Her mother leaned on the counter beside the sink, where they were soaking some of the bags that were closest to defrosted, and closed her eyes. It was physical work, the moving of the chickens and the dumping of the water, and Barbara had not spared herself any of it. And even though she couldn’t figure out how, Mae knew that on some level, her mother and Andy were right: this was somehow her fault.
“You need a break, Mom.” She put a hand on her mother’s broad back. “Why don’t you go back to the house for a while?”
“I didn’t sleep well,” Barbara said. “It’s nothing.”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong. Just that you could probably use a break. Go check on Aunt Aida. Make sure she’s getting glamorous for tonight.”
Andy, carrying a bucket of chicken pieces, came into the kitchen. “You guys are slowing down,” he said, and Mae glared at him. To her surprise, he seemed to catch on immediately. “Which is fine,” he said, looking at Barbara. “We’re closer to done than it looks, and I just called Zeus to come a little early. We’ll be on to normal prep in about an hour. If Mae helps, we’ll catch up long before the cameras arrive.”
Barbara untied her apron and hung it on its hook. “If we’re that close, I will take a break,” she said. “Mae, don’t forget to leave yourself a little time to clean up. You’re a mess.”
Without looking back, she left the kitchen, and Andy laughed. “She won’t thank us for telling her she looks tired,” he said.
“No,” agreed Mae. “She hates to be told what to do, too.”
“Runs in the family, I’m guessing,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like your Mimi doesn’t even want me looking at her recipe. I swear the frame falls off the wall whenever I come near it. I had to hang it back up this morning.”
“I wouldn’t think you needed a recipe by now.”
“I just like to check my proportions every now and then, imbibe a little of the spirit of the original cook. Even if she might not have liked me much.”
“I don’t think she was big on men.”
“We’re really not all alike.” He finished shifting the chicken from the bucket to the sink and paused, a serious look on his face. “Hey, have you noticed anything odd about your mother?”
Mae froze, then quickly turned so Andy couldn’t see her expression. She had, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Barbara seemed flatter, somehow, and when she wasn’t flat, she was obsessing about this win, and about money, in a way Mae had never seen. Yesterday, with the exception of her willingness to clean up Mimi’s, she had been even more Barbara-like than usual, and Mae had felt reassured, only to watch her mother fade away as the day wore on. Today she’d disappeared even more quickly. This chicken job had not been fun, but it seemed to have taken a lot out of Barbara. And yesterday, after work, Barbara had been much quieter than usual, even with Ryder and Madison. But Andy didn’t need to know any of that.
“She seems great,” Mae said. “Glad to see us, working as hard as ever.”
Andy shrugged. “She gets tired earlier than she did when I first got here. She leaves more things to me—of course, that was the idea, but I get the sense she’s not what you’d call a delegator.” He gave Mae a hard look and lowered his voice. “And the mess. I keep having to take bags out, stuff she’s left here that we can’t work around. It’s not just the house anymore.”
Oh no, Mae thought. He knew. He had to know—of course he would. How could he not? She looked down at the ground, then spoke before she could catch her words and hold them back—because the Moores never, ever talked about this with outsiders.
“We can’t let anyone see the house,” she said. “Or know that’s an issue. It’s just—it would mess things up, right?”
Andy looked at her thoughtfully. “Most people around here know,” he said. “But, yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t want it on TV.” He laughed, and Mae glared at him again, then relaxed. He was right, after all. No harm in that.
“I don’t,” she said.
“She won’t let you . . .” Andy made some vague gestures with his hands that Mae took to mean cleaning up, and she laughed.
“Not hardly,” she said. “It’s like you said. She’s not much of a delegator.” It was a relief to trust him, even this much. “I think she needs to take it easier. You’re right. And maybe—there’s you, and if we win Food Wars, you could do so much, right? Like, this could be a real cult destination.” Andy nodded, and Mae was relieved to move the conversation on.
“You’re thinking we could win now? Really?”
