Johnathon's Arc

Chapter 18 of 31

The closed Mondays did not hurt them. Johnathon watched the numbers for a month and waited for the drop. It never came. The bistro filled the other six nights just the same. Lexi's boutique kept its crowd too. The new dishes he made on Mondays sold out by nine. People booked weeks ahead to try them. The money still poured in. So why did she keep going quiet? One Monday night they ate late at the pass. He had cooked the beet trout again. Lexi picked at it, her fork slow. Their small grey cat wound around the stool legs. The sleek grey male sat at the window, watching the street. "You keep stopping," Johnathon said. "When you talk. You say a thing, then you say 'that's all I'm saying.' You've done it for weeks." Lexi set her fork down. She pushed her glasses up. "It's fine. The store's fine. We're fine." "That's three fines." He waited. "Tell me the rest." She looked at the plate a long moment. Her sentences got quiet and plain. "I closed my store to be in your kitchen. Every Monday. I sit here and I draw your food." She tapped her notebook. "And it's good. You're better because of it. Everyone tastes your name." "And your name?" She didn't answer. "That's it," he said. "That's what you keep swallowing." Lexi took off her glasses and cleaned them on her shirt, a thing she did when she needed her hands busy. "I built something separate. On purpose. So I wasn't just the girl next to the famous chef." She put the glasses back on. "Then I closed it one day a week to help him get more famous. That's all I'm saying." Johnathon sat with that. She was right. Every Monday sketch went onto his menu, under his name, in his purple dining room. She gave him her method and got nothing with her own name on it. He stood and pulled a clean plate from the shelf. He set it in front of her. "Draw something that's yours. Not mine. A dish you'd put your name on." Lexi blinked. "I'm not a chef." "You taught a chef to see." He slid her the pencil. "One night a month. The bistro cooks a plate you designed. Your name on the card. I just hold the pan." She stared at the blank plate. Then she opened the notebook to a fresh page. Her pencil moved slow, then fast. She drew a swirl of pink beet, a white curl of cream, a black char line through it. Her colors. Her shapes. She turned it to him. "Like this?" "Exactly like that." Johnathon looked at the drawing and felt the thing shift. He had fixed the stale menu weeks ago. He had not seen what it cost her until now. He had built his name on her hours. Tonight he started giving one back. But a shared plate meant a shared kitchen, and two names on one card would ask who the bistro really belonged to.