The Chicken Sisters

by Kj Dell'Antonia

  With a promise that his own French fries were coming, Mae set Ryder up at a picnic table just outside the restaurant door with a coloring sheet, where Mae and Amanda had spent their childhood summers, close to their mother but out of the way. Angelique produced cups of crayons, the cups slightly squished to fit through the slats of the picnic table, just as they always had, and Mae touched the table gently. Same table, exactly. Same smell of crayons in the waxy cup. Possibly even some of the same crayons.

  But Sabrina’s presence left no time for nostalgia, even if Mae wanted to feel it. She came over quickly, trailed by Madison and the camera, and leaned over the coloring page as one of her young minions pushed a clipboard at Mae. “Your sister drew that, right, Mae?”

  Sabrina knew who Mae was and that she was coming, too, then—and knew her history with Amanda and who knew what else. They were just going to jump right into things. Mae signed the release quickly, not reading it—they were all the same—then looked into the camera. “She did,” Mae said, carefully choosing her words. “Amanda’s always been a good artist.” She wasn’t expecting to talk about Amanda so soon, without a chance to see her sister first. What would Amanda have said about Mae? Had Sabrina talked to Barbara yet? Not for the first time, Mae cursed both the delay and her mother’s and sister’s unwillingness to strategize by text. They could keep the “war” focused on the chicken if everybody would just be smart about it, and they could be. They’d been a team once, she and Amanda, and, yeah, they’d had some rough years, but now was the time to put all that in the past and focus. Damn it, if only she knew what Amanda or Barbara had said.

  “It’s funny that you still use that drawing, though,” Sabrina said.

  Mae could feel Sabrina pushing slightly, laying her bait. She smiled internally—she was not that easy, and Sabrina ought to know it. “Not really. She painted the sign outside, too.” Amanda’s chickens belonged at Mimi’s. It was hard to imagine one at Frannie’s, although maybe she drew them there, too. Mae looked again at the familiar chicken. Of course. Frannie’s probably had an Amanda-designed coloring page too. She’d just never thought of it before, and she had that feeling you get when you see a friend you’d thought of as unchanging suddenly living a new life. It took her a moment to tune back in to Sabrina.

  “Let’s talk about you, though. This is a real homecoming for you, right?”

  Mae glanced around. They were going to do this here? Out behind the kitchen, before she had even seen her mother or spent any time in the restaurant? Mae tried to avoid looking around at the space that would be the backdrop for her first appearance in front of all these potential fans and followers, and turned her attention to Sabrina, keeping her shoulders open and addressing the camera trained on them both. “It is. I’m really excited to come home and do some work on the place.”

  “Work?”

  “Well, spruce it up a little.” She gestured to the nicer of the two weedy strips along the patio, hoping the camera would avoid the other, which featured cracked pots and dead plants, with nothing growing but a fork planted tines down in the dirt. Time to take the focus off their surroundings. “And I’ve been thinking about the menu,” she said, picking one up and hoping the camera would focus in. “It’s simple, but maybe it’s a little too simple.”

  Behind her, Andy deposited plates of chicken, biscuits, salad, and fries in front of Madison and Ryder, looking up as he did. “How so?”

  The camera swiveled, and Sabrina stepped back while Mae kicked herself. This wasn’t a conversation she meant to have with this guy, and certainly not now, on camera, when they’d just met. But then, he must be the one who persuaded her mother to up their game on the fries. Andy repeated his question, his tone challenging, but maybe interested as well. “How is it too simple?”

  “I love what we serve, of course, Andy.” She reached down and took a fry from Ryder’s plate. He protested, but she ignored him, biting it appreciatively. “These are excellent.” Andy waited. Not flattered, then, judging from the look on his face. Who did he think he was, the guardian of Mimi’s? “But the menu’s been the same for a long time.” And I have been around for longer than you, dude. “I just thought it was something we could talk about—looking into some healthy, organic options. Maybe”—she glanced around, then focused on a little wooden bowl of simple iceberg salad—“mix some kale in with the lettuce. Something like that. We don’t need to talk about it now, of course.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Well, because my mother’s not here. It’s her call. I’m just thinking out loud.” She smiled, gracious and reasonable.

