Bitch.
Amanda felt nothing but dread for the day ahead. She did her chicken and garden chores quickly, feeding the birds, checking their water, dropping the watermelon rinds they loved without taking time to hold one out and laugh at the way they pecked their way right through the red and white and down to the green. The longer she thought about the things she had said to Sabrina yesterday, the dumber they seemed, and apparently she had looked so pitifully out of style while doing it that Sabrina had been moved to make her over, producing her own hair and makeup artist to do so. Both she and Gordo had pronounced the result “fantastic,” but it was so far removed from any haircut Amanda had ever had, or even any haircut that anyone—any woman, at least—in Merinac would choose, that she took no pleasure at all in her arguably improved appearance.
And then, when all she’d intended to do was go to Mimi’s and find Mae to try to figure out why Mae had gone from hell no to of course I’ll come in ten minutes flat and then followed that up by actually coming, instead of backing out like she totally should have, Amanda found Andy instead. Andy liked the haircut. Andy had demanded to “pet the fresh fuzz” where her hair was shortest, on the back of her neck, and the feeling of his hand running up and down the shorn hairs had sent little shivers up and down parts of her that she hadn’t let shiver in a long time. He’d known it, too, damn it; she knew he did. But he had been nice about it. He’d stepped back instead of forward, and she’d been grateful, and if she’d also been a little disappointed, he never needed to know that. The guy was a player. He had to be. And he was way out of her league.
Following directions, even while wishing she had the balls to just ignore Mae and get on with her own life—her own great life, per Frankie—Amanda hauled her bright-blue-shirt-wearing self to the Mimi’s parking lot.
Mae, looking quite cheerful, probably because her hair was still long and dark and shiny and normal-looking, was seated on the opened back of a rental hatchback with all the windows down when Amanda pulled up. From a distance, it looked as though the little car was crawling with kids; up close she saw it was only Mae’s two, the boy trying to pull himself up through the sunroof, the girl pretending to drive.
“Nice playground,” she said by way of greeting. Mae hopped up to embrace her, and Amanda returned the hug with less enthusiasm. Mae looked exactly the same. Oh, Mae would probably say she looked different. The jeans, the sleek hair, the way the arms of her shirt folded up perfectly, the thick-soled white sneakers in a brand Amanda didn’t recognize—she looked expensive now. She even smelled expensive, like sharp honeysuckle, aggressively clean.
But she was still Mae, with that expression that said she was ready for action, and why hadn’t Amanda done whatever it is she would do yet?
And there were her kids. Kids Amanda had never met, although she’d talked to them, sort of, on FaceTime as they ran around ignoring her the way kids did any face on the screen that wasn’t animated and speaking in that hellish educational TV voice. They were ignoring her now, too, still caught up in all the car had to offer. Mae followed her gaze, then shrugged.
“It’s a novelty to a New York kid. Anything for a few minutes’ peace.”
Amanda could remember feeling that way, but for her it came with a shot of longing. When her kids were that little, she’d been exactly what everyone wanted, Frank, Gus, Frankie, all craving her presence, all touching her, all the time, and just like Mae, she’d wished it away. If she’d known how quickly it would end, would it have mattered? The phrase I was beautiful then drifted through her mind, and she was embarrassed to realize, after a moment, that it wasn’t a fragment of poetry but a line from the musical Cats.
Mae was going on and on about Amanda’s hair. “Seriously, it’s so fresh. You should have done this years ago! It’s so—I mean, you just look so fab, and young, and cute, and with your height—I wish I could carry that off. I’d just look like I got a mom cut, I know I would. And it’s going to be so easy!”
Great. That translated to, You look like an old lady who will need to get her hair set every week, and I would never, ever do that. Amanda should have found that baseball cap. “I think I hate it,” she said.
“No, it’s lit. Really. It’s cool even for New York, because it’s so artsy and unique. And you don’t even have any gray yet, do you? I have to cover mine every six weeks already.”
