The Chicken Sisters

by Kj Dell'Antonia

  His family would care. Big-time. Not that she herself cared about that, but still. She forced herself to keep walking, out of that little circle of light, and Sabrina kept pace with her, eyes still on Mae’s face. If she didn’t say anything, Sabrina had—what? Probably nothing.

  She would just ignore it. See what Sabrina did with that. Mae pushed a breath out through her nose, knowing her lips were pressed together and her expression probably wasn’t the calm, neutral face she was reaching for, then tilted her head and spoke. “I have to get back to the kids,” she said. “I’m just going to grab my bag—I left it in the kitchen.”

  “You do that,” said Sabrina. She still seemed amused, and now she glanced toward the kitchen. “I’ll just wait here. These heels are killing me.”

  Mae hurried up the walk. Damn, damn, damn. Would Sabrina use whatever Amanda had said? Was it on tape? Would they have to prove it before they thought they could run it? Because Jay—that was so not the way she’d want this to come out for him. Or his family. Or Lolly, or Sparkling, good God—

  She had her hand nearly on the screen door before she heard it—Andy’s voice, a low rumble, then a woman’s laugh. Automatically, she kept going, opening the door as the owner of the laugh clicked into place in her head, so that she saw Amanda at the exact instant that she realized she knew exactly who and what she was about to see.

  Amanda.

  Amanda, in Mimi’s.

  Amanda, her double-crossing sister, in Mimi’s, her butt up on the counter, her legs wrapped around Andy’s waist, her hands buried in the hair at the back of his neck, Andy pressing his body into hers.

  Goddamn it! All of the fury Mae already felt toward Amanda, all the words she’d just held back in the parking lot, boiled up and out. She slammed the screen door into the wall, shouting, “You do not come in here! Andy! You know she doesn’t come in here!”

  Amanda and Andy jerked apart, Andy leaping a foot back and then sticking out a hand to steady Amanda, who nearly fell off the counter.

  “Mae! Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just—we just—I—”

  “Get out!”

  Mae ran to Amanda, wildly shaking her hands at her. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” She turned to Andy. “A hundred years, right? More. A hundred years since we let anybody from Frannie’s in here. What were you thinking?” This wasn’t about Amanda’s betrayal, not anymore. No. This was Amanda trying to destroy everything. With difficulty, she refrained from kicking her sister, who was scrambling to pick her flip-flops up off the ground. “Can you even imagine what Mom would say? What she would do? Get out! Just get out!” Amanda stumbled, then scrambled for the door. Mae chased after her. “Out!”

  To Mae, it was as if the lights were flashing and thunder crashing, even if those reactions came from her heart and mind. Amanda could see them too; Mae knew she could. The screen door had flown open and a gust of wind rushed from the pass-through toward the door, pushing them, although the night had been still. Mimi’s might not speak to Andy, but it was howling at the two Moore girls.

  Amanda had only been inside Mimi’s once since marrying Frank and taking up her work at Frannie’s. It had been the day after his funeral, when she had come quietly in and sat and watched Mae helping Barbara prep, and they hadn’t said anything. The air had gone out of the kitchen and things became very quiet, just the three of them, until Barbara took an apron from the hook on the wall and held it out to Amanda.

  Amanda shook her head.

  Barbara held the apron out again, and again Amanda shook her head.

  And Barbara, as if possessed, started shaking the apron at Amanda, saying nothing, flicking it at her, flapping until Amanda fled her stool, urging her toward the door.

  “I thought you were coming back to us,” Barbara said, staring straight ahead. “If you’re not, go home. You’ve got another family now.”

  Amanda struggled with the door, which finally burst open, then ran, slamming it behind her, never once looking at Mae. Barbara resumed her work as if nothing had happened.

  As if Amanda had never been there at all.

  At the time, Mae felt like her mother took the whole thing with Amanda and Frannie’s more than a little too far. She had tried to go after Amanda but known instantly by the look on Barbara’s face that it would be the wrong move, that staying, then trying to bring them together later, would have a better chance at working.

