Page 82 of Feel It in the Air

21

MARGEAUX

The normal Mondaymorning hum of the office is amplified, everyone dialed in after a holiday weekend while still keeping one eye on the closed office door.

The boss is back.

No one is sure exactly what time Percy arrived this morning, since his car was in the employee lot and he was behind that closed door when the first of us arrived.

Translation—early. Really fucking early.

After being gone for nearly two months, the mountain of paperwork—and ungodly amount of emails—is probably more than a little overwhelming. That is, assuming he didn’t look at anything while he was gone. To the best of my knowledge, none of us heard from him while he was tending to his family’s business—even Gus—leaving me to only imagine what he came back to.

The excitement of his return is palpable though. Something that speaks volumes to who Percy is as a person and a boss. My time with him was incredibly limited before he left, so even after months of working for Hayes, all I really have to go on is the word of Dexter Wynn and what my colleagues tell me. Seeing everyone this excited about his return has renewed my own enthusiasm. This was part of the reason I agreed to join Hayes.

The secret knowledge that Percy’s return also means that Gus and I can now start to see each other openly doesn’t hurt anything either.

“Things can get back to normal now,” Teresa says.

Her comment hangs in the air, none of us knowing how to respond to the completely unprompted—and somewhat cryptic—words. Out of the corner of my eye I see Mabel perk up, lifting an eyebrow, her own skeptical way of trying to figure out what on earth Teresa might have put in her coffee this morning. Whatever it was, it must have been something good.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Aaron mutters and I toss a glance over to Mabel, watching as she stops typing and changes to “reading” one of the documents on her desk. Oh yeah, she’s totally eavesdropping. “Because things have been so abnormal lately?”

Teresa shrugs, a move I think she means to look casual, but still looks harsh and pointed. “Things are just better when Percy is here.”

I keep my mouth shut, not taking the bait. Neither does Aaron. Teresa lost her ability to play teacher’s pet when Percy left, and Gus wouldn’t play her games. As soon as he mentioned that Percy would be back today, Teresa’s spirits lifted. The second that office door opens, the amount of ass kissing and sucking up that is coming is bound to require a barf bag for all those within earshot.

Little does she know that I’ve been counting down the days until our boss returned and Gus Hayes had nothing to do with our department again. Mine were just very different reasons than hers.

Changing the subject, Aaron asks Teresa how her Thanksgiving was. As one of the few Hayes employees to leave town, we were blessed with not having to see her at the Gobble Wobble, the Hickory Hills town tree lighting, or any of the other town events that were crammed into the holiday weekend. Making it that much better.

Not that the weekend wasn’t damn near perfect all on its own. Starting with Friendsgiving and the fully defrosted and perfectly fried turkey. Everyone raved over the boudin, étouffée, maque choux, and hush puppies, with Dolly declaring that I now have to make them every year. If that means I get to continue to be a member of this family and spend this holiday with the amazing group I did last week, then I will happily bust out every one of Papa Duck’s recipes.

That thought reminds me that I need to call my grandfather. I know that secreted away he has a breakfast casserole recipe that he and my grandmother used to make for us as kids. One that hasn’t made an appearance in many years, but would be perfect on the menu at Dolly’s. I bet that I can convince him to pass it on to Dolly as a wedding gift to help keep it alive and well loved for many generations.

“Teresa,” Percy says, his thick accent filling the office, pulling everyone’s attention to him. “Will you gather everyone in the conference room, please?”

“Of course!”

She’s out of her seat and bounding around the corner to start to gather the rest of our colleagues, many of whom already heard the request themselves thanks to our boss’s booming tenor, before I can blink.

It’s a tight fit, cramming the entire department in our conference room, but we make it work. All the chairs around the table are occupied, the walls fully lined with associates. If the fire marshal were to walk in, a fine would be handed out. The smile on Percy’s face is worth it though.

“I want to start by thanking y’all. I know my departure was sudden—sometimes in life you just can’t plan for these kinds of things, no matter how much you’d like to. I also know that I was gone longer than any one of us would have really liked, and that put a wrench in some of the things we were workin’ on. But…”

Percy pauses, turning to the door, his smile growing wider as Gus slips in. My heart leaps and I have to fight back my own grin. We’ve gone this far in keeping it all under wraps, and now is not the moment to let the cat out of the bag.

“But Gus here tells me that y’all stepped up and knocked it out of the park. So, thank you.”

There is a round of applause and a low murmur of conversation as people start to chat among themselves. Percy gives us all a minute, then motions for everyone to quiet again.

“I’ll be catching up with everyone individually at some point today or tomorrow, but there is one person I do want to highlight here and now. As I was starting to sort through my emails over the weekend, I came across a note from an old law school friend of mine who works at the patent office. He was reaching out to let me know that they received our request for the extension on the SafeSounds Widget on the grounds that it’s ‘life saving’ and have decided to review it.”

My heart stops.

All out stops.

The patent office is going to review it? Oh. My. God. It worked. Sort of. Maybe.