The Chicken Sisters(46)

“Oh, I thought I would catch you guys,” said Sabrina, turning around and heading for the parking lot. She didn’t seem to have noticed anything. “That’s why I came back. You should be celebrating. That went great.”

“I know,” said Mae, delighted. “It was fun. More fun than Sparkling, really.”

“Well, you practically had this stage all to yourself,” said Sabrina, with a wicked smile that Mae took to be a dig at Lolly, her scene-stealing Sparkling co-host, until Sabrina went on. “Amanda told me you’ve always liked having the whole town’s eyes on you, and then some.”

Mae, walking beside Sabrina in the near darkness, faltered. “What?” Sabrina’s tone had shifted from congratulatory to teasing, even a little aggressive, and Mae wasn’t sure why. But then again, she could guess. She had known some mocking of her small-town roots was coming the minute she agreed to come back to Kansas, and she tried to respond lightly, ready for the inevitable Dorothy joke or white-trash reference. “Oh, I know. So classic, small-town theater geek. I even had the lead in Our Town, did she say? I’m a walking cliché.”

This time, Sabrina laughed. “That wasn’t exactly what she said, but that totally makes it better.” She snorted. Mae could tell she was genuinely laughing, not just playing her Food Wars host part, and suddenly Mae knew exactly what was coming, even as part of her mind was arguing that, no, it was impossible, Amanda would never have gone there.

Sabrina, still giggling a little, went on. “No, she was talking about the stripping. In college. I almost didn’t believe her, but she convinced me.” As she spoke, they stepped into a circle of light from the only streetlight off the Mimi’s parking lot, and Mae would have sworn she’d timed it so that she could see Mae’s reaction to her words.

But Mae was frozen. Frozen with anger and frustration and just a tiny bit of fear, because why the hell would Amanda do this to her when she knew—she must know—that even though Mae was totally cool with her past choices, this was not one she advertised, and not one she’d told Jay about, either.

Fuck her. Fuck her sister.

Fuck. Sabrina was still there, smiling cheerfully. Well, fuck her, too. No response was actually the perfect response. She wasn’t ashamed of what she did, not one bit. She had decided a long time ago that there was no point regretting something you’d already done. Choices only move in one direction. Anyway, she hadn’t been used by all those men; she had used them. Their worn and folded bills had added up to enough to finance her road to B-school, and she was proud of her resourcefulness—but that didn’t mean she had to make it easy to drag this out there, even if Jay probably wouldn’t care. She’d sounded him out about it, long ago, thought about telling him. It just never came up; that was all.

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!”