  But Andy wasn’t buying it. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I know she wanted you here because you’ve done this whole reality thing before.” He gestured to the cameras. “But Barbara and I are pretty much on the same page in the kitchen, and that’s the same page Mimi’s always been on. We serve what we serve, and it’s all the best of its kind. We leave the messing around with mozzarella sticks to Frannie’s.”

  Great. Clearly Andy saw her as some kind of threat, and one who knew nothing about Mimi’s and its business besides. This was ridiculous. She hadn’t really even been thinking about the menu, although there were things they could do—it would be nice to have a healthier option, for example. She’d just wanted to get the attention off her “homecoming.” Without meaning to, she crossed her own arms. “Not mozzarella sticks. And really, we should wait for my mother.”

  “Sounds fine,” he said, turning away. “You know she’ll agree with me.”

  Sabrina, still smiling brightly, stepped back up, and Mae glanced around her for a way to end this conversation before it began again. She leaned over and grabbed Ryder’s only remaining piece of chicken and bit into it enthusiastically. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Ryder’s howls caused both Sabrina and her cameraperson to step away, and once they’d engaged with a customer, asking about the evening’s food, Mae slid a piece of chicken from Madison’s plate to Ryder’s, knowing her daughter cared far more about the fries. “I’m sorry, buddy. I was hungry. I should have asked, right?”

  Ryder sniffled and nodded.

  The chicken was good, at least. Even better than she remembered, and she took more of Madison’s generous serving. She had eaten next to nothing all day, and it had been years since she’d eaten a French fry, let alone fried chicken. Good fried chicken was remarkably hard to come by in New York, but this—tender, with just enough crust-only bits protruding, skin peeling easily away from the meat—this was good. The fries were thin and still hot, some with crunch, some with bite, lightly sprinkled with the salt blend they’d always used. The biscuits were fresh and flaky, and the salad’s iceberg lettuce was dressed with Mimi’s trademark sweet oil dressing—a closely guarded (but really very simple, and once very common) recipe. Delicious, all of it, if technically speaking a nutritional catastrophe.

  Jay would like this, she thought absently. If he’d like anything to do with her right now. And if she were to bring Jay anywhere near this place, which she would not. Of all the things Jay was never going to taste, this chicken topped the list. This was a guy who thought the twenty-eight-dollar fried chicken plate at Blue Ribbon had a little touch of slumming it, especially when eaten at one A.M. after a night in the bars of the Lower East Side. She’d known from their first date that Jay would never get Mimi’s.

  They’d attended a wedding once, of a college friend of his, in St. Louis. It had been a very nice wedding, actually, but Jay, the only nonwhite person in attendance, had been forthright in his East Coast condemnation of the entire city, the entire state, the entire region. Mae had joined in at the time, agreeing that she didn’t much miss “the suburbs of Kansas City,” where she had long since relocated Merinac when relating her precollege history, and internally renewing a vow of her own: Jay would never, ever set foot in her hometown. A few years wouldn’t have erased the small-mindedness that h
ad always kept people here from dreaming big or doing anything with their lives. She was lucky. She got out. Jay didn’t ever need to know just how far she had come.

  He would like the chicken, though. And the biscuits. And the whole history of the place, if he could just see past the Wizard of Oz jokes. Jay worked with restaurants, damn it. It was his consulting specialty, and he might be sick of consulting, but he never got sick of restaurants and food and eating out. He should see that Food Wars was going to be great not just for her but for Mimi’s as well. Of course, he didn’t know about Mimi’s so he couldn’t care about Mimi’s. Lately he didn’t care about anything she cared about that wasn’t obviously kid related.

