The Pizza List on the Roof

At seven o'clock, the roof of the building on Mill Street looks perfect. The sky is orange and the air is warm. A photographer sets up her camera near the water tank. Valerio stands next to her with a clipboard and a big smile.

"Sunset is at seven forty-eight," the photographer says. "I take one group photo, and I leave. I have another job at eight."

"No problem," Valerio says. "Everyone is coming. It is the building's fiftieth birthday."

His mother manages the building, and she gave him this one job. He must bring all forty residents to the roof for the photo. He has a list, a loud voice and forty-eight minutes. It sounds easy.

Then the lights go out.

It happens all at once. The hum of the lift stops. The lamp over the roof door goes dark, and every window turns black. From somewhere below, a voice shouts, "Not again!"

Valerio's friend Deniz comes up the stairs with a tripod under his arm. He is breathing hard, and he holds his phone up as a torch in his other hand.

"The whole street has no power," Deniz says. "The lift is dead. I climbed eight floors in the dark."

"That is fine," Valerio says. "I have the list. I will go down and knock on every door."

"With what light?"

"Your phone," Valerio says.

Deniz sighs, but he lifts the light over the clipboard. Valerio looks down at the first page and stops.

The title does not say Residents. It says Pizza Night Orders.

"Oh no," he says.

"What?" Deniz leans closer and reads out loud. "Flat three, one large, no olives, extra cheese. Flat nine, three pizzas, one for the cat. Flat fourteen, whatever is cheapest, but not mushrooms."

"This is the wrong list," Valerio says. "I left the real one on my kitchen table."

"Then go and get it!"

"My kitchen is on the first floor, and we are on the eighth. The stairs are black. That is twelve minutes down and up, and I still have to find the doors."

The photographer taps her watch. "Forty minutes," she says, without looking up.

Deniz sits on the tripod case and studies the page. He is the kind of person who reads everything, even the back of a cereal box. Valerio paces. He imagines the photo with only three people in it, and his mother's face next to it.

"Wait," Deniz says slowly. "Who orders pizza on a night like this?"

"Everyone," Valerio says. "Pizza night is the best night of the month. Every flat that wants one signs the list."

"So these are people who are home tonight."

"Yes. Eleven flats are on this list, and they are all waiting for dinner."

Deniz stands up. "And the delivery man comes at seven thirty, right?"

"He comes at seven thirty." Valerio stares at him. "Deniz, what are you thinking?"

"I am thinking that nobody leaves their flat in the dark, except for one reason."

A slow smile grows on Valerio's face. He takes out his own phone and finds the number of the pizza shop. It rings four times.

"Hello, Corner Slice," a tired voice says. "We have a power cut, but our ovens use gas. We are still working."

"This is Valerio from Mill Street," Valerio says. "Please bring everything to the roof. All eleven orders. Not to the doors. The roof."

"The roof? The lift is dead."

"Yes, I know. Please tell the driver to knock on the front door and shout up the stairs. Tell him the whole building is waiting."

There is a long silence on the line. Then the voice laughs. "My driver will love this. He is not very fond of stairs."

Valerio hangs up. Deniz is already moving across the roof. He picks up an orange traffic cone from the corner. He holds the narrow end to his mouth.

"What are you doing?" Valerio asks.

"I am making a megaphone," Deniz says. "Watch."

He walks to the open stairwell door, leans over the dark shaft and shouts into the cone. "Attention, residents of Mill Street! Pizza night is on the roof! Bring your chairs, your forks and your friends!"

The sound goes down eight floors like a stone in a well. For a moment, nothing answers. Then a door opens somewhere far below. A second door opens, and a third.

"Pizza?" a woman shouts from the fifth floor.

"On the roof!" Deniz shouts back. "Hurry, because it is getting cold!"

"It is not even here yet," Valerio whispers.

"They do not need to know that," Deniz says.

Soon they hear feet on the stairs. First there are only a few, then there are many, and all of them are climbing. Phone lights bounce on the walls like small, nervous stars. A boy appears at the roof door carrying a cushion. Behind him come two sisters in matching pyjamas, and a man with a camping lamp.

"Where is the pizza?" the man asks.

"It is coming," Valerio says. "While we wait, would you stand over there? By the water tank, please. We are taking a photo of the whole building."

The man looks at the photographer, then at the sunset, then at the list. He shrugs. "All right. But I am staying for the pizza."

"Everyone is," Valerio says.

At seven forty, the front door of the building bangs. A loud, angry voice rises through the stairwell. It is the driver, and he is saying a number of unfriendly things about the lift. Deniz grins and counts on his fingers.

"Eleven flats, but I count more people than that," he says. "Look."

It is true. The roof is filling quickly. Some residents bring stools, and some bring blankets. One woman carries a plate of olives, and she has no idea why she is there. Even the quiet teacher from the fourth floor is here, holding a candle in a jar.

Valerio walks between them and tries to count heads. He loses count at thirty-one. It is almost seven forty-five, and the sky is turning from orange to deep pink.

The driver arrives at last, sweating and furious, with a tall tower of boxes in his arms. The crowd cheers as if he has won a race. He looks around the roof, confused. Then he sits on a bucket and fans himself with a menu.

"Next time," he says, "somebody tell me there are eight floors."

"Next time," Valerio says, "the right list will be on the clipboard."

The photographer claps her hands. "Everybody, please! Stand close, hold your boxes, and look at me. The light is going."

Forty people squeeze into one row. Children sit on shoulders, and the cat from flat nine peeks out of a coat. Deniz stands at the end, still holding the orange cone. Valerio stands in the middle with the wrong list on his chest.

"Ready?" the photographer asks. She lifts the camera. "One, two, three."

"Pizza!" forty voices shout.

Click.