Death by Inferior Design (2 page)

“This is the other designer,” Kevin McBride interrupted. “Have you two met?” He made a palm-out gesture to indicate Steve and me.

“Yes,” Steve replied, not bothering to smile. “Our offices are both downtown. Hi, Gilbert.”

I nodded. “Sullivan.” No one else addressed me by my last name, but then, no one but Steve Sullivan had such a contentious relationship with me.

The overstuffed man gave me an appraising look while he smoothed his Fuller-brush mustache. “Aha. So we meet at last.” He rocked on his heels. “Randy Axelrod. And, yes, I’m
the
Randy Axelrod. I live across the street.”

Apparently his name should, indeed, have meant something to me, but it remained elusive—a mere pentimento of the memory banks. I decided to resist joking about being
the
only Erin Gilbert I knew personally and said simply, “Erin Gilbert. Hi.”

Randy Axelrod made no move to shake hands. Instead, he stared into my eyes till I was finally compelled to look away. Kevin McBride was grinning while leering at my body as though he could see right through my black pullover and olive khakis. Although this was his house, Carl Henderson had the skulking, embarrassed demeanor of a man stuck holding his wife’s purse in a lingerie department. What on earth was going on with these people?

Steve Sullivan held up his palms. “Before you jump to any conclusions, Gilbert, I’m not invading your turf. I’ve been hired to design the den for the McBrides, who live two houses down. Kevin left a note on his door telling me to come over here right away. So I’m here.”

Carl piped up. “Kevin’s wife has been nagging at him, too, about redecorating their house, so we got the idea of doing this as an early Christmas gift . . . sending the two gals off to this spa together and then surprising them. That way we both get this over with in one big crappy weekend.”

“And who among us doesn’t thoroughly enjoy the occasional big crappy weekend?” I couldn’t resist teasing, but with a smile.

“The whole thing was my idea.” Randy spoke in the same self-important tones he’d used to talk about football. “See, my wife is friends with their wives, and we three guys decided we might as well ship ’em out together. Then
my
wife and I were talking, and she’s been after
me
to do something with the family room . . . always telling me to get my treadmill out of there and blah, blah, blah. I figured it’d be more interesting if we turned the whole weekend into a competition. So Carl and me decided to give you both the exact same amount of money to work with and hired the same carpenter, so everything will be fair and square.” He chuckled. “Well, not square exactly. More like rectangular. Like your rooms.”
The man was a real wit.

“A competition?” I asked nonchalantly, keeping to myself the plaintive shriek:
With Sullivan? Are you people insane?
This arrangement threatened to exceed even the powers of my confidence-and-optimism mantra.

Grinning, Randy crossed his thick arms and rested them on top of his stomach. Judging by his girth, his refrigerator door was getting a lot more action than his exercise equipment. “Yeah. I’m going to be your combination helper slash room-design judge. The winner gets hired to redo my family room . . . sometime next month, maybe. And I’ll bring out one of the staff photographers and do a feature story on the winning design.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Maybe even a
cover
story.”

I glanced at Steve’s cocksure grin, and the sunlight finally burst through my mental shutters. Oh lord: Randy Axelrod was the editor in chief of
Denver Lifestyles—
a bimonthly interior design magazine.

Yikes! With no warning, my chic, romantic, decidedly feminine bedroom design had to compete against Steve Sullivan’s den, with an influential male judge who kept his treadmill and blah blah blahs in the family room. A bedroom to a den is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Considering that this particular judge all but oozed testosterone, Sullivan’s oranges would be hand-plucked, whereas my apples would be bruised and mottled from having fallen off the tree.

“Hope you’re up for a friendly challenge, honey,” Randy said to me with a wink.

I glanced at my handsome fellow designer, wondering if the man was capable of keeping “friendly” in the equation. Three months ago, while
filching the Coopers’ job
away from me,
he’d told Mrs. Cooper that he was mourning the loss of “his partner, Evan.” Until then, I’d had the impression that the two men were strictly
business
partners, and furthermore I’d heard from more than one source that Evan was very much
alive
and had merely moved away. That conniving Sullivan had fed the Coopers a sob story to win them over and get the job. But that was all water under the bridge now.
Fetid
water, granted, but nevertheless located under the proverbial— albeit rickety—bridge.

