“Kansas City.” Kenneth laughed. “Well, maybe if you brought him straight to the Inn. Blindfolded. Seriously, Mae?”
She shrugged. “We swore we were never coming back, right?”
Kenneth took a sip of his latte. “You also swore you were never getting married,” he said. “I would very much like to see the guy who talked you down a road this Moore sister swore she’d avoid.”
“Yeah, well . . .” She couldn’t help it—she looked down at her coffee, even knowing Kenneth would read into her avoiding his eyes what only he could. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe not every Moore woman gets left.” And maybe she was right. The rest of the sentence lay right there on the table between them, and after a minute, Mae slipped over it, knowing Kenneth had heard what she had not said. “Come on, how about you? How’d you drag the love of your life to the hairy armpit of the universe?”
“Armpits are cozy,” Kenneth said. “Not nearly so bad as we once thought. Where did we think we wanted to be, anyway? The nipple? The cheek? It seems like a great metaphor, but it really falls down when you try to extend it.”
Mae smiled. She’d forgotten what it was like to be with someone who knew not just the public side of you but all the crap you’d have preferred to hide and still was okay with it.
Kenneth knew she was waiting for more, so he sipped his own coffee and stared into the distance, making a big show of contemplating, before he relented. “My dad has Alzheimer’s. Your mom probably told you.” Mae nodded. “It’s hard for my mom and my sister. And it sucks for him; he knows it’s happening. For years we just—I could send money, you know, no problem. All the money they needed. Home help, that kind of thing. But you can’t—” He put down his coffee, looked straight at Mae. “Some stuff you can’t hire. You can’t pay somebody to care like you care. If you’re not here, you’re not here. You’re not really there for someone if you’re jetting in and out. You gotta be coming for dinner and picking up groceries.”
Mae nodded. Kenneth had been lucky with his parents. He’d had a hard time in high school, but not at home. Never at home. And his parents had been there for Mae, too, when she’d let them, which hadn’t been often. His mom had let Mae use their washer-dryer as if it was her own, and as if needing to borrow something like that was as normal as asking for a cup of sugar, while Kenneth’s dad used to carry her laundry basket out to her beat-up car. It was hard to imagine his dad not remembering all that, and she could see why he would want to be here, but the whole picture still didn’t add up.
“Right, but you’re not just here for—the time being. For whatever happens. You guys are here here. All in.” She gestured around. “This is not a California design lab. It’s not even a Kansas design lab. It’s a bed-and-breakfast and it’s in Merinac and I don’t get it. It’s not what you worked for, right? Is it what Patrick wanted? Are you going to do something else, later?” She knew, now, that Kenneth had been the most sought-after branding and interface creator in San Francisco, still talked about and with plenty of opportunity to go back to. For him to be here, brewing coffee on Main Street, was just a waste.
Kenneth shook his head. “No, it’s not for Patrick. Not just for Patrick. Look, we did Silicon Valley. We moved fast; we broke things. It was kind of great, and I kind of loved it, and I kind of didn’t. I’m good here.”
“For now, sure. But this isn’t what you wanted. Or what your mom wanted for you, either. Or your dad.” She watched Kenneth’s face carefully, not wanting to go too far, but he just sat there, seeming totally at ease. “This is just not where you were supposed to end up.”
He stuck a finger in his latte, pulling out some foam to lick off, then jutting out his lower lip in a very familiar gesture that meant he was reluctant to disagree, but he was going to do it anyway.
“I was different there,” he said. “I’m different here, too, but here I’m different from other people. There I was different from me.”
“Profound,” said Mae in a voice that meant she thought he was just blowing air out of his ass, and Kenneth stood, grabbing her now-empty cup.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “There’s just something about being in a place where what matters most is right in front of you. And look—here you are. If you didn’t care about this place, if you didn’t see something worth saving in Mimi’s, in something that’s been around longer than either of us, you’d just let it go.” He gave her a quick glance. “Honestly, I figured you probably would.”
