The Chicken Sisters(8)

Mae quashed that feeling immediately. Things were going great. She and Lolly had bonded from their first shoot together, and she knew Lolly enjoyed having her on set. She was absolutely going to get the full co-hosting gig. Alone in the elevator (ignoring the camera), she struck the Wonder Woman pose that was supposed to fill your body with confidence. This is going to be fine. No, great. They were going to tell her that she’d rocked the five-show audition. Lolly, single and child-free, needed the vibe Mae brought to the lifestyle-redesign show. Mae, married with children, appealed to viewers scrambling to balance work and family and needing a neat, organized home to calm the chaos. Lolly filled closets. Mae cleaned them. And cleaning them, Mae knew, was exactly what most people craved in a consumer-crazy world. The success of her book had proved it.

So this was just going to be a good meeting. A renewal of her role for the rest of the season. A discussion of the immediate future, which included the next few episodes of Sparkling, and the slightly more distant future, which Mae thought should include a pilot episode for a show that was all Mae. She mentally ticked off the reasons why: Half a million followers across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The book, Less Is Moore, named after her lifestyle philosophy. The contract for a second book, which she would absolutely figure out soon. The e-mail she sent out to more than twenty thousand subscribers every month. She was ready.

But the Wonder Woman pose and mental reminders of her successes never did quite enough to banish the out-of-place feeling Mae had every time she stepped out of the elevator at GHTV. The Sparkling set, which was staged each week in houses of ordinary, messy people with lives she was used to—that was one thing. But the enormous images of Incredible Homes that covered the walls, stills from the network’s most popular show, were not places Mae Moore would ever belong, and the offices themselves, filled with women in clothes and shoes Mae could price instantly, no matter how foolish she thought them, made her feel as though she’d just got off the bus from Kansas.

Lolly was waiting for her as the elevator door opened. As she grabbed Mae’s arm and pulled her into a practiced hug, she whispered in Mae’s ear, “Okay, get ready. You’re going to be fine, okay? This will all work out. Now, smile!”

Lolly couldn’t have been less reassuring if she had tried. Now, without Mae getting to say so much as a word, Lolly swept her into a big conference room, with a long wall of windows looking out over Central Park and a long wall of interior windows allowing everyone who walked by to see who and what was happening on the network’s main business stage. Smile-smile, kiss-kiss for Christine, their senior producer, in shoes identical to Lolly’s. Smile-smile, kiss-kiss for Christine’s boss, Meghan, in pumps of equal heel height but more gravitas, suggesting not so much that she took taxis everywhere but that she never, ever left this building. Smile-smile, kiss-kiss for the new social media director, for Meghan’s assistant, and for Christine’s junior producer, all glowing with confidence and sheer lip and cheek stain.

As she settled into her chair, trying to calm the nerves that Lolly’s words had lit up, Mae’s phone quacked loudly. No, seriously, she hadn’t had the sense to put it on vibrate? Kicking herself, Mae grabbed for her phone in the pocket of the bag she’d set down next to her chair. As she fumbled with the mute switch, she read her sister’s text:

FOOD WARS WANTS TO COME HERE. MOM NEEDS THIS, BUSINESS SUCKS, BUT SHE WON’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU. SHE’S GOING TO CALL YOU, CAN YOU JUST TELL HER YOU’LL COME AND THEN I’LL WORK IT OUT FROM HERE SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO? SERIOUSLY IT WILL BE GREAT FOR MOM. I JUST NEED YOU TO HELP ME GET HER THERE.

Shit, what? As much as she knew she needed to tune in to the women around her, Mae was fully distracted by Amanda’s words. Food Wars? The competition show? Instantly, Mae could see how Food Wars would love the rivalry between Mimi’s and Frannie’s. And just as instantly, she could see what Amanda apparently was totally clueless about—that a reality show would steamroll their mother and rip the lid off every awful thing about Merinac, their house, their childhood, everything. She knew how this worked. Amanda, apparently, still believed in unicorns and thought this was a good idea. But Mae knew that about her sister, too. Damn it, Amanda. Just stay in your own yard, will you?

Christine was pouring water for Meghan. The new junior producer and Lolly were comparing shoes. Ordinarily, Mae would be regretting sitting down first, when clearly the protocol was more preening and socializing, but under the circumstances, she grabbed the chance to reply.

Hell no it would not be great, what are you thinking? Cameras in mom house fucking disaster. No way. Will deal with $$ later.

Not that her mom would let her send money. Not that she had much to spare, either. She could see the little dots indicating that Amanda was already replying, but Mae stuffed the phone, now totally silenced, back in its pocket. Food Wars on her home turf was not something she could think about right now, let alone whatever was going on with her mom.

In that tiny interval, the other women had all seated themselves, and Christine was now looking pointedly at Mae, who quickly put her empty hands on the table. The other woman gave a tiny shrug and looked away, and Mae felt dismissed, an inexperienced girl who did not know better than to text during an important meeting. She squared her shoulders, and Christine, no longer looking at Mae, addressed them all generally.

“Sparkling, as you know, is doing well. Very well, in terms of audience. And we did get some nice audience feedback on the five Mae episodes. Lolly, every woman on Instagram wants to be you, or at least have you come spark up their space, and, Mae, lots of them want you to come clean out their fridge.”