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for me when I was a kid and tell me one day it would be mine. It’s valuable. From nineteen-fifty. A Stromberg arch top. Made of maple. It’s worth a lot.”
    “Is this what you’re carrying on about?” another man said from the doorway. He stood there, looking faintly amused, and holding aloft the guitar I’d seen Simon playing yesterday.
    Simon leapt to his feet. “Where did you find it?”
    “Where you left it. Out on the upper porch.”
    “No. No way. I’d never leave my guitar outside. What’s going on here?”
    He stared from Dalton to Taylor to the other man. “You’re all in on this together, aren’t you? You’re trying to drive me over the edge. You know how nervous and stressed out I am about playing the lead in the play.” Simon grabbed the guitar out of the tenant’s hand and pushed past him, back into the house, stomping up the stairs. Cursing as he went.
    Jon turned to an astonished Melanie. We were all astonished. “When did you say they were moving out?”
    “Oh, Thomas, thank God you found his guitar,” Taylor said. “He was about to tear the house apart.”
    Thomas looked at us. “The drama queen’s just having his daily hissy fit. He’s always been a bit neurotic but he’s getting worse. I feel sorry for him. He can’t seem to help himself.”
    “Thomas is right,” Dalton said. “Simon is basically a good boy. I think he may be bi-polar. Perhaps he should be on meds. I’ll tell you one thing: that boy has talent. He’s a gifted singer and dancer. A talented lyricist too. He’s been helping me with a score I’ve been working on for years. We’re collaborating. And we’re going to enter it in your husband’s contest, Melanie. That is, if Simon gets his head back on straight.”
    Taylor said, “He’s really a basket case about starring with us in the play. I can’t help wondering what he’ll do next. Storm out of the show at the last minute? And to think I thought he was special.”
    Thomas wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on. I’ll help you repack your things. I’ll have a talk with Simon. He’ll listen to me and calm down.”
    “You’re such a good friend, Thomas,” Taylor said as they moved to the truck where the driver was attempting without success to repack Taylor’s clothing in the boxes.

    As Jon and I toured the house from top to bottom, we saw no sign of the manic Simon. Jon commented favorably on most aspects of the house, seeming to ignore Dalton’s hoarding tendencies.
    “I like it,” he said, as we reached the bottom of the main staircase. “It’s a fine example of architecture for that period, built really well. Those beams in the basement are as big around as I am.” Turning to face me, he said, “We’ve seen worse, Ashley. We’ve tackled worse. Remember the first house we worked on together? The Reggie Campbell house? That was in much worse condition and we made it beautiful again.”
    Feeling rather apprehensive, I asked, “So you think we should buy it.”
    “I do.” And he grabbed me up in his arms and whirled me around. “Our house,” he said joyfully. “We’ll make it beautiful.”
    “I love you, Jon Campbell.”

5

    We now have a babysitter. Someone very good. She is Tanya, the granddaughter of our general contractor Willie Hudson. Willie and his wife Esther have a very large family with many grandchildren. Tanya is studying Interior Design at Cape Fear Community College and plans to join the family business. She attends classes during the day but is the perfect sitter for our boys for the evening hours. And they have really taken to her because she plays with them. They are in bed by eight, leaving Tanya free to do her homework. And Jon and I free to join our gang for the dress rehearsal of the Thalian Association’s production of Oklahoma !.
    Heads turned and voices hushed as my half-sister Scarlett Barrett entered the lobby of Thalian Hall. The audience at dress rehearsals is made up of actors and actresses,