Mrs. Avery

Chapter 2 (1 Week Prior)

Agnes sat in the café flipping through a book on her phone waiting for Momma. She was running unusually late to their regularly scheduled brunch date on Tuesdays... and sometimes Thursdays. Regardless, Momma wasn't usually quite this late. Agnes sighed and kept reading until a call from the office came through and stopped her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. They knew better than to call. It was the one rule. This brunch time, this was never to be interrupted; they were to suppress the chaos until she returned.

She answered anyway. "This is Agnes, is the building on fire?" She tried to make light of it.

"No, Aggie, I'm so sorry."

"You're fine, Jen. What's going on?"

"You know how Mitch always shows the interns around and then takes them to lunch."

"Yes."

"Okay well Mitch is on vacation until next week."

"Okay."

"Agnes, all the interns showed up at the main office today."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because I scheduled it for today at the beginning of summer and we never moved it after he scheduled his vacations."

Mitch was the owner of Georgia Medical, but increasingly less involved than he used to be since he groomed Agnes. He was starting to miss things like this because... well they didn't really matter and he didn't really have to care anymore.

Agnes sighed at what she heard and just then Momma came slowly through the door. By the time she got to the table she was out of breath. Agnes gave her a scrunched look and a head tilt.

"I'm so sorry, I should have caught this before today." Jen rang in her ear.

"Jen, you're okay, mistakes happen. I don't know why Mitch has HR handling his schedule anyway. Will you forward me to Larry and we'll get this sorted." Silence and then a beep.

"Georgia Medical, you've reach the office of Miss Agnes J-"

"Larry, stop it. It's me." She paused. "Do you always answer the phone like that?"

He chuckled and was about to answer before she started again.

"Never mind, I'll make fun of you later. Do you see the huddle of kids on the office floor?"

She heard shuffling and a door open. "Yes."

"Okay, well you know how Mitch does that tour with too many details and then ends it with lunch?"

"Yes."

"Okay, well I kind of need you to ditch compiling the shipping details and do that tour. My company card is in my desk drawer on the top right."

She heard more shuffling and a drawer open.

"Got it."

"How are you still on the phone in my office?"

"These new headsets are amazing."

She laughed. "Good to know. Are you good then?"

"Are we going with all the gory details on this, like body count, sanitization process, the humble beginnings in Georgia, and the-"

"Larry," She cut him off. "the whole shebang, don't stop until their eyes are glazed over, of course avoid trade secrets, and then reward them with lunch at Mae's Kitchen."

"Got it. I'll call you when we get to Mae's and see if you can join us... And I'll send them home with hard copies of all our trade secrets."

He hung up.