The Chicken Sisters Page 2

  There was no way Mimi’s could compete. And very little chance Amanda’s mother would want to.

  Nancy gazed at Amanda, her expression serious. “Did you ask your mother about this?”

  Amanda shook her head. “I didn’t think they’d actually come.” It was only in the past few years or so that she’d really been able to have a conversation with her mother at all. Ask her about a wild, crazy dream that could never happen? No way. Nancy sat back down, and Amanda joined her across the table, sighing. “I know. I know. She might not do it. But Mimi’s could use more business. And she doesn’t really even have to do anything differently from what she’s doing. She just has to let them film her.”

  Nancy, who had known Barbara for thirty-five years, drummed her fingers on the table. “She’s not going to win, that’s clear enough, although the money could sway her. Mimi’s always needs the money.”

  She didn’t have to tell Amanda that. Mimi’s need for money was in Amanda’s bones. It seeped through her pores; it beat through her veins. Mimi’s needed money, Barbara needed money, but whether her mother would accept the connection between Food Wars and her bank account was an open question. Barbara didn’t see things like other people did, and certainly not like Nancy did. Amanda glanced around her mother-in-law’s kitchen, at the clear counters, the sun streaming through the neatly curtained windows with barely any dust in the air to set alight. Amanda had loved this kitchen since she first set foot in it, although it felt more spare now, almost too clean, if that were possible. It was so unlike anything she’d ever known—and, she thought with a little regret, not much like her own kitchen, either.

  Nancy leaned forward and gently snapped her fingers in front of Amanda’s face. “Come back,” she said. “This isn’t going to go away if you do.” Amanda smiled. It was a familiar joke between them. “She’ll do it,” Nancy said. “Why would she pass something like this up?”

  Because it was Amanda asking, maybe? She put her chin in her hands and jiggled her leg under the table, silent.

  “I know your mom can be tough.” Nancy knew better than anyone just how tough Amanda found her mother. “But this is different. She has to see it. She will see it. And your aunt will love it.”

  That, at least, Nancy had right. Aunt Aida, who was actually Amanda’s great-aunt, had once had a thriving career in movies and television, until she’d faded out and moved in with Barbara. No one would welcome the arrival of cameras more than Aida. “She won’t be there, though. She hardly ever goes to the restaurant.”

  “Well, talk about her, then. And talk about all the business Mimi’s will get.” Nancy stood up. “Come on, then. Off you go. I’d go with you, but we both know that won’t help.”

  Not hardly. And wait—she was doing this now? Amanda had been thinking later tonight. Or tomorrow morning. Or never—what if Food Wars just showed up? Wouldn’t Barbara have to go along with it?

  Her mother never went along with anything. Not for the first time, Amanda wished her mother was more like her mother-in-law. Reluctantly, she got up, then hesitated, her hand on her chair. “But what if she says no?”

  Nancy smiled—the reassuring smile that had carried Amanda through a lot of years, ever since she’d married Frank and traded in her mess of a family life for Nancy’s ordered world.

  “You won’t know until you ask,” she said. “And she’s going to say yes. This is going to be the thing you want that she wants too.” She squeezed Amanda’s arm. “They’re coming Wednesday? As in, tomorrow?”

  “That’s what they said.” Tomorrow. Well, talking to Barbara would be over by then, anyway. And once Food Wars showed up, Barbara would be their problem. Amanda straightened up and smiled back at Nancy, her excitement returning. The money, and just the business, and all the publicity—this could save them all.

  Unless, of course, Barbara said no.

  Nancy was right, Amanda thought as she left the table and the cozy kitchen. The faster she asked, the sooner she’d know.

  * * *

  ×

  Away from Nancy, Amanda’s resolve faded almost immediately. When was the last time she’d been by Barbara’s place, anyway? It had to have been months ago—she remembered walking there with Pickle after getting coffee last fall. The dog hadn’t survived the winter. He had been her and Frank’s first baby, picked out of a litter by two utterly unprepared newlyweds months before Gus was born. After Pickle died, things got even lonelier. Gus started thinking about college in earnest. His younger sister, Frankie, started shutting herself in her tiny bedroom. If Pickle were here, Amanda would feel better about tapping on her mother’s door, knowing she’d at least have a sympathetic ear when she got back into the car.

