Greg pulled a box out of his jacket. He handed it to Churan. “Can you pass this down to her?”
The box went from hand to hand to Elodie. Elodie asked, “Shall I open it?”
“Yes,” replied Greg.
She opened it up and there was a remote key fob for a Honda. She sat there stunned.
“My oldest brother owns a Honda Dealership and he owes me several huge favors. He paid them off by giving me a Honda Odyssey mini-van. It is used and a couple of years old, but it’s in excellent shape. It is totally paid for: tax, title, and registration included. The only thing I couldn’t do was add it to your insurance. Hopefully, this will take the pressure off begging for rides to get your kids to school. It’s in the parking lot outside right now.
Elodie started crying and sobbing. Both Quiara and Kailey were instantly up and rushed over to comfort her.
“I will also say this, Elodie. If you are not comfortable remaining in your current home, you are welcome to bring your kids to live at my house. Your kids will have to share bedrooms with ours, but you can have the guest bedroom and we’ll make it work. The house is in my name, so you can stay there as long as you want, even if things don’t work out between Quiara and I.”
With that pronouncement, Quiara started to cry. Kailey and Elodie were suddenly comforting her. Greg never ceased to be amazed how crazy tight that those women were as friends. Even after Quiara’s treachery with the bracelet and the secret lunches, Elodie had her back.
“Emile, are you listening?” asked Greg.
“Yes,” responded Emile with supreme contempt.
“This is where you leave us,” said Greg. “When I release you, I want you to stand up, walk straight out the door, and leave this premises. If you don’t, I will beat the living shit out of in front of twenty-two witnesses who despise you and are all willing to testify that you swung at me first. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” replied Emile with his trademark contempt.
“Yes what?” Greg asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Emile responded.
I barked out a laugh. “I was looking for ‘Yes, Greg’, but ‘Sir’ will suffice.”
Greg let him go without warning and took three steps back to give himself some maneuvering room. Emile stood up, shot his cuffs, and walked straight out the door. He closed it behind him. He did not look back.
With a deep breath, Greg sat at the table. All eyes were still on him. Greg killed the glass of water at his place setting. He was parched. His hand was shaking as he drank.
Greg said, “I will tell all of you something that you may not know. This private University has a relatively small faculty. Everyone in the other departments have observed what is going on in the Languages Department and they all know that there is, figuratively speaking, something rotten in Denmark.
“Emile is the only department head at any college anyone has ever heard of who only hires married couples to staff his department. In fact, my wife is the only department member who was hired into the Language Department without a spouse being hired at the same time. The reason why that happened is that I was personally head hunted by the Chancellor himself as a potential head of the Biology department. Emile hired Quiara because the Chancellor gave him a direct order to do it.