Rob and I bicker a lot, and we disagree about many things, which I suppose makes us pretty much like every other couple on the planet. I think he sees the world in black and white, he thinks I worry too much about all the shades of gray. On the fundamentals, though, I think we concur right down the line. Maybe that's as good as it gets. I decided that when I got home, I was going to send his new woman, whoever she was, packing.
Rob, Clive, and Moira met me at the airport. Rob was holding the biggest bunch of flowers I'd ever seen. I took that as a sign he'd reached the same conclusion about our relationship as I had.
"I guess you're kind of annoyed with me," Clive said.
"Maybe a little," I conceded.
"We put everything in the store back just the way it was when you left," he said. Moira nodded.
"That's good," I said.
"Still mad?" he asked. I said nothing. "I guess that was a yes," he said. "Okay, go ahead. Get if off your chest. Say it. If I ever have another one of these brilliant ideas, I can do it myself. I know. But I'd like to say something in my defense. It's not as bad as you think. First Class has asked Aziza to write up the tour. She called the minute she got home and found their message. She said you're to let her know if it's okay with you, and if it is, she says you can rest assured her article will be very positive. We're going to be okay here, Lara."
Some days, despite all efforts to tell myself I shouldn't feel this way, I'm convinced I'm dancing on Kristi Ellingham's grave.
Epilogue
"T HAT'S IT FOR my part of the presentation. I'd now like to call on my colleague, Professor Briars Hatley."
"Thanks, Ben. Professor Miller has told you of his discovery and subsequent study of the Carthalon Tablet.
"I would now like to share with you the findings from our archaeological survey of what we are calling the Taberda shipwreck. It was lying at a depth of approximately one hundred and eighty feet, less than a mile offshore of the town of Taberda, Tunisia.
"The ship and the objects found with it have been mapped, photographed, and studied extensively using the latest techniques, and I have distributed a list of the finds from the wreck. You will appreciate the fact that there are thousands of items, from olives to some very small wood pieces from the original hull, protected under the cargo, that have been useful for us in dating the wreck. Although the ship had been systematically looted over a period of approximately a year by a local diver named Habib Ouled, and sold through his brother-in-law, the late Rashid Houari, Ouled has cooperated with both us and the Tunisian authorities to assist in the recovery of a number of objects taken from the wreck. While this may not be ideal from a provenance perspective, it does permit us to cross-reference the ship's cargo, as outlined on the tablet, with the archaeological survey of the ship.
"Professor Miller and I believe, and we will attempt to prove to you here today, that the Taberda wreck is none other than the ship that set sail from Carthage in the year 308 B.C.E. with Carthalon aboard. The most significant factor in support of our argument, is, of course, the remains of a gold statue of a god we have identified as a smiting god, a divinity of Syrio-Phoenician tradition. While it would, under normal circumstances, be risky, if not downright foolhardy, to suppose the Taberda ship carried a statue some centuries older than the ship itself, in this particular case, with the aid of the Carthalon tablet, we believe we can say with some assurance that it did. As you will see from this first photograph . . ."