And somehow, they all managed to come up with the money.
Lara was inflexible.
“It was easier dealing with your father,” one of the boarders grumbled. “He was always willing to wait a few days.”
But in the end they had to admire the young girl’s spunk.
If Lara had thought that her father’s illness would bring him closer to her, she was sadly mistaken. Lara tried to anticipate his every need, but the more solicitous she was, the more badly he behaved.
She brought him fresh flowers every day, and little treats.
“For Gude’s sakes!” he cried. “Stop hoverin’ aboot. Hae you nae work to dae?”
“I just thought you’d like…”
“Oot!” He turned his face to the wall.
I hate him, Lara thought. I hate him.
At the end of the month, when Lara walked into Sean MacAllister’s office with the envelopes filled with rent money, and he had finished counting it, he said, “I don’t mind admitting, young lady, that you’ve been quite a surprise to me. You’ve done better than your father.”
The words were thrilling. “Thank you.”
“As a matter of fact, this is the first month that everybody has paid on time in full.”
“Then my father and I can stay on at the boardinghouse?” Lara asked eagerly.
MacAllister studied her a moment. “I suppose so. You must love your father very much.”
“I’ll see you next Saturday, Mr. MacAllister.”
Chapter Five
At seventeen, the spindly, gaunt little girl had grown into a woman. Her face bore the imprint of her Scottish forebears: the gleaming skin, the arched, fine eyebrows, the thundercloud gray eyes, the stormy black hair. And in addition, there was a strain of melancholy that seemed to hover around her, the bleed-through of a people’s tragic history. It was hard to look away from Lara Cameron’s face.
Most of the boarders were without women, except for the companions they paid for at Madam Kirstie’s and some of the other houses of prostitution, and the beautiful young girl was a natural target for them. One of the men would corner her in the kitchen or in his bedroom when she was cleaning it and say, “Why don’t you be nice to me, Lara? I could do a lot for you.”
Or, “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? Let me show you what a man is like.”
Or, “How would you like to go to Kansas City? I’m leaving next week, and I’d be glad to take you with me.”
After one or another of the boarders had tried to persuade Lara to go to bed with him, she would walk into the small room where her father lay helpless, and say, “You were wrong, Father. All the men want me.” And she would walk out, leaving him staring after her.
James Cameron died on an early morning in spring, and Lara buried him at the Greenwood Cemetery in the Passiondale area. The only other person at the funeral was Bertha. There were no tears.
A new boarder moved in, an American named Bill Rogers. He was in his seventies, bald and fat, an affable man who liked to talk. After supper he would sit and chat with Lara. “You’re too damned pretty to be stuck in a hick town like this,” he advised her. “You should go to Chicago or New York. Big time.”
“I will one day,” Lara said.
“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Do you know what you want to do with it?”
“I want to own things.”
“Ah, pretty clothes and…”
“No. Land. I want to own land. My father never owned anything. He had to live off other people’s favors all his life.”
Bill Rogers’s face lit up. “Real estate was the business I was in.”
“Really?”
“I had buildings all over the Midwest. I even had a chain of hotels once.” His tone was wistful.
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “I got greedy. Lost it all. But it was sure fun while it lasted.”
After that they talked about real estate almost every night.
“The first rule in real estate,” Rogers told her, “is OPM. Never forget that.”
“What’s OPM?”
“Other people’s money. What makes real estate a great business is that the government lets you take deductions on interest and depreciation while your assets keep growing. The three most important things in real estate are location, location, and location. A beautiful building up on a hill is a waste of time. An ugly building downtown will make you rich.”