Mae flushed. There it was, all he was going to say, probably, about the way she had left not just Merinac but him. And now he was giving her too much credit, damn him. Saving Mimi’s was not why she was here. She started to say something, but what would she say? Instead, she followed him to the counter, where he set their dishes in a tub, then glanced at his watch, a solid, fat anachronism of a thing. “This place is going to be jammed in a few minutes. I’ll let Patrick take over, walk you back to Mimi’s, maybe say hi to your mom.”
Mae accepted this in silence, smiling at Patrick as he came out from the back room, relieved when he didn’t press for conversation. As they left the Inn she looked sideways at Kenneth. She’d done her morning’s work with satisfaction, but the thought of watching other people take its measure didn’t feel as good as she thought it would, and especially not now. “You’re going to be surprised,” she said.
“By what?”
“I painted Mimi’s.”
Kenneth stopped short, then picked up his pace. “No way. That place hasn’t been painted in— Oh no, Mae. You didn’t.” As Mimi’s came into view, Kenneth gasped. “You painted over Amanda’s sign!” He looked like she’d destroyed an icon of their childhood, and maybe she had. “And it looks like crap! Mae, you didn’t even do a good job. It’s bleeding through.”
He was right. When she’d left it this morning, the sun hadn’t been fully up, and the wet paint had erased all traces of the painted chicken underneath it. Now, though, the original painting appeared in shadow form. Kenneth picked up the can of paint she’d used. “This paint is never going to cover that, Mae. You’ll need something oil-based, and it won’t dry fast enough. And why would you do it anyway? Amanda’s sign was great. Everyone loved it.”
It did look awful. Half-done at best and shoddy at worst. Seeing what she had done through Kenneth’s eyes—and seeing that she hadn’t even done it right—made Mae feel defensive. She took the bucket of paint from him angrily, as though it were his fault it hadn’t worked. “I can’t just put another coat on it?”
“It won’t look any better. It’s just not the right kind of paint, Mae. Why didn’t you ask someone?”
Because anyone she’d asked would have said not to paint over the sign, of course. Kenneth didn’t know how much Amanda deserved to be erased from the face of Mimi’s at this point. Nobody did. Mae could try to explain, maybe—but no one else would get why this made sense.
Had seemed to make sense.
And now it looked awful. She didn’t want Amanda’s sign. Amanda’s sign didn’t belong there anymore. But how could she have messed things up so badly? Tears came to her eyes. “I just didn’t.” She felt like a belligerent teenager with no way to excuse her bad behavior. “It’s done now, though. And you’re right; it looks like crap. What am I going to do?”
“Okay,” he said, taking in a deep breath and looking at the ugly wall. “I have an idea. Wait here.” Seeing her face, he smiled a little. “This was stupid, Mae. But I think we can make it better.”
He turned, heading toward the Inn, and Mae sat on the bench in front of Mimi’s. The sign wasn’t all she was upset about. Mimi’s had been around longer than they had, yes. So had Merinac. But if you’d outgrown something, there was no point in pretending otherwise, right? Maybe Kenneth wanted to tie himself to this place again. Good for Kenneth. But for Mae—wasn’t it enough that she was here now? Kenneth had his whole family to come back to—and he’d d
one what he set out to do when he left. She had a backstabbing sister and a mother who would never really change, a house she’d never enter again, and a whole lot more to lose. He’d understand, if he gave it more thought than he gave his annoying latte art.
She flicked her phone awake. Silence from Jay, which did not make her feel better. Instead of words, she sent him a picture of the kids playing in the car from yesterday, knowing he would assume it was from this morning, and then started the ritual of checking social. Food Wars was tagging her on Instagram and retweeting her. If only she’d done more yesterday. Even as it was, she had more than a thousand new followers—way more than she had ever had in a single day, even with Sparkling. She snapped and shared an image of the flowers in front of the freshly painted Mimi’s (on the side of the building that looked good) before Kenneth returned. She was getting things done.
