights and loses to a bunch of cheating white men and a crooked judge then, seventy years later, her