The Chicken Sisters

by Kj Dell'Antonia

  Amanda tried to take advantage of this moment of family solidarity and found herself, as silly as it seemed, trying to appeal to Mimi’s as well. “Mimi’s can stand on its own, Mom. You don’t need Mae. You should just do things the way you always have.”

  Barbara blew out an impatient breath. “I don’t need either of you, obviously.” She glared at Amanda. “If I did, I’d be in big trouble. If Mae wants to come do this Food Wars thing, I’ll do it. Otherwise, no. You’re right. We should just keep doing things the way we always have.”

  This time, Barbara walked inside and spoke over her shoulder. “I’ll call her tonight.” She slammed the door behind her, and Amanda found herself left on the patio with Andy, who looked oddly cheerful.

  “Damn it,” she said, unable to help herself.

  “She’ll get over it,” said Andy. “Do you think your sister will come?”

  Amanda shook her head. “She hates it here,” she said. Merinac had chafed at Mae since her sister turned fourteen and formulated, almost overnight, a plan for escape that she had always refused to believe Amanda didn’t want to share. Nobody ever did anything here, she said. Get out or die trying, unless you want to die here. When Amanda, shyly, had confided in her sister that she was pregnant after her first semester at the local college, Mae had given her one shocked, terrible look and then marched out of the room, returning with the phone book. “We can take care of this,” she’d said savagely. Stunned, Amanda had knocked the book out of her hands. Mae never believed that Amanda had wanted Gus, wanted the life she chose. Not then, not when Frankie had been born, not after Frank had died. Not ever, and Amanda both loved and hated her for it.

  “That’s okay,” said Andy, leaning on one of the picnic tables. “She’ll do it anyway. I mean, it would be cool if Mae came. I don’t know your sister, but she obviously likes being on TV. And cleaning things. And I don’t know if you know, but your mom’s house is—”

  Amanda had to laugh at that. “Oh, I know. Mae knows, too. It’s always been that way.”

  Patches came back to Amanda and nudged her hand for petting again. Amanda rubbed the dog’s soft head, still missing Pickle, and Andy came forward and knelt in front of Patches, rubbing under her chin. The dog instantly abandoned Amanda and dropped to the ground, rolling over and presenting an enormous belly to Andy for rubbing. Traitor.

  But that charm could be useful. “You think Mom will do it even if Mae doesn’t come?” She should know—she was Barbara’s daughter, after all—but she had no clue. Who cared if this guy knew it? He probably wouldn’t be around long anyway.

  Andy looked up at Amanda. “Sure,” he said. “It’s too good to pass up. But you’ll ask Mae, right?”

  Oh, she’d ask. Andy just didn’t need to know what she was asking for. All Mae really had to do was tell their mom it was a great idea—or better yet, say she was coming and then bail. Still, he was just a little too enthusiastic about even the possibility that Mae would appear.

  “You wouldn’t want Mae here,” Amanda said. And really, he wouldn’t. The thought was awful. “She’s—she’s too many cooks in anybody’s kitchen.” And she would think Food Wars was stupid and piddling, even while she took the whole thing over. That was Mae’s specialty. She always made it look easy, and she always made you feel dumb for caring.

  “I’d deal. Listen, try, okay? And I’ll get your mom to sign on either way.” He grinned, and it was a very appealing grin to conspire with. Amanda grinned back. Why not?

  Barbara came to the door. “We need to get back to work,” she called, and Andy rose easily, seemingly not at all bothered by the implied reproof in her words.

  “Sure thing. Gotta be friendly with the competition, though, right?” He turned back toward Amanda. “I’ll call you. I can get your number from your mom, okay?”

  Amanda nodded. They probably should keep in touch—it made sense, and it would be much easier than talking to her mother.

  And it would maybe even be kind of fun, if he was this excited about Food Wars. Even if he did think he’d like Mae. He’d learn, or rather, he wouldn’t, because Mae would not be here.

  Amanda took out her phone as she walked back to her car, typing as she went. Mae had to do this for her. She just had to.

  And then it would all begin.

  MAE

  Mae Moore was wearing her fiercest boots.

