The Chicken Sisters - K.J. Dell'Antonia Page 0,139

they were all gathered outside the front door of the Inn—Amanda, Andy, Mae and Jay, Gus and Frankie, Nancy, Barbara, even Aida. Jessa had Madison by one hand and Ryder on her hip, Madison wildly blowing kisses at them all. Kenneth ushered them grandly in, while Patrick stood just inside, soundlessly clapping. They all faced each other for a minute with a sense of suppressed laughter.

“Shhh,” Mae said, as Andy let out what could best be called a giggle.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t help it.”

“Come on,” said Mae. “Before she sees we’re all together.”

Mae turned and grabbed Amanda’s hand, letting Jay fade to the back, and the two of them, with Nancy and Barbara close behind, strode right into the dining room. Mae’s feet were loud on the Inn’s old wooden floors, and Amanda looked down and saw that she was wearing a pair of gorgeously embroidered cowboy boots.

Sabrina leapt up when they came in and rushed toward them—they were late; she must have been waiting—then stopped short, staring at them. Then, just as Mae had hoped, Sabrina gestured to a camera, which swung toward them.

“Where do you want us, Sabrina?” Mae spoke with an ease Amanda envied as much as the boots. They had agreed that Amanda would do the talking for the big reveal, and Mae had refused to allow her to write something out. “Know the three things you want to say,” Mae had insisted. “Hold three fingers in your pocket if you need to. Say each one, end your sentences, then stop.”

That last point, Amanda knew instantly, was exactly the piece of advice she needed to hang on to. Say what I want to say. Then stop. If she could have done that for the past week she would be so much better off. Although—she glanced back at Andy and found his eyes on her—her way hadn’t been quite the disaster she had thought it was. This wasn’t anywhere close to what she had thought she wanted when she sent that first e-mail to Food Wars. And yet somehow it was.

Sabrina ushered them up to the fireplace end of the room, where the three chefs were settling in behind a table. “I was thinking Mimi’s here, and Frannie’s here,” she said, pointing, then stepping back out of the scene.

Without even a glance at any of her co-conspirators, Mae released Amanda’s hand, walked to the side Sabrina had gestured to for Mimi’s, put a hand on her hips, and turned. “Nah,” she said. “Come on up here, everybody.” The rest of them scrambled around the Inn’s rearranged dining tables and joined her. “We’re good all here on the same side, Sabrina,” said Mae, and a wicked grin crossed her face.

Sabrina surveyed them. “You’re not going to tell me what’s going on, are you?”

“Nope.”

Unexpectedly, then, Sabrina flipped at the waist, fluffed her hair, then grabbed a mirror from a table to the side and looked herself over critically before turning back to face them. “Okay,” she said. “As long as it makes good television.” She shifted, took up a central position right next to Mae and in front of the group, and then gazed into the camera, morphing, before their eyes, into the warm, friendly host of Food Wars.

“Hello again! We’re back here today for the final moments in the Fried Chicken Food War, where two century-old institutions have been facing off in a battle for who can claim the title for the best, most authentic fried chicken the little town of Merinac, Kansas, has to offer—and maybe the best fried chicken in the state of Kansas. Little Mimi’s, which started as a chicken shack serving passengers on the railroad line, still serves nothing but chicken, biscuits, salad, and French fries. Frannie’s, which grew from a coal-mining hangout to a full-service restaurant, has a bigger menu, a bigger dining room, and a bigger reputation. Midway through the competition, we had a big surprise—the restaurants, which were started by a pair of sisters in the 1880s, use what amounts to the same recipe—prepared differently and served differently, but all made with the same ingredients. So it all comes down to this: who does it better?”

She stepped forward, in front of the table, and addressed a different camera. “Our chef-judges, Simon Rideaux, Cary Catlin, and James Melville, have eaten at each establishment. They’ve had the experience and they’ve tasted the chicken, and then they’ve gone back to each restaurant with exactly that question in mind. Fried chicken, they say,