Annie Lennox’s kind voice is the first thing callers hear when they call the main line to Lake July, North Carolina city hall. Of course, not the famous Scottish-born Annie Lennox. Who fronted The Eurythmics, sang No More “I Love You’s,” and was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2011. But another Annie Lennox that’s been one of the City’s administrative assistants for over twenty-five years. Mrs. Annie is what her coworkers call her.
Mrs. Annie has had many offices and desks during her quarter-century career. She’s been all over city hall, inside different buildings, and supported about every department. Now in the front reception area, she hopes this is your last post. Retirement is in her immediate future.
The top of her small steel desk consists mainly of a large black computer monitor and a wired keyboard and mouse combo. On the right side of the monitor are a framed family portrait and a black desk phone. On the other side of the monitor, she placed the work anniversary gift she received two months ago, back in September. The Mayor gave her a silver hourglass filled with sand with the words “25 Years of Service” engraved into the glass.
Most people know Mrs. Annie to be a pleasant, kind, and gentle individual. Somehow she keeps this disposition, getting cussed and threatened over the phone. Luckily there are only a few of these nasty and abrasive people in Lake July. She’s never angry or resentful toward them after these phone calls. A different person would. Mrs. Annie would say these people got up on the wrong side of the bed when sharing these interactions with the other admin assistants.
It’s ten o’clock on a mid-November morning at Lake July city hall. Mrs. Annie is at her desk, thinking about how quiet the office has been. Only a few people have dialed city hall today. The Lake July area is generally bustling during the fall leaf season, which causes a spike in telephone rings. Tourists and visitors typically call the city hall, mistaking it for the visitor center. When she would explain the directions to Lake July Park from the Interstate. She knows this is weird and confusing for them because the City is almost an hour’s drive from the park with the same name.
Her desk phone finally rings. She looks down at the number on the phone display and instantly loathes every single digit. “I’m not answering that,” Mrs. Annie decides. There’s a pause, and the rings begin again. She sees the same phone number from moments before. “Damn.” She reluctantly has to answer it this time. Her hope that the person wouldn’t call again is obviously gone.
As lovely as Mrs. Annie is, she can’t have the capacity for everyone. Charitie (yes, pronounced like charity) Robbins from the Lake July Travel and Tourism Information Center is one of the few who rubs her the wrong way. Somehow they’ve never met, only talked on the phone, but the two could never exist in real life. Mrs. Annie thinks Charitie is an impolite and disagreeable jerk. She imagines her looking like one of those evil girl types from a 1980s coming-of-age movie. And she really thinks she’s stupid for spelling her name with an I-E instead of a Y at the end.
Mrs. Annie believes it is good etiquette to pick up the phone by the second ring but waits until the fifth ring to answer with, “City of Lake July, this is Annie. How may I direct your call?” Just in enough time before the call would go to voicemail.
“Hi Anna, this is Charitie; we’ve spoken before.”
“Yes, you work at the visitor center,” Mrs. Annie provides a more pleasant answer than the thoughts in her head right now. She wants to call her something worse than a village idiot and wants to remind her that they spoke last week.
“I’m actually a supervisor at the Lake July Travel and Tourism Information Center,” Charitie corrects Mrs. Annie.
Mrs. Annie grins, “Oh, I am so sorry; how may I help you?”
“Do you know that you like have pictures of elk on your city’s web page?” Charitie asks, emphasizing the words know, web, and elk.
“I did not know we like have pictures of elk on our web page,” Mrs. Annie mocks.
“Well, you should totally look at your web page then. We’ve been getting a lot of phone calls and visitors to the Lake July Travel and Tourism Information Center asking about them. I googled it, and there are like no elk here. You know. I’m tired of telling these people this.”
“Okay, well, thank you for letting us know.”
“When do you think you’ll have it sorted, Anna?” Charitie grumbles, “I keep getting these phone calls and visits.”
“My name is Annie, and I’ll do it at my earliest convenience,” Mrs. Annie snaps.
“Okay, like, thanks.” Charitie quickly hangs up the phone before Mrs. Annie can call her a brat or something worse.
####
In another part of city hall, planner Nelly Maxwell, 32, is working on a zoning permit application in his Planning and Development office. He’s at his computer, staring at a digital version of the City’s Zoning Ordinance. He’s carefully examining the central business zoning district section to see if an archery and taxidermy business is allowed in their downtown. This is a first for him. He’s never had an individual who wanted to open a place where their service is mounting and stuffing animals.
