11
The suits were back. Avery watched from his desk as they talked to Uncle Theo. They’d been there for almost an hour. Every so often, one of them would pull a piece of paper from a briefcase and slide it across Theo’s desk. Each time, Avery shivered at an imaginary nails-on-a-chalkboard sound.
“Who do you think they are?” Meredith whispered.
Avery chewed on his lip. Bankers. Lawyers.
He froze.
Buyers?
What if Uncle Theo was trying to sell the business before it went under?
He smiled at Meredith and shrugged. She eyed him—she always knew when he wasn’t quite telling the truth—but turned back to her desk and the solitaire game on her computer.
They were so screwed.
His phone rang. He was so busy staring holes in the back of the suit jackets in Theo’s office he nearly threw it on the ground before answering. “Hello?”
“Hey. Is this Avery?” a woman’s voice said.
He straightened. “It is.”
“Oh, great. It’s Wanda. Do you have time to talk? Privately?”
He glanced at Uncle Theo. With no way to resolve that situation quickly, he put his hand over his phone and whispered to Meredith, “I’ll be right back.”
“Bring me a coffee with lots of cream,” she said.
He left the office and walked out onto the street. “What’s up?”
Wanda’s voice was perky. “It was really great to meet you and Linc the other day. You guys are a lot of fun together.”
“Oh, we’re not—I mean. Linc and I aren’t—”
“Oh, no.” She laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just that we had a good time. With you. Both of you.”
He relaxed as he crossed the street to the diner for coffee. “Oh. Yeah. You guys too.”
“Are you working today?”
“Yeah.” He glanced back at the storefront Uncle Theo rented more than twenty years ago to house his business. Would the new buyers let them stay there? Would they expect Uncle Theo and Aunt Brenda to move to be closer to some kind of corporate head office? Would Avery like working in a big office? There’d be more people to talk to, but they wouldn’t be obligated by familial commitments to listen to anything Avery had to say. Not that Uncle Theo paid much attention these days, but Meredith was always happy to lend an ear as he babbled about his ideas.
“So, listen,” Wanda said. “We were talking today. The company has expanded a lot.”
“Your company? The app company?”
“Yeah. Heath, the founder, he’s a really smart guy. He’s so passionate about helping people eat better, you know?”
“Okay?”
“Heath’s a great entrepreneur. He’s so awesome at meeting people and sharing his vision. But he sucks at the details, you know?”
“Not really.” Avery was all about the details.
“Exactly. We need some help, as we get bigger. Someone to manage the numbers. Heath’s all about the ideas, and I handle the development, but we need someone to do the reporting, keep the books, that kind of thing. I thought you might be interested.”
He hiccupped on a gasp. “Are you—” He swallowed. “Are you headhunting me?”
