The Chicken Sisters(25)

He would like the chicken, though. And the biscuits. And the whole history of the place, if he could just see past the Wizard of Oz jokes. Jay worked with restaurants, damn it. It was his consulting specialty, and he might be sick of consulting, but he never got sick of restaurants and food and eating out. He should see that Food Wars was going to be great not just for her but for Mimi’s as well. Of course, he didn’t know about Mimi’s so he couldn’t care about Mimi’s. Lately he didn’t care about anything she cared about that wasn’t obviously kid related.

She looked at Madison and Ryder, sated with fries, now eating the salad with their fingers, as she and Amanda once had. Amanda’s kids would have eaten their salads at Frannie’s, with forks, most likely. Another weird thought. Back here, in this familiar space, the more distant past had way more power over her memory than anything that might have changed since then—had changed since then. Amanda’s kids should have belonged at Mimi’s, but they didn’t. Her kids hadn’t grown up here, but here they were, and they had never met their cousins, not once. Mostly, Mae managed not to think much, if at all, about how things were with her and Amanda. It was just—background. Something that would work itself out in time, that didn’t affect her here and now and therefore did not have to be worried about. Mae didn’t borrow trouble, and she didn’t have any trouble letting the past stay in the past.

Her marriage would be one more thing she’d have to deal with later. For the moment, clearly the best thing to do was to write tonight off, from a filming point of view, and regroup tomorrow.



* * *



×


As the night rolled to a close and Andy, Angelique, and Zeus began the shutdown routine, Mae made her excuses and carried an exhausted Ryder back to the rental car, with Madison trailing behind. Armed with a roll of paper towels and some spray cleaner, she laid a garbage bag over the now-disgusting car seat and kept the windows down. She buckled the kids in over complaints about the smell and turned on a video, sitting in the driver’s seat until they both fell asleep, waving to Sabrina as she and her convertible pulled away, sending a quick text to Jay.

Getting the kids to sleep, can’t talk, all ok there?





She’d finally got a sympathetic reply from him at about hour three of the flight fiasco (albeit one tinged with it’s not like this wasn’t your idea). He’d even wished her luck, which she chose to interpret as for her entire endeavor, not just her travels.

She gazed down at the screen, wondering if he’d answer. He was just as attached to his phone as she was, for all his big talk about disengaging and getting away from the cacophony. Sure enough, there he was.

Kinda late isn’t it?

It’s an hour earlier here. And they napped.





Oh.

Go okay?

Yes! A little messy but I made it work.





Talk once they’re asleep?

She considered. Did she want to actually talk to Jay? She’d conveniently left out that she was getting the kids to sleep in the car; she still had to carry them into the motel—thank God for first-floor rooms! And she wasn’t even going back to the motel just yet. She started up the car, one eye on the kids still asleep in the back seat—Madison shifted, but her eyes didn’t open—and drove the few hundred feet into the driveway of the house, where she could comfortably leave the kids but still keep a close eye on them.

Mae’s plan was to go find her mother, but as she parked, she saw a car pull into the Mimi’s parking lot—and a figure that was unmistakably Amanda walking toward the back door of Mimi’s.

Thank goodness—they’d finally get to hash out a plan. With a quick glance at the kids—they’d be okay, she never had to go out of sight—Mae got out, ready to call to her sister. But something made her stop and watch, as Andy came out and greeted Amanda with more pleasure than Mae would have expected, given the quality of her own earlier welcome. A lot more pleasure. He came all the way out of the kitchen, and the screen door banged behind him. She could hear his “Hey,” but not Amanda’s response, although she heard her laugh, then laugh again. She looked different somehow, too. She couldn’t be taller, but there was something slender and sleek about her silhouette—her hair. She had cut her hair. And as Mae watched, Amanda put a hand up to the back of her neck, and then Andy reached out to touch her sister’s head.

Wait a minute. Amanda was flirting! That was totally flirting. Now she could hear her sister: “The day was great—filming was fun. How did it go for you guys?” And then, Mae swore, a giggle. A giggle like a twelve-year-old. Jeez. Mae hesitated. She had plans, and she wanted Amanda’s help, but her sister wouldn’t be happy if Mae walked in on her now, and Mae had things to say that were best not said in front of Andy. This was ridiculous. Could Amanda seriously not find any guys not already within the Merinac fried chicken web? In spite of everything, Mae had been somehow expecting to get the old, pre-Frannie’s version of Amanda back. But if Amanda would just walk up and start flirting with this dude, then she really had changed, and not just with a haircut.

Shit. Jay. She looked at her phone, where his suggestion that they talk still dangled. No. She really couldn’t talk to Jay tonight.

Sorry, had to settle Ryder. Sharing a room, don’t want to wake them, am wiped.