caller • mattia polibio

001.

Being a call girl at a restaurant was quite easy work. Not many customers preferred to dine from the italian cuisine at their home, but on the off chance, Claudia waited for the phone to ring. Her family opened the business when she was only young, now finally turned sixteen, it was her chance to earn some money in a place feeling most familiar to her.

She pulled her dark brown hair back into a ponytail for what felt like the millionth time, bored of twiddling her thumbs, reading the newspaper, spinning in the old computer chair, waiting and waiting and waiting. Her uncle once had this responsibility, often catching him napping in the wait for calls or reading one of his many angling magazines. It wasn't the most pleasant idea of work.

The clock slowly crept towards 7 o'clock, she spun around the chair one more time, thinking of how she should've brought more forms of entertainment. Until alas, the phone rang.

"Hello, welcome to Amores Italian restaurant! Will I be taking an order from you today?"

"You don't sound like an old man anymore"

"Well that's because I'm not necessarily old.. or a man"
she giggled "Can I get you anything today?"

"Can I please get two large mozzarella pizzas? And your name?" There was commotion of noise in the background, laughter and screams, as if the unknown caller on the other end was spending time with ten year olds, maybe his daughter was having a sleepover?

"Sir it sounds as if you're ordering for a bunch of girls, wouldn't your wife be annoyed with the idea of flirting with an Italian delivery service." Claudia chuckled to herself, her first call had to be the least normal to receive.

From the end of the line, there was a gasp, with another burst of laughter.

"Well you see, I am sixteen, and those girls? They are my annoying ass male friends."

Claudia was already laughing again, from embarrassment of assuming this boy was a middle-aged married man but also that the girls were in fact teenage boys.

"I apologise. Well your order will be $24.99 would you like a bottle of drink with that?"

"No, but could I get your name?" In the background, another voice groaned, complaining that he would've happily had a bottle of Coca Cola instead.

"It's Claudia. I'll add a bottle, too, for your whining friend"

"Goodbye Claudia"

With that, Claudia pressed the 'end button', giggling at the phone call, in the handful of times Claudia had sat with her uncle, waiting for orders, there had never been a call entertaining, or laughable. Well then again, he was in-fact a grumpy, italian man. She smiled down at the order in her hand, thinking of the memory already just from multiple minutes ago.

—————

"I can't believe you've just flirted with our pizza girl" Alejandro groaned, rolling his eyes. It was boys night. Like every Friday, they order two pizzas, on a rotary choice, this week being Kairi's, they order at seven and by eight can be eating through the slices playing non-stop fifa matches. This had been an accidental tradition but a tradition they had kept.

Mattia rolled his eyes back at him, his best friends knew him quite as a ladies' man, he knew it himself but he felt there was simply nothing wrong with some harmless flirting with the pretty voice that takes his pizza order.

"I can't believe she thought you were a bunch of girls"

"Touché Polibio"