  She looked at Madison and Ryder, sated with fries, now eating the salad with their fingers, as she and Amanda once had. Amanda’s kids would have eaten their salads at Frannie’s, with forks, most likely. Another weird thought. Back here, in this familiar space, the more distant past had way more power over her memory than anything that might have changed since then—had changed since then. Amanda’s kids should have belonged at Mimi’s, but they didn’t. Her kids hadn’t grown up here, but here they were, and they had never met their cousins, not once. Mostly, Mae managed not to think much, if at all, about how things were with her and Amanda. It was just—background. Something that would work itself out in time, that didn’t affect her here and now and therefore did not have to be worried about. Mae didn’t borrow trouble, and she didn’t have any trouble letting the past stay in the past.

  Her marriage would be one more thing she’d have to deal with later. For the moment, clearly the best thing to do was to write tonight off, from a filming point of view, and regroup tomorrow.

  * * *

  ×

  As the night rolled to a close and Andy, Angelique, and Zeus began the shutdown routine, Mae made her excuses and carried an exhausted Ryder back to the rental car, with Madison trailing behind. Armed with a roll of paper towels and some spray cleaner, she laid a garbage bag over the now-disgusting car seat and kept the windows down. She buckled the kids in over complaints about the smell and turned on a video, sitting in the driver’s seat until they both fell asleep, waving to Sabrina as she and her convertible pulled away, sending a quick text to Jay.

  Getting the kids to sleep, can’t talk, all ok there?

  She’d finally got a sympathetic reply from him at about hour three of the flight fiasco (albeit one tinged with it’s not like this wasn’t your idea). He’d even wished her luck, which she chose to interpret as for her entire endeavor, not just her travels.

  She gazed down at the screen, wondering if he’d answer. He was just as attached to his phone as she was, for all his big talk about disengaging and getting away from the cacophony. Sure enough, there he was.

  Kinda late isn’t it?

  It’s an hour earlier here. And they napped.

  Oh.

  Go okay?

  Yes! A little messy but I made it work.

  Talk once they’re asleep?

  She considered. Did she want to actually talk to Jay? She’d conveniently left out that she was getting the kids to sleep in the car; she still had to carry them into the motel—thank God for first-floor rooms! And she wasn’t even going back to the motel just yet. She started up the car, one eye on the kids still asleep in the back seat—Madison shifted, but her eyes didn’t open—and drove the few hundred feet into the driveway of the house, where she could comfortably leave the kids but still keep a close eye on them.

  Mae’s plan was to go find her mother, but as she parked, she saw a car pull into the Mimi’s parking lot—and a figure that was unmistakably Amanda walking toward the back door of Mimi’s.

  Thank goodness—they’d finally get to hash out a plan. With a quick glance at the kids—they’d be okay, she never had to go out of sight—Mae got out, ready to call to her sister. But something made her stop and watch, as Andy came out and greeted Amanda with more pleasure than Mae would have expected, given the quality of her own earlier welcome. A lot more pleasure. He came all the way out of the kitchen, and the screen door banged behind him. She could hear his “Hey,” but not Amanda’s response, although she heard her laugh, then laugh again. She looked different somehow, too. She couldn’t be taller, but there was something slender and sleek about her silhouette—her hair. She had cut her hair. And as Mae watched, Amanda put a hand up to the back of her neck, and then Andy reached out to touch her sister’s head.

  Wait a minute. Amanda was flirting! That was totally flirting. Now she could hear her sister: “The day was great—filming was fun. How did it go for you guys?” And then, Mae swore, a giggle. A giggle like a twelve-year-old. Jeez. Mae hesitated. She had plans, and she wanted Amanda’s help, but her sister wouldn’t be happy if Mae walked in on her now, and Mae had things to say that were best not said in front of Andy. This was ridiculous. Could Amanda seriously not find any guys not already within the Merinac fried chicken web? In spite of everything, Mae had been somehow expecting to get the old, pre-Frannie’s version of Amanda back. But if Amanda would just walk up and start flirting with this dude, then she really had changed, and not just with a haircut.

  Shit. Jay. She looked at her phone, where his suggestion that they talk still dangled. No. She really couldn’t talk to Jay tonight.

  Sorry, had to settle Ryder. Sharing a room, don’t want to wake them, am wiped.

  Tomorrow?

