Jay gave her a look that combined doubt with sarcasm at that.
“You know, like they fall, and does anyone hear them? You can hear them.” Mae felt like her pitch was falling flat. What would she do if he said no? Last night, with her mom, in that house where generations of women had been let down by their men, she had let herself hope that Jay was different. Jay had never let her down. Maybe she was the one letting him down. Twenty-four hours ago he hadn’t known Merinac existed; now she was begging him to give up his life—a life he hated, but still—and move here. For her. She must have lost her mind.
“The guy at security boarding the flight out of St. Louis looked at my driver’s license and made a joke about turbans,” Jay said.
“Oh.” She looked up at him. He was smiling, a little. “Well, that was St. Louis. It’s different here. Worse.”
“Mae.” Jay took her hand, pulling her, shifting her toward him. “I miss you, too. I’ve been missing you. For a long time. And I love your fire, and how hard you go after things, and how you pushed me to do the same. But when I started to feel like I didn’t want those things, it was like you couldn’t even hear me. You just kept rolling forward.”
“I hear you now, though. I really do. You were right. What’s here, what’s in front of us—that’s what matters. And what’s in front of us is this—my mom, Mimi’s. Not Instagram, not even Food Wars. We have to experience life to have anything worth sharing. It’s time to get real. I get it.”
Jay’s eyebrows turned downward, and he squeezed her hand harder. “That’s what’s in front of you, Mae. Not me. You’re like a steamroller, and I don’t even get to help choose the direction.”
This was not at all what Mae wanted to hear, and she grabbed Jay’s other hand. “But you did help choose, don’t you see? This is just another version of stepping back and figuring out who we are, who you are, and what we want. For ourselves, for Madison and Ryder. In a different place. I want a different kind of simple now, and it’s the same kind you want. I want it with you, Jay.”
Jay sighed deeply and looked around. To Mae, this spot was beautiful, with the still-new bright leaves on the saplings, the river, slow and muddy here, with tiny insects buzzing over the surface. But Jay might not see what she saw.
In the silence, a bird whistled an alarm from somewhere above them and another answered it. “I want you, Mae,” he finally said. “And I want our family. But I’m not sure I want this.”
Feeling like she was taking a step out onto one of the fallen tree’s fragile branches, Mae spoke softly. “I’m not sure I want this either. But my mom might be really sick, and then there’s my aunt, and Mimi’s. I feel like I might have to decide to want it, to make it what I want. But I don’t want to do it alone.”
Jay was silent, looking down, his hands still in hers. Should she let go, walk away, let him think? Softly, she loosened her hold a little, and Jay loosened his, too, and just as she was about to fully let go, just as she was feeling her heart open in her chest and shift, like it couldn’t hold all it was feeling, Jay tightened his fingers on hers again, and she squeezed back, and she was crying, and he pulled her into him, and there were pointy scratchy branches between them, but it didn’t matter. She sat on his knees, pressed her face into his neck, and felt the stubble of his cheek on the soft skin under her ponytail.
“Can we just hold on to this and see what happens, Mae? Not have a plan, for now, not roll forward, just see?”
Mae without a plan was like Mae without breathing. She wasn’t sure she could do it. “I’ll try.” She tilted her head back to look at him, and this time he kissed her lips, soft, nibbling kisses that became a longer, lingering one.
Jay pulled back, and this time he really was smiling. “I guess I know you’ll be planning. Maybe just try not to get stuck on one plan. Make a lot of different ones. With room for me in them.”
Mae couldn’t speak without starting to cry even harder, and she was feeling the pressure of this stolen moment. The last thing she wanted was for Sabrina and her cameras to come thumping down this trail. She nodded, hard, then, when he didn’t release her hand as she tried to pull one away, wiped her face on his shirt.
Jay laughed and let go of her, and through her tears, Mae laughed too. This wasn’t an answer, not at all—she had nothing firm to cling to or plan on—but she felt as though she had found something that would hold her up just the same. They both got up and began brushing themselves off, and as they did, Mae’s phone rang.