  It was May—never, despite the name, Mae’s luckiest month—so strappy, expensive, high-heeled sandals might have been more appropriate for a meeting in the skyscraper that housed Glorious Home Television. But this was a big meeting. An important meeting, and possibly, as suggested by that worrying text from Lolly, not a good meeting. Which meant that Mae wanted both feet solidly on the ground and her thin skin well covered.

  Standing in her Brooklyn closet, she’d chosen the tough-girl, ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners boots whose heels now hit the marble floors of the lobby with conviction as she flashed the ID card around her neck to Marcos and Jim at the security desk. Marcos pressed the button and waved her grandly through as he always did. They’d been here when she’d first walked into the building for her audition, wearing, she suddenly realized, these same boots. She hoped they weren’t about to see her walk out the doors for the last time as well.

  Mae quashed that feeling immediately. Things were going great. She and Lolly had bonded from their first shoot together, and she knew Lolly enjoyed having her on set. She was absolutely going to get the full co-hosting gig. Alone in the elevator (ignoring the camera), she struck the Wonder Woman pose that was supposed to fill your body with confidence. This is going to be fine. No, great. They were going to tell her that she’d rocked the five-show audition. Lolly, single and child-free, needed the vibe Mae brought to the lifestyle-redesign show. Mae, married with children, appealed to viewers scrambling to balance work and family and needing a neat, organized home to calm the chaos. Lolly filled closets. Mae cleaned them. And cleaning them, Mae knew, was exactly what most people craved in a consumer-crazy world. The success of her book had proved it.

  So this was just going to be a good meeting. A renewal of her role for the rest of the season. A discussion of the immediate future, which included the next few episodes of Sparkling, and the slightly more distant future, which Mae thought should include a pilot episode for a show that was all Mae. She mentally ticked off the reasons why: Half a million followers across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The book, Less Is Moore, named after her lifestyle philosophy. The contract for a second book, which she would absolutely figure out soon. The e-mail she sent out to more than twenty thousand subscribers every month. She was ready.

  But the Wonder Woman pose and mental reminders of her successes never did quite enough to banish the out-of-place feeling Mae had every time she stepped out of the elevator at GHTV. The Sparkling set, which was staged each week in houses of ordinary, messy people with lives she was used to—that was one thing. But the enormous images of Incredible Homes that covered the walls, stills from the network’s most popular show, were not places Mae Moore would ever belong, and the offices themselves, filled with women in clothes and shoes Mae could price instantly, no matter how foolish she thought them, made her feel as though she’d just got off the bus from Kansas.

  Lolly was waiting for her as the elevator door opened. As she grabbed Mae’s arm and pulled her into a practiced hug, she whispered in Mae’s ear, “Okay, get ready. You’re going to be fine, okay? This will all work out. Now, smile!”

  Lolly couldn’t have been less reassuring if she had tried. Now, without Mae getting to say so much as a word, Lolly swept her into a big conference room, with a long wall of windows looking out over Central Park and a long wall of interior windows allowing everyone who walked by to see who and what was happening on the network’s main business stage. Smile-smile, kiss-kiss for Christine, their senior producer, in shoes identical to Lolly’s. Smile-smile, kiss-kiss fo
r Christine’s boss, Meghan, in pumps of equal heel height but more gravitas, suggesting not so much that she took taxis everywhere but that she never, ever left this building. Smile-smile, kiss-kiss for the new social media director, for Meghan’s assistant, and for Christine’s junior producer, all glowing with confidence and sheer lip and cheek stain.

  As she settled into her chair, trying to calm the nerves that Lolly’s words had lit up, Mae’s phone quacked loudly. No, seriously, she hadn’t had the sense to put it on vibrate? Kicking herself, Mae grabbed for her phone in the pocket of the bag she’d set down next to her chair. As she fumbled with the mute switch, she read her sister’s text:

  FOOD WARS WANTS TO COME HERE. MOM NEEDS THIS, BUSINESS SUCKS, BUT SHE WON’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU. SHE’S GOING TO CALL YOU, CAN YOU JUST TELL HER YOU’LL COME AND THEN I’LL WORK IT OUT FROM HERE SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO? SERIOUSLY IT WILL BE GREAT FOR MOM. I JUST NEED YOU TO HELP ME GET HER THERE.

