The Chicken Sisters(99)
She had said way too much. “Oh, she wants to win. Hell yeah.” Whatever Mae had in her head, it better not be that Frannie’s was going to throw this thing. “It’s just that she said something weird. When I told her I might be ready to—try something new.” Amanda paused as Nancy’s words came back to her, and she repeated them. “‘What makes you think I’d want to run Frannie’s without you?’”
“Huh,” said Mae. “That is—weird.”
“And not like she wanted me to feel guilty, either. She’s not Mom. It was more like, just real. And now I don’t know.” Mae was looking thoughtful—and just a little too happy. “Which doesn’t mean we’re not winning, if that’s what you’re thinking, because I can tell you’re thinking something.”
“It’s just—if she doesn’t want to—what if—” Mae stopped, tapping her foot thoughtfully on the wooden boards of the porch and her fingers on one hip. Amanda waited for what seemed like forever until Mae finally looked up, eyes bright. “If she feels that way, maybe we can do something big. This is our chance. Everybody will be excited that Mimi and Frannie didn’t hate each other. We’ll all be trying to figure out what to do about that loan. And the thing is, we’re all equal now. Anybody could win this. I think Mimi’s will, you think Frannie’s will, but we can all see that there are good things in both places, right?” She grabbed Amanda’s arms, almost dancing with excitement.
“Sure,” said Amanda. And there were. If she could have a piece of her mother’s apple pie right now, she’d take it; she was starving. But other than that, she didn’t see what Mae was talking about. “But I don’t see how it helps.”
“You will,” said Mae, and she let go of Amanda’s arms and marched into Mimi’s, reaching back to pull Amanda after her, grinning. They both knew what it meant for Amanda to just walk through Mimi’s like it was nothing, but they had said enough.
“First, we show everybody that recipe,” Mae said. “Then, we figure it out. We’re going to make this work, you know?”
Amanda put an arm around her sister too, so that they wouldn’t fit into the pass-through door until Mae let her go and Amanda wriggled her way into going first, which would apparently never stop mattering. To either of them. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said over her shoulder. “But, yeah. I know we will.”
She led Mae out the back door of Mimi’s and through the patio, and as Barbara’s house came into view, Mae held back and gestured toward it.
“Do you do that?” she asked, looking at Amanda.
“Do what?”
“Keep everything,” Mae said. “I mean, you were right. Earlier. Mean, but right. Most of what I do is running from this—but really I’m just like her, underneath. It just comes out differently. And I wondered what it is for you.”
“It’s not this bad,” Amanda said grudgingly. “Messy, but nothing like this. I just don’t care about cleaning, and I guess I don’t really know how.”
Mae looked at her with interest. “Oh no,” Amanda said. “That was not an invitation. Or a cry for help. It’s not that bad. And Frankie”—she smiled—“she doesn’t just look like you; she’s like you. She cleaned out my closet last week and threw everything away. We’re good.”
“I knew I liked Frankie,” Mae said, squinting her eyes into the sunlight and crinkling up exactly the same light sprinkling of freckles that Frankie had.
“I don’t think it was the mess that got to me so much as just never knowing anything,” Amanda said. “Like, if there would be dinner, or, if there was dinner, if it would kill me. Or even, like, if Mom would just do normal things, like go to parent-teacher night. She sent you once, remember? When you were starting junior high and I was still in fifth grade?”
“I was probably more useful,” Mae pointed out. “I wrote everything down. I even signed up to bring cups or something to your holiday party. I remembered, too.”
“It wasn’t the same.”
“I know,” Mae said. “I tried. We tried. And I guess”—she gestured to the house again—“we’re still trying.”
“Yeah,” said Amanda as they started to walk across the parking lot. “I guess.” With Mimi’s recipe in her hand, their whole history looked different. Even Food Wars looked different. If she had really been trying—if Barbara was trying, if Mae was trying—maybe they could have lived up to the real Mimi’s and Frannie’s legacy, instead of waiting until it got shoved in their faces. And until they had to do their real trying with cameras rolling.
She glanced at Mae, walking next to her on the familiar route between Mimi’s and Barbara’s house. “You sure you couldn’t just show everyone this?”
“No, you should do it,” Mae said. Then, with an understanding look: “Just pretend this morning didn’t happen. We never fought, nothing ever went wrong. You don’t even know what kind of story Food Wars is going to make of this, and so what? This is what matters now.” She pointed to the recipe. “And you were right. It makes everything different, and at the perfect time, because believe me, nobody wants to be in the middle of this anymore.” Mae gave her a little hip bump. “And you’re holding our way out.” She grinned, and Amanda stopped in her tracks. What was Mae up to?