The Chicken Sisters - K.J. Dell'Antonia Page 0,135
I’m disowning you.”
Gus smiled a little. Then he eyed the phone in his hand, started to speak, and instead, handed it to her, open to an e-mail from [email protected].
Gus, thanks for sending me the Carleen drawings. Most people are wrong when they think I’d want to see something, but you were right. Can you tell your mom to get in touch? Best, Bill
Bill—bhen72. Amanda stared at Gus, her mouth open.
“Bill Henderson,” Gus said. “You know, the guy with the kid and the penguin, the comic strip? You used to read it to me, and we have all the books?”
Why, yes, she knew. She gaped at her son, disbelieving. Bill Henderson? E-mailing him?
“The new art teacher graduated with him, and I asked him if he would— They were just in the drawer, Mom. And I was afraid you might throw them away.”
Amanda could barely find words for this. “You took—my sketchbook—and someone—”
“Showed it to him. Yeah. And he wants you to get in touch. Don’t be mad, Mom. It’s good that he wants to talk to you, right? Really good?” He looked at her, mostly smiling, still looking a little worried. “Plus, I think he still has it. You have to at least e-mail him to get it back.”
Slowly, Amanda handed Gus’s phone back to him. Then she hugged him, hard.
MAE
Mae took another tiny breath, and then another. Jay had just declared that he’d quit, and now he was picking up her plan and tossing it around so casually—I could do that, yeah. If I wanted to.
He was enjoying himself, damn him, and very at home here, in her mother’s trash-filled yard. Somewhere in the depths of the fridge he had found a can of light beer he didn’t seem to consider too old to drink, and he popped its top now, grinning at her.
Mae didn’t have one word to express how she felt, and it was probably a good thing. Because no matter what he had thought he was doing, he was here now.
She found, after another moment, that she could just about smile back. She nodded at the beer can. “Slumming?” Jay’s usual taste ran to the craft varieties, twelve bucks a bottle at a bar and six at the corner bodega. Tough to afford with no job.
“Beer is beer when it’s this hot,” he said. “Another advantage of your home state, maybe. Makes all beer taste good.”
Patrick came out of the kitchen and handed Kenneth another can. “No treasures,” he said. “And Frankie was born to throw things away, but I think she’s keeping that pink tinsel Christmas tree. I arm-wrestled her for it, and I lost.” He grabbed a chair and all three men made a big production of drinking, although Mae could feel Kenneth watching her. He knew, better than anyone, how desperately she craved control, and how hard it would be for her to have it suddenly taken away.
Mae tried to focus on the beer. “Oh, come on,” she said as Patrick, with a flourish, set a fourth can in front of her. Seriously, they were all boys together? And she was just supposed to be okay with this?
“I should drink this whole thing without stopping, then burp and crush the can on my head, right?” Mae took a sip. It did taste good. “Then can I join your little men’s club?”
“Just belated bonding,” Kenneth said, kicking his feet up on a nearby plastic container. “If we had been invited to your wedding, we would have already completed these little rituals.”
Mae flushed. As embarrassed as she had been about Merinac and everything that went with it, she was now equally ashamed of having denied it, and with that shame, the anger and fear over Jay’s job came crashing back. “Well, we’re here now,” she finally said, tightly, and there was a silence as they drank their beer until she couldn’t take it any longer and turned to Jay. “So, you seriously quit your fucking job?”
“I did,” Jay said. “And then I got on a plane, because it did not seem like something to text about.”
Mae wanted to be cool, but she couldn’t manage it. She set the beer down, hard. “Your job, Jay? I just basically lost my job, and you quit yours? What are we doing for health insurance? How are we going to pay our rent?”
Kenneth burst out laughing. “Your rent, Mae? You just announced that you were moving here, taking over the family business with Jay as your wingman. Your rent?”