  It hadn’t. Amanda hadn’t wanted her, either. And seeing Amanda, here, now—Barbara was right. Amanda had chosen. And now she needed to live with that choice and leave Mimi’s alone.

  But Andy did not seem inclined to follow the rules.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He put a hand on Mae, who knocked it away—what, did he think she was actually going to punch her sister? She might have wanted to, but they weren’t twelve. She kept her hands on her hips, very aware that Sabrina had just appeared in the doorway, phone in her hand. Although her stance was casual, Mae was dead certain she was filming.

  Sabrina smiled as though nothing was happening. “Amanda, you found Andy—great! But I guess I thought you didn’t usually go into Mimi’s?”

  Mae had to admire the lure Sabrina tossed out there. As angry as she still was—and she was; she was shaking all over—she mentally willed her sister to show a little sense for a change. Say anything at all, and Sabrina would have some interesting footage. But if they kept quiet—she pressed her lips together and tried to give both Andy and Amanda an intense look. Just shut up, she thought. She’s setting us up. Just shut up and go. Don’t give it to her. Well played by Sabrina, yes. And Mae owed her sister one, and Amanda was going to get it. But it was still possible to keep a little family dignity, if only Amanda and Andy would play this cool.

  They did not.

  “I asked her in,” Andy snapped.

  “No, she’s right, I shouldn’t have come in,” said Amanda, wildly looking around, smoothing the long hair she no longer had, then hopping on one foot to put her second flip-flop back on. “I knew it, I’m sorry. I’ll just go now.” She wasn’t meeting Andy’s eyes, or Mae’s, and she couldn’t seem to stop talking. “I should get home anyway, I don’t know why I came in, just dumb, I guess, I didn’t really have a reason . . .”

  We all know your reason, thought Mae. Now that she could see Sabrina’s machine working, it was far easier to tuck away her anger over Amanda’s betrayal and follow her own script, not Sabrina’s. Fine, she had a scene. But let it be a scene of Mae calmly handling an unwanted intrusion, not losing it. She shifted her tone, hoping that Sabrina’s phone hadn’t caught her earlier. “It’s no big deal, Amanda,” she said, ignoring the looks on Amanda’s and Andy’s faces. “You said hi, and, yeah, you can just head out.” Just basically say nothing, she told herself. “Here’s your bag.” She picked up Amanda’s tote bag from the floor where it had fallen. Her phone had spilled out, along with her Frannie’s shirt from earlier.

  “I see you changed before you came,” Mae said, holding one strap of the bag as Amanda reached out and took the other. Their eyes met. She wanted Amanda to know that she knew what Amanda had done—and that there would be payback. “Guess you probably weren’t planning to strip down here.” Mae held the bag for just an instant too long, knowing her face was away from the camera, and she dropped everything fake and friendly from her face while keeping her voice light. Let the viewers hear her containing her anger, but Amanda was going to see it loud and clear. “Have a nice night.”

  She saw understanding in Amanda’s eyes before she turned away, hearing rather than seeing her sister slip out the door.

  Amanda, it seemed, was going to break every rule. She didn’t respect the rules, or the past, or, clearly, Mae and Barbara. Or even Andy, who was still gazing after her sister, actually looking hurt, the fool. Jerk though he might be, he could probably have any single woman in this town through sheer lack of
competition, and he actually had a thing for Amanda?

  He’d regret it. Because if Amanda wasn’t going to play by the rules, Mae wasn’t either. Plan A had been making Mimi’s look good while Frannie’s took the crown, but Plan B was even better: Mimi’s triumphs, and Frannie’s looks like the Olive Garden wannabe that it had turned itself into. She’d highlight the authenticity that was Mimi’s, the way nothing ever changed because it didn’t need to and the hell with the kale salad. She’d use everything she had to make this story go her way, and she could do it, too. She knew how this worked, and Amanda didn’t have a clue.

