“This isn’t exactly a ritzy part of town.”

Berry shrugged. “It’s an ethnic neighborhood. Italian bakery. Vietnamese laundry. Ethiopian restaurant. Everybody’s struggling to make a start, like me.”

Jake executed a smooth corner at the light and frowned at the dark street lined with grimy stores and intersected by narrow alleyways. “Why have you chosen to work in this pizza place?”

“Why did you choose to teach first grade?”

Jake smiled wryly. “If I tell you, will you tell me?”

“I hope your story’s more interesting than mine.”

“I invented Gunk.”

“Gunk?”

“It creeps. It crawls. It comes in five scents and three flavors. It’s edible. It’s freezable. It’s disgusting.”

“I’ve seen it advertised on television.”

“I invented it. I was working for Bartlow Labs, looking for an inexpensive organic glue, and I discovered Gunk.”

“Are you a chemist?”

“I used to be. I quit the second I sold my Gunk rights. I hated the fluorescent lights and the nine-to-five routine. And it was boring. Glue is boring.” He smiled proudly. “Now I’m an inventor.”

“What about teaching first grade?”

“Guinea pigs. I have twenty-one kids to test my new ideas. Besides, I had a teaching degree and I needed the money. I squandered my Gunk money on this car and that monstrous Victorian house.”

Berry wrinkled her nose. The man had forsaken a respectable profession to invent future Gunk, and thought of seven-year-olds as guinea pigs. Prince Charming had some frog in him.

“How did you ever get the school board to hire you?”

“Luckily, Mrs. Newfarmer had a nervous breakdown and suddenly abandoned her first-grade class. When I applied for a job as substitute teacher, they were desperate enough to consider me.”

“Nervous breakdown? Must be some group of kids.”

“The kids are terrific. Mrs. Newfarmer had marital problems.”