The Chicken Sisters(62)
“That’s okay,” said Nancy briskly, pushing Gus gently toward them but not leaving the counter herself. “You go with your mom, Gus. I’ll take it from here. See you in the morning.”
Gus turned, and he and Nancy exchanged a huge smile that Amanda would have given a lot to be part of. That’s okay didn’t go nearly far enough, but as Amanda stood there and Gus slipped past, Nancy turned away, cutting off further conversation. After lingering for a minute in case she changed her mind, Amanda followed Gus out.
At home, Gus and Frankie quickly slid off in the direction of their rooms. Although Amanda could still hear them through the thin walls, particularly Gus, who was playing music, she was alone, which was exactly what she wanted, though she felt terrible once she got it.
Food Wars should have been a slam dunk for Frannie’s, a win to pay off bills and steady the ship and be able to go on exactly as they always had. Instead—
She tossed her tote bag onto the table and missed, so that the bag slid to the floor, contents spilling everywhere, sketchbook open, pages bent. Amanda picked it up and began to smooth out her drawings. She could sit down, it wasn’t that late, but as she looked down at the chickens, the young hens who were mocking Carleen seemed to be mocking Amanda, too. What the hell was she doing wasting her time on this? This would never amount to anything, and neither would Amanda, or Frannie’s, apparently.
She tossed the book across the kitchen onto the counter, then shook the pencils and erasers out of the bottom of the bag, which they perpetually turned gray, and shoved the lot into the back of the junk drawer. It was all just junk, anyway. That was exactly where it belonged.
MAE
This was like waiting for exam results. Or worse, auditioning to be host of a show like, say, Sparkling.
Mae stood in between Andy and Barbara in front of the longest table the largely unused dining room at the Inn had to offer, with Andy carefully holding an enormous platter of Mimi’s chicken. Next to them, in another clump, were Amanda and Nancy with an equally ridiculous serving for the three people in front of them. Amanda’s son, Gus, was slipping out after a high five with Nancy, which gave Mae a small pang—would her kids ever feel that close to any of their grandparents?
No use worrying about that now. Cameras were set up at every angle around the room. Up until that moment, Sabrina had pulled off the illusion that Food Wars was something of a shoestring production, just her and her team, but with them all gathered in one place and accompanied by their trucks and tables and assistants, it was suddenly clear that this was truly a massive endeavor, and that every moment that had led them to these final scenes wouldn’t just be tossed out into the world as a quick Instagram story, but produced and shaped into fast-paced entertainment for the waiting masses.
Sparkling was amateur hour compared to this, and as a makeup artist stepped away from Cary Catlin and rushed over to adjust Sabrina’s hair, Mae was conscious that she’d done her own makeup with Madison and Ryder watching curiously, demanding to know why she was coloring on her face, and Jay talking to them all through FaceTime, trying to distract the kids while Jessa got a solo break at breakfast and politely wishing Mae luck, although she doubted his heart was in that one. Not that he would want her to screw up on TV, necessarily— Oh hell, she’d given up on figuring out what Jay wanted. He was all over the place at this point. He missed her, sure, or he said he did, but did he really miss her? Nobody ever seemed normal over FaceTime, but Jay seemed especially antsy. When Mae took the little screen back as the kids drifted away, he looked her in the eyes, and then oh so quickly looked away. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” he said, and as badly timed as it was, she couldn’t help herself.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“No, just, I’ll talk to you later. Why wouldn’t I talk to you later?”
“I don’t know,” Mae said, wishing she could reach through the screen. “You just seem weird.” And had, the whole time she was gone. Of course they had fought. And of course he didn’t like Food Wars. But none of that was new. This sense of distance was.
And he hadn’t argued; that was the thing. “Just go do the show, Mae. And I’ll see you—I mean, I’ll talk to you later. Everything’s fine.”
He hung up then, and if he’d planned to throw her off-balance, he’d succeeded. But she couldn’t think about Jay right now. She tugged at her shirt, making sure it wasn’t blousing too much over her skirt, and fished in her pocket for more lipstick. She looked like a rube; she just knew it.
She glanced over at Amanda, expecting to see the same doubts running across her face, but the sister who never wore makeup looked almost as good as the professionals.
Mae had expected to feel at ease—after all, she had done this before, and she’d certainly faced less appealing audiences under different circumstances—but instead, she felt as if she were shrinking. She felt fine in Mimi’s—she was killing it in Mimi’s. Planning with Andy, seamlessly trading shifts at the fryer, stepping out to greet everyone from her old chorus teacher to the guy who’d pumped gas at the Texaco throughout her whole childhood, she’d felt dropped right back into place but even more so, combining what she had learned about business and showmanship with what she had always known about running Mimi’s. But that confidence seemed to have come with a trade-off—here, she had become a supplicant.