“I am. Look, Mimi’s is special. You know it is. And you’re special.” Butter him up a little—plus, he really did have a feel for the simplicity of the kitchen. “You could really impress those chefs tonight with the way you want to get just these few things perfectly right. And then people would come. They’d take road trips for your chicken. Nobody’s going to take a road trip for a frozen mozzarella stick.”
Andy gazed at her thoughtfully, and Mae had a feeling her compliments hadn’t moved him much. She wondered if he saw this as his opportunity to move on to bigger and better things. Maybe not. Merinac, she was starting to see, wasn’t actually a bad place for someone with some history to start over.
“Maybe if you wanted to, Mom would let you play with some lunch service, or adding something special to the doughnuts Saturday morning.” There had to be some room in this for him. “And I was even thinking she could give pie-making classes. Or, well, Patrick would. And people would come. Especially with the Inn here, and the lakes—this kind of thing can really work now, you know?”
Andy seemed to be catching a little of her fire. “Like that pie place in Iowa,” he said. “Or the one the woman from that home makeover show started down south.”
He did get it. Mae nodded. “Exactly.”
Andy looked around, then sighed. “We just have to win first,” he said. “And I gotta tell you, I don’t know if we can do it. And this chicken’s not going to be as good—”
“The chicken will be fine,” said Mae. Oh God, he was just a temperamental chef at heart. “Seriously. Anybody can have to start with frozen chicken once in a while. Probably most places do. It’s not like we’re plating a bunch of fried chicken tenders we just warmed up, or defrosting stuff and calling it ours.” She grinned. “Not like some restaurants I know.”
Which was really the point. She’d felt it, a minute ago, when she said the words “frozen mozzarella stick.” A little shift in her mind, almost a click, and then Mae knew exactly what she could do to derail Amanda and set Mimi’s up to be America’s sweetheart chicken shack. And it probably wouldn’t take more than two words in Sabrina’s ear. After she cleaned herself up, of course. And after they finally finished all this chicken.
AMANDA
Frannie’s was packed. Utterly, totally packed. Word that tonight was the night the celebrity chefs would come had spread. Every seat was taken, the bar was full to standing, and in the little entry and waiting area people were packed in on the benches. There was even a couple standing squashed in behind the Lions Club candy machines. Outside, they’d set up more benches—Amanda and Gus had even loaded a wagon wheel and a wooden wheelbarrow planted with annuals into Mary Laura’s old truck and brought them over for atmosphere—and a big orange cooler of water with paper-cone cups for people waiting in the hot sun. Amanda fielded a few takeout orders, but most people wanted to come in, enjoy the air conditioning, and have their delicious meal served with a flourish on a classic divided-oval off-white diner plate.
They wanted to be a part of it.
Between the crowd and the cameras, the waitstaff should have been in a panic, but Amanda had to give full credit to Nancy. She never let them break a sweat. She was everywhere, telling them they were doing great, that a little spill or slosh wouldn’t matter, that everyone was having a fantastic time and to just keep it up. Except Amanda. Amanda
she was ignoring.
The first chef to arrive at Frannie’s was Simon Rideaux, famed as much for his hard-drinking, straight-talking approach to food as for his series of bestselling cookbooks. He came in without Sabrina, who had said she would return later with the other chefs, and striding ahead of his Food Wars handlers. The crowd parted for him as best they could, and Amanda, who had been prepared and essentially pushed into place by one of Sabrina’s minions, showed him to his table.
“I never eat alone,” he declared. “You will sit down with me, then. Take a load off. Someone else can seat people for a while. You’ll be forgiven, I guarantee it.”
Amanda cast a frantic look around, but there was no one to rescue her. The producer behind the camera gestured for her to sit. Oh, this was not going to help with Nancy. She had not found the discovery of a dozen boxes of chicken originally meant for Mimi’s in her walk-in funny, and she had made it clear to Amanda through whispers and glares that she was disappointed in her. She didn’t know yet that Sabrina had filmed Amanda doing it, but she would soon enough. The wave of self-righteous glee that had led Amanda to invite Sabrina along to help rub Mae’s face in her failures had vanished, replaced by a miserable cocktail of regret, guilt, and remorse.
