She looks over at me, eyes wide, like she forgot she was out in public. I know her well enough to get that she doesn’t like my intrusion, but we’re all in this awkwardness together, and there’s no one to blame but Rusty. And, to be fair, probably Melly, too.
Her arms are folded across her chest, but she immediately drops them casually to her sides. And, Lord, why does she have to travel like this? Her tailored black pencil skirt and Louboutins are completely out of place in the scrubby parking lot. Salt of the earth, she is not.
Aside from their meltdown in the Jackson store all those years ago—and in their office the other night—I’ve really only ever seen them bicker, and they’re usually careful to do it away from witnesses. This current messiness makes me wonder if Melly is more hurt than she’s letting on—whether the affair with Stephanie has been a tipping point in their relationship and she’s not able to retreat to her bubbly persona as easily.
“Hey, Carey-girl,” Rusty says. It’s the first time he’s addressed me directly since all this happened.
“Hey. Everything okay out here?” I ask.
Melly glares at Rusty before giving me a smile that’s too tight at the edges, and fans her attention across the gas station parking lot, mentally clocking who might have seen them arguing. “Of course, hon!”
“Great!” I call back, matching her enthusiasm. “Just reminding y’all there are eyes everywhere!” I absolutely hate this new role. I feel like I’m wearing wet wool for skin. “Okay, I’m headed back on the bus!”
“We’ll be right there!” Melly smiles brightly.
I take the steps two at a time and make a beeline for the back, where I know Melly won’t come, because it’s where the sportsball games live. I’m terrified that she’s going to feel free to chew me out for interfering once we’re behind closed doors. Is it going to be like this every public-facing second of the tour? Probably.
Tonight we have a signing at a Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles. Then we’re up in Palo Alto. After that, it’s San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Idaho. The events are always the same: We’re escorted to a greenroom, where there’s a rush to find an actual chair for Melly to sit on, not a stool or—God forbid—a director’s chair. There’s usually a friendly bookseller, some screaming fans outside, Rusty’s dad jokes onstage, and the Tripps answering the same questions at every stop.
How did you get your start?
When did you know you’d done something big?
What’s it like working with your spouse?
Do you ever argue?
What can we expect next?
They perform in front of cameras every day. As long as they stick to the script it’ll be fine … right?
The bus rocks gently as we move down the highway, the hum of the tires a welcome distraction from the speed of James’s gunfire typing. Every time I start to like him, he has to turn up the intensity somehow. Is he transcribing over there?
Melly has been on a call for about forty-five minutes. During that time I’ve managed to polish off my entire bag of Funyuns—a tragedy—and I try to focus on the design program in front of me. The project is an 1,100-square-foot home we’ll hopefully incorporate into a future season. It’s for a family of five—soon to be seven with a set of adopted twins on the way. Back in the old days, Melly’s designs favored a river rock aesthetic—with lots of plants, stones, and water features—but eventually she built her brand on the idea that even small spaces can be adapted to work for everyone.
At first it was “transitionable” furniture. That all started with a window display I’d put together mostly because I was bored in the long afternoons just after the holidays, when no one was redecorating their houses. In the display, along with a beautiful hand-crafted daybed, I put a small table Rusty had built and to which I’d added wheels so I could move it around throughout the day. The space could be a small dining area, a cozy sitting room, and, later, a small bedroom.
Melly got about ten new customers that day. Rusty loved it, too. I showed him some of my sketches, and he got to building. We’ve all seen a table that can be extended with a wooden leaf, but what about a circular table that holds two hidden crescent shaped leaves? When the main circle is rotated, the leaves fan into place, turning a four-person table into one that can accommodate eight in only seconds. Rusty sold about forty of those tables in just a couple months.
Together, we designed consoles that expanded using the aesthetic and structural aspects of my dad’s favorite Leather-man tools, kitchen islands that functioned like Swiss army knives and packed many purposes into the smallest footprint possible. The concept grew to include the buildings themselves: stairs that retracted when not in use, rooms built on platforms that offered hidden beds or storage underneath, walls that opened to reveal entire closets tucked into the space behind an ordinary flat-screen TV.
High-end style and design while utilizing limited space. It was popular even in the larger, more expensive homes in Jackson but when customers in some of the bigger cities heard about it, it became Comb+Honey’s, and Melly’s, signature.
My hands are bothering me more than usual, and I’m hoping I can nail down the logistics of turning an attic into an office with a half bath and lofted sleeping area before it becomes obvious I’m struggling with the Apple Pencil. I normally do this sort of thing alone, or with Melly, who already knows that my hands cramp when I overuse them, and it’s hard to hide with everyone—particularly James—right here.
It’s then that I notice the typing has stopped, and I glance up to find him watching me.
“You think we’re almost there?” he asks, and if he happened to notice anything out of the ordinary in my movements, he doesn’t let on. His blue-light-blocking glasses have slipped down his nose. The lens color makes the entire area around his eyes look like he’s suffering from jaundice. I snicker as I reach for my backpack.
“It’s a fourteen-hour drive,” I remind him. “It’s been five.”
Closing his laptop, he stands to stretch and the groan he lets out is both sexy and terrible.
I grin up at him. “I thought engineers were really good with numbers …”
His dirty look is cut short by a shout from the back of the bus: “Jimbo! C’mere!”
“Sweet Jesus.” James drops back into his chair.
Not to be ignored, Rusty calls him again. “Jimbalaya!”
I slide my messy stack of notes into my bag. “He’s not going to stop until you acknowledge him.”
“Jim Boy!” Rusty shouts, even more insistent. “Come back here!”
Melly covers her free ear and takes her phone into the bathroom, closing the door with a very pointed click. James gives me a pleading look, as if anything I can do will save him from keeping Rusty entertained for the next nine hours.
“Can’t you help him?” he asks, offering his closed laptop as evidence. “I’m trying to finish something.”
“He probably has a super-important engineering question, and I’m busy here doing assistant-y things. Besides, you’re the one he’s calling for, Jimbo.”
“More likely he wants me to cut a hole in the bottom of the bus like he saw in Speed and ride the panel back to the gas station for a bag of Doritos.” His grumpy expression deepens when he glances at my iPad, still on the table. “That doesn’t look very assistant-y.” He bends to get a closer look. “Are you … playing Minecraft?”