Michelangelo’s Pizza Cafe

Michelangelo’s Pizza Cafe, glowed in the night. The warm glow of the sign lit up not only the street corner, but Sienna’s night as well.

“Sienna? What are you doing here so late?”

She would have answered the voice had she not paused at the entrance to close her eyes and let the greasy, mouth-watering aroma that always hung in the air, welcome her in. She opened them again to find her friend, busy wiping down empty tables. “I need a comforting slice of pizza, Nick.”

He looked up from what he was doing to study her. Her usual messy bun of dark curls had now completely come undone. Those eyes of hers had always reminded him of a meadow under the golden sun of a summer day, only now there was a storm over it. She looked torn. “What’s the matter? Everything okay?” He finally asked.

She pulled out a chair and took a seat, “No...” She chewed on her bottom lip, the rose-tinted lipgloss that he secretly loved on her no longer shined on them. “I think I’m going to have to move back in with my parents.”

“Move back in? As in, move back to the suburbs to move back in with them?” His attention was solely on her now. “Why, Sienna?”

“Because I’m a fool. I wish I never set off to chase this dumb dream.” She heaved a sigh, toying with the buttons of her corduroy jacket. The jacket seemed to want to swallow her whole. Sienna wished it would. “They were right. I should have never left my hometown. My life was good there.” Nick thought he saw her eyes glisten right before she swiped at them, “I can’t even hold a job here. I’m two months behind on rent, not counting this one.” She began listing off on her fingers, exactly what was wrong in her life. “I probably won’t be able to afford my acting classes anymore, but I’m okay with that when I have yet to hear back from just one of the many auditions I have been to.” She finished through gritted teeth.

“Pepperoni pizza with extra pepperoni?” Somewhere along her rant, Nick had cut for her a slice of her favorite. He slid it across the table on a paper plate as he joined her as well.

Her lips curved in what she felt was her first genuine smile in a long while, “Thank you.”

He gave a nod in reply, watching as she took a bite. He wanted to say something, anything else, to see more of that smile. Nick knew better, though. He knew all her comfort was found in a good slice of pizza.

Sienna watched as his fingers drew invisible patterns on the wooden tabletop, mind elsewhere. She knew where. It was off searching for the right words to comfort her with, but little did it know, that all the comfort she needed was sitting right across from her. “So...” She finished off the last of her pizza slice, “You’re closing up shop again?”

“Yeah, it’s just me tonight. Everyone else already clocked out and left.” He slipped off his hairnet, the action itself satisfying Sienna. She disliked seeing his naturally coiffed, sandy blonde hair matted against his head. It was meant to have his fingers running through it (or her own, she wished) not trapped under a net.

Sienna rose out of her seat to toss the empty paper plate away when her foot caught on something. She bent down to find an open book, lying face down on the floor as if someone had hastily left and dropped it there. “Looks like one of your customers forgot something here...” She picked it up. It was small in size with a black cover that was slightly tattered at the edges. It was rather ordinary-looking to Sienna until she read what was written on the pages.

“Does it say who it belongs to?” She heard Nick’s voice ask.

Instead of replying, she sat back down in her chair to show him. “No name. Not even letters, just a whole lot of numbers.” Sure enough, the lines of each page of the book were filled with numbers. Some were scribbled out while others were re-written to look bolder.

“You mean like phone numbers?” Nick leaned over on his elbows to get a better look as she began flipping through the pages. “Could be someone’s address book...”

“I doubt it.” The numbers on the pages consisted of six digits that were written along each line. They were much too short to be phone numbers. Honestly, the whole book itself looked more like that of a mathematician’s rather than an address book. Oh, well. Sienna decided it was none of her business. She was about to give up her snooping and turn the book over to Nick when small pieces of paper tumbled out and spilled onto the table.

Nick picked them up before she could get a good look at them, “Lottery tickets? Whoever this book belongs to sure liked—” He cut himself off as he began looking them over closely.

“What is it?”

He laid the small pile of paper out on the table for her to see, “Almost all of these are winning tickets...”

It was true. The words ‘winning ticket’ was stamped on almost every one. “No way.” She breathed out in disbelief. “So, whoever this book belongs to,” she tapped its cover, “has been winning the lottery over and over again? They can’t be that lucky... Can they?” Sienna could almost feel the sting of that slap to her face. Someone out there had an avalanche of luck while all she had ever had was a dusting of it? It had to be too cruel to be true, right?

