“Tammy!” a voice yelled across the waiting area.

  My name is Tamela Jones, but I got the nickname Tammy when I was really young. It always had a nice ring to it and never ended up being embarrassing as I got older.

  As a child, I always knew I wanted to help people. I never knew how I would do it, but I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world. I played around with the idea of being a social worker, but quickly learned through different news articles online and stories I heard from people I was close to that they had a bad reputation. I wasn’t sure I could live with it if I didn’t do my due diligence to get a child away from their unfit guardians.

  I’d decided that Human Resources was my field when I’d graduated top of my class in high school. I loved to listen and help people through their problems in the workplace.

  I soon graduated top of my class in college, which was of no surprise to anyone in my family nor myself. I loved school and learning new things. I received my bachelor’s in Business Administration and got a job as an Employee Relations Manager at Stalwart Technology. I had an internship there for a few months before they decided to hire me full time when I had graduated due to my credentials.

  I turned around to see who’d called out to me and was greeted by my close friends from high school, Egypt and Rose.

  Egypt was pretty with dark skin and dark black eyes. She’d recently gotten into dying her hair. This week she was rocking a silk press hairstyle and the ends were a dark red. She was the one who’d yelled out to me. She tended to be more of an extrovert and was the one who’d gotten all of us in on the idea of taking a cruise.

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  Next to Egypt was Rose. She was fair skinned with blonde hair and was the timid one of the group. She always had her head in a book and was always trying to learn. Her hair was tied up into a bun.

  All of us were wearing a combination of t-shirt and shorts since it was about 80 degrees that day. They were really generous and were handing out water bottles and paper fans while we waited for the boat to arrive.

  “Are you guys excited?” Egypt screamed, jumping up and down. Rose covered her face with her hand in embarrassment. Egypt’s extroverted tendencies made her want to not be seen 99 percent of the time.

  “Yeah! This is going to be great and I wouldn’t rather spend this vacation with any other girls!” I said. After working my full time job in Human Resources Management as well as doing overtime to not only pay bills, but add an amount to my savings that I was proud of I was excited to be focusing on something other than work for once and with people I enjoy being around at that.

  “Ugh, when are we gonna get on this thing? It feels like it’s been hours.” Egypt said. At this point, Rose had taken a book out of her backpack and was nose deep into it. I imagine she tunes everything else out while she’s reading which is actually really dangerous.

  “Hey, Rose. Whatcha re-” I turn from my own phone to see why Egypt had cut herself off. Rose was holding her hand up to Egypt’s outstretched hand. Her face is still buried in the book she’s reading. That sight was definitely reassuring and a little frightening.

  We’d been standing for about one to two hours and all suddenly heard a loud honking noise and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The boat had arrived.