  Shit, what? As much as she knew she needed to tune in to the women around her, Mae was fully distracted by Amanda’s words. Food Wars? The competition show? Instantly, Mae could see how Food Wars would love the rivalry between Mimi’s and Frannie’s. And just as instantly, she could see what Amanda apparently was totally clueless about—that a reality show would steamroll their mother and rip the lid off every awful thing about Merinac, their house, their childhood, everything. She knew how this worked. Amanda, apparently, still believed in unicorns and thought this was a good idea. But Mae knew that about her sister, too. Damn it, Amanda. Just stay in your own yard, will you?

  Christine was pouring water for Meghan. The new junior producer and Lolly were comparing shoes. Ordinarily, Mae would be regretting sitting down first, when clearly the protocol was more preening and socializing, but under the circumstances, she grabbed the chance to reply.

  Hell no it would not be great, what are you thinking? Cameras in mom house fucking disaster. No way. Will deal with $$ later.

  Not that her mom would let her send money. Not that she had much to spare, either. She could see the little dots indicating that Amanda was already replying, but Mae stuffed the phone, now totally silenced, back in its pocket. Food Wars on her home turf was not something she could think about right now, let alone whatever was going on with her mom.

  In that tiny interval, the other women had all seated themselves, and Christine was now looking pointedly at Mae, who quickly put her empty hands on the table. The other woman gave a tiny shrug and looked away, and Mae felt dismissed, an inexperienced girl who did not know better than to text during an important meeting. She squared her shoulders, and Christine, no longer looking at Mae, addressed them all generally.

  “Sparkling, as you know, is doing well. Very well, in terms of audience. And we did get some nice audience feedback on the five Mae episodes. Lolly, every woman on Instagram wants to be you, or at least have you come spark up their space, and, Mae, lots of them want you to come clean out their fridge.”

  Mae felt her smile tighten. She’d cleaned one refrigerator in one episode and then kicked herself for it for days. That wasn’t who she was. She brought serenity and calm to the homes they redesigned, not just bleach wipes. But apparently once had been more than enough.

  Christine went on. “We’ve been talking with our sponsors,” she said, “and we’re hearing mostly good things. Lolly, the message to you is mostly ‘carry on,’ and we’ve had a lot of interest in you doing actual advertising spots for products, in particular from Flowergram and Storage Store.”

  Lolly beamed and wiggled her shoulders. “I love Flowergram,” she said. “I wish we could give every client, like, a biweekly delivery from them. Maybe they’d do, like, a branded Sparkling bouquet, one that really lasts.”

  “Oh, that’s a great idea,” said Meghan’s assistant. “You could choose the flowers. A Lollygram!”

  Lolly squealed. “I love it!”

  Christine looked pleased, and Meghan nodded, and the assistant began tapping notes frantically into her phone. Mae boggled at the way that had flowed—a Lollygram was not an advertisement for Sparkling, as Christine had first suggested; it was an advertisement for Lolly—but that was the way things fell for Lolly. The assistant, Mae could tell, adored her. Everyone adored her. Flowergram would have a new spokesperson before it knew what had hit it. Why couldn’t Mae do it like that?

  “Mae,” Christine said, “Flowergram has expressed some concerns to me about your Instagram.”

  Mae realized that she’d tilted her chair up on its front two legs—a nervous habit. The chair slammed down with emphasis, and Christine’s eyebrows went up slightly again as she continued. “Apparently, you posted an image of a cabinet full of flower vases and a caption urging people to get rid of crap and clutter. Flowergram felt that you were denigrating its product.”

  Mae laughed. No one else did. “But wait,” she said. “Old flower vases are, like, the definition of clutter. No one needs those. You need one. Maybe two. And not the ones that come with flowers.” She turned to Lolly for support. “You need nice ones. You’d say that too, Lolly.”

