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favorite and he kind of knew it, I guess. But we both went into the business—I don’t mean the baking business; I mean the family business, the Tosi Bakery.” His shoulders straightened a bit when he said, “Tosi Bakery,” as if it were his instead of his brother’s.
    “We got to be damn good bakers, you know that? I mean, Bobby and me both. I’m gonna tell you something—Bobby can’t bake any better than I can.” He sighed. “It’s like when we were kids. People think he can, because he’s got the
Tosi
Bakery, you know what I mean? But he’s no better. In fact, I’m putting out a superior product right this minute.” He nodded, emphasizing the point. “You can run a taste test. Go ahead. Try Bobby’s loaf and mine, and see which is better. Guarantee you Palermo makes a better sourdough. Go ahead. Try it yourself.”
    “We will,” I said, because it didn’t look as if he was going to continue until he had our word on a taste test. I presumed we couldn’t have one there and then, because there was no Tosi bread in the household.
    “Know why it’s better? Because of the secret ingredient, that’s why. Look, it’s this way. My brother and me came up together. We learned to bake from the same teacher—our papa, who was the best baker in town except for old man Martinelli. So it stands to reason we’d bake the same, doesn’t it?” He looked at us anxiously.
    Once again, we nodded.
    “Unless,” he said, straightening up again and looking triumphant, “unless what?”
    “I can’t imagine,” said Chris.
    “Unless one of us improved on the old way. Know what I mean?”
    There was nothing to do except nod again. My head was starting to feel like a yoyo.
    “Well, I improved on it. Go ahead. Try a taste test, you’ll see.”
    “You mean,” I said, “that you’ve added something to the bread that you don’t ordinarily find in sourdough?”
    “I didn’t say that,” said Tony, looking mischievous and quite pleased with himself. I glanced at Cathy and saw that she looked anxious.
    “But you mentioned a secret ingredient.”
    “Ah. You noticed that, did you?”
    Guess what I did then? Right you are—I nodded.
    “The secret ingredient’s what does it. Nobody knows what it is and nobody’s gonna know—except Cathy, of course.” He patted Cathy’s knee. “But it’s the thing that makes the Palermo loaf the best. The only thing is, we aren’t the biggest.”
    “Why,” asked Chris, “did you leave the Tosi Bakery?”
    “I was getting to that. Like I was saying, me and my brother went into the business. And then Pop died. Mama, she didn’t know nothin’ about running the business, so her and Pop had figured out what would happen in the event of his death. It was in his will and everything—me and Bobby inherited everything, split right down the middle. Equal shares of the Tosi Bakery. Equal partners. But somebody had to be president of the corporation, and that was Bobby. So there we were grown up and Bobby was still my boss. And I had all these great ideas about how to run a bakery. I wanted to expand, build a couple of new plants, truck bread all over the state, you know? Bobby wouldn’t buy it.”
    For once, Chris and I got to shake our heads.
    “Bobby was so used to me being little brother and everything, he wouldn’t listen to me at all. So we fought all the time. And Mama, she was no help. She’d just say, ‘Now, Tony, you listen to your brother. Bobby’s always been the smart one.’ So pretty soon I couldn’t take it anymore, you know what I mean? I mean, I could bake as good as Bobby and I could run a business just as good. Only everybody thought I was ‘little brother’ and I couldn’t think for myself.”
    “So you had to get out,” I said.
    Now it was Tony’s turn to nod, and he did it emphatically. “Yeah. I had to go.”
    “Bobby bought you out?”
    “It wasn’t quite that simple. See, I didn’t want to go. I mean, I guess you ladies can’t