LITMIR.BIZ

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give you the twenty-thousand-square-foot building you want.’

      Charles Cohn asked, ‘Can you have the building finished by December 31st?’ He was determined to protect Lara.

      ‘Sooner,’ Steele said. ‘I can promise it to you by Christmas Eve.’

      Lara was beaming. ‘How soon can you get started?’

      ‘I’ll have my crew here by the middle of next week. Do I have the go-ahead?’

      Cohn looked at Lara and nodded.

      ‘You have the go-ahead,’ Lara said happily.

      

      Watching the new building going up was the most exciting thing Lara had ever experienced. She was there every day. ‘I want to learn,’ she told Charles Cohn. ‘This is just the beginning for me. Before I’m through, I’m going to put up a hundred buildings.’

      Cohn wondered whether Lara really knew what she was getting into.

      The first men to set foot on the project site were members of the survey team. They established the legal geometric borders of the property and drove hubs into the ground at each corner, every hub painted with a fluorescent colour for easy identification. The survey work was finished in two days, and early the following morning, heavy earth-moving equipment – a truck-mounted Caterpillar front-end loader – arrived at the site.

      Lara was there, waiting. ‘What happens now?’ she asked Buzz Steele.

      ‘We clear and grub.’

      Lara looked at him. ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘The Caterpillar is gonna dig up tree stumps and do some rough grading.’

      The next piece of equipment that came in was a backhoe to dig the trenches for foundations, utility conduits, and drainage piping.

      By now, the boarders at the house had all heard what was happening, and it became the main topic of conversation at breakfast and supper. They were all cheering for Lara.

      ‘What happens next?’ they would ask.

      She was becoming an expert. ‘This morning, they put the underground piping in place. Tomorrow they start to put in the wood and concrete formwork, so they can wire-tie the steel bars into the skeletal gridiron.’ She grinned. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

      Pouring the concrete was the next step, and when the concrete foundation was cured, large truckloads of lumber rolled in, and crews of carpenters began to assemble the wooden frames. The noise was horrendous, but to Lara it was music. The place was filled with the sounds of rhythmic hammers and whining power saws. After two weeks, the wall panels, punctuated with window and door openings, were stood upright as if the building had suddenly been inflated.

      To passers-by, the building was a maze of wood and steel, but to Lara it was something else. It was her dream come to life. Every morning and every evening, she went downtown and stared at what was being built. I own this, Lara thought. This belongs to me.

      After the episode with MacAllister, Lara had been terrified that she might become pregnant. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach. When her period came, she was weak with relief. Now all I have to worry about is my building.

      She continued to collect the rents for Sean MacAllister because she needed a place to live, but she had to steel herself to go into his office and face him.

      ‘We had a good time in Halifax, didn’t we, honey? Why don’t we do it again?’

      ‘I’m busy with my building,’ Lara said firmly.

      The level of activity began to heighten as the sheet metal crews, roofers and carpenters worked simultaneously, the number of men, materials, and trucks tripling.

      Charles Cohn had left Glace Bay, but he telephoned Lara once a week.

      ‘How is the building going?’ he had asked the last time he called.

      ‘Great!’ Lara said enthusiastically.

      ‘Is it on schedule?’

      ‘It’s ahead of schedule.’

      ‘That’s wonderful. I can tell you now that I wasn’t really sure you could do it.’

      ‘But you gave me a chance, anyway. Thank you, Charles.’

      ‘One good turn deserves another. Remember, if it hadn’t been for you, I might have starved to death.’

      

      From time to time, Sean MacAllister would join Lara at the building site.

      ‘It’s coming along just fine, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes,’ Lara said.

      MacAllister seemed genuinely pleased. Lara thought: Mr Cohn was wrong about him. He’s not trying to take advantage of me.

      By the end of November, the building was progressing rapidly. The windows and doors were in place, and the exterior walls were set. The structure was ready to accept the network of nerves and arteries.

      On Monday, the first week of December, work on the building began to slow down. Lara went to the site one morning and there were only two men there, and they seemed to be doing very little.

      ‘Where’s the rest of the crew today?’ Lara asked.

      ‘They’re on another job,’ one of the men explained. ‘They’ll be here tomorrow.’

      The following day no one was there.

      Lara took a bus into Halifax to see Buzz Steele. ‘What’s happening?’ Lara asked. ‘The work has stopped.’

      ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Steele assured her. ‘We ran into a little snag on another job and I had to pull my men off temporarily.’

      ‘When will they be coming back to work?’

      ‘Next week. We’ll be on schedule.’

      ‘Buzz, you know how much this means to me.’

      ‘Sure, Lara.’

      ‘If the building’s not completed on time, I lose it. I lose everything.’

      ‘Don’t worry, kid. I won’t let that happen.’

      When Lara left, she had a feeling of unease.

      The following week, the workmen still had not appeared. She went into Halifax again to see Steele.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ the secretary said, ‘Mr Steele is not in.’

      ‘I must talk to him. When will he be back?’

      ‘He’s out of town on a job. I don’t know when he’ll be back.’

      Lara felt the first stirrings of panic. ‘This is very important,’ Lara insisted. ‘He’s putting up a building for me. It has to be finished in three weeks.’

      ‘I wouldn’t worry, Miss Cameron. If Mr Steele said it will be finished, it will be finished.’

      ‘But nothing’s happening,’ Lara cried. ‘No one’s working on it.’

      ‘Would you like to talk to Mr Ericksen, his assistant?’

      ‘Yes, please.’

      Ericksen was a giant of a man, broad shouldered and amiable. He radiated reassurance.

      ‘I know why you’re here,’ he said, ‘but Buzz told me to assure you that you have nothing to worry about. We’ve been held back a little on your project because of some problems on a couple of big construction jobs we’re handling, but your building is only three weeks away from completion.’

      ‘There’s still so much to do …’

      ‘Not to worry. We’ll have a crew out there first thing Monday morning.’

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