Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I’ve never heard of––”
“I wish Diego had just bought it from you,” Gavin told her, side-eyeing his friend, “but that’s okay. We’re planning a trip to Musina in South Africa soon, so hopefully we’ll be successful in finding some.”
The woman stared at him. “It looks like quartz to me.”
“May I?” Gavin asked Hannah.
She nodded, and he took the piece from her hand and walked it over to the woman, holding it up to the light so both she and her husband, Hal, could see. I saw it too, the turquoise-colored inclusion near the tip. “The crystal has a perfect termination. It’s really beautiful.”
It looked like a piece of quartz to me as well. If he hadn’t pointed out the almost smudge of blue in the stone, I would have missed it. It appeared a bit more milky than the quartz pieces Hannah had shown me, but really, other than that, it looked very not special.
“It’s normally that blue-green color, right?” Hannah asked Gavin as he returned the crystal to her.
“It is, yes,” he told her. “And a lot of times, you do find it in quartz, as well as with papagoite and shattuckite and others.”
“I have a lot of shattuckite,” Hannah explained. “It’s so pretty, and of course, courage and inner strength.”
Gavin squinted at her. “Did I explain that I’m a geologist?”
“So you're all logic and they’re just rocks.”
“Precisely.”
She laughed at him, and I could tell he was charmed.
“Please,” he said quickly, reaching out to take hold of my shoulder. “You and your lovely daughter with the great eye for crystals must have lunch with us.”
I glanced at Hannah, and she gave me the Bambi eyes and pouty lip. When I looked back at Gavin, he waggled his eyebrows at me. “We would love that,” I agreed.
As we headed for the door, the woman behind the counter asked what the crystal she’d sold Hannah was worth.
Gavin turned and thought a moment. “Conservatively, I would think about four thousand dollars. But Jenny’s the one who owns the store in Savannah,” he said, turning to his friend.
“Well, I sold a pendant about a quarter of that size for sixteen hundred, like, two months ago,” she explained to the shop owner. “So I know it’s gotta be about that.”
The woman and the man both looked at my daughter.
“Thank you,” Hannah said kindly instead of all the things I would have spouted because I could be petty and small at times.
On our way out—I swear to God—a man was telling a woman on their way in that he was sure he saw a piece of ajoite earlier that day but he needed her to see it to confirm. I was dying, and Hannah just smiled and shrugged. My kid knew what she was talking about when it came to valuable things. Her expertise was to be trusted.
After we exchanged names with our new friends, and I offered them all a water from the tote bag I was schlepping, we got down to the business of hoofing it across town. We ended up walking to Cochon Butcher, which was far from where we were, on Royal and Dumaine, all the way over to Tchoupitoulas and Howard. Well, far for me, but I wasn’t used to trekking through the desert looking for rocks. Jenny and Diego flanked Hannah, and the three of them did not stop talking, their phones out the whole time.
“They’re my grad students,” Gavin explained to me as the two of us walked side by side. “Which was why Diego was pretty sure, but not altogether certain, about what he saw.”
“Got it,” I said, smiling at him.
“It’s nice that they have Hannah to talk to about TikTok and TV shows and singers I’ve never heard of. I feel older than some of the things we dig up most of the time.”
I scoffed.
“What?”
“Are you kidding? How old are you? Twenty-eight?”
“I’ll have you know I’m thirty-two,” he announced, like it was the end of the world.
I laughed at him.
“And how old are you, Jory?”
“I’m closer to fifty than forty,” I replied, grinning.
“You lie,” he baited me, bumping me with his shoulder.
“I’m not,” I said, chuckling, and then whined. “How far is this place?”
He smiled and put an arm around my shoulders. “Not far now, kid. Hold on.”
Finally, we walked toward a restaurant, and I was confused why we were going to the right of the door, around the side of the building to stand in a line. Apparently, Cochon the restaurant was in the front, we were going to Cochon Butcher, and you waited in line and ate in a noisy space where you ordered, got a number, and tried to find a table. I paid, even though they invited us, because Gavin was a geologist and Jenny and Diego were grad students. There was no way they could afford all the things I wanted to try. Plus, there were a few cocktails as well, which would make the twenty-minute walk back more bearable.