Rideaux refused the menu a nervous Gwennie was extending to him. “Bring me the specialty of the house, of course. Fried chicken and whatever you serve with it, however it’s most popular. And this lady will have the same.”
Amanda looked at him in horror. “No, no. I can’t do that. I already ate, anyway. Really.” The only thing worse than sitting while everyone else worked would be to have the cooks plate food for her—food they knew she wouldn’t eat. At the rate things were going, Nancy would probably spit in it. You’re letting down Frannie’s, playing like that. Letting down the whole town.
Rideaux seemed to take pity on his victim. “Fine, fine, bring her a drink, then. You surely know what she likes. And bring me a bourbon and be ready with another. Now.” He settled back into his chair and looked around, taking in everything from the glimpse of the pool table that was visible through the door into the bar to the Tiffany-style lamps that hung above every table. “I grew up in a town like this one. In Indiana. Never wanted anything as much as I wanted out of that place. But you. You’re still here. Do you love it? Are you happy? Satisfied?”
There were two cameras around the table, one stationary, the other with an operator who pointed it at her face as he asked the question. Amanda didn’t love anything at this moment, and she felt stripped bare by the question. Turn it back on him, said a small, helpful voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like her sister. You don’t owe everybody a little piece of yourself.
“Why is that everyone’s first question?” she asked. “This is where I live. Why wouldn’t I be happy? Why would I want to leave?”
“Because it’s very small. Because there are two restaurants and they both serve fried chicken. Because you must know everyone and have solved every mystery about their sad little Hobby Lobby lives a long time ago.”
“I love Merinac,” said Amanda, stung. No wonder he made her think of Mae. When it came to their hometown, he sounded just like her.
“Perhaps. But what do you do, when you have eaten all the chicken you can eat, and slept with all the men?”
You kick asshole outsiders in the balls, Amanda thought, unable to hide her surprise at the bald question. She would have loved to maintain a cool exterior, as Mae surely would have, but she knew she had turned beet red. Rideaux beamed. Was he expecting an answer? Flirting in some weird way? He stretched his arms wide and leaned back in his chair, smiling directly into the camera.
“I think it’s a question worth considering for anyone who considers at all,” Rideaux opined grandly. “Did I choose to stay, or did I just stay? Some people, they wake up, they’re sixty, they’re still here, and it’s either all they ever wanted, or they kill themselves. Or maybe fried chicken is your life. Is fried chicken your life, Miss Amanda Frannie’s?”
He was drunk, she realized. Drunk, and quite possibly pretty much always that way, so she could stop worrying that he was some sort of soothsayer.
“Of course,” she said agreeably. “And look, your fried chicken is right here.” Mercifully, Gwennie was here with the food, and Amanda didn’t give a damn what was polite or what Food Wars wanted; she wasn’t sitting here any longer. She stood. “I’m afraid I have to be getting back to work now.”
He surveyed the plate in front of him with interest, but as Amanda started to walk away he reached up and touched her arm, then beckoned her down. Reluctantly, an eye on the camera, she bent slightly, letting him whisper his alcohol-scented advice in her ear. “You can love a town and still leave it, you know,” he said. “You think you have all the time in the world. But you don’t.”
How good were those microphones? She gritted her teeth. “I hope you enjoy your chicken.” Asshole, asshole, asshole. He didn’t know anything. Just enough to tar everyone with his own brush and try to make trouble.
What Amanda needed was a few minutes to catch her breath, and to pour Rideaux’s words back into whatever bottle he’d magicked them out of. Instead, everywhere Amanda went, someone was on her with a camera. Check on Gus at the dishwasher? Camera. Give Frankie a hand with a tray, just to be with her for a minute? Camera. Slip into the office for a quick break? There was Gordo with his bright lights and that damn chair she hadn’t meant to sit in again. “Is it always this busy on the weekend?”
