“She hates to be told what to do, too.”
“Runs in the family, I’m guessing,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like your Mimi doesn’t even want me looking at her recipe. I swear the frame falls off the wall whenever I come near it. I had to hang it back up this morning.”
“I wouldn’t think you needed a recipe by now.”
“I just like to check my proportions every now and then, imbibe a little of the spirit of the original cook. Even if she might not have liked me much.”
“I don’t think she was big on men.”
“We’re really not all alike.” He finished shifting the chicken from the bucket to the sink and paused, a serious look on his face. “Hey, have you noticed anything odd about your mother?”
Mae froze, then quickly turned so Andy couldn’t see her expression. She had, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Barbara seemed flatter, somehow, and when she wasn’t flat, she was obsessing about this win, and about money, in a way Mae had never seen. Yesterday, with the exception of her willingness to clean up Mimi’s, she had been even more Barbara-like than usual, and Mae had felt reassured, only to watch her mother fade away as the day wore on. Today she’d disappeared even more quickly. This chicken job had not been fun, but it seemed to have taken a lot out of Barbara. And yesterday, after work, Barbara had been much quieter than usual, even with Ryder and Madison. But Andy didn’t need to know any of that.
“She seems great,” Mae said. “Glad to see us, working as hard as ever.”
Andy shrugged. “She gets tired earlier than she did when I first got here. She leaves more things to me—of course, that was the idea, but I get the sense she’s not what you’d call a delegator.” He gave Mae a hard look and lowered his voice. “And the mess. I keep having to take bags out, stuff she’s left here that we can’t work around. It’s not just the house anymore.”
Oh no, Mae thought. He knew. He had to know—of course he would. How could he not? She looked down at the ground, then spoke before she could catch her words and hold them back—because the Moores never, ever talked about this with outsiders.
“We can’t let anyone see the house,” she said. “Or know that’s an issue. It’s just—it would mess things up, right?”
Andy looked at her thoughtfully. “Most people around here know,” he said. “But, yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t want it on TV.” He laughed, and Mae glared at him again, then relaxed. He was right, after all. No harm in that.
“I don’t,” she said.
“She won’t let you . . .” Andy made some vague gestures with his hands that Mae took to mean cleaning up, and she laughed.
“Not hardly,” she said. “It’s like you said. She’s not much of a delegator.” It was a relief to trust him, even this much. “I think she needs to take it easier. You’re right. And maybe—there’s you, and if we win Food Wars, you could do so much, right? Like, this could be a real cult destination.” Andy nodded, and Mae was relieved to move the conversation on.
“You’re thinking we could win now? Really?”
“I am. Look, Mimi’s is special. You know it is. And you’re special.” Butter him up a little—plus, he really did have a feel for the simplicity of the kitchen. “You could really impress those chefs tonight with the way you want to get just these few things perfectly right. And then people would come. They’d take road trips for your chicken. Nobody’s going to take a road trip for a frozen mozzarella stick.”
Andy gazed at her thoughtfully, and Mae had a feeling her compliments hadn’t moved him much. She wondered if he saw this as his opportunity to move on to bigger and better things. Maybe not. Merinac, she was starting to see, wasn’t actually a bad place for someone with some history to start over.
“Maybe if you wanted to, Mom would let you play with some lunch service, or adding something special to the doughnuts Saturday morning.” There had to be some room in this for him. “And I was even thinking she could give pie-making classes. Or, well, Patrick would. And people would come. Especially with the Inn here, and the lakes—this kind of thing can really work now, you know?”
Andy seemed to be catching a little of her fire. “Like