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“Rusty, you’re wrong,” Carey says. “Melly used to do her own work.” He starts to protest, but she shushes him. “She did. She decorated. It’s not the same, but she did. She loved putting together a room with your pieces, and you know it. Don’t trivialize that.”
Melissa starts to say something victorious, but Carey interrupts her again. “No, wait. I’m not done.” Carey turns to her. “Yes, you used to decorate, but you never designed, and you know it. You know I came in and designed the daybed and the coffee table. You know I designed the collapsible stairs, and the desks, and the tables, and everything else that came after it. You know the entire Small Spaces book is my work. You know it’s always been me, and you were happy to let the world think it was you, that paying me a lot of money meant that your conscience could be clear, but it’s not true. You took advantage of my need for insurance, for a job. You took advantage of my insecurity about growing up poor and not going to college or being good enough. You know you’ve been doing this, Melly, and it’s terrible.”
Melissa stares at Carey, and the color slowly drains from her face.
Rusty leans his arm against the fireplace mantel and reaches for a poker to stab at the burning logs. Carey walks over, takes the poker from his drunk hand, and gently shoves him away from the fire. “Russ, go sit down.” She sounds so tired.
“You quitting?” he asks, obstinately leaning an elbow against the mantel.
Carey nods. “Yeah. I’m quitting.”
Rusty lets out a long, slow whistle. “Isn’t that something? All this work. We get a TV show, we get books.” He points at me. “He gets a big promotion, and you end up quitting.”
My stomach drops out, and a hush falls over the room. Slowly, Carey’s eyes move from Rusty—who looks only now like he’s said something wrong—and then over to me. “A promotion?”
In all honesty, I haven’t thought about the promotion in hours and was going to tell her as soon as we got back home. What had once been the most important part of my life—the trajectory of my career—has slid down the ladder of priorities. I open my mouth to tell Carey that I’ll explain it later, but Rusty speaks first.
“Ted told me,” Rusty says, grimacing in my direction. There’s guilt in his expression, but if I’m not mistaken, I catch a subtly evil gleam in his eye, too. Maybe if he can’t get his way, no one can. The good ol’ boy has a darkness.
“What are you talking about?” Carey asks.
“Jimmy here negotiated an executive producer credit and the title of lead engineer if we made it to season two.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Carey says to me quietly.
Russell reaches up, picking at his teeth. “I figured you knew. What with you two being so close.”
I open my mouth and close it. I don’t want to lie to Carey and tell her that it wasn’t a big deal, and telling her that I tried to bring it up earlier just feels like a cop-out. My mistake feels so obvious. “Shit—Carey. This isn’t how I want to have this conversation. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. When Ted called—”
“In San Francisco?” she says, floored. “The morning—?” Her eyes fill as she puts the timeline together. The morning after we had sex.
I nod again. “I was about to throw in the towel,” I tell her. “I wanted you to quit, too, but—”
Melissa cuts in. “Excuse me?”
Both Carey and I give her “Shut up, Melly” in unison.
“But you didn’t want to,” I remind Carey. “You weren’t sure you were ready. When Ted called, I had it in my head that you weren’t going to leave, that Melly wasn’t going to be cool with us being together, and so when Ted offered it, it was the way that I came to terms with staying to help you with them but getting something out of it, too. We made a deal and then when I got back to the hotel, you’d started to change your mind but I’d already made a commitment.”
“You didn’t tell me,” she says again, and the simplicity of that betrayal feels totally gutting. “You should have told me. I tell you everything and you—what? Did you think I wouldn’t understand? I would have been happy for you. It would have made sense why you did a one-eighty and told me to stay. If you’d have just let me in on it, I would have understood.”
This feels like a punch to the gut. She did tell me everything; I’ve become her person, her safe space, and I kept this from her. Why did I do that? She’s been quietly doing all the work for a decade, and after one grueling week, I get the promotion of a lifetime and she gets nothing.