Amanda shook her head about the gray hair—there, one advantage to being younger—but she was still stuck on the double-edged sword of “unique.” Unique good, or unique weird? “Not yet,” she said, and then, finally, the kids rolled out of the car, one after the other, and stopped short at the sight of her. Mae scooped up Ryder, who lifted the stuffed toy he held clutched in his hand to his mouth before Mae gently pushed it away.
It was the chicken she’d sent him when he was born. Amanda was surprised—and delighted. She wouldn’t have thought her sister would care about that at all. She smiled and touched the chicken’s dirty wing, gently. “Hi, Ryder,” she said.
Ryder buried his face and the chicken in Mae’s shoulder, but Amanda didn’t give up. “I sent you that chicken,” she said softly. “When you were a little baby. I’m glad he’s so loved. What’s his name?”
Ryder said something she didn’t understand, and Madison reached up and held his foot. “It used to be Chicken but now it’s Rawlings,” she said. “Daddy named it. Rydie still calls it Chicken, though.”
Mae set Ryder down and crouched behind both children. “Give your aunt Amanda a hug, then,” she said. Madison hesitated, and Ryder backed into Mae as Amanda held up her hands and took a step back.
“No way,” she said. “I haven’t earned a hug yet, right, guys? I can’t hug you. I just met you.” She crossed her arms and made a pouty face, and Madison giggled. “No hugs for you. Maybe later.” Mae met Amanda’s eyes with a look that said she’d noticed Amanda’s implied critique but was ignoring it, and then her attention was caught by someone coming down the sidewalk, a girl Amanda didn’t recognize, carrying two cups from Patrick’s.
Mae stood up and waved. “There she is,” Mae said. “The lattes at that new place, 1908 something, are to die for. Jessa brought me one, and I already sent her for a second. I should have had her grab you one, too. Have you been? Main Street is so different. You never told me someone reopened the five-and-dime, and it’s totally cute now. Or about the craft store. Or the bookstore. They had my book in the window!”
“Of course I’ve been to Patrick’s,” Amanda said. No one called it the 1908 Standard, no matter what it said on the sign. “They have the best coffee in town. Plus, that’s part of Kenneth’s place. His bed-and-breakfast, the one they’ve been renovating for years. You’re on Facebook, Mae; you have to know this stuff. Patrick is Kenneth’s husband, and they came back a while ago and redid the old inn, and there is no way you could have missed it. They put up pictures every day for months.”
Mae looked down for a second, then straight at Amanda. “I haven’t spoken to Kenneth since we graduated, except at your wedding,” she said. “I’m not Facebook friends with anyone from Merinac except you.”
Amanda was shocked. “But that’s the whole point of Facebook. To keep up with people. You’re on Facebook all the time. What the hell are you doing? And Kenneth was your best friend. I know you dropped everyone when you went to college, but Kenneth? Plus his place is gorgeous. I can’t believe you aren’t staying there.”
“I’m close enough to Mom’s house as it is,” Mae said. “Look, Kenneth went and did his thing. I did mine. And now I’m back, and I will say hi and drink his husband’s unbelievable coffee, and what really matters, especially if he owns a business on Main, is Food Wars. Food Wars is going to fucking save this town.” She turned away from Amanda as the coffee carrier rushed up.
“Sorry that took so long, Mae; there was a line,” she said.
“That’s totally okay. Jessa, my sister,
Amanda. Amanda, this is Jessa, our nanny.”
Amanda stuck out her hand. Nanny? Mae brought a nanny? To Merinac? Her sister truly had lost touch, and not just with Kenneth, which Amanda still couldn’t believe. Bringing a nanny was an asshole move, and her comment about Food Wars saving this town raised every one of Amanda’s hackles, even if she had thought much the same thing. Merinac was actually doing fine, thanks for asking, with more new people and businesses than there had been in years—case in point, the coffee Mae loved so much. “Nice to meet you,” Amanda said to the girl, but Jessa’s attention had already turned to the kids, who were greeting her with a lot more enthusiasm than they had shown Amanda, possibly because she also produced juice boxes from the bag over her shoulder as she handed Mae her coffee.