  Her mother was right. Mimi’s could win this thing. Mimi’s was just what everyone wanted now: local, fresh, homemade, real. She could have people coming from three states away to taste their perfectly crafted limited menu and weeping when they found out Mimi’s was out of pie.

  Mae was going to run Frannie’s right into the ground, and Amanda with it.

  Sabrina seemed to be waiting for something. Her phone was still out, but she hadn’t said anything. Just as Andy’s puppy-dog look was starting to change into one of confusion, Amanda appeared outside the screen door, and as Sabrina turned, Mae could see that she had her phone camera focused exactly there.

  “Hey,” Amanda said. She wobbled a little, and Mae could see, if she hadn’t guessed before, that her sister wasn’t just being stupid; she was very, very drunk. “I, um, Gus took my car. And I probably shouldn’t drive anyway. Can somebody take me home?”

  Amanda’s eyes were on Andy, but Sabrina, who probably had her reasons, rushed forward. “Oh, of course,” she said, slipping her phone into the back pocket of her perfect white jeans. “Let’s go.”

  Amanda was such a softball. Taking down Frannie’s—and her sister— was going to be almost too easy. If Mae had to, she’d ride out the stripping thing just fine, because that was exactly who she was—she did what she needed to do to get what she wanted.

  She had ahold of herself now, too. She knew what she was doing. Mae picked up her own bag but waited a beat before following the other women, choosing her words carefully. Andy needed to be put in his place, too. Now.

  “Amanda never could stay away from the guys in the kitchen,” she said to Andy’s back, and continued over her shoulder as she walked out the door. “Guess you’re joining the club.”

  She left without giving him a chance to answer.

  * * *

  ×

  Mae slipped out of her motel room early the next morning with a welcome sense of being ready to shake things up. By the time Kenneth and Patrick opened for coffee, she was going to have earned it. After all, Mimi’s needed a fresh look, and that old sign of Amanda’s was worn, chipped, and dated. It wasn’t as if Amanda even cared about Mimi’s anymore. She probably didn’t even want them to use that chicken she had painted now that she was with Frannie’s, and if she did, well, she should have acted like it. Mae didn’t feel bad about painting over it. Not one bit.

  It was still dark when she started, but Mae had set up her supplies for this last night. She could work by the porch light until the sun came up. Rolling the paint over the sign, pressing down hard, felt good. She was erasing yesterday. Today would be great.

  Her worried mood of the night before had mostly passed, leaving her invigorated. She could do this. She could keep the attention of Food Wars where it belonged, on the food, and if not, she’d serve up Amanda and Andy on a silver platter. She herself would give up nothing, and really there was nothing to give. The dancing gig was a nonstarter, and Sabrina clearly knew it. There wasn’t a whisper of it anywhere on any social media channels. It wasn’t even worth saving up for later, not if she wasn’t going to react anyway.

  Jay she would deal with when she got home. Their whispered conversation last night had been unsatisfying—her trying not to wake Madison and Ryder, him trying to—what? Convey his boredom? She had wanted to share her plans for defeating Frannie’s, but it was too hard to explain where she was and what was happening, especially when he wasn’t even bothering to pretend to be interested.

  When she’d met Jay in business school, Merinac was so far behind her that it was second nature to let him assume as everyone else did that the “suburb of Kansas City” where she had grown up was basically the equivalent of Long Island. By the time it was clear he was sticking around, it was too hard to clear it up, and Mae only partially wanted to. She was just another student by then. Everybody had a (well-paying) summer internship. Everybody had student debt—not Jay, it turned out, but most people. It was fun, becoming someone who was accustomed to buying her clothes new and putting down her credit card for big group meals split sixteen ways (and trying not to mentally calculate who had had more to eat or drink because clearly that was not the way it was done). And Jay liked that version of Mae. Loved that she could roll with courtside seats at a 76ers game or the tasting menu at Vetri Cucina as easily as downing beers at a dive bar. Was excited by her ambition and delighted by the opportunity to show her all the new things fulfilling those ambitions meant she could do and buy and be.