  Christine answered. “But Lolly wouldn’t put that on her Instagram. And she also wouldn’t say, as you have said more than once while taping, that getting organized isn’t about cute containers. The Storage Store is about cute containers. That didn’t make them happy.”

  Lolly kicked Mae under the table and grinned. “I love cute containers,” she said. “Mae loves cute containers too, don’t you, Mae?”

  Was this what Lolly had been talking about? She could handle this. “I love the Storage Store,” she said. Of course she did. She would live in the Storage Store if she could. She just didn’t think buying a bunch of containers was the first thing people should do. “Just edit it out if I say something that sounds like I don’t,” she suggested. Did they think she would mind? “Useful cute containers are great. Flatware dividers. I love those.”

  “Shelf separators,” Lolly offered.

  “Yes. And things that attach cords to the edges of desks.”

  “Tupperware that really stacks.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Toothbrush holders.”

  “Ew, no. Those get gross. And if your toothbrush is on the counter it’s collecting germs.”

  Christine waved a hand in between them. “It’s not funny to the Storage Store,” she said. “And if it’s not funny to the Storage Store, it’s not funny to me. Mae, your attitude toward the products of our sponsors is a real problem. It’s not just containers. If you open a pantry, you’re down on Nabisco. In a closet, it’s H&M and disposable fashion. There’s only so much we can do in postproduction. You never stop.”

  As Christine spoke, Mae felt a chill spread from the back of her neck forward. Without meaning to, she lifted her thumb to her mouth and bit the hangnail that was always there. When she caught it, she brought her hand down, quickly, ready to defend herself. Clutter was clutter. Nabisco was junk food. Disposable fashion wasn’t good for anyone, not the people who made it or, in the long run, the overwhelmed people who bought it. But Christine wasn’t done.

  “I don’t think you’ve fully understood who we are and what we do, Mae. We’re not making little videos for our neighbors in Kansas. We’re a national television program, funded by advertising and sponsorship, that needs to appeal to the customers of those businesses.”

  With the mention of Kansas, Mae’s crossed leg went to the ground, the soles of both boots firmly on the floor. “I can understand that,” she said, making purposeful eye contact. Had Christine mentioned Kansas deliberately? Was it a random insult, or one directed at Mae personally? “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I can help people who have”—she chose her words carefully—“too much of certain things without bringing up the sponsors. I really can. It’s not a problem—well, it is a problem—”

  Meghan joined in. “It really is a problem.”


  There—someone got it! And not just someone—the boss. Perfect. Glad to have an ally, Mae rushed on. “It’s a terrible problem. We really have way too much stuff, and when clothes and things are so cheap, it’s hard for people to resist . . .”

  Lolly kicked her under the table, hard. Looking at Meghan, Mae realized she’d made a mistake. That was not the problem she meant. Mae’s chill came back, more strongly this time. She’d misread the most senior woman there, and there was no way to walk it back.

  Meghan’s face was serious. “That may be a problem for some families, Mae, but for us, unhappy sponsors are a much bigger problem. And many viewers feel that you are lecturing them. Your results are good, but you’re very judgmental about the things that make people need us in the first place.”

  “I’m sorry. I can change that. I really can.” Mae leaned forward. Couldn’t they see she heard them? That this was something she could fix?

  “We appreciate your willingness to try, Mae, we do. But for now we’re going to continue the season without you. We may audition another co-host, or we may go forward with just Lolly. Or we might come back to you. But for now, we’re not convinced you’re right for this role, and we need to move forward without you. We’ll be in touch.” She picked up the folder she’d carried into the meeting and leaned over the table to shake Mae’s hand. “We know you’ll do some great things in the interval, and if this doesn’t work out, that you’ll make a big success without us, Mae. And we really appreciate all your hard work.”

  That’s it? Apparently, it was. Everyone was getting up. Meghan was insisting on shaking her hand, as was Christine’s new assistant, who looked like she was taking mental notes for when she got the chance to fire someone someday. Everyone filed out of the room, and Mae, holding her eyes wide open to keep tears from coming, turned away from Lolly and walked after them, willing Lolly to just let her go, but no. Of course not.