bring her a drink, then. You surely know what she likes. And bring me a bourbon and be ready with another. Now.” He settled back into his chair and looked around, taking in everything from the glimpse of the pool table that was visible through the door into the bar to the Tiffany-style lamps that hung above every table. “I grew up in a town like this one. In Indiana. Never wanted anything as much as I wanted out of that place. But you. You’re still here. Do you love it? Are you happy? Satisfied?”
There were two cameras around the table, one stationary, the other with an operator who pointed it at her face as he asked the question. Amanda didn’t love anything at this moment, and she felt stripped bare by the question. Turn it back on him, said a small, helpful voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like her sister. You don’t owe everybody a little piece of yourself.
“Why is that everyone’s first question?” she asked. “This is where I live. Why wouldn’t I be happy? Why would I want to leave?”
“Because it’s very small. Because there are two restaurants and they both serve fried chicken. Because you must know everyone and have solved every mystery about their sad little Hobby Lobby lives a long time ago.”
“I love Merinac,” said Amanda, stung. No wonder he made her think of Mae. When it came to their hometown, he sounded just like her.
“Perhaps. But what do you do, when you have eaten all the chicken you can eat, and slept with all the men?”
You kick asshole outsiders in the balls, Amanda thought, unable to hide her surprise at the bald question. She would have loved to maintain a cool exterior, as Mae surely would have, but she knew she had turned beet red. Rideaux beamed. Was he expecting an answer? Flirting in some weird way? He stretched his arms wide and leaned back in his chair, smiling directly into the camera.
“I think it’s a question worth considering for anyone who considers at all,” Rideaux opined grandly. “Did I choose to stay, or did I just stay? Some people, they wake up, they’re sixty, they’re still here, and it’s either all they ever wanted, or they kill themselves. Or maybe fried chicken is your life. Is fried chicken your life, Miss Amanda Frannie’s?”
He was drunk, she realized. Drunk, and quite possibly pretty much always that way, so she could stop worrying that he was some sort of soothsayer.
“Of course,” she said agreeably. “And look, your fried chicken is right here.” Mercifully, Gwennie was here with the food, and Amanda didn’t give a damn what was polite or what Food Wars wanted; she wasn’t sitting here any longer. She stood. “I’m afraid I have to be getting back to work now.”
He surveyed the plate in front of him with interest, but as Amanda started to walk away he reached up and touched her arm, then beckoned her down. Reluctantly, an eye on the camera, she bent slightly, letting him whisper his alcohol-scented advice in her ear. “You can love a town and still leave it, you know,” he said. “You think you have all the time in the world. But you don’t.”
How good were those microphones? She gritted her teeth. “I hope you enjoy your chicken.” Asshole, asshole, asshole. He didn’t know anything. Just enough to tar everyone with his own brush and try to make trouble.
What Amanda needed was a few minutes to catch her breath, and to pour Rideaux’s words back into whatever bottle he’d magicked them out of. Instead, everywhere Amanda went, someone was on her with a camera. Check on Gus at the dishwasher? Camera. Give Frankie a hand with a tray, just to be with her for a minute? Camera. Slip into the office for a quick break? There was Gordo with his bright lights and that damn chair she hadn’t meant to sit in again. “Is it always this busy on the weekend?”
How did she want to answer that? “Friday is pretty much always our busiest night,” she said. Not like this, true, but wouldn’t it be better if they looked as if they were used to these crowds? “I think everyone’s having a great time. And the kitchen is killing it.” Truly, they were, and the diners were eating the evidence of her morning. It was probably a good thing they had so much chicken.