Kenneth was pushing a dolly with a big white signboard on it, made of four two-by-fours bolted together, with hooks at the top. On the side facing Mae, it read COMING SOON.
Kenneth set down the dolly, then walked the sign around on its corners until it was leaning up against the bench. He gestured to Mae, and the two of them lifted it up.
“I don’t get it,” Mae said. “I mean, yeah, it would cover it—”
“Hush.” They set down the sign again, leaning it on the wall, blank side out. Kenneth pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket. He stepped back from the sign, then, with concentration, stepped forward and started drawing. In less time than Mae would have thought possible, he’d outlined “Mimi’s” in a big, fat cursive, and, underneath, in smaller block letters, “since.” He looked back at Mae.
“Eighteen eighty-six.”
He finished by outlining the date. “I’ll paint this in and hang it,” he said. “You get out of here before you make it worse.”
Mae stared at the sign he’d made. She loved it. It captured everything she wanted to about Mimi’s—the simplicity, the history. Even if they were misunderstanding each other a little, at least—unlike Andy, and sure as hell unlike Amanda—Kenneth really did have her back. Screw Amanda, anyway. This sign was going to be much better. “Oh, but wait,” she said, pointing. “That second eight is uneven. The first one is more straight.”
Kenneth sighed. “Wabi-sabi, Mae. It’s the beauty of the flaw that makes it perfect.”
She looked at him for a minute, then at the lettering. “Yeah, but you made a mistake. You started to write a six and then you changed it.”
“It’s all in how you look at it. Go away. I’m doing you a favor here.”
AMANDA
Gus was hovering, and it was making Amanda crazy. For the second morning in a row, she had woken up to a head full of recrimination and regret, only this time, the hangover wasn’t metaphorical. The coffee she was trying to make wasn’t just coffee. It was medicinal. But at every turn, Gus seemed to be there, between her and the drawer with the coffee scoop, in front of the trash can when she needed to dump yesterday’s filter.
Normally, Amanda’s seventeen-year-old was the most independent person imaginable. He dealt with his own homework and test prep and friends and getting rides wherever he needed to go. On school days he got ready for school and got on the bus (he was saving for a car for senior year), sometimes barely exchanging a word with Amanda, who was not at her best in the morning. Frankie was much the same, a side effect, probably, of growing up with a single parent who often worked a late shift. Amanda tried to at least be up in the morning before they went to school, but she usually wasn’t much help.
This morning, though, Gus was different. He leaned against the counter, watching her while she watched the coffee, waiting for enough to drip down into the pot to fill her mug. He was right behind her as she went to the fridge for the milk. He sat down across from her at the table and fidgeted with his Pop-Tart, when usually he’d have eaten it in two bites while running out the door.
Amanda, who usually drank that first cup of coffee while staring into space and letting her household rush around her, finally set her cup down a little too hard, looked at her son, and said, “What?”
Gus, who was already looking back at her, shrugged and looked down at his Pop-Tart instead. “Nothing. I just thought I’d sit down this morning. For a change.”
Amanda said nothing to that, just lifted her eyebrows slightly. She could hear Frankie banging around in her bedroom, and part of her hoped her daughter would stay put until Gus brought himself to say whatever was on his mind, while another part—the slightly hungover, precoffee part—hoped for a speedy interruption. She wanted Gus to tell her when he had something on his mind. She totally did. Just maybe not today.
Gus broke off a piece of crust and played with it, then glanced up at her and back at his plate. “I read your book,” he said.
For a minute, Amanda didn’t know what he was talking about. “My book?”
Gus gestured to the table. “Your—the comic. About Carleen. It was on the table last night.”
Right. She’d come home after an uncomfortable car ride with Sabrina, who thought the whole scene with Mae and Andy was just funny, and cleaned up the sketchbook and pencils she had left behind earlier in the day, but of course Gus would have been home first.
