Page 83 of Gone Tonight
“None of you,” I tell them as I reach for a slice of veggie. “Ever heard of lasagna pizza? You make it in a bread loaf pan.…”
I’m about to explain how it’s cooked when Reggie nods. “Yeah,I’ve had that before. It’s pretty good. But nothing beats a street slice from Ray’s.”
I frown. “Wait, you’ve had lasagna pizza? I thought my mother invented it.”
He shakes his head and swallows his mouthful before elaborating.
“I used to eat it at this place in Maryland back when I was in college. It was their signature dish.”
It’s as if a sheet of glass has dropped down, separating me from everyone else in the room. I’m acutely aware of Tin tossing her crust in the trash and heading back into the hallway, and of Reggie opening another box of pizza, and of the warmth of my untouched slice through the paper plate against my palm, but I’m not a part of this group anymore. I’m in the wings, watching characters play out a scene.
“Where’d you go to school again?” I manage to ask Reggie.
“Towson. It’s near Baltimore.”
He holds out the open box, offering it to the rest of us, then he grabs another piece for himself.
“Do you remember what that restaurant was called?”
Reggie frowns. “Pizza something… sorry, no.”
“Be right back,” I mumble. I edge out of the room, into the hallway. I desperately need a moment to think. I’m on the cusp of capturing something ephemeral. It feels like I’m chasing fireflies, watching them light up and disappear.
Reggie is around my mother’s age. My mother claims to have grown up about an hour from D.C., on the Virginia side.
Towson is about an hour from D.C., but on the Maryland side.
Maybe all those hours I spent trying to locate her high school were fruitless because I was searching in the wrong state. She could have spun the geographical dial a hundred and eighty degrees, switching up one detail that changed everything. My mother appears to wholly be a fabrication. Why wouldn’t this bit of her history be, too?
She lied about inventing lasagna pizza. She probably didn’t want to tell me the truth because it would provide a clue to her background.
She probably ate it at the same place Reggie did.
The firefly flicker glows brighter, lighting up my brain. All I need now is my iPhone and a little privacy. I begin to hurry toward the visiting family room.
Mr. Damon is standing in the hallway, nodding his head in time to music only he can hear.
“Thank you,” he says as I pass by, and I realize he’s reaching for my paper plate. Like I’m a waitress bringing him his order.
I give him my untouched slice because he may have just provided me with another clue. My mother could have worked at that pizza place in high school. Maybe that’s how she learned the recipe. She’s a waitress. It could have been her first waitressing job.
I pause before the door to the family quarters, looking around to make sure no one is watching, then I slip inside. It’s cool and dark and silent in here.
I don’t have very long, but at least now I’ve finally got a few data points to narrow my search. I pull out my phone and begin.
It turns out I don’t need long at all. Ninety seconds is all it takes for the lies my mother built for twenty-four years to come crashing down, like I’ve pulled out the final stabilizing wooden block from a game of Jenga we’re playing.
I’m staring at the Facebook page for Pizza Piazzo, home of the famous “Lasagna Pizza.”
We invented our signature dish more than 30 years ago. Try it! You’ll never go back to eating pizza the old way again.
Beneath those words are photographs of lasagna pizza. They look identical to the dish my mother has made for me ever since I was a little girl. She even cuts them the same way: in squares rather than rectangular slices the width of the bread pan.
I quickly input Pizza Piazzo as a key word in a new Facebook search, select the option beneath it for “people,” and then watch as hits begin pouring onto my screen. There’s a wealth of information: photos of guests gathered in booths and around tables at the restaurant, and images of former and current managers and members of the waitstaff. There’s an address, website, and phone number for Pizza Piazzo in Towson, Maryland.
I quickly start to type out a message to the first few people in my search who identified themselves as past or current employees.
Hi, I know this sounds a little crazy, but I’m trying to locate a woman who worked there about 25 years ago.