According to the table of uses, a hunting retailer can operate in the central business district but not taxidermy. He sighs because he’ll have to tell the applicant that they can’t open up that type of downtown establishment. He’s always disliked this part of his job, telling people they can’t do something because of the potential clash.
Nelly closes the zoning ordinance file, rubs his eyes, and opens his email. There are four new emails in his inbox. 1) Email from his Planning Director that lunch with the Mayor is at 12:30. 2) Email from Disney Plus promoting some new Marvel series about Hellcow. 3) Meeting invitation from the Parks and Recreation Director to discuss the Christmas in Lake July parade. 4) Email from Mrs.Annie asking him to give her a call at his convenience.
He replies to the Planning Director with an email that reads, “Okay, I can drive.” He wonders who Hellcow is before deleting the one from Disney Plus. Accepts the Christmas in Lake July parade meeting. Smiles at the one from Mrs. Annie, then picks up his desk phone and dials the administrative assistant’s desk extension. He’s one of Mrs. Annie’s favorites.
Of course, showing good etiquette, Mrs. Annie picks up the call after two rings, “Good morning, Nelly. How are you doing?”
“I’m well, Mrs. Annie. I hope you are good. I saw your email.”
“Oh yes. Sorry to bother you, but Charitie from the visitor center called a little bit ago. The girl was rambling about pictures of elk on the City’s website. Apparently, people are overwhelming the visitor center with questions about these elk,” Mrs. Annie chuckles.
“Charitie from the visitor center overwhelmed? Imagine the dreadful thing,” Nelly states, “Of course, I don’t mean the girl.”
“Definitely not the girl,” Mrs. Annie reiterates.
Nelly laughs, “Okay. Yeah, we don’t have any elk in this area. I’ll get to the bottom of it.” He hears Mrs. Annie say “thanks” and “have a good afternoon” before hanging up. He clicks the internet icon on his computer desktop to open a new web browser and types the Lake July official website into the address bar.
Sure enough, the fourth picture of the front page slide show is of a herd of elk in a field surrounded by a fall-colored forest. “Behold the Lake July Elk. Everyone wishes they were real except for Charitie,” Nelly laughs.
####
The Memory Lane Pub is always where Virgil Rose, the Planning Director, and Nelly meet Mayor Lionel Lewis for lunch. As stupid of a name as it is, the restaurant is called that because it’s located on Memory Lane. Also stupid. They’re sitting on bar-height bar stools at a four-person bar table. The Mayor had a smelly tuna sandwich, Virgil ate a green salad, and Nelly ordered a cheeseburger with extra pickles and chips.
Nelly and Virgil prefer to avoid these lunches because the Mayor’s a prattling little man who’s always very red in the face. The rumors are that he’s always red-faced because he’s an alcoholic. It’s not his face they find irritating. The Mayor controls the conversation, interrupts them when they’re talking, and is very scattered with his talking. Like right now, he’s chattering about how he likes the stepdaughter from his second marriage more than his stepson from his third marriage and something about a cat called Toast.
As usual, Nelly isn’t really paying the man much attention but instead is trying to work out who’s older between Virgil and him. He guesses they’re both in their 60’s. He sees that there’s still a little black in Virgil’s hair and beard, but the Mayor’s hair is as white as snow. Virgil is noticeably taller and in better shape, and the Mayor is round like a ball. He figures the Mayor is older or at least looks more aged, maybe because of all the rumored drinking.
“Get our checks,” the Mayor barks. He jumps down from his bar stools and walks by Virgil on his left to the bathroom. Nelly smiles because Mayor Lewis seems extra short from the high bar stools. The Planning director waves their waiter over and asks for their separate checks.
Kelly looks in the direction of the bathroom, making sure the Mayor isn’t around. “So what I was trying to tell you earlier before the Mayor interrupted me was why Mrs. Annie called me this morning.”
“Mrs. Annie, right. Where were you? Charitie from the Visitor center called her a name or something. I once watched Charitie do a hit-and-run in the visitor center parking lot. She’s quite reckless.”
