急问: Can we cancel this roofing contract?

Our house was damaged by hurricane Ike. On Nov 3, we signed a contract for whole roof replacement, with Contract A. We were told the wait was 4 weeks. On the contract, there was no estimated or committed start date from the contractor. He verbally stated that we could cancel the contract anytime. He had plenty of work. We called on Nov 10 to check on the progress of waiting list, and were told there is a 4-6 weeks wait, that they were very busy and yada yada. We felt unease about the wait time. There was no bad weather during that week. It seems like the tomorrow that will never become today.

This morning, I told our situation to a neighbor. She recommended Contractor B. He came, gave us estimate and said he could start next week. He seems to be very good. We now want to use B, especially he can start much earlier than A.

We called A tonight. At first he said the wait is still the same. We told him we couldn’t wait for 4-6 weeks forever and we wanted to cancel the contract. He became very annoyed. He said we can’t do that. He denied that he said we could cancel the contract anytime.

My question is that can we cancel the contract? My neighbor thinks the contract is invalid because there is no estimated or committed start date from the contractor. If we can’t cancel the contract, then we are screwed (excuse my language). Please advice. Thanks a million!