The Stars Shine Down

Lara was looking into his eyes, and the words came out unbidden. "Do you dry?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Lara turned red. "Nothing. I..." She was suddenly tongue-tied.

People were crowding around Philip Adler, heaping praise on him.

"You've never played better..."

"I think Rachmaninoff was with you tonight..."

The praise went on and on. The women in the room were crowding around him, touching and pulling at him. Lara stood there watching, mesmerized. Her childhood dream had come true. Her fantasy had become flesh and blood.

"Are you ready to go?" Brian Macintosh asked Lara.

No. She wanted nothing more than to stay. She wanted to talk to the vision again, to touch him, to make sure he was real. "I'm ready," Lara said reluctantly.

The following morning Lara was on her way back to New York. She wondered whether she would ever see Philip Adler again.

She was unable to get him out of her mind. She tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous, that she was trying to relive a childhood dream, but it was no use. She kept seeing his face, hearing his voice. I must see him again, Lara thought.

Early the next morning Paul Martin telephoned.

"Hi, baby. I missed you. How was London?"

"Fine," Lara said carefully. "Just fine."

When they had finished talking, Lara sat at her desk thinking about Philip Adler.

"They're waiting for you in the conference room, Miss Cameron."

"I'm coming."

"We lost the Queens deal," Keller said.

"Why? I thought it was all set."

"So did I, but the community board refuses to support the zoning change."

Lara looked around at the Executive Committee assembled in the room. There were architects, lawyers, publicity men, and construction engineers.

Lara said, "I don't understand. Those tenants have an average income of nine thousand dollars a year, and they're paying less than two hundred dollars a month in rent. We're going to rehabilitate the apartments for them, at no increase in rent, and we're going to provide new apartments for some of the other residents in the neighborhood. We're giving them Christmas in July and they turned you down? What's the problem?"

"It's not the board so much. It's their chairman. A lady named Edith Benson."

"Set up another meeting with her. I'll go there myself."

Lara took her chief construction supervisor, Bill Whitman, to the meeting.

Lara said, "Frankly, I was stunned when I heard that your board turned us down. We're going to put up over a hundred million dollars to improve this neighborhood, and yet you refuse to..."

Edith Benson cut her short. "Let's be honest, Miss Cameron. You're not putting up the money to improve the neighborhood. You're putting up the money so Cameron Enterprises can make more money."

"Of course, we expect to make money," Lara said. "But the only way we can do that is to help you people. We're going to make the living conditions in your area better, and..."

"Sorry. I don't agree. Right now, we're a quiet little neighborhood. If we let you in, we're going to become a higherdensity area - more traffic, more automobiles, more pollution. We don't want any of that."

"Neither do I," Lara said. "We don't intend to put up dingbats that..."

"Dingbats?"

"Yes, those ugly, stripped-down, three-story stucco boxes. We're interested in designs that won't increase the noise level or reduce the light or change the feel of the neighborhood. We're not interested in hot dog, show-off architecture. I've already hired Stanton Fielding, the top architect in the country, to design this project, and Andrew Burton from Washington to do the landscaping."

Edith Benson shrugged. "I'm sorry. It's no use. I don't think there's anything more to discuss." She started to rise.

I can't lose this, Lara thought desperately. Can't they see it's for the good of their neighborhood? I'm trying to do something for them and they won't let me. And suddenly she had a wild idea.

"Wait a minute," Lara said. "I understand that the other members of the board are willing to make the deal but you are the one blocking it."

"That's correct."

Lara took a deep breath. "There is something to discuss." She hesitated. "It's very personal." She was fidgeting now. "You say I'm not worried about pollution and what happens to the environment in this neighborhood if we move in? I'm going to tell you something that I hope you will keep in confidence. I have a ten-year-old daughter that I'm crazy about, and she's going to live in the new building with her father. He has custody of her."

Edith Benson was looking at her in surprise. "I...I didn't know you had a daughter."

"No one does," Lara said quietly. "I've never been married. That's why I'm asking you to keep this confidential. If it gets out, it could be very damaging to me. I'm sure you understand that."

"I do understand."

"I love my daughter very much, and I assure you that I would never do anything in the world that would hurt her. I intend to do everything I can to make this project wonderful for all the people who live here. And she'll be one of them."

There was a sympathetic silence. "I must say, this...this puts quite a different complexion on things, Miss Cameron. I'd like to have some time to think about it." "Thank you. I appreciate that." If I did have a daughter, Lara thought, it would be safe for her to live here.

Three weeks later Lara got the approval from the City Planning Commission to go ahead with the project.

"Great," Lara said. "Now we'd better get hold of Stanton Fielding and Andrew Burton and see if they're interested in working on the project."