Johnathon's Arc

Chapter 16 of 31

The bistro filled again the next night, and the next. By spring the wait for a table ran two weeks deep. Johnathon cooked until his hands ached, then drew new plates at the counter after close. He was happy. But he noticed Lexi had gone quiet. She came home late now, her sneakers scuffed, her purse heavier than usual. "Where were you?" he asked one night. He was plating a lemon pasta for himself, the burner still hot. "I got a job," she said. She set her purse down and pulled off her glasses to clean them. "At the pink store downtown. The doll one." Johnathon knew the place. A glossy storefront lit up in neon pink, black, and silver. He had walked past it a hundred times. "You paint," he said. "You don't have to fold shirts." "I like it." She put the glasses back on. "I want my own thing. That's all I'm saying." He understood then. She had helped him build a name. Now she wanted one that was hers. She worked the floor for two months. She learned the register, the stock room, the way people wanted to feel when they carried a bag out the door. She came home tired but lit up, telling him small things. A little girl who cried over a doll. A display she rebuilt three times until it looked right. One night she came home and dropped her purse on the counter with force. "They made me manager," she said. Johnathon put down his knife. "Lexi." "I run it now." Her voice went quiet and plain, the way it did when a thing mattered. "The whole store. Me." He crossed the kitchen and hugged her. Their grey cat wound between their feet, and the sleek grey male stretched on the balcony behind the glass, watching. The store did well under her. Word spread the same way it had for him. Then came the afternoon she called the bistro during service. "Turn on your phone," she said. "After close. There are photos." Johnathon looked that night. A pop singer had walked into her store that afternoon, then an actor two days later. Cameras had followed them. Lexi stood in the background of one shot, arms crossed, running her floor like she owned the air in it. "They keep coming," she told him at home. "Famous people. Because of the pictures." She sat on the counter and swung her feet. "I made something. Same as you." "You did," he said. And he meant it. But he saw the cost sitting between them. Her store ran on nights. His kitchen ran on nights. They both worked while the city slept and ate. He looked at the two plates cooling on the counter, one for each of them, and understood that lately they never ate together anymore. He wiped his hands. He had built a name, and so had she. Now he had to figure out how to keep her in the same room.