“Sounds about right. But no, Charitie didn’t call her a name,” Nelly explains. “She called Mrs. Annie to report all the massive amount of calls and drop-ins about a supposed elk herd in the Lake July area.”
Virgil looks at Nelly with perplexity. “Elk? Around here. The only elk I know of in North Carolina are in the Great Smoky Mountains.”
Nelly agrees with his Planning Director. He explains that all this elk business is because the web developer they hired unintentionally placed an elk herd image on their website. He couldn’t help but laugh at Nelly’s account. Nelly’s stories always made Virgil smile and shake his head.
The Mayor returns from the bathroom. They individually pay for their tuna sandwich, salad, and a cheeseburger with extra pickles after another story about Toast the cat. That’s how their lunch ended.
####
A few weeks later, in December, Nelly’s office phone rings a few minutes before City Hall closes at 5 PM. Someone is calling from a private phone number. He contemplates not picking up the phone. The Planner decides to lift the phone instead of letting it go to voicemail. His 9 to 5 reflex.
He wishes he hadn’t when he hears the Mayor say, “so Charitie from Tourism called Mrs. Annie, then who called you, and then you told Virgil, who told me about the elk jpegs.” Nelly pauses to process what Mayor Lewis just rattled off. Jpegs? Oh right.
He recollects the last events of that sequence. After telling Virgil that day at lunch, he called the web developer again about all the trouble the elk photo (jpeg) caused. Asked him to replace it with one from Downtown Park. The web developer admitted that he thought the animals in the picture were enormous deer. “Nelly, you there?”
“Yes. I’m here, Mayor.”
“These elk. Are they the deer things that pull Santa’s sleigh,” quizzes the Mayor.
“I believe reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh,” Nelly answers, not knowing where this conversation is heading.
“Right, reindeer. Are elk large enough to pull Santa’s sleigh?”
Nelly sees the time is now 5:10 on his watch. He wishes he hadn’t picked up the Mayor’s phone call. “Yes, sir. Elk are pretty massive. I’m sure a herd could easily pull a sleigh,” he hypothesizes.
“A herd, you say? I need a herd of elk for this Saturday’s Christmas in Lake July parade. I’m dressing up as Saint Nick. I got the red Santa Suit and an authentic Christmas sleigh. I need something to pull it. Where can I buy some?”
Nelly is stunned by this idea. He can totally imagine the Mayor dressed up as a little Santa Claus. But getting an elk herd to pull his Christmas sleigh is absurd. “Try Amazon. You can buy anything on Amazon,” Nelly smirks.
“Amazon, you say. Do we have this store in Lake July? Nevermind. I’ll find it. I got to go. Things to do–“
“–wait, sir. I was kidding.” Reid hears that loud beeping noise. “You can’t really buy elk.” The Mayor hung up the phone. Surely that man isn’t going to try to buy some elk, he thinks.
####
Article from The Connected Press written after the Christmas parade fiasco.
Mayor Lewis and another were injured during an elk stampede at the Annual Christmas in Lake July parade.
Lake July, N.C. (The Connected Press) – Lake July officials confirmed that their Mayor Lionel Lewis, 67, and Charitie Robbins, 25, were treated for injuries at the Lake July Hospital. The two were emitted Saturday after five large elk bulls pulling a Christmas sleigh charged nearby parade spectators.
Police said the accident happened around 2:20 PM on Memory Lane when the herd of male elk started attacking each other and became unfastened from their sleigh harnesses. The Mayor, dressed as Santa Claus, was thrown to the road after the sleigh turned over.
“I’ll be fine. I only broke both legs, my left arm, and my right lobster claw. It’s nothing that a little fish oil and a nap can’t cure,” Mayor Lewis said about his injuries.
Charitie was hit with an object in the head after the crowd dispersed from the elk herd. She received a concussion, and the hospital is keeping her overnight for observation.
“I was like walking down Main Street. Made the right turn onto Memory Lane, and that’s when something hard hit my forehead. I woke up with sand in my mouth. I don’t know what hit me. You see. I didn’t even get to see those damn elk,” Robbins posted on her social media.
“Lake July had no plans to use live animals in their Christmas Celebration and don’t know where the elk came from. We were shocked to see them in the parade pulling the Santa Sleigh. We cannot apologize enough,” a statement released by the City.
Sources say that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation plans to look into the incident, which could turn into criminal charges if necessary.
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