good look at his face.
Brent grinned. “I knew an evening watching small-town football wouldn’t change your life. You’re more the foreign-films-with-tiny-subtitles type, but we’re a hundred miles away from that kind of entertainment. Going to the game is like—well, it’s like being in high school again. You go to see people and catch up with old friends. If you’re a woman, you check out what the other women are wearing, so you’ll have something to talk to your friends about all week. If you’re a man, you check out the other guys’ dates, so—”
“So you’ll have something to talk to your friends about all week. Just like high school.”
“Well, yeah.” He reached for her hand. “Thanks for coming tonight. My social status is hugely enhanced because the pretty new archaeologist came to the game with me.”
“Really?” Faye thought of the crowd in the football stadium. Sitting with Brent among his fellow Alcaskaki townspeople, she had felt like a dark smudge on a broad canvas of white faces. “Are you sure your Alcaskaki friends weren’t wishing you’d picked a white girl for your date?”
“The twentieth century’s dead, Faye, and good riddance. Nobody here cares what color you are. Although I’ll admit, the grandstand did look a little segregated.” He spoke as if he’d never noticed that his neighbors still maintained a color line, even while watching the big game. “I guess people just sit where they’ve always sat, but that doesn’t make them bigots. I mean, did you get the impression from anybody that you weren’t welcome?”
“No, I didn’t,” Faye said. She tactfully failed to mention the background reading she’d done while preparing for this project. She doubted that the citizens of Alcaskaki and the Sujosa settlement had dropped centuries of racial conflict merely because the millennium had changed. The fact that she thought her date was naive did not, however, dim her growing respect for his apparent color-blindness. She decided to put some effort into learning to enjoy football. Enjoying Brent’s company required no effort at all.
“Do you think the Sujosa will lose themselves, now that the rest of the world knows they’re here?” she said. “I mean, they’ve obviously mingled with the white folks from Alcaskaki for years, but the Rural Assistance Project should open up a million opportunities for them.”
“You think so?” He shook his head. “I cannot believe they’re still calling themselves that. The Rural Assistance Project. There’s the government for you.”
“Why shouldn’t we call the project that? It’s paying for a lot more than the historical research I’m doing. It’s funding home repairs. It’s brought jobs—”
“Just some piddling low-paid temporary jobs. Jobs that will help put food on the table for a few months, then disappear.”
Faye frowned. “That can’t be right. I read—”
“I know what you read. But I’m telling you it’s not happening. The Sujosa are getting shafted.” Brent looked like he could taste his bitter words.
“What do you mean?”
“The draft budget I worked on had line items for Sujosa-owned businesses. There was money to help capitalize new firms. There were funds to train people to run their own businesses, but when the project was finally approved, all that money got slashed. Elliott Young has top-notch construction skills, and he’s worked as a roofer. There is absolutely no reason for this project to hire outside roofing companies to repair the Sujosa’s houses. Elliott could do it, and he could create jobs for a few other Sujosa while he was at it, but he doesn’t have money for equipment and he doesn’t know a thing about starting a company. So now he’s going to get a new roof, built by somebody from outside the settlement. He’s going to hate himself for accepting charity, and he’s being robbed of a real chance to make a real livelihood.”
Brent’s eyes were on the road. His
Brent grinned. “I knew an evening watching small-town football wouldn’t change your life. You’re more the foreign-films-with-tiny-subtitles type, but we’re a hundred miles away from that kind of entertainment. Going to the game is like—well, it’s like being in high school again. You go to see people and catch up with old friends. If you’re a woman, you check out what the other women are wearing, so you’ll have something to talk to your friends about all week. If you’re a man, you check out the other guys’ dates, so—”
“So you’ll have something to talk to your friends about all week. Just like high school.”
“Well, yeah.” He reached for her hand. “Thanks for coming tonight. My social status is hugely enhanced because the pretty new archaeologist came to the game with me.”
“Really?” Faye thought of the crowd in the football stadium. Sitting with Brent among his fellow Alcaskaki townspeople, she had felt like a dark smudge on a broad canvas of white faces. “Are you sure your Alcaskaki friends weren’t wishing you’d picked a white girl for your date?”
“The twentieth century’s dead, Faye, and good riddance. Nobody here cares what color you are. Although I’ll admit, the grandstand did look a little segregated.” He spoke as if he’d never noticed that his neighbors still maintained a color line, even while watching the big game. “I guess people just sit where they’ve always sat, but that doesn’t make them bigots. I mean, did you get the impression from anybody that you weren’t welcome?”
“No, I didn’t,” Faye said. She tactfully failed to mention the background reading she’d done while preparing for this project. She doubted that the citizens of Alcaskaki and the Sujosa settlement had dropped centuries of racial conflict merely because the millennium had changed. The fact that she thought her date was naive did not, however, dim her growing respect for his apparent color-blindness. She decided to put some effort into learning to enjoy football. Enjoying Brent’s company required no effort at all.
“Do you think the Sujosa will lose themselves, now that the rest of the world knows they’re here?” she said. “I mean, they’ve obviously mingled with the white folks from Alcaskaki for years, but the Rural Assistance Project should open up a million opportunities for them.”
“You think so?” He shook his head. “I cannot believe they’re still calling themselves that. The Rural Assistance Project. There’s the government for you.”
“Why shouldn’t we call the project that? It’s paying for a lot more than the historical research I’m doing. It’s funding home repairs. It’s brought jobs—”
“Just some piddling low-paid temporary jobs. Jobs that will help put food on the table for a few months, then disappear.”
Faye frowned. “That can’t be right. I read—”
“I know what you read. But I’m telling you it’s not happening. The Sujosa are getting shafted.” Brent looked like he could taste his bitter words.
“What do you mean?”
“The draft budget I worked on had line items for Sujosa-owned businesses. There was money to help capitalize new firms. There were funds to train people to run their own businesses, but when the project was finally approved, all that money got slashed. Elliott Young has top-notch construction skills, and he’s worked as a roofer. There is absolutely no reason for this project to hire outside roofing companies to repair the Sujosa’s houses. Elliott could do it, and he could create jobs for a few other Sujosa while he was at it, but he doesn’t have money for equipment and he doesn’t know a thing about starting a company. So now he’s going to get a new roof, built by somebody from outside the settlement. He’s going to hate himself for accepting charity, and he’s being robbed of a real chance to make a real livelihood.”
Brent’s eyes were on the road. His
Similar Books