  She tucked the phone in her pocket, not waiting for a response, then headed toward the house, which was set farther back from the street than Mimi’s. Amanda could wait. All night, in the back of her mind, Mae had been stewing over her mother. How could Barbara leave before she got there? Her mother wasn’t one to leave anything to do with Mimi’s up to anyone else, and Barbara had been skeptical about Food Wars when they spoke, so Mae doubted she’d just let them film without her without a good reason. It must have made sense to her mother somehow, but Mae was damned if she could see how. Not that she always got what Barbara thought was important. But this was weird—and not in the usual way.

  Curious, but not exactly worried, Mae stepped up to the door. The lights were off, and the house quiet, but Barbara always kept the front of the house dark when the restaurant was open, to discourage people from heading this way, so that meant nothing. Mae lifted her hand and, mindful that Amanda and Andy could possibly hear her, gave a soft but sharp rap on the door. Mae waited, but there was no answer. She knocked again, still cautiously. She wanted to see her mom tonight, especially given her unexpected disappearance from Mimi’s. But her great-aunt Aida, who lived with Barbara, was almost certainly asleep by now, and Mae didn’t want to wake her. There would be plenty of time tomorrow for Aunt Aida. Suddenly from within, she heard a low, growling bark.

  Patches. Her mother’s dog. She’d never met the mutt and wondered now—did Patches’ presence suggest that Barbara was home, or not? Mae had no clue, but the low bark settled one thing: she wasn’t opening the door. Mae didn’t know much about dogs, and she didn’t want to. Patches, she knew from pictures, was not a small dog and didn’t look friendly. Mae had no desire to find out if she would instinctively recognize family.

  She wasn’t setting foot in the house anyway. If Barbara was home, they’d talk in the garden, or walk out behind the house. Mae had decided a long time ago that Mimi’s was fine, but she was never going in her mother’s house again.

  There was no reason Mae could imagine that her mother wouldn’t open the door to her. Either she hadn’t heard the knock or she wasn’t home. But where would she go? It was nearly ten o’clock. The only thing open was the Dillons, and even that would close in half an hour. More likely Barbara was simply not answering the door. It had always been her cardinal rule: don’t open the door to anyone; don’t let anyone into this house. The succession of older family who lived with them—long ago, her great-grandmother Mimi and her great-great-aunt Mary
Cat and now presumably Aida—followed it too: no outsiders in the house.

  Mae only broke the rule once—although once had been enough to change everything, at least for her. Barbara had taken Mary Cat to gloat over an old friend who, at eighty-nine and a full decade younger than Mary Cat, had fallen and broken a hip. Mae, six, and Amanda, almost five, promised they would not touch the stove. They would not wander off. They would stay in the house with their coloring books on the cleared-off part of the counter and they would not use glue, and they were proudly living up to their new responsibilities when the doorbell rang.

  The doorbell never rang. Once, maybe twice ever, and her mother had opened it and stepped out and come back in quickly, shaking her head. Mormons, she’d said. Mae figured she could do the same, and hesitantly opened the door. She had no idea what a Mormon was, but when Mae saw the tall man standing there, he was so unlike her mental image of a Mormon (which looked something like a Munchkin) that she forgot to step outside and shut the door but instead just stood there.

  The tall man knelt down in front of her and put out a hand. Mae took a step back, almost into the house. “Mae?” he asked, and she nodded and took his hand. It was dry and hot and rough on the edges, and he shook her hand hard.

  “Do you know I’m your father, Mae?”

  She shook her head vigorously. She did not know this. She was not sure she believed this. Of course she had often asked Barbara why she and Amanda did not have a father. “Because he’s a fool,” her mother would snap. “A fool and a weakling. Some people you’re just better off without.” And the old ladies, Mary Cat and old Mimi, her sister, would agree, if they were around. This man did not seem like a weakling—he was big and tall and a little scary—and just as suddenly as he’d knelt to take her hand, he stood up, dropping it and staring past her into the house. He said a word she did not know, and she could tell by his face that he was surprised, and not in a happy way. Too late, she went to close the door behind her, but he leaned over her and held it open.