Breakfast Pizza and to-do lists

The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed, and not as raw as I had the night before. I didn’t bother showering since I had the night before, I just pulled my hair back in a ponytail, threw on one of the many slice of life tee’s I had acquired throughout the years, and an old pair of jeans. Next came socks, tennis shoes, and I grabbed a hat on my way out the door. Not fancy at all, unless I had a meeting, which happened rarely. Now that the business was more under control, I tended to be less hands on and more in the office, but I did jump in from time to time making pizza’s or bussing tables, and it was messy business.

I then hopped on my bike and biked to work. I did own a car, and I did occasionally drive, when it was raining or cold, or if I had errands to run during or after work. Slice wasn’t that far away from my apartment (to be honest, nothing in this town was that far away.) I figured biking got me where I needed to go while also getting me exercise, and I also did some good for the environment.

I was at work by seven thirty, which was a little late. Maurice had suggested a few weeks ago that we start offering a breakfast pizza along with juice and coffee, and it had actually been a decent hit. We were still working out some of the kinks and working on pizza toppings, as well as trying to find an outside source to bake a few muffins to sell but overall we were pulling in some extra money and that was always nice. Still, I liked to be there by seven to open, but after the night I had last night cut myself a break. I knew the Mo’s could handle it. They always did.

“Morning Mona!” I called upon entering through the back doorafter locking my bike.

“Mel! Sleep in this morning?” She said, popping her head through the window that separated the kitchen from the dining room.

“Yeah, sorry, I would have called…” I trailed off as she waved a hand.

“You need a break. You look much better, more rested. Your messages are blinking in your office, and I left all the requests for days off on your desk, but come out and have some of this egg and bacon pizza Maurice made up this morning.”

I pushed through the door into the dining room and smiled at several of our regulars. We weren’t too busy yet, but our big rush happened closer to eight – kids walking to school. It trickled off by nine and by nine thirty we were dead until the lunch rush, which was fine as it gave the Mo’s time to prep and me time to do office work. We didn’t do specific pizzas or deliveries during lunch, except in the summertime, because only Sunny, Mona, Maurice and I worked lunches. It was something I was hoping to change soon, but for now the in store buffet worked for us. (It was a bummer though, to turn down catering jobs because we just didn’t have the manpower to prep them and deliver them.)

“Where’s Maurice?” I asked, coming to snag a slice and grabbing an apple juice from the cooler.

“The tenant upstairs says his faucet is dripping. He went up to take a look.”

I hadn’t wanted to rent out my Uncle’s apartment, but after Sunny bought out Steph, Steph moved out all of my Uncle’s belongings. And then it just sat there, empty. I’d go up there from time to time, to sit and remember, but other than that it didn’t get used. One day while going over the books, Sunny suggested that we move in there in order to save on the rent, and I balked. There was just no way that the apartment could ever be mine – it was my Uncle’s. Sunny then suggested we rent it out, in order to make extra money. I balked at that too and actually got a little pissed off. But, after cooling off, I realized that Sunny had put herself out there to make sure that the biggest piece of my Uncle stayed with us. The apartment was empty now. So I gave it up, under the condition that it was Sunny’s territory. She found the tenant, she dealt with them. I couldn’t stand to see someone else take it over, and so I hadn’t been up there since we rented it out.

“I’m going to check my messages before we get too busy. Holler if you need me, OK?” I said, heading back towards my office. Mona waved me off again and went to start more coffee.

I settled into my chair, taking another bite of pizza, and picked up my phone.

“You have five unheard messages.” The lady stated. “First unheard message…”

“Hey Lanie, it’s Sunny. I didn’t want to bother you at home on your night off, so I thought I’d call you here. Mom’s doing well, so I’ll be in for a little bit tomorrow probably around lunch and then home tomorrow night. We’ll do dinner. Oh! And I talked to one of Noah’s teacher friends about the business. He’ll be giving you a call, his name is Matt.”

“Giving me a call about what?” I asked, even though I knew she wouldn’t answer. I hit seven to delete.

“Hi, my name is Matt and I’m a friend of Noah and Sunny’s. I work with inner city kids in Chicago and was talking to Sunny about my program and she thought you guys might like to team up with us for a project – I can explain more if you’d like to give me a call whenever you have time.” He then listed his work and home numbers which I quickly scribbled on my planner.

“Oh Sunny, what have you gotten us into now?” I mumbled, again to nobody. I hit nine to save this time, just in case I lost his numbers which I did have a habit of doing.

“Hi, Melanie… It’s um, Rose? Thomas? I am scheduled to work tomorrow evening but my Mom just told me I have a doctors appointment and I won’t be able to make it? I’m sorry? I’ll be there on Tuesday?”

Melanie. Sweet, quiet girl, but whenever she did talk she talked in questions and drove me nuts. It also drove me nuts when the kids didn’t give any notice to calling off, but that was what you dealt with when you employed kids…

“I sound like I’m ancient…” I said out loud to myself as I deleted this message too.

“Hi Melanie, this Rachel and I go to church with Mona and Maurice. They told me you were looking for someone to make some baked goods for the pizza shop in the morning? My kids recently went back to school and I’m feeling the empty nest and well… I’m rambling. If you’re interested, please call me back and we can arrange a time where I could drop by some samples. Thanks!”

Sounds good… Only she left no number… I picked up my pen, expecting the next message to be her as well, realizing she forgotten to leave the number. I took a sip of juice with my other hand and almost spit it out when I heard the voice on other end.

“Lanie, it’s John. I realized I didn’t have your home phone number, so I called the shop. Hope you don’t mind. Uh, anyway, it was nice talking to you, I realize I don’t really know you very well and we’re probably going to be spending a lot of time together coming up so, I thought it might be a good idea… I know we have plans Friday but I wondered if maybe you wanted to get a drink before then? Let me know.” And then he left his number.

I replayed the message one more time, writing down his number and then drawing a little doodle around it while trying to figure out what to do. Did I call him? Text him? I was no good at these sorts of things. I had never really had a boyfriend, and I couldn’t talk to Sunny or else she would question why John and I had been talking anyway.

I took a sticky note and wrote down what I needed to do when I came back after the breakfast rush:
1. Text employees, see if anyone can cover Rose 2. Confirm delivery 3. Call Steph? I wrote that one and then scratched it out. I couldn’t get love advice from Steph. 4. Get more female friends Ha, I crack myself up. 5. Call Matt back 6. Text John.

I had decided that while less personal, texting was my safer bet. I could blame it on being busy, and I’d have more time to think about my replies. This way my mouth couldn’t say anything stupid before my brain had a chance to check it. In fact, I was going to do it right now before I had a chance to chicken out…

John – got your msg. Headed into the lunch rush so I can’t call but drinks sound good. Let me know when you’re free and we’ll see what we can work out :-)

Then, so I couldn’t obsess over whether or not he had texted me back yet, I left my phone in the desk drawer on top of my to do list while I went out front to help with the breakfast rush.