When my dough was floured like his, he said, “Next, we’re going to press it out with our fingers. But stay away from the outer edge. That’s the crust.” We both worked our fingers in and around the dough for a long time, and slowly, the wedges were becoming flatter. I followed his lead when he flipped the dough over and flattened it on that side, too. We did that a few more times and then he said, “Now fold it over so you have one of your hands covered in dough, and you’re going to throw it back and forth. Like this.” He showed me what he meant, and as he did he said, “Left hand. Right hand. Left hand. Right hand. And do it as hard as you can. Got it?”
I held my breath as I held out my left hand sandwiched in the dough and tried to toss it into my right hand. The dough bunched up, and I almost dropped it. “Ack!” I said. “That’s hard.”
“Faster. And really smack it against your hand.” He showed me again how to do it. Why did it look so easy when he did it? “The quicker you do it, the easier it’ll be, I promise.”
So I tried again and threw it, hard and fast into my other hand. “Great!” he said. “Keep going.”
I fumbled the dough a couple of times but somehow managed to keep it from falling out of my hands completely. I couldn’t believe how much the wedges had grown from when we’d started.
“Okay, you know what comes next, right?”
“Sauce?” I asked, hoping it would be just that easy.
He laughed. “Nope. We haven’t tossed it yet, Lindy. We gotta toss it.”
“Like, in the air? But I don’t think I can do that.”
“Sure you can. Watch me. Put both of your hands underneath the crust, and all you have to do is throw it up and catch it. I’m gonna spin mine when I throw it, but you can spin it once it’s back in your hands, before you toss it up again.”
He tossed it up and caught it. He did it a second and third time. “Now you try!”
At first, the dough hardly left my hands. But he kept saying, “Higher, Lindy. You gotta get it higher! You want your pizza pie to taste good, right?”
I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly, I decided to just go for it. To throw it as high and as hard into the air as I could. Both Harold and I watched it go up, up, and up before it started to come down—a pizza falling from the sky. I held my hands up to catch it. But they weren’t centered, and so they only caught the edge of the dough, and I couldn’t hang on. That beautiful pizza crust that took, like, fifteen minutes to make fell straight to the ground with a soft thud.
People don’t realize how hard
It is to make a
Zippy pizza with
Zero mistakes but I think it’s like
Asking an elephant to walk across a balance beam.
Harold tried to make me feel better. He said it happens to everyone at one point or another. But I still felt bad, and silly for throwing it so high and thinking I could make it work. We threw my crust into the garbage, and together we worked on the perfect, beautiful crust he’d made. After we placed it on one of the wooden pizza paddles with the long handle, we put sauce and cheese on it, and he helped me place the pizza in the oven to bake.
“Great job,” he told me as he raised his hand for a high five.
“I better not,” I said. “I might miss.”
His brown eyes sparkled as he laughed and laughed. “You know what, Lindy? You’re all right. And anytime you want to come back here and try again, you’re more than welcome, okay?”
“Thanks,” I said, even though I wanted to eat our pizza, get out of there, and never show my face at Joe’s again. I took off my apron and handed it to him. “While it’s baking, could I use the restroom, please?”
“You bet.”
I grabbed my bag and went into the small bathroom. Once I’d closed the door and locked it, I leaned up against it and pulled my notebook out. I didn’t really have to go, I just wanted a couple of minutes to myself before I faced Vivian and Tyler. I doodled a little bit, thinking about my pizza-pie disaster before I decided to try an acrostic poem, something we’d learned about in second or third grade. Of course the word pizza would have to have the letter z twice, but I made it work. I didn’t even have to find a way to put the word zebra in there.
Before I left, I washed my hands and checked myself in the mirror, which was a good thing because I had flour smudges all over my face. I cleaned myself up before I finally returned to the kitchen, also known as the place where Lindy Mackay’s crust hit the dust. Literally.
“Your pizza needs a couple more minutes,” Harold told me. “You want to go wait with your friends?”
“Sure,” I said.
Vivian and Tyler were standing in a corner, waiting for me (the place is too small for chairs and tables) and I wondered if they’d found a spot where they’d been able to watch me in the kitchen. I glanced behind me, but I couldn’t tell. I decided I’d just ask and get it over with.
“Did you see what happened?”
Vivian shook her head. “No.”
I looked at Tyler and held my breath. Maybe he’d seen and she hadn’t. “See what?” he asked me.
So they hadn’t seen my epic pizza-crust fail. Now I had to decide whether or not I should tell them. Harold might say something to them if I didn’t so it seemed there was nothing to do but own up to it.
“I dropped the crust.” But as I said it, they didn’t look too concerned. “Like, onto the floor?”
Tyler grimaced. “Oh no. When you were tossing it?”
“Yes. I threw it too high, and when it came down, it wasn’t centered, and I just, I lost it. But don’t worry, we’ll still get pizza. We made one with Harold’s crust. It’s in the oven now.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re not the first,” Vivian said. “Things don’t always go smoothly the first time or two, you know. We get better with practice. Not perfect. No one’s perfect. But better.”