  Which was pretty pitiful when you thought about it.

  So instead of thinking about it, Amanda turned into Mimi’s parking lot, wheels spinning at the switch to gravel, and pulled up next to an unfamiliar pickup. Must belong to the new fry cook. Amanda felt a little curiosity mixed in with her nervousness. Her mother’s dog, Patches, a fat black-and-white beast with a big head, hauled herself up from beside the stoop, barked once, then came forward to nudge Amanda’s hand. Amanda rubbed her under the chin.

  Barbara appeared in the screen door exactly as if the dog had summoned her, and with her, the scent of Mimi’s, of frying and spice, a little musty, a little sharp, once the smell of Barbara coming home from work and then, later, Amanda’s own hair after every shift. Frannie’s smelled like cooking when they cooked, like cleaning when they cleaned, like fresh napkins and cooked vegetables. Mimi’s only ever smelled like Mimi’s.

  “Amanda?” Barbara stepped out and stood for a moment, surveying her younger daughter. Amanda realized she should have prepared some sort of opener. Why was it always so hard to even say hello to her mother? She started forward, considering a hug, but Barbara leaned back into the kitchen. “Andy? Andy, come on out here. I want you to meet Amanda.”

  Okay, that would work. Barbara had never hired anyone to cook for her before, although she always had counter and dishwashing help. From what Amanda had heard around town, the guy was basically some sort of weird charity project for her mother—good-looking (Mary Laura, Frannie’s bartender, had reported she “wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers”) but more than a little down on his luck, which was obvious, because otherwise, why would he be here?

  Andy had to duck a little to step out of Mimi’s kitchen back door. He was tall and broad, and he wore an apron over a T-shirt and standard-issue chef’s clogs with shorts, which revealed pale but muscular legs, abundant tattoos (basically a Mary Laura prerequisite), and a lower-arms-only farmer’s tan that had to have been years in the making.

  “This is Amanda, huh?” He held out a hand, and his big, warm grip covered Amanda’s smaller hand entirely. He held it an instant too long, looking at her face with curiosity. “The one who can’t come inside?”

  “The one who can’t come inside, yes. Amanda, this is Andy.”

  Amanda didn’t need any guy’s hand lingering on hers, but she could see his appeal, especially given how few men there were in Merinac whom Amanda and Mary Laura hadn’t known since kindergarten. She’d be willing to bet Andy could see his appeal too, and that he had a long history of making good use of it.

  Did Barbara know she’d brought a fox into the henhouse, or maybe, given the lack of employed straight single men in Merinac, the other way around? Amanda couldn’t tell. Her mother’s interest had shifted from her protégé back to Amanda, and Amanda was glad of an excuse to turn her attention away from Andy’s deep brown eyes and their appraising gaze.

  “Well, you didn’t come by to meet Andy,” Barbara said, glancing back into the kitchen. The screen door had drifted open, and she reached out to shut it again, firmly. “Or to see me. So what’s on your mind?”

  Amanda ignored the jab and plunged in. “I was wondering if you guys—Mom, if yo
u—if you would be in a restaurant competition with Frannie’s. On TV. It’s called Food Wars, and they want to come, you know, kind of see how we compare, judge the chicken. It would be fun, and it’s good for everybody. It doesn’t really matter who wins.”

  Andy, who was leaning against the building, smiling generally at them both, probably enjoying an unexpected break in the day’s work, suddenly stood back up. “Oh man, I love Food Wars. They really want to come here? How did you do that?”

  Amanda wasn’t sure how to respond. She preferred to think she did not need Andy’s help, and further, she hoped to downplay her own level of instigation, letting her mother assume that somehow, through the magic of the Internet, perhaps, or just magic in general, Food Wars had happened. She hesitated, feeling, as she always did, the presence of the building itself, no longer the comforting refuge it had been when she had painted the large Chicken Mimi’s sign still prominently displayed beside the door. Like her mother, Chicken Mimi’s resented Amanda’s defection and always would, and yet there was still a link that made Amanda feel as if she had both betrayed them completely and somehow never been gone at all. Certainly that was what her sister thought. You can’t even leave right, Mae scoffed, and it was true. Amanda hadn’t even known she was leaving, and God knew she hadn’t gotten far.

