“Eli designed it. Vivien decorated it. But Crista created perfection.” Which was something Maggie always valued. But she’d forgotten about perfection since she’d been sharing a small apartment with Jo Ellen, who never met a surface she couldn’t clutter.
She slowed the car two doors away, at a white farmhouse-style home with clapboard trim and deep green shutters.
“Our home away from home, Jo,” Maggie announced, pulling into the driveway. “There’s a garage thingy inside, but I have a key. Come on.”
“This is nice, too,” Jo Ellen said, looking up at it. “Our houses in Ithaca are so much smaller and older.”
“Well, this one is nice architecturally,” Maggie replied. “But Barbara, bless her heart, has made some questionable décor decisions.”
“Ooh. Fun.” Jo Ellen flipped off her seatbelt. “Let’s go judge.”
Biting back a laugh, Maggie led the way to the side entrance by the garage, using the key that she was so happy she’d kept on her key ring and not in Crista’s house.
“This feels like breaking and entering,” Jo Ellen whispered as Maggie slipped the key in.
“There’s no breaking, Jo. Just entering. Nice and legal.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” she whined, making Maggie laugh as she pushed the door open, entering the mudroom.
“Oh, yeah. Wallpaper.” Jo Ellen looked around at the black and white walls, which were just one giant flower too many.
“Right? Borderline ghastly. One wall, maybe. But four? In a mudroom? Too much.” Maggie waved Jo into the kitchen, which would be beautiful except?—
“Oh, she likes her copper pots,” Jo Ellen noted, looking up at the massive rack above the island where enough pots to cater a wedding hung, blocking the sightline and creating chaos up to the ceiling.
“A little too much, if you ask me,” Maggie said. “Brace for the dining room.”
“Oh, dear. More wallpaper explosion?”
“Worse. Accent walls run amok.”
“I can’t wait.” Jo Ellen blew through the door into the formal dining room, letting out a groan.
“What is this woman’s motto? If one is good, four is…goodest?”
“She doesn’t understand the concept of editing,” Maggie said, leaning against the door jamb, simply enjoying the heck out of a good judgefest with her best friend. “The living room isn’t so bad, but?—”
“But the den?” Jo Ellen had already stuck her head into a small room off to the side. “That lamp is…a choice.”
Maggie knew the lamp—shaped like a pineapple.
“A choice,” Maggie agreed. “And not a good one.”
Jo Ellen wandered into the living room, hands clasped behind her back like she was touring a museum.
“And then Barbara reached herneutralera,” Jo Ellen said in a narrator’s voice. “As if once she’d done all the wallpaper, bad lamps, and floor-to-ceiling wainscoting, she stepped into the safety and surrender of blending the two most meaningless colors into one…graige.”
Maggie cracked up. “You have no idea how right you are.”
“I love this!” Jo Ellen exclaimed. “Shall we march upstairs and critique some more?”
As much as she wanted to, Maggie shook her head. “We have to remember the mission, Jo Ellen. Let me pull that car into the garage and then let’s change and walk to Crista’s house.”
Jo Ellen gasped. “And see Anthony?”
“There’s a trail that connects all these backyards, leads right to Crista’s gate—and my magnificent rose garden—and we can easily see in the back windows of the family room and kitchen. We’ll know if Anthony came home on time, if he’s alone?—”
“He will be,” Jo Ellen interjected, making Maggie smile.