“I should just make sure that’s not Jessa,” she said, taking it out of her pocket and flipping it faceup to see the name on the screen: Lolly. “Huh.” She started to return it to her pocket, but Jay stopped her.
“Wait,” he said. “I’m curious. See what she wants.”
“What, answer it? Now?”
“Yes, now.” He waved his hand up, as if pushing the phone at her face. “Go on.”
Mae swiped and, glancing at Jay, put the call on speaker instead of bringing the phone to her ear. “Hey, Lolly,” she said. “What’s up?”
“I just watched your Facebook Live, Mae. It was excellent. Just really, really good. I wanted to congratulate you. It must have been hard, with your mom and all, but you really did a great job.”
Mae glanced at Jay, wanting him to see that Lolly’s opinion didn’t mean as much to her as it once would have. Barbara’s back room was scarcely a Sparkling situation, and it didn’t need to be, and that was the point. “Thanks, Lolly. I appreciate it.” The next question hung in the air, unasked. Why bother calling about it? Mae wasn’t even sure she cared.
“You really went to the heart of what that space needed, and it made me think about Sparkling, and how you might be able to do the same there—get below the surface, really dig into what people need from their space.”
What people need from their space, Mae thought, is not to have those needs ripped open on television. Barbara would be okay. The people around her already knew her, and her world wouldn’t change much. Plus, she had different problems to worry about now. But for most people, that kind of forced exposure would do so much more harm than good.
Lolly was still talking. “I talked to Meghan and Christine, Mae. They both agree—you’re the perfect co-host for Sparkling. We’re done experimenting with other candidates. So, what do you think? Are you interested?”
No apology, of course. No attempt at justifying the turnaround, and Mae wasn’t meant to ask for one, either. She should jump at this, a chance to join the cast of an established show and make a bigger name for herself.
Mae didn’t even have to look at Jay this time. “Oh, that’s really nice to hear, Lolly. But I have other plans going forward.” She smiled to herself. Let Lolly think those “other plans” involved the Food Channel. That must be why they’d rushed this call. That Facebook Live must be getting really good numbers. But what Lolly didn’t see, and maybe Sabrina didn’t see either, was that it was good because it was real, and because Mae had known it, and known she wasn’t hurting anyone, or exposing anything except a deeper part of herself. It wasn’t something she could take on the road, and she wasn’t going to pretend that it was. She was done pretending.
But she didn’t mind letting Lolly sweat a little. Lolly started to answer, to argue, probably, or persuade, but Mae cut her off. “Listen, Lolly, I’m in the middle of something. I have to go, but you take care, okay? And give my best to Christine and Meghan. Talk soon.” With that, Mae tapped the red button at the bottom of the screen and tucked the phone in her pocket. Then, unable to contain herself, she beamed up at Jay.
“I must have been really good,” she said cheerfully, then started up the trail. Jay reached out and caught her.
“You were good,” he said. “You’re a natural. Are you really saying no to them? Or is that just part of the game?”
“Really no,” Mae said. “I’m sick of all of this; it’s an
ything but real. Maybe someday. If I had something to say.” She could see it still, true. Sharing a message of authenticity with a new audience . . . but not like that. A bubble of relief rolled up inside her. Like champagne bubbles. Maybe—even without knowing exactly what they were toasting—they needed some champagne. And a family pack of baseball gloves. She looked at Jay again, then hesitated. Was she reading him wrong? “But wait— Should I have asked you? I thought—”
Jay smiled. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that I thought that’s what you really wanted. To be on TV. To co-host Sparkling, have your own show.”
“Yeah,” said Mae. Their eyes met, and she leaned forward and kissed him, quickly. This was what she really wanted, and she needed to make sure he knew it. She turned and started the climb up from the riverbank in earnest this time. “So did I. But I was wrong.”
AMANDA
Amanda had envisioned a dozen ways this could go, each worse than the last, almost before they were out of the driveway.