“Guys,” she said, “I found a swing set. And a slide! Let’s go!” She quickly turned back and took Amanda’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” she said as she picked up Ryder and held out a hand to Madison. “We’re off, then,” Jessa said to Mae, and Mae waved. No fuss, no hugs, and the kids were heading down the street.
“Bye,” Amanda called after them, and Madison turned. In that over-the-shoulder glance, Amanda could see that she looked just like Mae.
“Bye, Aunt Amanda,” Madison called, then tugged at Ryder. “Say bye, Ryder.”
Bossy, too.
Ryder waved his chicken at Amanda, and she felt a small crush of affection for him rush through her. “Bye,” he called. The obedient younger. For now.
“They’re so cute,” she said to Mae, who had already turned away. “We could have taken them with us. I mean, your nanny? You brought a nanny?”
“Please, Amanda, everybody in Brooklyn has a nanny. You didn’t think I was going to come out here and try to do Food Wars while juggling a six-year-old and a three-year-old, did you?”
Three references to New York in less than as many minutes, true to Mae form. Also true to form was the annoyance Amanda felt after a few minutes of her sister’s company, an experience she could usually end by hanging up the phone. Once past the hair, Mae hadn’t asked a thing about Amanda, or her kids. She’d managed to combine insult and condescension in nearly every sentence, and now she was brushing off her own kids as if they were just another inconvenient bump on the golden Mae road. Why not have them at Mimi’s? Of course, in New York, things were different. “We grew up at Mimi’s,” she said. She couldn’t remember a single babysitter, not ever. Only the great-aunts, and Mae, always in charge, always there.
Mae rolled her eyes. “And I am sure Mom would have been more than happy to get us out of her hair sometimes. Plus, she had Grandma Mimi and Mary Cat. My kids don’t know anyone here, they’re not going to hang out with a stranger, and they don’t need to be in every scene of Food Wars. I know how this works. One wrong move, and next thing you know, they’ve made your kid look like a spoiled brat, or you like a monster.”
“Great, now you’ll look like someone who leaves her kids with someone else all the time. Gus and Frankie were at Frannie’s every day, and they’re fine.” Amanda was happy to needle Mae about this one. There wasn’t much she’d done before her sister, let alone done better—but at least she’d been able to raise her kids without hired help, even as a single mom.
“You have no idea what this is going to be like, Amanda. It’s not just getting filmed while you do your usual stuff. It’s being able to do the scenes they want over and over, which kids don’t get—plus you have to watch out for what they’re trying to make happen. Did you read the release you signed? They can do anything they want with any footage they get, so you have to be sure they don’t get anything you don’t want out there.”
Amanda thought of the interview she hadn’t realized she was doing. But Sabrina had basically said they wouldn’t use it. “I’m sure Sabrina isn’t like that,” she said.
Mae laughed. “Everybody’s like that. But if we’re smart, we can manage the story they tell.” She handed Amanda a sheet of paper. “Here,” she said, “I made some talking points. Just, good things we can say about each other, right? I’ve got some too. Just so it’s clear we’re all besties, right?” Amanda glanced down at the page as Mae slammed the back of the car shut. Shared history. All family. Keep the challenges in the kitchen. Mae must have clicked the lock button on her key fob, because the car gave a light honk, which made Amanda snicker silently as she shoved the paper in her bag. Nobody locked their cars in Merinac. Mae had no idea where she was any more.
“Come on, walk with me. We have to figure this out.” Mae headed toward the little wooded area that stretched behind Mimi’s and the house, and Amanda reluctantly fell in beside her. The story didn’t need managing, and she didn’t need Mae’s help.
“We don’t need to figure anything out, Mae. Food Wars wants a rivalry, and we have that. All we have to do is what we usually do. I don’t even know why you’re here, to be honest.”
“Because Mom wants me here.” Mae gave Amanda a smug look. “And she’s not doing this without me, so if you want to do it at all, you’re stuck with me.”
