The Search

It was almost 2 a.m. on a Friday night. Sally was in the back of her restaurant (“Sal’s Pizza,” because that sounded right), finishing up when one of her employees walked in. “Hey, Sal!” George said. “I found this.”

Sally looked up, and George was holding a black spiral-bound notebook. “Throw it on the counter,” she said. I’ll put it with the rest of the lost stuff. Anything valuable inside?”

George shook his head. “A couple things on the first page. But, here you go. I’m heading out.” With a jaunty wave, George let himself out the back door and wandered away whistling, like he always did.

Sally was just about to leave when the notebook caught her eye. “Oh, right,” she thought, walking over to stash it with the other lost keys, earrings, and credit cards she had accumulated. She was going to just toss it into the basket but changed her mind. Maybe George had missed something. She flipped it open.

On the first page was written, “Losing you is like losing a lung – it’s hard to breathe.”

Sally’s breath caught in her throat. The statement was so raw – and so true. In fact, it described how Sally was feeling at that very moment. Well, perhaps not that exact second in time. Work was healing and could keep her distracted while she was there. But every night when she walked into the empty apartment….

Sally tugged her mind away from the pain and went on reading. The only other thing on the page were six numbers: 6 18 22 11 30 51. Was it a phone number? No. Not a credit card either. Coordinates? She had friends who “geocached,” whatever that was, and they always talked about coordinates. With a sigh, she flipped half-heartedly through the rest of the notebook, but George was right – nothing. She tossed it into the basket, grabbed her keys, and headed home.

********

Friday nights were always too short. She was back up before 9 to get into the restaurant and get ready for the Saturday lunch rush, and there was always a Saturday lunch rush. This morning, as she showered, her mind wandered over the notebook. Who did it belong to? Who had they lost? And what were those numbers? Not that it really mattered, right? Just like all the other lost items she had, someone would either come back for it, or they wouldn’t. She always hoped owners would come back – one time they had found an engagement ring left on a table at the end of the night, and she was so relieved when the young lady came back the next day, completely embarrassed about having taken it off because she didn’t want to get pizza on her new ring, and then had forgotten to put it back on. But the number of items in the basket were a testament to how many things people left behind.

She finished dressing, her Sal’s Pizza T-shirt proclaiming, “Why yes, we ARE getting fresh with you!” and headed to her car. She was always the first one in the restaurant on Saturday mornings, but her opening crew would join her shortly. She wandered into the dining room to make sure everything was neat and ready to go. George was great at closing at night, but it was her restaurant, and she needed to make sure nothing had been overlooked. Just inside the front door was her Lottery vending machine. She… well, really, he … had decided to put it in about three years ago. If you bought a scratch-off and won – even a couple dollars – you got a free slice of pizza and balloons at your table. Sometimes she even brought out the confetti. It was just something silly and fun, and it made her place a little different from the other pizza joints in town. (Of course, her pizza was better, too, but that went without saying.)

Unbidden, her mind drifted back to the six numbers in the notebook from last night. 6 18 22 11 30 51. Were they lottery numbers? They could be, right? I mean, not that they’re much good without a lottery ticket, but…. Sally laughed out loud and wandered back into the kitchen to finish getting ready for lunch.

Like every other Saturday, lunch was bustling. When her full staff was there, Sally was content to stay behind the register – taking orders, greeting regular customers, commenting on how big the kids were getting, or offering free ice cream for a birthday. From the register, she could see the entire front of the house – the whole dining room, the side kitchen where the pizza was hand-tossed and then cooked in brick ovens (with plexiglass walls, so the kids could stare in wonder), and the front door. She noted with some amusement that today seemed to be a big day for scratch-off tickets – her servers were staying busy blowing up balloons and attaching them to tables and booths. Every time they walked out with the balloons, everyone in the restaurant would cheer and applaud. It made Sally smile – and the kids seemed to love all the excitement.

As the lunch rush slowed down, Sally had the crazy idea to run to the grocery store and grab a lottery ticket for herself. It seemed like everyone else was having a lucky day – why not her? She never played the lottery, but she had six numbers that had shown up out of nowhere and the state’s Multi-Millions! was at $10.5 million. What would it hurt to throw a dollar at it and see what happened?

Sally told her assistant that she was going out for a walk, and she strolled down the street. She wondered what had gotten into her that she was playing the lottery with six random numbers, but the sun was shining, and she was feeling…. Well, if she were honest, she was feeling almost giddy. She walked in the door and went to the service counter. The manager smiled as Sally walked up.

“Hey, Sal! What can I do for you today?”

“I want to put six numbers on the Multi-Millions! for tonight,” Sally replied without hesitating.