Before I could respond, Harold approached with a box in his hand and a smile on his face. “Here’s the prize for your hard work.”
Vivian took the pizza out of his hands. “Thank you for your generosity.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He looked down at me. “It was fun working with you, Lindy.”
“Funny, maybe,” I replied.
Harold shook his head and smiled as he wiped his hands on his apron. “What’s your next adventure going to be?”
“We’ll eat some pizza,” Vivian replied, “and then we’re off to a bakery. Figure we’ll get the cooking and baking done all in one day.”
Another kitchen? I wanted to run and lock myself in the pizza place’s bathroom and never come out. Okay, gross, I take that back. What I really wanted to do was run home to my safe room that made me happy with its books and butterflies, and absolutely no oven in sight.
While I was trying to figure out if I could pretend to suddenly be sick, Tyler opened the box and pulled out a slice. “We better eat, Lindy. Don’t want you falling down on the job later.”
“I’m not very hungry,” I said softly.
“I better get back to work,” Harold said. He looked at Tyler. “I forgot to get you guys some napkins. Follow me to the counter, and I’ll show you where they are.”
One of the tall tables where people stood eating their pizzas had just opened up. Tyler placed the box there, threw his slice of pizza into it, and then followed Harold to the front counter, both of them weaving through the line of people.
Vivian and I moved over to the table. I stared at the cardboard box, wondering how many pizzas they made every day. Two hundred? Three hundred? A thousand? And I hadn’t managed to make even one.
“Lindy?” Vivian asked. “What’s the matter?”
“I really don’t think working with food is for me,” I told her. “Can we just go home?”
Her face drooped like a daisy left in a vase without any water. “You don’t even know where we’re going. It’s called Milk and Cookies, and they make the most delicious co
okies. And the people who work there are incredibly kind.”
Tyler came back with napkins and must have sensed we were in the middle of a serious conversation. “What’s going on?”
“I guess Lindy is feeling like she might be done for the day.”
“Okay,” he said as he grabbed his slice and took a bite. After he chewed and swallowed, he looked at me. “It’s really good.”
“I wish you could have gone back there, too,” I said. “I feel bad.”
“Nah,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You shouldn’t. At first, I wasn’t sure how this whole thing would go, but now? I’m kind of excited to see where Grandma takes us and what you’ll be doing. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the next place?”
“I’m sure.”
“You know,” Vivian said, “as I consider what I had planned for today, it occurs to me I may have underestimated you, my dear Lindy. I need to think bigger.”
“Bigger?”
“Yes. Absolutely. So let’s take you home because that’s what you want to do, and next Saturday, I’ll make it up to you. What do you think?”
“I guess?” I wished I could be more confident, but what if I failed again? Still, I couldn’t really say no. I needed her and Tyler to help me with this project.
Vivian’s eyes were warm and kind. “It’s one little misstep on this journey of yours. That’s all.”
I nodded. “Okay. Home for now, and next weekend, we’ll try something else.”
“But can’t we eat our pizza first?” Tyler said, finishing off his first slice and reaching for another one.
“Of course we can,” Vivian said. “Lindy, are you sure you wouldn’t like some?”
Maybe I hadn’t made the crust, but I’d helped with everything else. And it looked so good. I smiled. “Well, maybe just one piece.”
Be kind.
Be good.
Do good.
Do it well.
Give it your all.
Give your best.
The world needs your best.
The world is waiting.
No more waiting.
No more demands, please!
When I got home, I heard them before I saw them.
“Honey, that’s not progress. Progress is real live reservations. Dates where people are staying here and have given you a credit card number to hold their spot. How many of those do you have?”
“I disagree, Kevin. It’s like you expect them to magically happen, and it doesn’t work that way.”
“But—”
I slammed the door to our apartment and said, “I’m home!” I was loud. Very loud. Too loud. But I didn’t care. As long as they stopped the arguing.
“Be there in a minute, sweetie,” Mom called out.
They were probably continuing the discussion with hushed voices in their bedroom with the door closed. Well, fine. At least they weren’t yelling at each other.
I went to find Davis, but he wasn’t in his room. It was a little after three, and his game started at four. I realized that’s probably where he was, but why wasn’t Dad with him?
Once in my room, I shut the door and went over to the window seat. I wrote in my notebook, waiting for Mom to come. A minute passed. Then five minutes. Ten. Twenty. After I finished a poem, I slammed it shut and started pacing. Were they still arguing? I could imagine both of them getting angrier and angrier, their faces red and their eyes narrow and cross. It made my stomach hurt.
My phone buzzed, so I pulled it out of my pocket.
I had a text from Tyler. I’d given Vivian and Tyler my phone number so we could easily make plans for next weekend.
Tyler: What are you doing?
Me: Nothing.
Tyler: I think you need cheering up. Want me to bring Odie over?
Me: Yes! I’ll meet you at the front door.
Just then, there was a knock on my door. I went over and opened it. It was Mom.
