The Chicken Sisters(19)
“Really?” Sabrina looked interested, and Amanda smiled back at her, glad that they were connecting. “That’s so cool. Is that what you were going to school for?”
Amanda laughed. “No, I was going to do something practical. Like accounting.” “Going to school” was a grandiose phrase for her efforts anyway. She had drifted into classes at the local college just like she drifted into everything else. It was only later, when the kids were little, after their school and her work and dinner and baths and bedtime, with Frank grading papers in the living room, that she’d tried to get a little more serious, always “making a mess” of the kitchen table.
Which led to the late-night arguments about whether they could move to Kansas City—just for a little while, a year or two—where she could take classes, maybe get her own art degree and teach, too. She had even applied to transfer the few credits she had to the college of art and design in Kansas City. She could have commuted, probably. Frank would have come around, would have seen that she could still make their life with the kids and Frannie’s work.
They would have figured it out. They would have. Or if they hadn’t—but no, they would have. But once he was gone, she never responded to the letter inviting her to remain on the wait list and send more of her work, to apply again the next year. Too much, too hard.
“I’m not that good,” she said. “It’s just something I do on the side.”
Sabrina smiled sympathetically. “When you get tired of chicken— I mean, do you get tired of chicken?”
Amanda laughed. She couldn’t help it. When she wanted to throw her Frannie’s uniform across the room, more like. When the smell, the grease, the way the soles of her work shoes always felt just a little slippery no matter what she did, surrounded her and wouldn’t let her go. But she didn’t need to say all that. “I guess,” she said. “It can get a little—the same, all the time. Which is what’s so great about your job. For you, it’s always something new.”
Sabrina looked at her without speaking for a moment, then laughed herself. “I guess so. It’s funny you draw chickens, though. Can I see them? Did you draw any of the chickens on the specials menu? Do you have any sketchbooks with you right now?” She looked searchingly at Amanda. It wasn’t really a question—and of course she was right. Amanda always had her current sketchbook with her, and this one was chock-full of chickens. Her eyes went to the coatrack, where her bag was hanging, and Sabrina sprang up. “Come on, you have to show me. I love it. Don’t get up. Tell me where. This one?”
Wait, really? Did she really want to show Sabrina her chickens? Sabrina might laugh—people were supposed to laugh, at least at some of it, but there was laughing and there was laughing. Too quickly, Sabrina had her hands on Amanda’s big tote, and she swung around, extending it to Amanda.
“In here?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think I have anything.” She took the bag, trying not to snatch, and held it tightly in her lap.
Sabrina let it go and took up her place on the desk again. “Later, maybe?”
“If I can find anything,” Amanda said, still clutching her bag. “My bag is a mess. My whole house is a mess.” A mess where her art supplies were the one thing she could always put her hands on, but Amanda’s willingness to share had cooled off.
Sabrina smiled cheerfully. “Oh, mine too. I’m a total slob. It’s the worst. My family is always on me to clean up my act.”
Amanda jumped on the change of subject, even if this wasn’t one of her favorites either. But at least everybody felt like they were kind of messy. Except Mae, of course. “You have no idea. Nancy’s always telling me I should clean up a little at a time and stay after it, but it just doesn’t work, I get home so late and I’m wiped.”
“My mom keeps threatening to go clean out my apartment herself,” said Sabrina. “I’m like, Mom, just stay out of it. I’m happy this way.”
That was far from Amanda’s problem, but she did have one family member she’d match up against Sabrina’s mom every time.
“My sister hasn’t been here in ages, but if she saw my house, she’d be all over me. Supposedly she’s coming to help Mom with Mimi’s, though I’m not convinced she’ll show up. If she saw my kitchen now, she’d freak.”
Sabrina smiled. “Maybe we can keep her off your back. I didn’t know you had a sister coming—that’s perfect. Sisters started Frannie’s and Mimi’s, and now sisters running Frannie’s and Mimi’s.”
“She doesn’t exactly run it.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “I mean, she hasn’t been in the place in six years.”
“We can stretch a little,” Sabrina said. “We like to tell a good story. So she’s coming back after being gone for a while? How’s that going to work? What’s she been doing?”
“I don’t think it is going to work,” Amanda said, happy to share her frustration. “My mom has always run Mimi’s on her own, but now she has this new cook she brought in, and she’s trying to drag Mae home—I don’t know what she’s thinking. They fight, when Mae’s here, even though when she’s not here, my mom is always talking about her. They’re a lot alike, except Mae is this obsessively neat and organized person and my mom is—” She stopped.