“Oh, yeah! It’s getting big, isn’t it? Okay, that’ll be a buck! What numbers do you want?”

Sally was surprised how easy it was to remember all of them. “6, 18, 22, 11, 30, 51,” she ticked off on her fingers. The clerk gave her the ticket, Sally stuffed it into her jeans pocket, and without much further thought, she wandered back to the restaurant.

As Saturday nights tended to, the rest of the evening passed in a blur. The jukebox played merrily in the corner of the restaurant, children ran around playing with each other and watching the pizzas being tossed, and she had three birthday parties that night. Once again, it was almost 2 a.m. when George joined her in the back. “Hey, boss! Did you see there was a lottery winner tonight? From right here! Have we ever had a lottery winner here that you remember?”

Sally’s heart jumped into her throat. It couldn’t be. She had to have bought just one of thousands of tickets sold in town, she rationalized to herself. And yet, she had to know. As calmly as she could, she asked, “What were the winning numbers?”

“Um…,” he pulled out his phone. “6, 18, 22, 11, 30, and 51. Only one winning ticket, so the winner takes home the whole caboodle!”

Sally felt faint. “George, I think that was my ticket!”

George looked at her with surprise. “You played the lottery?” he said disbelievingly. “You don’t even do scratch-offs!”

“I know,” she said. “It was a totally random thing. I just…” her voiced trailed away. The notebook had given her the numbers. The notebook that knew exactly how she felt. The notebook that belonged to one of her customers and had left it behind….

George was looking at her strangely. “Sal, you okay?” he asked.

Sally shook her head. “I’m just tired,” she said. “I need to go home.”

The next week was a blur – turning in her ticket, doing the required P.R. with the state lottery, and using her fame to boost her business. She hung a banner on the outside of the pizzeria declaring, “Lottery Winners Eat Here,” and decorated the dining room with gold coins and fake dollar bills. She invited the mayor to a “Lottery Lunch,” where everyone who bought an extra-large pizza got a free scratch-off and ice cream. The mayor, in turn, enjoyed her opportunity to extol the virtues of their little town, of small businesses like Sally’s, and how lucky they all were to live there. The local news was quick to jump on board and in between lunch and dinner service, Sally did an interview in the dining room. As they were wrapping up, the anchor asked, “So, Sally, what are you going to do with that $10.5 million dollars?”

Without thinking, Sally blurted, “I am going to share it!”

“Wow!” he commented. “That’s very generous! Do you have a favorite charity?”

“No,” she stammered. “I mean, the numbers I played weren’t mine. They came out of a notebook we found here at the restaurant. I don’t know who it belongs to, but they deserve half the money – it was their numbers!”

The broadcaster looked at her in astonishment. “Did you say you are going to share your $10 million with a total stranger?”

“Well, not a total stranger. They ate here, so they are a customer.”

“Aren’t you afraid of having thousands of people trying to claim that notebook?”

Sally thought for a moment. She hadn’t really considered it. And then it dawned on her. “No,” she said slowly. “Only one person will be able to tell me what was written above the numbers….”

The media pounced on the story. After it aired on the local news that night, she got a call from several national news outlets. Every newspaper wanted to carry her story. She even received a request to be on Oprah. Every little bit of publicity was good for the restaurant, and for a while, seating was at a premium. It was almost like she had won the lottery a second time, she thought.

And still, no one came in to claim the other half of the money. No one tried to say they had left the notebook in the restaurant, or they recognized the numbers, or guess what was written above the numbers. And every night, Sally still went home to her empty apartment. As she sat in bed one night, crying (for what felt like the umpteenth time, she raged at herself), she thought, “It’s true. Money can’t buy happiness.”

That didn’t mean it didn’t buy distractions, and a great cruise with her three best girlfriends, who she treated the whole way. And it gave her options with the restaurant she had never had before. So she was very grateful, but she wasn’t sure she would ever truly be happy again.

It was a quiet Wednesday afternoon almost six months later. The wind outside was whipping the leaves down the road in front of the restaurant, the dining room was currently empty, and Sally was going through the basket of lost items. Some she would donate – the misplaced rings and bracelet, a child’s toy or book. Most she would toss – what do you do with one lost earring? Halfway down in the basket, she came across the notebook again. She had never really forgotten it, but she hadn’t actually looked at it since winning the lottery. As she held it in her hands, she heard the front door open. She looked up, and a man she didn’t know was walking in.

Their eyes met and held over the counter and without actually gesturing towards the notebook but somehow still indicating he saw it, he said, “Losing you is like losing a lung -- it’s hard to breathe…..”