How did she want to answer that? “Friday is pretty much always our busiest night,” she said. Not like this, true, but wouldn’t it be better if they looked as if they were used to these crowds? “I think everyone’s having a great time. And the kitchen is killing it.” Truly, they were, and the diners were eating the evidence of her morning. It was probably a good thing they had so much chicken.
Which made her think of her mom and Andy. It couldn’t be this busy over there. They did have chicken; that she knew. Unable to stand the fear that she might have genuinely ruined her mother’s ability to open tonight, Amanda had asked Mary Laura to text Angelique. Everything was fine, apparently; by the time Angelique got to work everything was basically normal, except for Patrick frantically bringing down all his pies.
“Something about your mom not having time to bake,” Mary Laura said with a wink, and Nancy, walking past them, stopped.
“It’s not funny,” she said. “You think about your mother, Amanda. You know what coping with all that frozen chicken must have been like. And to know you would do that to her—to think we would do that to her—is that what you want? We can win without—without that kind of”—she stopped, then spat out the word as though it cost her something—“crap, Amanda. That kind of crap.”
Without giving Amanda a chance to defend herself, Nancy stalked off in the direction of the kitchen. Mary Laura had turned to a customer, and Amanda leaned on the bar for a minute, the crowd pressing behind her. Mae deserved it. Painting over Amanda’s sign wasn’t even about Food Wars; it was just plain mean. And Barbara—the image of her mother and Andy cheering Mae on while she erased Amanda’s favorite chicken was a humiliating scene playing on constant repeat in her brain. Maybe it had never been a good sign in the first place. Maybe Sabrina, who didn’t know it was her sign, had suggested that it go. Barbara was always telling her drawing was a waste of time, that she should do something more productive with herself. She had probably been wanting to cover it up for a long time. Probably meant to do it sooner.
The last thing Amanda wanted was to be roped into the arrival of the next two chefs, a husband-and-wife team who almost never seemed to agree on anything, but it was obvious from the moment Sabrina arrived with them that she wanted their visit to mirror Rideaux’s in every respect. Amanda would greet them, Amanda would seat them, Amanda would, damn it, sit right down and chat, but she had had it with chatting. “Would you like to s
ee a menu, or should we just bring the chicken?”
“Bring the chicken, please,” said James Melville without looking at her. He was turning to take in the entire restaurant, even rising from his chair to look toward the kitchen.
“And also the menu,” said his wife and partner, Cary Catlin. Gwennie brought a menu, and Cary Catlin took a pair of glasses from where they were nested in her abundant brown hair and opened the folder, running a finger down each column. At the bottom of the first page she looked up at Gwennie. “I just wanted to see the menu, not order from it,” she said, gesturing her away. “Bring the chicken, of course.”
“The meatloaf is also very good,” offered Amanda.
“If I ate anything but what we’re supposed to eat at these stops I’d be as big as a house. Just the chicken is fine.”
Gwennie rushed off, and Cary Catlin leaned over and snapped her fingers at her husband. “Pay attention.” She turned to Amanda. “Okay, let’s have a look at this menu. Mozzarella sticks. Frozen?”
Amanda was taken aback. Of course the mozz was frozen; people expected it to look like the little sticks you get everywhere. But why were they asking? “Yes,” she said cautiously.
“Stuffed mushrooms? Crab cakes? Frozen?”
Amanda nodded. The chef was running a finger down the other side of the menu, possibly preparing more questions. Jeez, could she get some help here? Amanda looked around and saw Nancy heading their way, but bearing menus, and with two regular customers following her. Maybe Nancy would stop. The Russells knew where they were going. She tried to give her mother-in-law a desperate look.
“Amanda,” Cary Catlin said, “I understand the famous Frannie’s biscuits are frozen?”
The Chicken Sisters Page 18