The Chicken Sisters(73)

This was it. Sabrina must have asked her about the recipe and told her why she was asking. Of course Nancy would be angry. Angry that Amanda would expose them to this, that she had put them in the position of having to defend themselves when there was no easy defense, no recipe they could point to and say, “Look, this is ours.” She had made the very thing that was a virtue about Frannie’s into a problem, and she’d done it—this was the worst part—by betraying Frank, and their marriage, and her only real family.

Nancy reached her, trailed by cameras. She turned and addressed the camerawoman, rather than Sabrina, who was standing right there. “I would like to have a word with Amanda,” she said. “Alone.”

The woman behind the camera didn’t answer. Instead, Sabrina smiled. “Can’t do it right now, Nancy. You and Amanda are kind of at the center of things tonight, and I can’t let you two out of my sight.”

Nancy put her hands on her hips; Amanda could see that she was struggling to control herself. “I would think you could let us have a small private word.”

Sabrina shook her head. “Nope. Not tonight.”

“Fine.” Nancy dropped her arms, then took off the small radio she wore so that the kitchen could buzz her at any time and handed it to Amanda. “I am going home,” she said. “This has gone too far, and I am through.” She turned to Sabrina. “No amount of money is worth this.”

Nancy walked out the door, leaving Amanda staring after her, and the cameras staring at Amanda. Could she just—leave? Didn’t they have to stay? And could they say things like that—things about Food Wars itself? Then, as if Nancy had passed her anger to her daughter-in-law along with the radio, Amanda found herself speaking more directly to Sabrina than she had to anyone in days. Or maybe years.

“You know it’s all a lie,” Amanda said. “You must know. They must know—Rideaux, Cary. And I don’t know how you got into my mom’s house, but even if she let you in, you know she had no clue what would happen. Putting it out there, on the Internet—you know that’s wrong. It’s not what I meant for you to do. None of this is what I meant to have happen.”

Sabrina sighed and waved away the camera. “Oh, come on, Amanda. You knew exactly what I would do. If you didn’t want this out there, you wouldn’t have told me. And I don’t know what the hell’s up with the recipe, but it will come out. This is the way it always goes. It starts out as Food Wars, but it comes down to Family Wars, every time.”

“Only because you let it,” said Amanda, looking down at Sabrina, who even in heels didn’t reach Amanda’s height. Amanda straightened, feeling the strength of her realization through her very bones. “And you don’t just let it. You push it. You’ve been nudging us along, haven’t you?”

Sabrina leaned cozily into the hostess stand, looking perfectly comfortable with herself. “It doesn’t take much,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “Everybody’s so willing to call everybody else out. People don’t get into this unless they have something they want out there, Amanda. I never know why, when I first read the e-mails, but you can feel it. Everybody thinks they want fame, or a hundred grand, but what they really want is to tell, to have everybody know that they’re right, they’re the best, their father was wrong all along, whatever. It’s always something, and it makes good TV, and that’s my job.”

She was worse than Chef Rideaux, with his witchy pronouncements, and she was so, so far off base. “That’s bullshit, Sabrina,” Amanda said. “You guys all think you’re so smart because you’re not from here. You think we all fit into these little patterns, and we don’t, and that’s just a sorry excuse for manipulating people.”

Sabrina shook her head. “I’m not so smart,” she said. “I just see a lot of people, and they’re pretty much all the same that way. I’m just giving them a chance to do what they already want to do.” She grinned. “A lot of them do this, too, by the way—what you’re doing now. Objecting. Getting all moral. So, fine, you see through us. But you’re stuck with us all the same.” She nodded toward the parking lot. “There’s your next customers,” she said. “Looks like you’re in charge, kid. Good luck.” She walked back into the restaurant, leaving Amanda to hold the door for a party of six, one high chair, two kids’ menus, “and could we have a table, not a booth, please?”





MAE





It took all night before she reached Sabrina, a night when, more than once, Mae had seen customers bent over their phones, heads together. She’d heard snatches of conversation, thought she caught people staring—because of course anyone in town would know that video referred to Barbara. But anyone in town had also been eating at Mimi’s for years, and they weren’t going to let a little thing like a messy house stop them—especially not one that most of them were already vaguely aware of. None of their business, as always. Once, that attitude had infuriated Mae. Now that she was no longer a little kid wishing someone would save her—now that she had long since saved herself—she blessed it. Pay no attention to the house behind the restaurant, folks. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Mimi’s was still pretty busy. The food was all gone; the pie case (which Mae had, somewhat against Barbara’s wishes, clearly labeled BAKED AT THE 1908 STANDARD FROM MIMI’S RECIPES) was empty except for the few slices of coconut cream that always lingered. Sabrina never appeared, instead sending cameras and one of her minions to take some chicken back to the chefs, which must mean that the whole stolen-recipe business was still a thing, although Mae couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. They were supposed to do a “winners” announcement tomorrow, Sunday morning, but Sabrina hadn’t told them what to do or where to be, and what did it matter? Nobody was winning this game.