Randy gave Sullivan’s shoulder a playful jab, which the evil side of my nature hoped was painful. Randy should have planted his feet better. And swung at Sullivan’s perfectly proportioned jaw. “Hey, Steve, Erin,” Randy said. “You know what? With names like Gilbert and Sullivan, you two should form a team. I’m sure your styles would be in perfect
harmony.
So to speak.” He laughed heartily.

“If we
did
become partners, it would have to be Sullivan and Gilbert,” Steve said. “With a capital S and a lowercase
G.”

“Age before beauty, Sullivan,” I fired back, and silently called him every four-letter word in the book; I could rename
his
business easily enough. He normally wasn’t
this
hostile to me. The prize of a feature story was obviously bringing out the worst in him. Granted, I, too, would kill to get
Denver Lifestyles
’ publicity for my business—but I would much rather kill with kindness. I gave him an angelic smile, secretly hoping that the incredible weight of his ego would cause his head to implode.

The doorbell rang. “Aha. That will be our carpenter, Taylor Duncan,” Randy announced as he headed toward the door. “You two will share his services.”

“Taylor’s your stepson, right, Carl?” I asked, noting how polar-opposite he and Kevin McBride looked as they stood side by side. The short, solid Kevin was the shot glass to Carl’s tall, thin champagne flute. “And he knows what he’s doing? He’s experienced enough to work on two different projects at once?”

“Absolutely. When it comes to carpentry, Taylor’s a real whiz kid.” Behind Carl, however, Kevin McBride was shaking his head at me and giving a thumbs-down. “And just for the record, Kevin and I have a lot more riding on this competition than you and Steve here do.”

Kevin nodded. “The loser has to watch the Super Bowl at home with Axelrod. The winner gets to watch the game live and in person—with a ticket to the big show itself.”

Glowering at me through his wire-rimmed glasses, Carl spat out, “So you’re not allowed to lose. Or else!”

“That goes double for you,” Kevin told Sullivan.

A bear of a man—six foot five at least—lumbered into the room behind Randy. Taylor Duncan’s head was shaved, and he wore work boots, overalls, and a spiked dog collar. His bare, corded arms were a mass of teal-blue tattoos, like a singularly ugly toile infused into his skin. “Hey, Carl. Kevin. Sorry I’m a bit late.” He had received a split vote regarding his carpentry skills, but if this had been a lumberjack competition, Taylor would have been the man I wanted on my team.

“One more thing before we all get to work, folks,” Randy announced. “Since I got a bad ticker”—he patted the left side of his chest as if to give us a visual—“I won’t be able to do much in the way of heavy lifting. I’ll keep an eye on the clock and keep things running smoothly at both houses. Come Sunday night, I’ll be impartial, no matter what’s gone on from now till then. I’ll decide which of you two folks has produced the best interior design and which has the
inferior
design. My wife says she’ll help out with the sewing and picking up after everybody. Understand?”

I
understood,
but I was boiling mad. This was one hell of a raw deal. No one would expect two football teams to play the Super Bowl with just five minutes’ notice, yet these jerks had blindsided me into a direct competition with Sullivan. Would
Denver Lifestyles
have fun with the Gilbert-versus-Sullivan aspect and publicly reveal the
loser
of this competition? “I don’t know how I feel about this,” I began. “The thing is—”

“Let me show you something that might help persuade you.” Steve snatched a notebook off the counter behind him and started to write furiously.

He ripped off the top sheet and thrust it at me. He’d written:
Hey, Gilbert! You earn $$$$ for 2 days’ work!
Even though you’ll
lose
!!

I crumpled the note into a tight ball while clenching my teeth. If a client hadn’t been present, I’d have tossed the paper in his smug face. “You’re on, Sullivan.”

He gave me one of his cover-boy smiles and arched an eyebrow. “Bring it on, Gilbert.”

Steve Sullivan and Kevin McBride left for Kevin’s house; over his shoulder as he left the room, Taylor mumbled something about needing to get set up in Randy Axelrod’s backyard. Seconds later, Sullivan was back, shouting through the front door, “Hey, Gilbert. Move your van. I’ve got to get mine out.”

“Say please, Sullivan, and I’ll oblige you,” I shot back.

