The Chicken Sisters(30)
Frankie disappeared in the direction of breakfast and the school bus, where she would no doubt bask in the reflected glory of the first day’s Food Wars filming, whereas Amanda, who had not very much enjoyed being told that she was shapeless and pale, got up slowly, avoiding the mirror on the closet door, which told her that Frankie was right. At least Frankie was being nice about it, even if she did remind Amanda of a slightly more docile version of her sister. Frankie didn’t know yet that Mae would be here for Food Wars, and Amanda was avoiding telling her. Frankie had written about her largely unknown aunt for a school essay (“write about someone you admire”), and her teacher had scrawled, How nice that you have a successful family member to look up to, across the top.
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.