Mayfield broke into their conversation like a class clown breaking up a fight between the captain of the football team and the surprisingly fierce president of the chess club. “Didn’t you hear the timer go off? The biscuits are ready.”
Then he settled back into his chair and watched Linton hand out breakfast orders. Jeremiah and Linton didn’t look his way, but they stopped arguing.
“Biscuit, biscuit, two biscuits, biscuit, three biscuits, biscuit,” Linton said, counting the well-browned pastries. “Where’s Yogurt Girl?”
Stephanie raised her hand and he pressed a container of strawberry yogurt into it.
“What’s your name, Yogurt Girl? Want some coffee? Coffee comes with everybody else’s biscuits, but I’ll give you some on the house.”
Faye remembered that Sylvia said Mayfield had behaved the same way with Frida, giving her free stuff as part of an obnoxious courtship ritual. She was wondering if she should step in when Stephanie solved her own problem by refusing the coffee brusquely and backing away from him.
Mayfield laughed at Linton’s failed flirtation with Stephanie, and Faye could see that his amusement pissed Linton off.
Jeremiah was more sophisticated. Smoother. He only let a flickering smile slip, but Faye could tell that he wanted to laugh just as loud. Davion and Jeremiah were grinning, but not Ayesha and Yvonna. Their faces were expressionless as they each sidled closer to Stephanie. If Linton didn’t get out of their friend’s face, they were going to get in his.
Faye found her voice. “Everybody go pick out some sandwich meat, and some fruit if you want it. I’ll get the chips. Oh, yeah, and somebody get some water, enough to last the week. Jeremiah, load up the ice chests. We need to get moving.”
As they left, Mayfield was taking over the register and starting his shift. Linton still stood right where he’d been, staring at Mayfield, a man who’d tried to date the late wife whom he had still loved.
Chapter Thirty
Once Mayfield and Linton were in their rearview mirror, Faye’s attitude improved and her crew perked up. Ayesha and Davion had chosen to ride with her, and their rapid-fire questions had bounced off the windows of her car all the way to Sweetgum State Park. Now, the whole group was hauling equipment through the woods and across the creek, and they looked happy to be doing it.
Faye loved the early days of an excavation, when everybody involved still believed that maybe they’d uncover the American King Tut’s tomb, or something very like it. Maybe something better. Unpacking equipment, walking the site, laying out a sampling grid and finally, finally, breaking ground…these were the days when the whole crew wore smiles and walked with a spring in their steps.
In a couple of weeks, they’d all have ground-in dirt decorating the knees of their new work clothes. There would also be dirt ground into their cuticles and into the calluses on their palms. On the rare occasions that Faye treated herself to a manicure, the manicurist earned every cent, because she had, for all intents and purposes, spent the past twenty years giving herself dirt tattoos on both hands.
In a couple of weeks, this perky and hopeful crew would be grateful to find any chip of stone or seed that might be worth cataloging. Reality would set in at about the two-week mark, but Day One was always golden.
Watching Jeremiah in action made her laugh. He was so invested in the success of his protégés that he was running in circles like a sheepdog barking instructions.
“Where’s your field notebook? Ayesha? Your notebook? You, too, Davion.”
“Yvonna, those sandals just won’t do it. I know you have boots. We all went boot-shopping together and I packed everybody’s boots in my car. Go find yours.”
“Stephanie? This way!”
Faye assessed her workers for about the hundredth time since she had met them. She was keeping a close eye on Richard. He smelled like yesterday’s liquor, but at least he did not smell like fresh liquor. The odor of his hangover followed him around, and it smelled like sweat, beer, and gin, but he was not drunk today. If he managed to survive a sweaty day under this cloudless July sky, then she might not have to demand that Jeremiah fire him. He would be handy, if he stayed and if he applied himself. He was Jeremiah’s burliest employee, with only Stephanie coming close to him in size. Jeremiah himself was bigger than them all.
Faye wondered if Jeremiah relied on his size to keep his employees in line. She didn’t have that advantage, but in her observation, physical intimidation only went so far in managing a crew. Faye would never be physically intimidating, but she could project a fearsome attitude and she knew how to earn her team’s respect through sheer professional competence. So far, this approach had been good enough.
Davion wasn’t as big as Richard and Jeremiah, but he had a wiry strength and he struck Faye as alert and thoughtful. He and Ayesha seemed like the group’s natural leaders, so she put Ayesha in charge of organizing all the gear, and she sent Davion and Stephanie out with machetes to delineate the study area. The site was big, but only parts of it were covered with thick underbrush. Her machete-wielders had a shot at finishing their work before lunch.
In the meantime, Faye walked the site with a GPS receiver, marking interesting features she’d observed on aerial photos. After they’d all been at their tasks for an hour or so, her phone rang. She found a shady spot and answered it.
She still hadn’t heard from Joe, so she absent-mindedly answered without checking to see who was calling, figuring it was him. Instead of her husband, she heard a woman’s voice, old and quavery, saying, “Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth? This is Phyllis Windom. You’re telling me that you’ve been playing with my
