this to come out for him. Or his family. Or Lolly, or Sparkling, good God—
She had her hand nearly on the screen door before she heard it—Andy’s voice, a low rumble, then a woman’s laugh. Automatically, she kept going, opening the door as the owner of the laugh clicked into place in her head, so that she saw Amanda at the exact instant that she realized she knew exactly who and what she was about to see.
Amanda.
Amanda, in Mimi’s.
Amanda, her double-crossing sister, in Mimi’s, her butt up on the counter, her legs wrapped around Andy’s waist, her hands buried in the hair at the back of his neck, Andy pressing his body into hers.
Goddamn it! All of the fury Mae already felt toward Amanda, all the words she’d just held back in the parking lot, boiled up and out. She slammed the screen door into the wall, shouting, “You do not come in here! Andy! You know she doesn’t come in here!”
Amanda and Andy jerked apart, Andy leaping a foot back and then sticking out a hand to steady Amanda, who nearly fell off the counter.
“Mae! Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just—we just—I—”
“Get out!”
Mae ran to Amanda, wildly shaking her hands at her. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” She turned to Andy. “A hundred years, right? More. A hundred years since we let anybody from Frannie’s in here. What were you thinking?” This wasn’t about Amanda’s betrayal, not anymore. No. This was Amanda trying to destroy everything. With difficulty, she refrained from kicking her sister, who was scrambling to pick her flip-flops up off the ground. “Can you even imagine what Mom would say? What she would do? Get out! Just get out!” Amanda stumbled, then scrambled for the door. Mae chased after her. “Out!”
To Mae, it was as if the lights were flashing and thunder crashing, even if those reactions came from her heart and mind. Amanda could see them too; Mae knew she could. The screen door had flown open and a gust of wind rushed from the pass-through toward the door, pushing them, although the night had been still. Mimi’s might not speak to Andy, but it was howling at the two Moore girls.
Amanda had only been inside Mimi’s once since marrying Frank and taking up her work at Frannie’s. It had been the day after his funeral, when she had come quietly in and sat and watched Mae helping Barbara prep, and they hadn’t said anything. The air had gone out of the kitchen and things became very quiet, just the three of them, until Barbara took an apron from the hook on the wall and held it out to Amanda.
Amanda shook her head.
Barbara held the apron out again, and again Amanda shook her head.
And Barbara, as if possessed, started shaking the apron at Amanda, saying nothing, flicking it at her, flapping until Amanda fled her stool, urging her toward the door.
“I thought you were coming back to us,” Barbara said, staring straight ahead. “If you’re not, go home. You’ve got another family now.”
Amanda struggled with the door, which finally burst open, then ran, slamming it behind her, never once looking at Mae. Barbara resumed her work as if nothing had happened.
As if Amanda had never been there at all.
At the time, Mae felt like her mother took the whole thing with Amanda and Frannie’s more than a little too far. She had tried to go after Amanda but known instantly by the look on Barbara’s face that it would be the wrong move, that staying, then trying to bring them together later, would have a better chance at working.
It hadn’t. Amanda hadn’t wanted her, either. And seeing Amanda, here, now—Barbara was right. Amanda had chosen. And now she needed to live with that choice and leave Mimi’s alone.
But Andy did not seem inclined to follow the rules.
“What the hell are you doing?” He put a hand on Mae, who knocked it away—what, did he think she was actually going to punch her sister? She might have wanted to, but they weren’t twelve. She kept her hands on her hips, very aware that Sabrina had just appeared in the doorway, phone in her hand. Although her stance was casual, Mae was dead certain she was filming.
Sabrina smiled as though nothing was happening. “Amanda, you found Andy—great! But I guess I thought you didn’t usually go into Mimi’s?”
Mae had to admire the lure Sabrina tossed out there. As angry as she still was—and