Love and the Best Kind of Pizza

"I thought this was everybody's perfect pizza," Mike says to me, three bites in to a slice of plain.

We are sitting opposite one another in what looked like a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint. The inside holds raw elegance--softly lit tables, clinking wine glasses, and the self-same hardwood of a dance floor.

I smile at him softly, admiring the slight curl of his dark hair. This isn't my kind of pizza, but it's not bad. The crust is a little to thin and cracker-like for me, but the sauce is good. Not too sweet.

I like the fold-up crust better, the kind that flops over--melty cheese and grease spilling together and onto the plate. It's what I was raised with.

"So where is your favorite pizza place then?" he asks me after we finish and pay our bill. He takes my hand as we shuffle to the car, fleeing the cold.

"I don't know if I have one. Mostly, at home, we eat at the same pizza place every time. It's alright." We get in the car. I lean back against the cold leather, shivering. I turn on the heat.

"Well, that's just unacceptable. For our next adventure, we must find you a pizza place!" he declares, putting the car in reverse. "First of all, you're Italian. And second of all, everyone should have a favorite pizza place."

A few weeks ago, I wrote a story narrating Eve's thoughts upon being created. In my story, I write in Adam and Eve with two languages: both can talk to God, but they cannot speak with one another. Thus, God acts as translator until they can build a common tongue.

I have a feeling this is truer than I know, and it is more than an ideal pizza--man and woman learning one another, building togetherness.

I used to think people could not be so complex. They had to be grasp-able, understandable. They are not, and that is why knowing takes so long.

It is a structure: a bridge and its unfinished painting. In Pittsburgh, there are always workmen on the bridges, in the swirling snow and heat. Rust wears off the bridge paint and tears at the architecture, the bolts and screws. The workmen paint to keep the bridges standing, holding cars and people and their weight.