The Island With No Parallel

The Letter

"'Again, I thank you for doing business with me, and hope we can continue to do business together in the future.' Did you get that all down?" Manuel ask from his behind his desk, a very professional tone to his deep voice that made Yunara strive to transcribe his words to the letter.

"Yes sir," replied Yunara as she jotted down his last words.

"Read it all back to me."

She relayed to him the entire contents of the letter they'd been working on for the past half hour. She had to help him in a few places where his English sounded strange, but in the end they came up with a result Manuel was satisfied with, and were able to work relatively quickly after that.

"It sounds okay to me, what do you think?" he asked.

"Very good. You may seal the letter."

She set to work to enclose the piece of paper in an envelope, then sealed it closed. "Anything else sir?"

"No, like I said, I do not want you doing too much work with your back the way it is. That will be all."

Just as she moved to get up and leave, he stopped her by adding, "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Fine, sire. I hope that I can start working soon."

"There is no rush. I have no pressing need for you to start right away."

"Yes, well, I don't like being idle, sir. It doesn't suit me much."

Another uncomfortable pause followed. Manuel shifted in his seat, somewhat disgruntledly. "Is that all you can say, 'yes sir'?" he muttered.

"N-no sir," she stuttered, not knowing what to do with his sudden change of mood.

He shook his head and waved the subject away. "Nevermind. I suppose that will be all then. Oh, before you leave. I decided to ask Maria to show you what exactly your duties would be when you start, so ask her to come here so I can tell her."

"Yes– I-I mean, very well."

As she left, Manuel wondered once again why he was going through so much trouble to hire this young, timid main. She didn't speak Spanish, was difficult to teach, and was incredibly mousy. He was starting to wonder if it was really worth the trouble. All of this simply because she, at the same time held an air of intrigue about her? Because of the fact that he had an unshakable feeling that there was more to her than met the eye?

At that moment, Maria walked in. "You called, Lord Suarez?"

"Yes, show Yunara what her duties will be when she starts. The ones we've already discussed."

"Very well then. How were the Spanish lessons today?"

"We didn't have any. Today she was helping me write to a shipping company in England. I decided to skip the lessons for today to do that."

"Oh, I see."

"By the way, how was your trip with her to Valencia?"

"Very well! I told you that learning Spanish in this stuffy old room wasn't going to help her learn much. Stepping out and having real practice is the only real way to learn a language."

"Ah, and have you ever learned any?"

Maria made an indignant face. "No, but I speak to the butcher's wife, Fatima. She told me that coming from Morocco, that was the way she learned."

"Then maybe you should ask Fatima to teach the girl."

Maria suddenly frowned. "Why would you say that? I thought you liked Yunara."