Maybe this was the wrong call. It would be easier, probably, to send Nancy and Gus to Sabrina with the recipe. Sabrina wouldn’t worry about the loan business, might not even want to turn the paper over if they did it right. It’s a family recipe, they’re similar, oh well, case closed. Food Wars would zoom to a close and they could just deal with this afterward. After a winner had been declared. When Frannie’s had some money, or Mimi’s needed money less. Amanda had given up on predicting how Food Wars would bestow its largess, especially after Nancy pointed out that whoever got this windfall would be paying taxes out the wazoo.
But Mae. Telling Mae would complicate things. Amanda didn’t know what would happen, and she didn’t like the feeling. Maybe she was just as much of a control freak as Mae, except her way of controlling things was to try to keep anything from happening at all.
Well, she wasn’t going to live that way anymore. She was blowing things up.
Still. She contemplated a big announcement and what might come after. Barbara shouting at Nancy the way Amanda and Mae had shouted at each other. Gus listening while Barbara abused his father and grandfather. People questioning whether Nancy, or even Amanda, might have known this all along, no one giving it a chance, explanations turning into excuses, and all fuel for the Food Wars flames. She needed help managing this, and there was only one person to get it from.
“Wait,” she said, and this time she did lean forward from the back seat, putting her head between Nancy and Gus. “We need to figure out a way for me to just tell Mae first.”
Nancy and Gus saw her logic immediately, but all of them struggled with how to make it happen. Amanda finally went with the simplest thing she could think of. They should look for Mae and try to distract Sabrina if they saw her, while Amanda— “What?” Gus demanded. “Hides behind the car and tries to ambush Aunt Mae?”
“Something like that,” she said. “Just try, okay? You get out, send Mae this way, and keep the cameras over there.”
They had no backup plan, and Amanda felt more than a little foolish as they carefully parked with the driver’s side of Nancy’s two-door facing the building and she crawled into the front seat, keeping her head below the windows, then slipped out the passenger side and dropped to the ground while Gus ostentatiously tried to make it appear that he was the only one getting out of the car.
“I guess Mom will come later, right, Grandma?” he said loudly. “She’s probably—uh—changing her clothes.” Amanda, from the ground, whacked him on the ankle.
“Too much,” she hissed. “Just go.”
There was no one in sight as they walked toward the house, but Amanda kept down behind the car just the same—and there was Mae, climbing up the bank from the river.
With Jay behind her. Shit. Oh, well.
“Mae,” she called softly, then again. “Mae.” Mae stopped, looking around, and Jay stopped behind her.
“Over here,” Amanda said, feeling ridiculous. “But pretend you don’t see me. Just—walk this way.”
They strolled over, and Jay, who appeared to be taking this about as seriously as Gus was, gazed up at a nearby telephone pole, pointed at nothing, and whispered, while staring resolutely in the opposite direction, “Nice to see you, Amanda. It’s been too long.”
Amanda couldn’t play. “Yeah. Mae, I need to talk to you.” She had to convince her sister that this mattered enough to hide from the cameras Mae loved. “I have the Frannie’s recipe, and you have to see it, Mae. Mimi wrote it.”
“What?” Mae was looking straight down at Amanda. Anyone would know something was up. But if anyone was there, wouldn’t they have already come over to see what Jay was pretending to stare at up on the telephone lines?
“You just have to see,” Amanda said. “But can we try— Can I show you without Sabrina? And then we can show her. It’s not a secret. It’s just that I think you should see it before Mom.” They’d conspired together so many times, to deceive their mother, to protect her, even occasionally to surprise her. “Please, Mae.”
Mae took Jay’s hand and began walking away, and just as Amanda was about to call out to her again, Mae spoke. “Oh, gosh,” she said. She was a much worse actress than Amanda would have supposed. “I think I dropped my—phone. I dropped my phone, Jay. I’ll just go back and look for it. You go on. And maybe”—Mae surveyed the distance between Amanda and anywhere where she couldn’t be seen from Barbara’s—“maybe you should move Nancy’s car for her? It’s really in the way, right there. Of the delivery trucks.” She met Amanda’s eyes and flicked hers toward Mimi’s. She was right, too—it was the only place they could get to without risking someone from Food Wars walking out of Barbara’s, seeing Amanda, and descending on them both.