  Okay, focus. Her mother had just hired Andy—wasn’t that maybe a sign that she, too, was ready for some change? Amanda kept going. “There’s a cash prize, of course. A hundred thousand dollars. For the best chicken.” And a lot of other stuff, but if she made it sound like just the chicken, at least her mother could believe Mimi’s had a shot. “I think a lot of people watch the show.”

  Barbara was staring at her, her mouth a little open, her face unreadable. She frowned a little. “So is this something you want to do, then, this Food Wars?”

  What to say to that? Generally, the last thing Barbara wanted was to do anything Amanda wanted. But maybe Nancy was right; maybe this was the one thing they could all share. “I just thought we could all use, Frannie’s, too, a little boost, something to get more people to try us out. It’s just—you know there aren’t as many people coming to town anymore, and this would help.” If only she knew what her mother wanted to hear. She could hear herself babbling, but she just didn’t seem to be able to stop.

  “It would help the whole town. They just want to come film for a few hours, to start. Just get to know us, and that’s probably it. Not a big deal, really. Except it might bring in business.”

  Barbara crossed her arms. “The trouble with you, Amanda, is that you never know what you want. Do you think this is a good idea, or don’t you?” She turned to Andy. “It sounds ridiculous. You like it?”

  Amanda held her breath. It might seem like Barbara wanted their opinion, but in Amanda’s experience she never did. Andy should shrug, maybe, leave it up to her, let her decide. She tried to send him thought messages. Tone it down, keep it light.

  Which is exactly what he did not do. “Are you kidding? I love it. And it’s totally a big deal! It’s awesome. Seriously, Food Wars? Here?” He looked at Barbara, who was still standing with her arms crossed, then back at Amanda, as if expecting her to share his enthusiasm. “So do they want to do a full thing, like all three competitions, or just the food taste-off?”

  Had this guy not figured Barbara out at all? This was not the way to get her on board. Amanda backtracked frantically, trying to make it seem as if Food Wars still had to be earned, as if it was a challenge. “They just want to come check us out to start. Probably nothing will come of it. I mean, once they see this place . . .”

  Her mother, who had been looking thoughtfully at Andy, swung her eyes back to Amanda, squaring her shoulders. Too far, damn it. Andy started to speak again—really, for a probable meth head with tattoo sleeves and as many piercings as he had, he was a strangely bubbly guy—and this time Amanda shot him a deadly glare. He needed to shut up, and he needed to do it now.

  The expected explosion never came. Instead, Barbara took a very visible deep breath, then looked from Amanda to Andy, as if weighing their relative merits. Her eyes narrowed as she asked the question Amanda had been praying would not come up. “What does Mae think of all this?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. I haven’t asked her.” And she wasn’t planning to. She didn’t need Mae’s help with this one. In fact, she needed Mae to stay far away, which shouldn’t be a problem.

  Barbara turned to Andy. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that my other daughter, Mae, has been doing something that sounds like this Food Wars. At least, it’s a show on television. Reality television. Sparkling, I think it’s called.”

  Andy’s face lit up. “Wait, Sparkling? Your daughter is Mae Moore? Mae Moore who wrote the big clutter book?”

  Barbara seemed pleased, but Amanda rolled her eyes. There was no way this project of her mother’s, washed up for who knew what reason in the backwaters of Kansas and probably living in the trailer park east of town, knew who Mae was.

  Andy grinned. “There’s a girl who can declutter my underwear drawer anytime.”

  He had a real gift for the conversation stopper. Barbara looked at him strangely, and Amanda intensified her glare.