“Sorry I didn’t come say hi to you sooner. Your dad and I were talking. How’d it go today?”
“Can I tell you later? Tyler is bringing Odie over for a little while.”
“Oh, sure.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Wait. Do you mean he’s bringing him up here?”
“Yes. Please don’t be scared. Odie is really nice. Like, the nicest dog you’ve ever met. And we can hang out in my room. You won’t have to deal with him at all.”
“Okay. I guess that’s fine.”
I started to walk past her when I remembered Davis. “How come Dad didn’t go with him to the game?”
“He called from work and said he was tired. Asked if Frannie might be able to come over and take him. So I asked her, and she was happy to do it.”
“I bet Davis wasn’t very happy,” I mumbled as I walked out.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. I have to go downstairs and let them in. Be right back.”
“Okay. I’ll be in my room, working.”
In the family room, Dad sat on the sofa with the remote in his hand, channel-surfing. I stopped and stared at him, because this was highly unusual behavior for my father, who always seemed to be doing something.
“Dad?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“You okay?”
“Fine. Just tired.” He looked at me. “You going somewhere?”
“Tyler and Odie are coming over. Mom’s fine with it.”
“Great.” He went back to the television.
As I walked downstairs, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling I had. Another argument. But not just that, Dad had skipped Davis’s game. Why? He loved watching Davis play. Had he wanted to be alone with Mom for a while so they could talk about the inn without us around?
I must have looked worried when I opened the door for Tyler because the first thing he said to me was, “Wow, you really do need cheering up.”
As I bent down and petted Odie, I said, “Why’d you think I needed cheering up?”
“You were really quiet on the way home. You know, Lindy, it was just a pizza. Like, at least you didn’t catch your hair on fire. Or grate your knuckles instead of the cheese, dripping blood everywhere.”
I cringed. “Yeah. But who knows what might have happened if we’d gone to the next place. Blood might have been a real possibility. Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”
I stepped aside and let Tyler and Odie into the entryway.
“Heel,” Tyler told Odie. I turned around and watched as Odie walked right alongside Tyler, his big, fluffy tail wagging back and forth.
“You’ve trained him so well,” I said as we walked up the stairs together.
“Well, he’s a great dog to work with. That makes it pretty easy.”
“Did you take classes with him, or just figure out how to do it on your own?”
“We took some classes. And then I kept working with him after that.”
When we got to our apartment, I tried to rush Tyler and Odie past my dad, but of course my dad had to get up and greet them.
“Good to see you both again,” he said as he knelt down and scratched Odie’s chest. “Lindy, I’m sorry, I’m so tired I forgot to ask you how it went this afternoon. Did you go to some fun places?”
“Only one place, actually,” I said.
“She made a pizza,” Tyler said.
Dad stood up and gave me a nod. “Really? That’s impressive.” He patted his belly. “And I just realized I am starving. Think I’ll go make something to hold me over until dinner.”
“See ya later,” Tyler said as I rushed off toward my room.
When Tyler came in, he looked around before heading toward the window seat.
“Nice butterflies,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious.
“Thanks. You’re welcome to copy my idea if you want to,” I teased.
He smiled. “That’s really nice of you.” He looked at Odie. “Down,” he said as he motioned his hand toward the floor. Odie immediately obeyed the command.
<
br /> I plopped onto the hardwood floor next to him, and Odie put his head into my lap. I leaned down and buried my head into his fur. Everything inside of me went soft and warm. I’ve always wondered what it means to feel like your heart is melting, and as I cuddled that sweet dog, it felt like maybe I finally knew. How had Tyler known this was exactly what I’d needed? When you pet a dog, it’s like all the troubles of the world disappear and what’s left is a whole lot of love.
“You love dogs,” Tyler said. “I can tell. How come you don’t have one?”
“My mom,” I said as I sat up, though I continued to pet Odie’s soft fur. “She’s not really a fan. She’s so stressed out lately, it’d probably be good for her to have one, though.”
“What’s she stressed about?”
“The inn. We don’t have many reservations yet. She and my dad have been arguing. I hate it.”
“Sorry, Lindy. My grandma says it’s better to talk about things than to keep everything bottled up inside, though. I guess that was part of the trouble with my parents. My mom was upset my dad was working so much, but she didn’t say anything. And then everything just kind of … exploded.”
“That sounds horrible,” I said. I stared at his black Nike sneakers. “Are you scared?”
“Of what?”
I kept stroking Odie’s fur. It was so, so soft. “That they might not be able to work things out?”
“I try not to think about it much since there’s not anything I can really do about it.” He slid down from the window seat, crossed his legs in the crisscross-applesauce kind of way, and sat on the other side of Odie. “Are you scared? About your parents?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I looked up at him now. “Yeah.”
“I hope everything works out,” he said.
Even though there wasn’t really anything he could do, I felt better having told someone. “Thanks,” I said. “Me too.”
Suddenly, Tyler bounced up to a standing position. “You know what? This is not what I’d call cheering you up. Do you have any music on your phone?”