For a nickel, Amanda would just end the whole thing right now. “Maybe I don’t want to do it anymore,” she said. But she did, and Mae, who knew it, turned and bounced off toward the trees without even so much as looking behind her. How could Mae always be so certain that she had everything under control, that other people would fall in with her plans? It was even more annoying when she was right.
“Listen,” Mae was saying, and Amanda had to hurry to catch up so that she could hear her. “I get it. Frannie’s is big and Mimi’s is little, and you expect to win, and you probably will. And you need me to help Mom keep Mimi’s in the running, and I will. But we want to keep them out of Mom’s house, right? And out of our family lives. We don’t want them poking around, asking your kids how they feel about their dad’s death, stuff like that. If we hand them the story, they’re not looking for a story. So we’re, like, three very independent women who need our own things, but we respect each other. Like sports. We keep the competition on the field; off the field, we’re fine.” She glanced up at Amanda, possibly to see how her sister was taking this rewriting of history.
Amanda kept pace with Mae on the familiar walk down to the railroad tracks, long out of use, and then to the river, entering into the conversation in spite of herself. “Have you run this brilliant plan by Mom yet? She’ll love respecting me as an independent businesswoman.”
Mae let that go. “They’ll focus on you and me if we let them,” she said. “And we can pull it off, Amanda. We’re adults. We can be—cordial. No, warm. And I was thinking—”
Amanda, who was uncomfortably aware that she had already blown this plan of Mae’s out of the water, tuned in at that phrase. “I was thinking,” from Mae meant that something mattered enough to her that she was at least trying to present it in a way that was palatable to the other person. It meant that somewhere in her plans, Mae had run across something she couldn’t just make happen on her own. Amanda eyed her sister cautiously. Mae went on without looking at her.
“I was just thinking that while I’m here, maybe I could help organize your kitchen. That could be, like, a friendly scene we do together. They’d love that.”
What the fuck? “Hell no, Mae, you’re not messing with my kitchen. You haven’t been in my kitchen in six years! What makes you think it needs organizing? My kitchen is fine.” It was, too. Or if it wasn’t, it was how Amanda wanted it. She wasn’t Barbara. Her mess was just a mess; she could clean it up in an hour if she wanted to, and the last thing she needed was Mae’s help. If Amanda had her way, Mae wouldn’t even come near the little house—and especially not with her own agenda. “Why would they even want that? The personal stuff is not what they’re after, Mae. Haven’t you watched? They just film in the restaurants.”
Mae whacked her on the arm. “Haven’t you watched? What about the one where the guy is adopted, and he just w
ants his dad to be proud of him making the cheesesteaks, and the dad has never said it and then he does and they both cry at the end? Or the one where the husband and wife fight over where they get the lobster and it turns out that it’s her ex’s boat?”
Amanda had seen the cheesesteak one, yes, but she thought that stuff just happened. If you did enough Food Wars, probably some people were bound to have emotional things going on. And it was a nice story, at least. “Right, but they’re not looking for it. And they want their viewers to, like, feel good.”
“Good that their wife isn’t maybe still sleeping with her ex, yeah. I think that couple got a divorce.”
Why did Mae have to act like she knew so much more about everything than Amanda? She might have been on TV a few times, but Food Wars was different, and this was Merinac, not New York. “There’s nothing like that going on here. You’re making this too big a deal, Mae.”
“You don’t think they’d be happy to run with you flirting with Andy? Because I guarantee they would. And, seriously, Amanda? One chicken guy wasn’t enough?”
Amanda’s face got hot. She’d forgotten that Mae had seen her last night. And she wasn’t flirting, anyway. Andy wasn’t even her type. She didn’t have a type. She had a fourteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old. “I wasn’t flirting. I was looking for you. And where were you, anyway?”
“Walking back from Mom’s, and I didn’t want to interrupt you. But maybe I should have, if you can’t figure out for yourself that the guy’s a real dead end.”
The Chicken Sisters Page 10