  She pressed a little harder with her paint roller. All she had been hoping for last night was to feel the tiniest connection with that old Jay. The one who would think the Yellow Rose of Texas was funny. She’d tried to turn the conversation to him, ask how work was going, but he had given her nothing. Couldn’t he at least try? Try to find what he’d once liked about his job? Try to find what he’d once liked about her?

  It had been like he didn’t want to talk. Not to her, anyway.

  This was not confidence inspiring. But the shiny fresh paint was. And so was remembering last night’s final text, from Kenneth:

  Breakfast? Tell all?

  Be ready with coffee. I’ll be there when you open.

  See you at o dark-thirty.

  That at least was something to look forward to.

  Kenneth was waiting for her behind the counter, cup in hand, ready to brew.

  “You always were my dream man, Kenneth, and now you’ve achieved true perfection,” she said.

  “Taken, so very taken,” he replied. “Which is obvious. You, on the other hand, much less obvious. You wear a ring, it is true, but you do not exude the beatific joy of the beloved that shines from my very soul. So let us go there immediately, since you bring it up. Why has your better half never, to my certain knowledge and you can be sure I have checked, graced our fair town?”

  Nobody got her like Kenneth. Mae stood there, waiting for her coffee, and didn’t offer the flippant answer that would have been easiest. This was why friends sucked. There you were, keeping things safely tucked away in their own spaces, and somebody like Kenneth came along and just pulled everything out, kind of the way Mae used to when she was hired to organize a closet.

  That wasn’t really a good comparison. Out of sight, out of mind was a bad idea for clothes but not for problems, which sometimes really did go away if you just avoided them for long enough.

  Kenneth, carrying two cups, walked around the coffee bar and set them both on a table. His foam made a perfect heart; hers, a floating question mark.

  “Screw you,” she said, without rancor, and sat down, dumped in three packets of sugar, and ruthlessly stirred away. “I am happily married.”

  She was, too. For now. “Why would you home in on that, anyway?” she asked. “I’ve done a zillion other things since we graduated, and you just want to know who I’m shagging?”

  “Everything else about you is wide open. I can find out what you had for breakfast a week ago last Tuesday in three different places. But your delightful-looking husband, other than the occasional photo op, remains shrouded in mystery. Although I do note that holding hands with him, in some parts of this state, might in fact earn you more than a few sideways glances. Is that why he stayed home?”

  “God no. That really doesn’t—I bet it doesn’t happen any more f
or us than it does for you. Less, even. He’s American. Yeah, his family is from India, so maybe once in a while somebody says something, but mostly no.”

  Kenneth waited, perfect eyebrows raised. Mae licked her spoon. It was true—Jay’s brown skin (and Madison’s and Ryder’s, for that matter) wasn’t the norm in Merinac, but neither was it entirely out of the ordinary. The crowd at Mimi’s last night had been much more diverse than the one she went to high school with. And Jay was also a tall, good-looking rich kid who carried an air of privilege everywhere he went. She knew he felt his differences—it was one of the things they shared, especially at the very WASPy consulting firm, a feeling of being an outsider—but she wasn’t going to pretend to Kenneth that Jay’s background had anything to do with his absence.

  “Jay just wouldn’t get Merinac,” she finally said. “Plus, he kind of thinks it’s Kansas City.”

  Kenneth hooted, and Mae smiled a little. It was funny. She’d worked so hard to hide the differences between the way she was raised and the way Jay was raised, and she’d been so successful.

  But it also wasn’t funny. Because if she’d been less successful, if Jay and his family had seen through the cracks to the total void where Mae’s supposedly solid middle-class background was supposed to be, maybe she wouldn’t be stuck trying to convince someone who had never really worked for anything that you didn’t give up everything you’d worked for. But that would mean no Madison, no Ryder . . .

  Mae might really need to fall back on that no-regrets policy.