Welcome to Tuesday Tales

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My friend Jean Joachim started this.  Each week, she provides a prompt and you write a story based on that.

This weeks prompt is Travel Agent.

Esmerelda Rodriguez boarded the number 6 train at 110th Street.  It was only four stops to 77th Street and her job at East of Manhattan Travel.

She was lucky to land this job, meeting the agency owner, Mrs. Dorf as she was on line in the cafeteria at the Metropolitan Museum.  She would visit the museums as a way of getting away from the reality of life in her parents tenement apartment  in East Harlem, also called Spanish Harlem.

Esmerelda was a rose in Spanish Harlem, as the song said, a neighborhood that doesn’t have many roses.  She was grateful for her conversation at the Metropolitan and being hired at the travel agency.  It opened up a whole new world, being able to travel the new world opened to her.

Her experiences were great and she was saving her money.  If she were going to move, she wanted to be able to move her parents sister and baby brother from the realities of poverty and violence in East Harlem.

The subway ride gave her time to think.  She passed the junkies and gang members as she left for work, some in the neighborhood being proud of her, some in the neighborhood seeing her as too big for her britches.

Many men in the neighborhood wanted to date Esmerelda.  Jorge Lopez, the local drug dealer was one.

He greeted Esmerlda coming out of her building.  “I can take care of you, chica.  You don’t need to work downtown, with those people.  I will take care of your brother and he will work for me.

Esmerelda put her hands and her hips and glared at him.  “Jorge, number one, I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man on earth.  Number two, my brother belongs to the Rodriguez 11o gang.  My gang.  I run it.  If I catch you even saying hello to my brother I will kill you.  You spread poison among our people.   I will take my family away from here.”

“Oh, big words, chica.  You’ll come to me one day.  I can wait.”

“You’ll have a long wait.”  Esmerelda flicked her long black hair at Jorge and walked away wrinkling her nose as though he were dog dung she stepped in.

Her co workers had grown to love her and worried about her.  She wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment.  She enjoyed her trips around the world, but she was going as part of her job, so she could recommend places and going alone.

One day, she was on her computer, when a sultry Southern voice interrupted her.  “Excuse me, Ma’am, I need help planning a trip.”  Esmerlda  looked up at a brown haired man, but what caught her was his sparkling blue eyes.

Esmerelda looked into his eyes and smiled.  She found she was saying the right things, but couldn’t control what came out of her mouth.  “I would be happy to help you, please sit down.”

“I would like to go to Greece, I am interested in history and want to see the source of Western Civilization.”

Esmerelda was captivated by his soft Southern drawl, and his firm jaw.  His accent drew her in like a caress.

“I am looking forward to having such a trip, the only thing is, I would be going alone.  I wish there were someone I could share this with.”