her breath with a combination of fear and love. “Daddy told me to take special care of my chicken,” he said. “We gave it a new name, not just Chicken.” He paused, then pronounced the name carefully. “Raw-lings. We called it Rawlings.”
Damn.
AMANDA
On Wednesday afternoon, precisely at two, Sabrina Skelly and Food Wars showed up in Merinac, and Mae did not.
The minute the convertible came into view, van trundling along behind it, Amanda silenced her phone and shoved it deep into the recesses of her tote bag. Mae’s absence was not her problem, and Andy’s texts—at first conspiratorial, and now getting a little frantic as he apparently dealt with a Barbara who believed he could just postpone this whole thing—were a distraction she didn’t need. This was the way she wanted it, anyway. Mae’s sudden enthusiasm for Food Wars had been welcome and helpful; her insistence that she actually was coming to Merinac had not been. The less Mae, the better.
Amanda was ready. Frannie’s was ready. Nancy was ready, or Amanda hoped she was. She was paler than Amanda had ever seen her and gripping Amanda’s hand with sweaty force. It seemed entirely possible that her mother-in-law might faint, or burst, and that, at least, Amanda understood completely.
Worrying about Nancy was an excellent way to avoid worrying about herself. Amanda always drew chickens when she was upset—those stupid chickens, Mae called them, and Amanda’s art teacher, along with every other teacher, agreed—and this year her sketchbook was full of them. She’d stayed up late last night, unable to stop, and the chickens that emerged from her pencil had fared poorly in front of the camera, tripping and rolling across the floor, molting all their feathers, unexpectedly laying an egg.
Amanda did not like cameras. In school pictures, she was the awkward tall girl hulking in the back and staring at the ground. She was not Mae, who starred in every school production. Amanda painted sets. She did not appear onstage. She’d thought, when she wrote that first e-mail to Food Wars, that maybe she could overcome that. She could be someone different. After all, she’d gained two children and a mother-in-law and lost a husband since those days—but she knew if Mae showed up, the old Amanda would reemerge.
But Mae wasn’t here. The new Amanda, the one who made things happen in Merinac—made it a place Mae claimed to want to come home to, even—prepared a welcoming smile as Sabrina Skelly opened her car door and headed straight for her, arms outstretched, tiny self nearly running in spite of ridiculously high heels, her brown curls catching the sunlight.
“You must be Amanda! Oh, this is such a delight. We’re just so glad to be here, and this”—she looked around, gesturing to the low buildings that made up Frannie’s, the big sign, with its fifties-era lit-up outline of a chicken and an arrow pointing in, and the fields stretched out around it—“this is perfect. Just perfect.”
Sabrina was right—it was perfect. This little northeastern corner of Kansas really gleamed in the spring, with a fresh light that everyone who lived here treasured before the heat of the summer kicked in, and a few rolling hills that took everyone expecting flat open spaces by surprise. Sabrina embraced Amanda, who returned it as best as she could, given that Nancy had not let go of her hand. “Amanda, really, it’s just lovely to meet you finally.”
Amanda, a little dumbstruck and very aware of her own lack of makeup and the unstyled waves of dull brown hair, which she cut herself at a boring and blunt shoulder length, settled for a straightforward response. “It’s nice to meet you, too. This is my mother-in-law, Nancy, who runs Frannie’s.”
Nancy, too formally dressed in a silky blouse with a light sweater over it, both in Frannie’s maroon, hovered next to her. “I run it with Amanda,” she said. “I couldn’t do it without her.” Behind Nancy pressed every member of Frannie’s staff, all eager to be introduced and recognized, to have the sun of stardom shine on them for a moment. Sabrina waved over her crew, and there was a wild flurry of introductions and explanations before Sabrina clapped her hands. Clearly she wasn’t just the star and nominal producer of Food Wars—this woman ran the show.
“My people! Get on with your jobs; get us settled. Frannie’s people—let’s get this party started! We brought cookies from McLain’s in Kansas City, and let me tell you, they’re divine.” She ushered them inside