At first, it was just banter and random smiles, as impersonal as the wedges of cardboard on which he served up his soggy pizza triangles. After a number of disappointing forays to Moishy’s when he wasn’t there at all, Shaindele made a chart of what she observed was his work schedule. Sometimes he only worked evenings, starting at seven or eight, thus forcing her to find places to linger after school until he arrived. This was better, really, because if he came in really late, she could go home and then go out again, unaccompanied by Shulamis or some of the other girls. Even early on, she realized she didn’t want anyone looking over her shoulder where Duvie was involved. She never bothered explaining to herself why. And the plan had worked. Without the prying eyes of her Bais Yaakov friends, she was able to relax. Her tongue untwisted, and her lips lost their thin, tight stretch. She was able to smile at him.

“Do you want extra cheese, mushrooms, tuna?” he asked solicitously. Of course, that is what he asked everyone who ordered a pizza, but she could tell just by looking at him, he found her special. Unlike the others, it wasn’t really a question, just an excuse to linger and spend time with her, she told herself. And after he brought the pizza, he would wait a little while and then come back. “How was it?” he would ask her. “Good?”

She had always just nodded woodenly, until one day she finally got up her courage and said, “A little overdone, to tell you the truth. Look at all this black on the bottom.”

He seemed taken aback, but amused, expressions of mock horror and chagrin flickering over his handsome face. Then he broke into a smile, leaning over the counter toward her and whispering in her ear, “It’s the worst pizza in Brooklyn. In New York State. In the universe.” With lightning speed, he turned his back, disappearing behind the ovens before the eagle eye of Moishy caught him out.

The next time, he was even bolder. “Your face is as pink as a rose,” he’d murmured instead of talking to her about toppings. And she’d blushed furiously, walking out into the night with her limp pizza dripping oil. The entire week, she’d locked his words deep in her heart like a secret treasure, taking them out periodically to wonder over them.