Johnathon's Arc

Chapter 23 of 31

The show offer sat on the counter for three days. Johnathon read the card each morning while he fed the two cats. The grey female wound around his ankles. The long grey male watched from the windowsill. Filmed here, the card said. His answer due by Friday. He had the bistro at five and Lexi across the city. A show would eat every free hour they had left. He did not know how to say yes without losing her. Lexi came home late that night. She set her pink purse on the table and looked at the card. "You already decided," she said. "I can tell." "I decided nothing," Johnathon said. "That's the problem. If I take it, I'm gone all week. We planned this dish together. I don't want to do the next one without you." She pulled out her notebook, then set it down unopened. "Then don't," she said. "Call them. Tell them your terms." "Terms?" "You're the national top chef. They came to you." She sat across from him. "Ask for me on the show. Not backstage. On camera. I design a plate. You cook it. We do it together or you walk." She stopped. "That's all I'm saying right now." Johnathon stared at her. It was the same thing she had done at the bistro, her name on one menu card a month. It had worked. He picked up his phone. He called the man in the suit and repeated Lexi's terms. He asked for her to appear on the show, credited, designing dishes beside him. He waited while the man went quiet on the line. "A cooking show with two people," the man finally said. "A chef and the woman who taught him his colors. The judge already told that story on air." A pause. "People liked that story. We can build it. You're both in." Johnathon set the phone down slow. "They said yes," he told her. "Both of us." Lexi did not smile right away. She reached across and took his hand. "So we're not choosing," she said. Her voice went quiet and plain. "You never had to. I told you that the first day." The grey male jumped onto the table and sniffed the card. Johnathon moved it before a paw landed on it. He felt lighter than he had in weeks. The show would not split them. It would put them in the same kitchen, on camera, with both names in the credits. They stayed up planning the first episode. Lexi sketched a plate on a napkin. Johnathon named the ingredients. The dish grew between them, half drawing, half food, the way his best work always did. Then Lexi's phone buzzed. She read the screen and her face changed. "The show films Mondays," she said. "Mondays are the only day my boutique makes real money." She looked up. "I can't close it every week. Not for a year."