The Chicken Sisters - K.J. Dell'Antonia Page 0,116
to feel that way too. That’s going to help her make this happen.”
Mae leaned forward and looked straight into the camera, imagining Jay on the other side. “Helping my mom clean up—and coming back to Mimi’s and my hometown—have kind of done the same for me. If you’ve seen my book at all, you know I have a saying: clean space, calm mind. I guess I always figured that if I had clear counters, a clear mind would just naturally follow—and it didn’t. Just like my mom needs to get her outer world in order, I need to be working on that inner stuff. Coming home is helping me figure out which few things are important, and I need to start making sure my life reflects that same simplicity and clarity I love to create in the spaces around me.”
Final punch line. Mae glanced up at Sabrina, making sure she knew there was just a little more to come, and saw her nod. “So if you’ve been looking at my mom’s space and feeling like you’ve got it all together, maybe take a minute to think about whether the rest of your life has that same feel. And if your physical world is a little—or a lot—messier than you’d like, then maybe you’re coming at it from the other direction and getting your inside in order before you tackle the outside. Clean spaces, calm minds—they’re a journey, not a destination. And wherever you are on your journey, I hope watching us build a better space for my mom and my great-aunt and for Patches and the puppies to continue theirs inspires you to work on your own spaces—inside and out.”
That was it. She sat, smiling pleasantly, letting Sabrina cut it off, until she was sure the cameras had stopped. “Good?” she asked Sabrina, still holding her position.
“Perfect. We’re done. Getting a little deep there, for Food Wars, but I loved it. We’ll keep filming the rest, of course, and you need to do a reveal with Barbara, but this will be good stuff for the episode, too.”
With Sabrina satisfied for the moment, Mae set out to find Jay. She needed to talk to him, but would he hear what she had to say? There was no time to linger and plan if she wanted to seize this moment when the cameras were focused on other things. She got up, then headed for the back patio. Andy, Kenneth, and Frankie were there, with Jay, who was putting his phone back in his pocket.
“You were good, Aunt Mae,” said Frankie, a little begrudgingly.
“Your mom and I will work things out, Frankie,” Mae said. Amanda had made Mae so angry, yes, but Amanda didn’t know yet about Barbara’s illness, or that as much as it mattered who came out on top in Food Wars, there were things that mattered more. She took Jay’s arm, meeting his eyes, asking permission, and he turned to follow her. “Sorry, guys, but Jay and I need to talk.”
Quickly, she led him out the back trail, the one that went down to the river and the old cottonwood tree, rushing into speech as soon as they were out of earshot. “I’m sorry. I know, I need to explain, and I couldn’t, not with them filming everything. Thank you for going along with it. Seriously. Thank you.”
Jay, beside her, was silent for a moment, and she loosened her grip on his arm, slid her hand down to his, willing him to take it, trying to push aside her fear that he was already halfway out the door, and the instinct to protect herself from how much it would hurt if he went. He did, and she squeezed, glad to have even the chance to tell him what she was thinking.
“You could start with why we’re not in a Kansas City suburb,” Jay said, giving her a sideways glance. “A very small town an hour away is not exactly a suburb.”
Mae bit her lip and felt herself flush. “Well, this is it,” she said. “This is home. It was hard, coming from this to New York. Or even from this to SMU. Everyone else knew what to say, and how to act, and what to wear. I had to learn to fake it. By the time we met, I had my story down. It was easier just to keep it that way.”
“It didn’t matter where you were from, Mae. It never would have mattered.”