Frank and I were sitting on the beach in front of our apartment. For once we had absolutely nothing to do, no case to investigate, no paperwork to catch up on. Vanessa was staying for a few days. She and Callie had just moved into an apartment a couple of blocks away.

I remember now, it was Biff’s birthday and we were going to have a party. Frank and I had spent the morning clearing back furniture in the living room so there would be more space, as we were expecting quite a few of Biff’s football buddies, and they are BIG guys.

Callie and Ness were our buying drinks, and Tony was in the kitchen making his famous ‘Pritos birthday pizza’

Tony came out and said he had forgotten the anchovies and would Frank or I mind going down to the nearest deli, because he couldn’t leave the oven.

I remember tossing a coin with Frank as to who would go. I picked heads, Frank flipped a coin and it fell into the sand, then we both dived on top of it like big kids. The tow of us ended up lying side by side covered in sand and laughing hysterically, the coin long lost, buried somewhere underneath us. I said I would go, and as I made my way over to the van I remember Frank yelling to me.

But I never did get back, instead I ended up here.

I wouldn’t mind some of that pizza now. Prito’s birthday pizza is a tradition amongst us. When we were back in Bayport Tony’s Dad used to make it for us in his restaurant, pizza with an extra thick crust and a topping for each year.

When we moved to the West Coast Tony started making them. Biff’s was going to have 22 toppings…

I often wondered at Tony’s decision to go to college on the west coast. I had somehow imagined that he would stay in Bayport and go college locally.

The Prito’s are a really close knit family. I guess it’s to do with their Italian blood. Tony has a load of sisters, all older than him, most of who are married and have kids of their own.

I have lost count of the amount of birthday parties for his nieces and nephews that I’ve been too, and the Prito house at Christmas is exactly how I imagined Santa’s workshop to be as a child, full of little people running around wildly and pieces of toys lying everywhere!

It’s hard to describe Tony. He’s quiet, hard working, almost reserved at times. In school he had every girl in Bayport High chasing after him, but he never seemed to realize it.

It used to be our tradition to meet in Prito’s every single Saturday when we were in high school. Me, Frank, Chet Biff, Phil and Tony. Tony would make us up a special large deep dish pizza with all our favorite toppings and then take a break for half an hour and sit with us. Sometimes the girls came too but mostly it was just us guys.

Saturday pizza became such a regular thing that no-one else would sit at our table, because they knew what time we would arrive. That hour of food and conversation, it became the bond that held us together.

It was a place where you could be in a group and feel totally accepted. In many ways we were such an unlikely group to put together, some quiet, some very loud, but it worked.

And in many ways I think Tony appreciated us being there more than we realized at the time. It was his chance to escape work and responsibility, to become one of the boys.

Since moving out here he has changed a little. I think his life has always been dominated by his family. The only son of an Italian family means that the expectations of multiple generations seem to lie on your shoulders.

That kind of responsibility isn’t easy for anyone to handle. Tony has worked in his father’s restaurant since the age of nine or ten, and he knows the business inside out.

He’s good at the work too, Prito’s Italian restaurant is synonymous with good food, and every Saturday hordes of girls crowd the place hoping to catch a glimpse of Tony as he serves them their pizza.

But sometimes I think that Tony spent too much time there, had too much responsibility at a young age. He worked almost every weekend and sometimes after school. And it wasn’t just the work, he was involved in everything.

If the business wasn’t doing well, or money was tight, Tony’s father would sit Tony down, and tell him how worried he was, and how they were going to have to do something to attract more business. At fifteen and sixteen years of age, that’s was a lot to put on someone’s shoulders.

He was always mature for his age, always the worrier of the group, always the one to make sure everyone got home ok after a night out. Sometimes I think he wishes that he had been left to act like a normal teenager.

Tony rarely fought with his parents, because if he did they just got upset, as if by arguing with then, he was betraying them in some way. I remember witnessing this reaction in them a few times, and thinking how unfair it was, kind of like emotional blackmail.

The strange thing is that I have very rarely seen Tony upset. He is always, always in good humor, always with a smile on his face. Even when we would all head off somewhere for the weekend and Tony would have to stay and work, he never once let it get him down, and he would just smile and listen to our stories when we returned.

I don’t actually think he openly resented the work, or the responsibility, that was just the way things were. But I do think that is why he chose to leave home to go to college. I know that it didn’t go down well with his parents.

When my offer of a college place came through I rang Tony straight away to see did he get his. His mom answered the phone and I can remember hearing his Dad shouting in the background

In the end though I think they accepted it, and accepted that Tony had to build a life for himself, outside of Bayport and away from his family. They loved him enough to give him that space and I think it’s made him closer than ever to them.

Tony will always be the ‘father’ of our group though, it’s the role that he assumed from the beginning and it has stuck to him. When something goes wrong (which let’s face it, frequently happens?) Tony is the one to calm everyone down; he is the one that will sit beside you in the hospital when someone you love is injured.

For some reason he is also the first person that I go to when Frank and I have an argument. I can’t really explain why, but his presence is comforting. I often think it’s a shame that he was the youngest because he would have made a great older brother.