Gus rushed on. “And it’s good, Mom. I mean, really good. Your story—I loved it. When Carleen lays the egg in gym class, and all the other chickens are laughing—it’s amazing. The drawings, the way you have them say just enough—it’s so cool. You should show it to someone.”
Now it was Amanda’s turn to stare down at the table. Gus’s praise made her even more uncomfortable than his lingering had. She shrugged. “It’s not really my story. It’s Stephen King. You know, Carrie.”
“I know, but the way you did it—it’s just really cool, Mom. I think you could, like, sell it. I really do.”
Amanda wanted to crawl away. How could she have left her stuff where Gus could find it? And praise like that . . . well, he was probably just being nice. But even if he was just trying to be nice, that was pretty amazing in itself. Teenagers weren’t supposed to be nice to their moms. She tried to smile, although she could feel that it was more of an awkward grimace. “Thanks, Gus. I appreciate that.”
“I mean it, Mom. I’m not just saying it.” Her kid knew her well. “If I didn’t think it was cool, I wouldn’t say anything. I know it’s kind of private. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked. But it’s really awesome, Mom. Seriously.”
Frankie burst out of her room, rushing for the door. “The bus, Gus,” she called, backpack straps hitting the chair as she sped past. “Come on!”
Gus got up, grabbing his own backpack, and reached for his plate.
“I’ll get it,” Amanda said, thankful for the interruption. She went in for the rest of the Pop-Tart, but Gus beat her to it.
“Think about it, Mom,” he said, following Frankie as he spoke over his shoulder. “I mean it.”
Sweet. Her son was sweet. But Amanda hoped he never brought it up again. Tender, possibly a little condescending encouragement from Gus was not what she needed at this moment. What she needed was more and better coffee—not this sludge she had made, which was now cold. And not a Pop-Tart, either. It was going to take something far more decadent and delicious to drown out the thoughts that kept spinning around in her aching head, especially now that the kitchen was empty. If it hadn’t been for Mary Laura and the constant topping off of her Sour in the City, or whatever it was, maybe she wouldn’t have gone to Mimi’s. And if she hadn’t gone to Mimi’s, Andy wouldn’t have come to the door, which just swung open, she swore. It was like her feet just carried her in.
And then he was so—kind. About Food Wars. He got it. “I was nervous,” he said, and then she could admit it—she was too.
“All those cameras.”
He patted the counter, and she hopped up on it while he hung the last of the pans, and then when h
e leaned next to her, talking, it was a little like being in a car, not looking at each other.
“What made you ask them to come?” He smiled, glancing at her. “If you don’t like cameras.”
“I didn’t think so much about the cameras,” she said, and it sounded a little ridiculous. “I mean, when you watch on TV, you don’t see the cameras.”
Andy laughed, and after a minute, she did too. He wasn’t making fun of her. She could tell. “You just see the people, and they come to life, you know? And it feels so—intense. Like they’re really doing big things.”
“I think that is the cameras,” he said, and there it was, the second time tonight someone made her think about what happened when all of this was over.
“Maybe the cameras leave some of that behind,” she said, and then, because she didn’t want to talk about that anymore: “or at least I’ll still have my stupid haircut.”
“I like the stupid haircut,” he said, and then he touched the back of her neck again, and it had been so long since anyone looked at her that way, or touched her that way, and something just felt right, there in Mimi’s, exactly where nothing had felt right for a long, long time.
And if he hadn’t touched the back of her neck again . . .
That would be such a good memory if it weren’t for Mae and everything that came next. And if it didn’t make her feel so sick inside, like she had betrayed everyone she loved, and if she didn’t know how little she deserved to have any man return her interest, since she’d already proved with Frank, back when they were fighting so hard over the life she had wanted so badly, that she didn’t know her own mind or heart. And if the whole idea of running away from Mae, and Andy, in front of Sabrina didn’t make her feel like erasing herself from the entire planet.
She needed coffee from Patrick, who would be blessedly unaware of her humiliation at Mae’s hands. And one of his glorious, lightly glazed brown butter scones.
The Chicken Sisters Page 16