While she sat there feeling sorry for herself, Nick reached over for the book to get a better look at it. No way someone could be so lucky, he thought. He was convinced the reason for so many winnings had to do with this little, black book. He was right. Some of the six-digit numbers that were written in it matched with the winning numbers on the lottery tickets. “Look at this...” He turned to a page that had numbers written in what looked like some kind of formula. “I think the owner of this book figured out a strategy to keep winning the lottery.”

She perked up at his words. Alright, that made her feel a little better. “Really? Man, they must have a lot of time on their hands.”

Nick chuckled, showing off those dimples that sent Sienna’s heart fluttering. “Yeah, just look at some of these tickets.” He proceeded to pick up a few that she hadn’t noticed were yellowed with age, “These are at least five years old. Whoever this book belongs to has been at it for that long.”

“Amazing,” Sienna remarked. “Guess the book belongs to you for now, Nick.”

“It belongs to Michelangelo’s for now.” He corrected, neatly arranging the lottery tickets back in between its pages. “I’ll leave it here so its rightful owner can come back and claim it.” He said as he stood up and headed behind the counter with it.

She nodded in agreement, leaning back against the chair and closing her eyes.

“I didn’t know you were so tired, Sienna.”

“I’m not. I’m imagining what it’d be like if I were that book’s rightful owner.” She opened her eyes to find his own cerulean ones, staring back at her from across the table once again. “That was fun. Imagining, I mean.”

Nick offered her a smile, silently wishing he could offer more. “Hang in there.”

She returned it with one of her few genuine ones, “Goodnight, Nick.”

“Goodnight, Sienna.”

She stood and headed for the door before he could say anything else.

~

“Did the rightful owner come back?”

It was exactly twenty-four hours later and Sienna stood in Michelangelo’s Pizza Cafe, once again. Nick was behind the counter this time with his back facing the door that Sienna had just barged in through. It had been a long day for her, to say the least. She found herself wondering at every second what would become of that little, black book.

“Nick...” She reached over the counter to tap him on the shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

He jolted around to face her.

“Hey, why are you so jumpy?”

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Sienna thought half the block heard her come in, but sure. “What do you have there?” She noticed he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from something that he held in his hands.

He placed it on the counter for her to fully see. A winning lottery ticket. Specifically, a winning lottery ticket with today’s date on it. Unlike the ones they had seen yesterday.

She started to say something, but her brain couldn’t yet find the words to form a full, appropriate sentence. So instead, Nick spoke up and began telling her everything.

Turns out, the rightful owner of the book had returned for it that afternoon. It belonged to a lady who had stopped by for a bite with a couple of friends. She talked about losing the book as if it happened to her every other day. It was both funny and a little unusual to Nick—unusual because if he was the owner of that book, he would never let it out of his sight. However, the most unusual part of that interaction would come at the end. She left Nick a six-digit number and told him that he would know what to do with it. Of course, he did. On his way back from a pizza delivery, he stopped at a gas station and used those numbers to play the lottery. It was a win.

“Twenty thousand dollars.” He tapped the ticket, “That’s how much is right here.”

She could not believe it. Nick had been visited by Lady Luck. That was the only way her brain was processing all this. “So, when are you going to claim your prize?”

Last night, Nick had wished there was something more he could do for her other than offer slices of pizza. Now, there was. He picked up the ticket and placed it in her hands, “I’m not. It’s yours, Sienna.” She opened her mouth to protest and tried to pull away, but he held on tight. “This all started because you found the book under the table. I wouldn’t have gotten this if it hadn’t been for you.”

“But I’m not the one that lady gave those numbers to, Nick. She gave them to you.”

“And I’m giving them to you in this winning lottery ticket.”

There was no denying it. Sienna heard the sincerity in his voice. “But why?”

He shrugged as if it weren’t already obvious, “I want to see my friend make it on Broadway.”

Friend. Sienna’s hand slipped out of his own at the sound of that. She wasn’t about to let the twinge of sadness that word always caused cloud this moment, though. The moment Nick gave her wings to keep chasing after her dream. She couldn’t help the grin that took over her face at the thought of such a gesture, “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m not splitting this fifty-fifty with you.”

“Sienna, I don’t—”

She stopped him right there with just one look. If a person could be the Achilles’ heel of another, then Sienna was that and more to Nick. There was no way he could even see himself saying no to her. “Meet me outside to cash it in five minutes?” He asked with a sheepish smile.

“I’ll be waiting.” She called over her shoulder, already heading towards the door.

Yeah, Nick thought to himself, she was something special. He could not wait to see her make it big.