“Just put it over by Mimi’s,” Mae said. “That’s probably where I left my phone, too.”
Mae walked off toward the opening in the fence that led to the Mimi’s patio, and Jay approached the car, then turned back. “Keys will be in it,” Mae called without turning around. “That’s how we do it here.”
Jay got in and started the car, rolling down the passenger-side window. “I’m guessing you’re supposed to use the car for cover while I drive over there,” he said. “Lots of intrigue in this town.”
Amanda, now that things were going her way, could afford a smile. “More than you’d think, even without Food Wars,” she said. She had always liked Jay, as far as she knew him. He’d never been the snotty New Yorker she had expected.
Amanda slipped through the gap in the fence and straightened up as soon as she knew she would be out of sight. Mae was waiting. Without explanation, Amanda handed her the recipe, back in its protective wrapping, faceup.
“This was at Frannie’s,” she said. “It’s a long story, but it’s been hidden, and Nancy didn’t know where until yesterday when Gus showed her. But that’s really not what’s important.”
Mae gasped, just as Amanda had known she would. “Then they stole it,” she said. “Does it really matter when? They stole this, Amanda.”
Amanda shook her head. “Turn it over.”
Mae silently read the back while Amanda sat down at a picnic table and waited. Mae stared down at the words for a long time before she looked at Amanda.
“They owe us,” she said.
“I know,” said Amanda. “Mary Cat was right all along.”
“And wrong,” Mae replied. “Because Frannie died, right? Frannie died, and it was her husband—”
“I think so,” Amanda said. “I mean, it’s hard to know exactly”—she spoke quickly, so that Mae would know she wasn’t defending the Pogociellos—“we can’t be a hundred percent sure, but that’s what I think. What Nancy thinks, too. That they never paid her back, and they knew it, or at least, the first ones knew it.” But the whole story needed to be out there. “Daddy Frank, my father-in-law, Frank—they’d seen this, though. Daddy Frank showed it to Gus when G
us was little. So they might have known. Probably knew. Or they should have guessed.”
“They damn well should have,” said Mae angrily, and Amanda couldn’t blame her. “So the feud—it wasn’t Mimi and Frannie. It was Mimi and Frannie’s, once Frannie was gone.” Mae handed the paper back to Amanda and sat down on the bench across from her.
“If Frannie had lived,” Amanda said, and then stopped. Mae could see it as well as she could. If Frannie had lived, they probably wouldn’t be sitting here hiding from the Food Wars cameras.
They sat there for a moment, both looking at the ground. Frannie and Mimi hadn’t been feuding. Or maybe they had, some of the time. Maybe Mimi was jealous of Frannie for having “her man” to help, even if it didn’t sound like Mimi liked him much, and even if it seemed like Mimi might have been right. Or maybe Frannie wanted some of Mimi’s independence.
It was hard not to want what your sister had.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Mae finally said. Amanda looked up. An apology? An apology would be nice—she was about to offer one herself, but Mae could go first for a change. But Mae didn’t look like she was apologizing. She looked like she was crying, and not just the teary eyes that had come over Amanda, too, when she thought about how things could be different. Big, gulpy sobs that made Amanda, almost without realizing she was doing it, shift quickly from her bench to Mae’s and put both arms around her sister.
She knew before Mae said another word that apologies weren’t what was on Mae’s mind.
MAE
Damn it, she hadn’t meant to cry. It wasn’t that bad, at least it probably wasn’t, but with Jay, too, and the whole thing. She snuffled, swallowed, wiped her arm across her face, probably leaving it gruesomely striped with dust, then took the wad of tissues Amanda had pulled out of her jeans pocket, blew her nose gratefully, and shook her head, willing the tears away.
It felt good having her there, her physical presence solid and oddly reassuring. Mae was tired of feeling as if Amanda was on the other side of some wall. Maybe that wall could be gone now. If Mimi and Frannie could still be friends, if Mimi could help Frannie—she reached out to take her sister’s hand. There was no softening what she had to say, but she hoped Amanda could see that she hadn’t set out to dump this on her in the middle of everything.
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