is Food Wars. Food Wars is going to fucking save this town.” She turned away from Amanda as the coffee carrier rushed up.
“Sorry that took so long, Mae; there was a line,” she said.
“That’s totally okay. Jessa, my sister, Amanda. Amanda, this is Jessa, our nanny.”
Amanda stuck out her hand. Nanny? Mae brought a nanny? To Merinac? Her sister truly had lost touch, and not just with Kenneth, which Amanda still couldn’t believe. Bringing a nanny was an asshole move, and her comment about Food Wars saving this town raised every one of Amanda’s hackles, even if she had thought much the same thing. Merinac was actually doing fine, thanks for asking, with more new people and businesses than there had been in years—case in point, the coffee Mae loved so much. “Nice to meet you,” Amanda said to the girl, but Jessa’s attention had already turned to the kids, who were greeting her with a lot more enthusiasm than they had shown Amanda, possibly because she also produced juice boxes from the bag over her shoulder as she handed Mae her coffee.
“Guys,” she said, “I found a swing set. And a slide! Let’s go!” She quickly turned back and took Amanda’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” she said as she picked up Ryder and held out a hand to Madison. “We’re off, then,” Jessa said to Mae, and Mae waved. No fuss, no hugs, and the kids were heading down the street.
“Bye,” Amanda called after them, and Madison turned. In that over-the-shoulder glance, Amanda could see that she looked just like Mae.
“Bye, Aunt Amanda,” Madison called, then tugged at Ryder. “Say bye, Ryder.”
Bossy, too.
Ryder waved his chicken at Amanda, and she felt a small crush of affection for him rush through her. “Bye,” he called. The obedient younger. For now.
“They’re so cute,” she said to Mae, who had already turned away. “We could have taken them with us. I mean, your nanny? You brought a nanny?”
“Please, Amanda, everybody in Brooklyn has a nanny. You didn’t think I was going to come out here and try to do Food Wars while juggling a six-year-old and a three-year-old, did you?”
Three references to New York in less than as many minutes, true to Mae form. Also true to form was the annoyance Amanda felt after a few minutes of her sister’s company, an experience she could usually end by hanging up the phone. Once past the hair, Mae hadn’t asked a thing about Amanda, or her kids. She’d managed to combine insult and condescension in nearly every sentence, and now she was brushing off her own kids as if they were just another inconvenient bump on the golden Mae road. Why not have them at Mimi’s? Of course, in New York, things were different. “We grew up at Mimi’s,” she said. She couldn’t remember a single babysitter, not ever. Only the great-aunts, and Mae, always in charge, always there.
Mae rolled her eyes. “And I am sure Mom would have been more than happy to get us out of her hair sometimes. Plus, she had Grandma Mimi and Mary Cat. My kids don’t know anyone here, they’re not going to hang out with a stranger, and they don’t need to be in every scene of Food Wars. I know how this works. One wrong move, and next thing you know, they’ve made your kid look like a spoiled brat, or you like a monster.”
“Great, now you’ll look like someone who leaves her kids with someone else all the time. Gus and Frankie were at Frannie’s every day, and they’re fine.” Amanda was happy to needle Mae about this one. There wasn’t much she’d done before her sister, let alone done better—but at least she’d been able to raise her kids without hired help, even as a single mom.
“You have no idea what this is going to be like, Amanda. It’s not just getting filmed while you do your usual stuff. It’s being able to do the scenes they want over and over, which kids don’t get—plus you have to watch out for what they’re trying to make happen. Did you read the release you signed? They can do anything they want with any footage they get, so you have to be sure they don’t get anything you don’t want out there.”
Amanda thought of the interview she hadn’t realized she was doing. But Sabrina had basically said they wouldn’t use it. “I’m sure Sabrina isn’t like that,” she said.