“Who’s up first?” he asks.
I don’t even get the chance to think about it before Cam eagerly steps forward.
“I’ll go!”
She trades her pizza for the peel in Tony’s hands and holds it up while he helps transfer her creation from the parchment paper to the flat, floured square of metal.
“Now remember,” he tells her, reiterating the instructionshe gave us all for pizza oven best practices before we each get our turns. “You have to just go for it. Don’t hesitate, but also know your strength. Don’t overshoot it or your pizza’s going into the flames.”
Cam nods eagerly and wastes no time stepping up to the oven that verges on too tall for her to comfortably use, then jabs the pizza peel forward like a fencer on the attack. The pizza slides perfectly into the “sweet spot” Tony described, where it’ll get cooked all the way through but not charbroiled.
Unlike the pizza I’m used to in the States, these take less than a minute to bake in the heat of the brick oven. And Tony, I guess realizing that he can’t fully teach us his craft in the course of one evening, takes charge of turning the pizzas once they’re placed to ensure they cook evenly, then helps extract them with the peel.
When he judges that Cam’s is ready, he slides the big paddle into the oven with ease and pulls out the most perfectly brown, bubbly, cheese-covered, garlic-scented pizza perfection that I’ve ever seen.
“Absolutely brilliant,” Tony proclaims, studying the result of Cam’s efforts.
She beams like she’s never received a kinder compliment. Then it’s my turn. Cammie sticks by to watch and offer moral support—or so I think, until she teases, “Don’t know how you’re supposed to follow that up, but good luck, I guess.”
I scoff, pausing with my pizza on the peel, ready to slide in the oven. “Camilla Lovett, are you trash-talking my culinary masterpiece?”
“I would never, dearest,” she replies with a devious grin, more of the real Cammie in her voice than Girlfriend Barbie.
When I look to Tony, expecting a reminder of proper pizza peel handling, he seems distracted, his eyes narrowed and unfocused in Cammie’s direction. When he feels my gaze on him, he gives me a nod that I realize is the only signal I’ll get, so I try not to overthink it as I slide my pizza into the fiery cavern.
Just when I bring the peel back out, Tony gasps. My head jerks his way, and I practically see a light bulb glowing over his head as he points to Cammie.
“Camilla Lovett? I knew there was something familiar about you!” he says, more than a little awestruck. His eyes are wide and shocked as he wipes a hand over his mouth. “You’re Alex’s daughter.”
The three of us remain there, frozen and unsure what to say or do next.
Until a puff of dark smoke curls out of the oven, and then another, and we realize, one by one, that my pizza is up in flames.
Chapter Fifteen
Cammie
“You’re sure you don’t wantany cannoli? My mother-in-law makesoutstandingcannoli, and I’m not just saying that to upsell you. If anything, I’m costing myself.”
Tony gives West and me a cheeky smile as he looks back and forth between us once more, holding his hands out with palms up in offering. I can only shake my head as I swallow another sip of my lemon spritzer—alcohol-free, for the sake of my head and pride—and West leans back with a hand on his stomach.
“I can’t do it right now, as much as I wish I could,” he says sadly.
“Ah, well. That’s what takeaway boxes are for, right?”
Even though we’re the ones who were purposefully—and still secretly—deceptive, Tony feels responsible for burning West’s pizza. As a result, after he wrapped up the officialworkshop for everyone else, he brought the two of us down to the patio of Antonio’s and began plying us with apology food.
Once he got over the initial shock of seeing his ex’s grown kid twenty years after they broke up, Tony seemed genuinely excited to meet us. West had been frozen with clear discomfort, looking to me to see how I reacted before he said anything—whether I’d admit to knowing about Tony and my mom, therefore revealing that West and I are weirdos who’d snuck into this cooking class like undercover agents and inviting at least a few more questions about our motives…or if I’d go with the easier out by pretending to be just as shocked as Tony.
Of course, I chose faux shock. We’re in pretty deep with the subterfuge already; if we’re not going to be honest, we might as well be consistent.
It’s sort of a wonder that all my breathywoooowwws andthat’s sooo wilds andwhat are the oddses have been convincing enough to keep Tony from seeing right through me. Then again, I suppose “she’s trying to ferret out whether I’m her long-lost father” isn’t a place most normal people’s minds would jump to. Plus, he’s been too wrapped up in his own memories and reminiscing to develop any suspicions.
Tony turns his curious expression back on me. “So Alex is good, you said? Still doing her Indiana Jones thing?”
I tap my foot against West’s under the table in silent acknowledgment of the irony.
“Still an archaeologist,” I say with a nod. Mom is where I got the Indy-is-a-low-key-looter opinion. “She’s actually around here this summer—back at Villa di Bronzo for the twentieth anniversary summer, if you remember that whole thing.”
