A Wood-Fired Christmas (Mistletoe Kisses)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

KITCHEN WORK DIDN’T pay well, so Ezra knew he had a good deal with Loveless.

When Barrett had won the pizzeria in a game of cards, he’d taken it on more as a lark than anything else. Having worked in finance, he hadn’t known abusing the cooks was the industry standard.

Instead, with an unseriousness Ezra would later come to recognize as Barrett’s signature attitude, he’d decided it would be fun to close out his career owning a pizzeria. How hard could it be?

“Help Wanted. Full time. Let’s make pizzas! Two guys, one kitchen, one hundred pizzas a day. Simple toppings. We close when we sell out, but you get paid for the full day. We’ll split tips.”

Ezra, in desperate need, decided this place would go down the tubes in three months, but three months of income was three months more than zero, so he applied. Once they opened, he actually enjoyed it. Barrett had started out doing as much work as Ezra, but then it was less, and less, and less, and that hands-off approach laid a lot of work on Ezra’s shoulders. By the end, Ezra had needed to manage it all, so he’d figured it out.

It was the same way he’d figured everything out all his life. With your back to the wall, the only way to go was forward, so forward he went.

He got paid the full day no matter how long he worked, so it made sense to sell out sooner. That was his first impulse, but then he realized selling out was selling out—and that meant income for the business. He prepped in the mornings while listening to audiobooks about advertising and Ted Talks about the psychology of marketing. He finessed the social media to make it fun. He offered deals to large-scale customers and made connections. Ezra really leaned into the idea of “The Loveless One Hundred.”

Loveless even did a few charity events for free (Barrett had been no-holds-barred gung-ho for those). Eventually, Hartwell figured out who they were.

Not bad for three years of backbreaking, soul-sweating effort.

Effort which Lacey intended to gut in a matter of weeks.

Another job wouldn’t be hard to find. What would be hard to find was another job with this flexibility and these hours and the people he’d come to know. Another job where Ezra’s personality and the business’s reputation were so closely linked.

Ezra hadn’t grown up in Hartwell. No one knew him as a trailer park kid with five younger siblings, all wearing shoes they’d outgrown nine months before. He’d created an online persona for the business, but he’d grown into it, or maybe the business had grown into him. Customers chatted with Ezra as though they knew him. They’d make jokes over the phone that they’d seen first on their social media. They’d start their calls with, “Am I in time?” and sometimes Ezra even answered the phone with, “Hey, you’re one of the Loveless One Hundred!”

The hour before Barrett had escorted Lacey into the shop, Ezra had been contemplating t-shirts saying exactly that. “We are the Loveless One Hundred.”

The Love-lace One Hundred-and-Sixty-One wouldn’t have the same ring.

He was going to watch his business go down the tubes.

He was going to need another job.

“You have us open on Thanksgiving.”

Lacey sounded irritated, as though Ezra couldn’t read a calendar. With a glance up, he said, “We are.”

Her nose wrinkled (and it made her look cute) while she stared at the laptop screen. “Why?”

Ezra swept out a hand toward the dozens of dough balls proofing on the counter. “See, we sell pizzas, and we can’t do that if we’re closed.”

She shook her head and waved him down. “Yes, yes, I get that part. But who buys pizza for Thanksgiving?” She half rolled her eyes. “Or do you sell a turkey and cranberry sauce pizza?”

Ezra tried to give her a patient look, but mostly to hide the inner flinch because…well…yes. Kind of. “It turns out a lot of people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual day, but they also don’t feel like cooking.” He spoke louder so she couldn’t interrupt him. “We keep it to sixty doughs that day, but we do sell out. You can check the records.”

This was her second day in the shop. Thanksgiving was this week, so while she’d probably been planning on a short week, Ezra didn’t have Thanksgiving off. He didn’t need it, didn’t want it, and never had taken it.

“Wait, the grocery store?” Lacey chuckled. “We delivered three pies to the grocery store? Oh, and the rehab hospital. I wouldn’t have thought that. Wouldn’t their kitchen have made a real Thanksgiving dinner for the residents?”

“Early delivery for the morning shift before they go.”

“Makes sense.” Then she stiffened, and Ezra braced himself. “Wait, you actually put together a Thanksgiving pizza?”

“Turkey sausage, onions, and mushrooms.” He checked the sauce as it heated. “I didn’t go too crazy with it, like using gravy or dotting it with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.”

“I’m…speechless.” She did seem momentarily speechless, but before Ezra could enjoy the effect, she said, “And this year?”

He nodded. “You can see people have already ordered a bunch, plus a few orders will come in organically. You know, people who do the turkey on Friday or Saturday and want a break, or folks who celebrate alone.”

Lacey said, “That’s an idea. Maybe next year, we can throw a pizza party for people who have nowhere to go.”

How would he even advertise that? “Isolated? Bored out of your mind? Have a Loveless Thanksgiving!” Although if Lacey’s vision came true, it wouldn’t be Ezra’s problem next year…assuming it was anyone’s problem.

He said, “It’ll be a quiet day. I can handle it solo.”

She frowned, and again, it was almost cute. “That’s not fair. Then you don’t get a Thanksgiving.”

Ezra shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t mind. Ezra had nowhere to go. The first year, Barrett hadn’t noticed that Ezra opened on Thanksgiving because Barrett had flown off to feast with his second cousins who owned a mansion in California wine country—and, not coincidentally, a nationally-known winery. Ezra had called some places he knew would be open (eg, the Hartwell Fire Department, who laughed at him because they’d already planned a nine-course turkey dinner) and mustered up a few pity orders from managers who wanted to boost the morale of whatever skeleton crew they could muster. Finally he’d posted to social media, expecting derision like Lacey’s, except a few people replied with, “Top that thing with turkey, and I’m ordering.”