When he said nothing, my curiosity got the best of me. I stormed outside, weighing the notion of singing a line or two from a tune in
HMS Pinafore
just to bug him; the idea of polishing a door handle “so carefully” as to be made “the ruler of the Queen’s navy” suddenly had a certain appeal. I found him standing by the garage. He was massaging his temples and had such a worried look that I almost asked if he was all right. He spotted me just then, cleared his throat and, turning on his heel and ignoring me, got into his van.

I backed up my van and parked in the space Sullivan had vacated while he drove a mere two doors down the street. Why hadn’t he simply
walked
over here after finding the note on Kevin McBride’s door? Could he have suspected something was up and been prepared to turn down the assignment and drive home? Had it just been his desire to defeat me in this wacko competition that made him stick with this job? If so, for a pair of interior designers, we were being disgustingly macho.

I decided to save myself a few steps later and bring some of my tools and paint supplies inside with me now. Opening the back doors to the van, I gasped when Randy Axelrod’s voice unexpectedly boomed behind me, “Can I help you carry stuff in?”

“Didn’t you just say you had a weak heart?”

“Sure, but I know when to take it easy. I’m not made of eggshells.”

“You can carry the brushes, rollers, and pans.”

“Will do.”

I took my time stacking the supplies. I needed a moment to collect myself. “Aren’t you worried about inspiring hard feelings between you and your neighbors by being a judge?” I asked Randy.

“Why would judging a couple rooms make anyone feel bad?”

“Someone might object to having their brand-new room deemed ‘an inferior design,’ as you called it.”

“Ah, hell, that won’t matter.” He chuckled. “They already
do
hate me.”

“Who? Kevin and Carl?”

“Yeah. And their wives, too.”

I winced at the concept of that much discord so close to home, which should always be everyone’s very
least
discordant place to be. As we headed up the walkway, I tried to send him the telepathic message:
Life’s too short.

“Don’t look so concerned, honey,” he said with a laugh. “It’s not like I’m fond of them, either.”

“Then why judge their rooms? And spend the weekend helping them remodel? Why subject yourselves to one another’s company when it’s not absolutely necessary?”

“Hey.” He shrugged, opened the door, and held it for me with his foot. “Beats sittin’ around the house, watching football.” We stashed the supplies just inside the door. Randy tapped his chest. “Watching the Broncos lose is the worst thing I can do to my heart, if you ask me.” He fidgeted with his mustache and surveyed our surroundings. “I never should’ve sold Carl this house in the first place.”

“This used to be
your
house?”

“Up until five years ago. After my first heart attack, we decided to simplify—get a smaller place.”

I looked across the street at the house, which appeared to be the smallest in the immediate neighborhood. Though this was December and not exactly the season in Colorado for lush yards and bountiful gardens, it was clear at a glance that someone was taking immaculate care of the grounds. Gigantic plastic candy canes had been placed to either side of the base of the driveway. An old-fashioned wood sled adorned with a lovely evergreen wreath and bright red bow leaned against the gray house—a simple but immensely elegant decoration. The sight made me yearn for a white Christmas. “That’s your house over there?”

He snorted. “Home sweet home.”

“Nice.”

“On the outside.” He gestured for me to follow him outdoors. “Come and meet the missus. I told her I’d let her know when we’re starting work. She seems to think she can help, but the woman’s all thumbs. Taylor had better not let her near his power tools, or she’ll likely cut one of those thumbs of hers clean
off.”
He chuckled at his gruesome imagery.

Curious to see the house that, if I won this inane competition, I could soon be redecorating—and keenly aware that our excursion would allow me to suck up to the judge a little—I replied, “Sure. Thanks,” and headed across the street with Randy.

He let me inside his home, allowing the storm door to bang shut behind us. I took in my surroundings without making it obvious that I was doing so. As a designer, I’m voraciously curious about people’s homes, but I’ve found that if I make it even the slightest bit evident that I’m checking out a room, the homeowners become nervous. This small living room could be made cozy, but at the moment, it was far too cluttered. The walls were a cave-like gunmetal gray and sported small pictures with a hodgepodge selection of frames. The fabric patterns were all over the map, with no consistent color palette. These were common problems that were easy to rectify, and it struck me as odd that this man edited an interior-design magazine.