Claire
Bellamy

Chicken on Wednesday

A romantic comedy, give or take.

Twenty months ago, Lou Almeida was the loudest woman in Alder, California. She'd had eleven jobs in eight years, a red F-150 she bought from her father for a dollar, a bar stool at Rudy's with her name on it, and a plan for a tri-tip trailer that the loan officer at the credit union turned down twice in one morning. She found that interesting enough to make him buy her lunch.

Now she's eighteen months sober. She drives a gray Corolla at the speed limit. She makes the same chicken every Wednesday and is in bed by nine-thirty, and this morning she's getting married to the loan officer, in a livestock hall at the county fairgrounds, in a hundred and two degrees.

Everybody says she's doing great. Her mother says it. Her best friend says it. Lou says it herself, often enough that her father has started keeping count.

Out by the fence, her father's flatbed is holding a broken carnival ride, because the fair just packed out and there's nowhere else in Alder to put a Zipper. The part is coming from Ohio. Nobody knows which Tuesday.

Chicken on Wednesday is a small-town comedy about a wedding, a bar, a tow yard, and the difference between getting sober and getting quiet. A romantic comedy, give or take.