Think Twice

Ed Newton worked long hours doing hardwood flooring for TST Construction, mostly on new residential complexes on the outskirts of Philly. He didn’t mind hard work. He loved tools and making things with his hands, but his bosses were cheap rat bastards, always trying to cut corners, always trying to squeeze the last bit of juice out of anyone who worked for them.

“It sucks working for someone,” Ed Newton oft repeated to his daughter between bites as they sat at the Formica kitchen table. “Be your own boss, Jackie.”

That was the dream.

When Jackie was ten, Ed Newton bought her a leathercraft suede tool belt. It was the most beautiful thing Jackie had ever owned. It smelled like pinewood and sawdust. She treated the leather with oils three times a week. She wore it all the time. Even now. Even more than a quarter century after he first gave it to her. When she was eleven, Dad managed to buy a small plot of land outside the Poconos. Every weekend father and daughter would go out there and build Dad’s dream hunting-and-fishing cabin. Jackie always wore the tool belt. Ed was a patient teacher, and she was a quick study. They worked mostly in silence. The work was Zen for them both.

The two of them had plans too. One day, Ed said, they’d open their own contracting company. The two of them. They’d work for themselves. They’d be their own bosses.

When she was eighteen, Jackie got a full scholarship to Montgomery County Community College. She took finance courses, something her father encouraged so they could shore up the fiscal side of running a construction firm. Jackie worked various construction jobs after graduation to learn the business inside and out. The hope was that if they scrimped and saved, they’d be able to open their own shop in three to five years.

It took longer than they anticipated.

Ed put a second mortgage on the house in Philadelphia and despite Jackie’s protests, he sold the dream cabin they’d built outside the Poconos. By the time they raised enough capital to get a business loan, Jackie was thirty-three, Ed was sixty-two — but a dream delayed is not a dream denied.

One day, Ed Newton burst through the front door with a stack of business cards that read:

Newton and Daughter Construction Services, LLP

Ed Newton

Jackie Newton

General Contracting, Home Remodeling, Flooring

The logo on the upper right-hand corner was a little house with windows as eyes and a wide door as the smile. Jackie had never seen her father so happy, and for the first six months, things went surprisingly well. The Nesbitt Brothers needed last-minute help with a housing development in Bryn Mawr. Newton and Daughter kicked ass on the project, bringing it in under budget. That job got them some good referrals. Other jobs followed. Ed and Jackie hired three full-time staff and leased office space in a warehouse on Castor Avenue.

Newton and Daughter were still small-time with a lowercase s, but they were moving in the right direction.

After a year, their fine work and excellent reputation got on the radar of Ronald Prine, a major Philadelphia real estate mogul. Prine’s people invited Ed to put in a bid on hardwood floor work for the new, upscale Prine skyscraper on Arch Street. It was a huge job, too big for them really, but it would be a prestigious get and a chance to put Newton and Daughter on the map.

Ed and Jackie spent two weeks working out the numbers and creating a full PowerPoint presentation for the Prine conglomerate, but their initial bid, according to Prine’s people, came in too high. Ed Newton went back to his office. He sharpened his pencil and lowered their bid. Prine’s people still balked.

They’re smart businessmen, Ed explained to his daughter. That was why conglomerates like Prine’s were so successful — they know how to squeeze every dollar. Jackie wasn’t so sure. The job was too unwieldy, and now the margins were far too low. She didn’t like or trust Prine’s people. She had heard stories about smaller contractors like them being stiffed.

But Ed wouldn’t hear of it. A prominent job like this would be incredible publicity for them. It would give Newton and Daughter legitimacy that money couldn’t buy. If they could break even on something like this, Ed told her — heck, even if they lost a dollar or two — they’d come out ahead.

After lowering their numbers one more time, Newton and Daughter won the bid.

The job was all-consuming. It took everything out of them in every way, but hey, they were playing in the major leagues now. Dad loved that. He walked into O’Malley’s Pub with his back a little straighter, his smile a little wider. He got congratulatory slaps on the back from his old coworkers. They wanted to buy him drinks.

Like so many things, it was all good until it wasn’t.