Johnathon's Arc

Chapter 24 of 31

The Monday problem sat between them for two days. Lexi could film the show or keep her best sales day. She could not do both. Johnathon watched her sketch the same plate three times and cross it out. He waited for the moment the closed boutique would drain her, the way losing Mondays had once drained his bistro. Then the show aired its first promo, and the numbers moved the wrong way. Wrong for his fear, right for them. He drove to her shop that morning. The pink boutique glowed under its glossy sign, and a line already curved past the display windows. He had never seen it open early. Inside, Lexi rang up customers two at a time. Her cat-eye glasses had slid down her nose. She did not stop to push them up. "They saw the promo," she said between sales. "The chef and the woman who taught him his colors. That's what the man said on air." She swiped a card. "Now they want to buy her shirt." Johnathon stood at the counter. "You closed Monday to film. But it's Tuesday and you're packed." "Every day since the promo," she said. "They come after work. They come on their lunch." She handed a bag across the counter and finally pushed her glasses up. "The show didn't take my day. It gave me the other six." He understood then. The fame that filled his purple bistro was filling her store too. People wanted the pair from the television. They bought his food across the city and her clothes here. One closed Monday cost her nothing now. The rest of the week paid it back and more. "So we film," Johnathon said. "You don't lose anything." "I gain," she said. She counted the drawer without looking up. "That's all I'm saying right now." He called the man in the suit from the sidewalk outside the shop. He confirmed the schedule. Mondays at the competition hall, both of them on camera, both names in the credits. The man said the network had already booked the polished national hall for the taping. He said the story tested well. People liked watching two people cook. Johnathon hung up and looked back through the glass. Lexi was drawing again on a napkin between customers, a plate half food and half picture, the way his best work always started. The show would not cost her the shop. It would grow both. That night they sat in the studio apartment. The grey female curled on the napkin sketch. The grey male watched from the sill. Lexi laid out the first episode's dish, and Johnathon named each part. "We start Monday," she said. "Monday," he agreed. The fear he had carried for a week was gone. Nothing was pulling them apart. The next thing to solve was the plate itself, and they would build it together, on camera, in front of the country.