The Chicken Sisters(81)
Amanda did not feel friendly. Not toward Andy, or Barbara, or Sabrina, or even Nancy. She felt tricked and ambushed and as if every single person in that house—no, in this town—was out to get her, and if they weren’t yet, they would be, once they heard everything Mae and Andy were saying. Everybody was all in for Mae, back home in all her glory, and everybody was ready to toss Amanda out with these stupid shoes. Nancy, too. Nancy made her come here, and Nancy had run out on her last night at Frannie’s when all Amanda had ever tried to do was help. Fuck Frannie’s. Fuck Mimi’s. Fuck them all.
Andy’s question flashed back through Amanda’s mind. Was she a runner? Not today. Today she was a fighter. Make me look like a bitch, Sabrina, and I’ll give you a bitch.
When one of Sabrina’s camerapeople met her at the bottom of the stairs, she didn’t hesitate. “What do I think of it? I think it’s disgusting, same as you.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her mother coming toward her, but she didn’t let that stop her. “It sucked to live here, and I left the minute I could. Wouldn’t you?”
Sabrina appeared, inevitable microphone in hand. “But you live five minutes away. Haven’t you tried to help?”
“My mother doesn’t want my help,” Amanda said. “Never did. She was as glad to see me go as I was to leave.” The times Barbara had helped her, especially after Frank died, Amanda pushed out of her mind. “I’ll help now because anybody would. But you all are so upset about dogs living here—think about being a kid in this.” It felt so good to finally say that, to finally have someone to listen, even if everyone did seem to think this whole cleanup was some kind of goddamn picnic. “Think about what that was like. And you know, we can clean it up, but she won’t change. The dogs will be lost or poisoned or something within six months. But fine, try. I won’t stop you. I’ll even help. But it’s pointless.”
Amanda marched off with her running shoes, brushing past Barbara without looking at her, and threw them on a random pile—if there was some system here, she didn’t know it—then marched back in, refusing to acknowledge anyone as she passed them. She had said what needed to be said, and she was done. Who the hell cared, anyway? This would all be over soon, Food Wars would leave, her mother would fill the house again, Andy would find some much better job in some much better town, Mae would go back to Brooklyn, Gus would go to college, if they could just find some money, and she and Frankie would be here, working at Frannie’s unless Nancy threw them out, and if she did, well, Amanda was a good hostess. She’d find work. All that other crap, drawing, writing—she’d been stupid to ever waste her time on it. This was real life, right here, and it sucked.
She made herself a machine, reciting her every move to keep her mind from doing anything else. In, get box, out. In, get pile of clothing, out. In, figure out how to wrestle chair down the stairs, out. In, two boxes this time, try to see around them to get down the stairs.
And then there was Mae, standing on the front porch, blocking her way. Amanda shifted the boxes up in her arms. “Move, Mae. These are heavy.” Why wasn’t she carrying anything, anyway? “Go get some boxes yourself if you don’t believe me. You look too clean to be doing any real work.”
Mae did look clean. Clean and cute, with her dark braids and her red-striped T-shirt and her freckles. And she wasn’t moving. Amanda shifted her weight and tried to kick her sister in the shins. “Come on, get out of my way.”
“Why don’t you get out of everybody’s way? Put the stupid boxes down and just go? You’re just”—she glanced at the camera that had inevitably appeared when Mae did—“screwing everything up. I had Mom feeling fine about this and you just about destroyed her, just now, with whatever you said about growing up here. She’s off crying, and I don’t know how to fix that, but having you here isn’t going to help. So you should go.”
Amanda had cooled off a little since snapping at the camera, but Mae’s words lit her right back up again. Mae felt the same way, and she knew it. It wouldn’t hurt Barbara to hear the truth about what it had been like to be them as kids. It wouldn’t hurt anybody to hear a little truth.
“I wouldn’t be here if Nancy hadn’t told me to come—and you wouldn’t be here, either, if you could help it. You hate this place as much as I do. More, even. You never stop running away from it. It’s all you ever do—run from this mess. Mom might as well know it.”
“But I don’t hate her, and apparently you do. I don’t know what you said, but you crushed her, and that’s the last thing she needs.” Again, Mae glanced at the camera, and this time she lowered her voice and hissed in Amanda’s ear, grabbing her arm. “Can you not see that she’s sick? And she doesn’t want anyone to know?”
Amanda shook Mae off. This was total typical-Mae bullshit, designed to shut Amanda up and get her to do what Mae wanted, and Amanda wasn’t buying it. “Anyone can see she’s sick!” Amanda dumped the boxes, as close to Mae’s feet as she could, making her sister jump back, and waved her arm around the living room. “She’s obviously sick! And she’s always been sick and she’ll always be sick and cleaning out this shit won’t change her. She’ll just make it even worse, and you’ll go back to Brooklyn, and eventually she’ll die in her filth, and I’ll be the one to find her, because I’m here and you’re not. You’re the one who should go, Mae, because you’re just doing this for the cameras. Why don’t you take off your clothes next? You’re good at that. Just strip for the camera and keep everybody’s eyes on you, where you want them.”