He and Shelly had done all the deliveries, then once he’d closed for the day, he and she had eaten the sixty-first pizza at the counter. “It’s better than Mom would have done,” Shelly had remarked, and Ezra had snorted because he could have opened a can of turkey-flavored cat food and surpassed anything Mom would have done.

The next year, he’d used turkey sausage, and the pizza was even better—plus, they’d gotten a reputation.

Lacey said, “You’ll celebrate your Thanksgiving on Saturday or Sunday, then? When Greg’s working?”

Ezra snapped, “I said I’ll be fine.” Then, to soften things, “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

She tilted her head. “You don’t do Thanksgiving at all? What about Shelly?”

About to reply, he stopped. Then, “My family doesn’t do Thanksgiving.”

She said, “Moral objection?”

“Financial objection. Space objection. Can we change the subject?”

Lacey didn’t reply, but her deep frown meant she wasn’t letting it go. He said again, “What are you doing?”

She huffed. “Well, normally I’d be in Boston with my family, but this year, Uncle Barrett wants me to join him.”

Ezra blurted out, “What?” She looked up, and he said, “Barrett’s your uncle?”

His whole body had gone numb. He stood leaning on a counter he couldn’t feel beneath his hands. Uncle? Barrett was conceding the place to Lacey not because she had any business running a pizzeria, but because she was his niece ?

This wasn’t even like Barrett trying to impress a hot date or picking up a gold digger. Nepotism was the worst reason to do anything. No one was ever qualified when that happened.

Sounding confused, Lacey said, “Yeah—? Didn’t I say that?”

“No! He just said you were ‘Lacey’ and you never called him anything at all.” Come to think of it, she’d been a master of never directly addressing Barrett in any fashion. It had always been “we” when she spoke about the place, or “he” when she meant Barrett.

Lacey said, “What’s wrong?”

What was wrong? Other than they were doomed?

Ezra lowered his voice a notch. “I assumed you were buying the place because you had restaurant experience.”

“I do have some,” she said.

Forcing himself, he turned away and checked on the oven. The wood at the center had a good burn going, and he grabbed the tools to scatter the logs to the edges. “Your actual qualification is being his niece. If he’d been running a pottery shop, he’d have sold you that, and the same if he was printing a magazine about collector’s edition soda cans.”

Lacey made no reply.

He said, “Is he actually selling it to you? Or is he giving it to you?”

Lacey swallowed hard. “Giving it. He said he didn’t pay for it, so neither should I.”

Ezra shoved the logs backward, scattering sparks. The brick oven was heating well, a good toasty burn that made summers a nightmare but winters a comfort as it produced a pizza seared to perfection.

Lacey didn’t love pizza. Barrett had loved pizza, or rather, he’d loved the charm. He’d gotten it running and left it alone, at least until the moment he’d balled it up and effectively tossed it in the the trash. Lacey didn’t love it. She’d come onboard to change it.

So—organic onions for the Thanksgiving pizza? Or was she going to show up on Wednesday with a free range turkey that had died of old age?

From behind him, Lacey said, “Do you not have any family other than Shelly?”

“None that want to give me their pizzeria.” Ezra went to get another log, but Lacey had moved to stand in front of the wood. “Do you mind?”

“I do mind. Do you have other family?”

“Not that it matters, but yes, I have two younger brothers and three younger sisters, and everyone else lives in a trailer out in Lewiston.” He pointed to the wood, and Lacey stepped aside. “As you can imagine, we didn’t have a rich uncle to give us a house. I saved up for a car because it made a handy spare bedroom, and even better, I drove it away.”

Lacey said, “And you came here?”

“I bounced around.” Ezra tucked two new logs into the oven and pushed them to the back. They’d start burning, and that should keep things right for a good long while. “When I found this place, I rented an actual room.”

Lacey murmured, “Oh.”

“So I guess your uncle bailed me out, too.”

“He didn’t bail me out. I did go to college.” Lacey’s voice was soft. “But I guess it looks that way.”

Ezra held his hand in the mouth of the oven enough to gauge the temperature. The bricks had begun absorbing enough heat that they were reflecting it back into the interior. “If he’d offered, I might have been able to get a loan and pay it off over time, but with a family member around, I guess it’s Merry Christmas for you.”

Who was Ezra kidding? No payment plan on earth would have worked with his budget. “Time for September’s payment, First Hartwell Mutual Cooperative Bank! I’ll just check the tip jar to see if anyone left me a thousand dollar bill.”

Lacey’s voice was soft. “He never mentioned any of this to you?”

“You were a Christmas surprise. You should have shown up with a little red ribbon around your hair.” He turned back. “Not that any of this matters. If you run the place into the ground, you’ve got a safety net.”

Lacey said, “And you don’t.”

It wasn’t mean, the way she said it. Nor was it pitying. She wasn’t the Lady on the Hill, observing her peasant serf as he fed the fire with wood carved from her estate. It was a mere acknowledgment: she had a safety net, and he didn’t. She could afford to fail. If Ezra couldn’t afford his rent, by contrast, he’d have to sell stuff and then return to living in his car.

When she spoke again, though, her voice was a bit sharper. “That’s why you don’t want me making any changes. Because you think I’m going to mess up your life.”

He glared at her. “Since you put it that way: yes.”

Lacey had an infuriating, unnatural calmness. “It’s not all about you.”

“Mess up the pizzeria, mess up its reputation—and yes, mess up my life.” Ezra forced a smile he hoped looked venomous. “So—in that case, it is all about me.”