Kayla stared at him. For several seconds, she could not connect the words she had heard to the life she had been living when she arrived at work. Her mind filled with the nine-hundred-dollar rent, Lily's medicine, the numbers in the notebook under the sink, and the shame of begging Dean for a job that paid seventeen dollars an hour. Then it filled with the unfamiliar possibility of earning enough to stop making those calculations every morning.
"Me?" she whispered. "Sir, I answer phones. I make coffee. I don't know how to run a dealership."
"You know how to listen to people," Frank said. "You know when someone is being mistreated. You know how to keep your voice steady when somebody with power wants you frightened. The rest is work we can teach."
Pruitt cleared his throat. "Frank, she's going to need finance training, product knowledge, reporting procedures, and operational mentoring. Those are real responsibilities."
"Then give her all four. And make sure the people assigned to teach her understand she isn't being set up to fail. If she decides she doesn't want the job after learning what it entails, we will still honor her right to a fair position here."
Kayla's mouth trembled. "Lily won't believe this when I tell her tonight."
"Then tell her the truth," Frank said gently. "Her mother did something difficult because she believed it was right. A man noticed, but the right thing would still have been right if nobody had."
A wave of applause began among the service staff near the side door, then spread through the showroom. It was not the extravagant applause Chad had expected for himself. It was uneven and a little awkward, the sound of people discovering they were allowed to feel something different about their workplace. Kayla put one hand over her mouth and looked toward the floor, unable to speak.
Frank waited until the noise settled. "This isn't a ceremony to make me look generous," he said. "It's a correction. I should have known sooner that employees were being threatened and customers dismissed. That failure is mine, too. Starting today, we examine how this dealership is run, not just how much it sells."
He glanced toward Gus, who had slipped quietly into the rear of the showroom after Frank's call. Gus stood with one hand on his cane and the smallest possible smile on his face. Seeing him there made Frank remember the old lot, the first truck, and the nights when both men had wondered whether they would be able to keep the lights on another week.
"Arthur," Frank continued, "please have the finance team prepare a purchase agreement for the red pickup at the advertised terms. Ms. Bennett can help me with the paperwork when we're finished here. I came to buy a truck for my grandson. I'd still like to leave with that purchase arranged."