  Andy caught himself immediately. “It’s a quote! From a column, by this guy, he mostly writes about sports, but every year he does this whole holiday thing about hating the Williams-Sonoma catalog. And she was in it— Never mind.” Andy’s face was genuinely red, and against her better judgment Amanda found herself softening toward him. “It’s probably not what he should have said either. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He read. He hated the Williams-Sonoma catalog. He could tell, at least kind of, when he was being an asshole. Amanda was starting to get Mary Laura’s crackers-in-bed call, but seriously, he liked Mae? Apparently, he couldn’t see through a selfish, superficial fraud. At least that meant he couldn’t possibly have actually watched Sparkling. Amanda had, and Mae was a disaster on it—stiff and fake and judgmental. One more reason Merinac was better off without her.

  Barbara turned back to Amanda. “I think I’d like to know what Mae thinks,” she said, and then, as if that wasn’t enough: “Actually, I think I’d like to have Mae here, if I’m going to do this. After all, you’ll be with Nancy. You’re no help to me. I need Mae.”

  Amanda should have known; she absolutely should have known. Why had she not seen this coming? She expected the needling about her choosing Nancy over her own mother—that was an old refrain and one that hardly got to her anymore. But the rest—of course her mother would want to use this as bait to get Mae home.

  But Mae wouldn’t take it. There was no way. Mae hadn’t been back in Merinac in six years, and she had Sparkling, as terrible as it was. The last thing Mae would want her picture-perfect life associated with was a dump of a chicken shack in the middle of Kansas, and especially one with Barbara’s house looming out back—proof positive that Mae Moore was not who she said she was. Sure, go ahead, ask Mae. But when Mae says no—

  “She’s really busy, Mom. I don’t think there’s any way she could do this on such short notice. They’re right in the middle of shooting their whole Sparkling season.” Amanda knew that because Instagram. Because Facebook. Because Twitter. Because Mae made sure everybody knew it, just like everybody had to know about her perfect handsome husband and her beautiful apartment and her adorable flawless children. But that was okay, because it would hold Mae exactly where she was, which was as close as Amanda could stomach her. And Barbara had said, If I’m going to do this. She was more than halfway there, and even if Amanda couldn’t imagine why, she would take it. “Andy will help you, though. And whoever else is working. I know they will.”

  Andy, beaming, conspicuously struggled to match her calm tone. “I think they’d be pretty enthusiastic,” he said to Barbara. “I think they’d be disappointed if we—if you—said no.” He laughed. “I know I woul
d. I love Food Wars.”

  Barbara crossed her arms over her chest, and the smock she always wore atop her shapeless dress strained. “I’m still going to ask her, though,” she said. “This is important, right? If we win, if our chicken is the best, you said we get a hundred thousand dollars?”

  Well, yeah, but Mimi’s wouldn’t win. Amanda could see in Andy’s face that he knew it, too. “We’ll all get lots more business, too,” Amanda said. “That’s worth a lot.”

  “I’ll ask Mae.” Barbara turned to the screen door, which had swung open again, getting ready to go inside.

  “But wait, Mom,” Amanda said. “If she won’t come, you’ll do it anyway, right?”

  Barbara paused, her hand on the door. “I don’t know,” she said. “Having Mae here would make it easier. It’s nice to have a little family support.” Dig, dig. But Amanda could let it go, if Barbara only said yes.

  Andy went over to her. “We can do it,” he said. “She’s right, it will bring people in.” He grinned. “It’ll help you pay my salary.”

  The screen door again swung open, and this time Andy walked up the stoop and examined the latch. “I can’t imagine why that keeps opening,” he said. “I looked it over when we took the storm door off, and it’s fine. It should hold.”

  Amanda met her mother’s eyes. So there was at least one other thing about Mimi’s that Barbara hadn’t told Andy yet. Mimi’s itself would have an opinion, and Mimi’s would make that opinion known. The kids in town were always making jokes about Barbara’s old house being haunted, especially around Halloween—and with its Victorian gables and worn gingerbread trim, it looked the part. But it was utilitarian Mimi’s where, every so often, the Moores were pretty sure someone—probably Mimi herself, or that’s what they liked to believe—lingered. It wasn’t something they talked about much, even among themselves, and it was hard to imagine Barbara mentioning it to Andy, who straightened up and shrugged. “Some breeze, I guess.”