Page 26 of Karma Kitty Christmas
“Okay,” she murmured. “Okay, then.”
“Okay what?” he asked, not sure what they’d resolved.
“Well, we know that me and you and Isaac have a lot more in common even than we first thought, and moving in together might be a good thing for him and me, right?”
Luca grunted. “It’s weird when you read my mind like that.”
She gave a delicate little snort. “And we learned that before I have this baby, Luca, you and me, we’ve got to go talk to Mom and Dad, at least once, and tell them why we’re mad.”
Luca was an amazing driver, which was good because anybody else would have wrecked the truck. “I’m sorry? You took a left turn while I was still going straight. The hell?”
“Because as much as that conversation might suck, Luca, at least we can stillhaveit. Poor Isaac—it’s taken him a year and a half to start to figure out all the stuff he wants to say to Turkey Todd, and the guy isdead. The least we can do is go say our piece to Mom and Dad while they’re still alive. So we can finish our goddamned sentences, you think?”
Luca grunted again, hating what she’d said. Hating it. Hating. It. “Hatechu,” he muttered, even his inflection right back to when that word had meaning in middle school.
“Yeah, Luca. You hate me. What’d I do?”
“Right,” he grumbled. “Goddammit. Goddammit, Allegra Maria Carolina Giardino, why do you have to be right?”
She chuckled without joy. “Don’t get too upset about it,” she said. “First we’ve got to move me into Isaac’s, then we have to see if it will work, and then we’ve got to beat the Todd out of poor Isaac so he can see what a catchyouare.”
“Why does all that come first?” he asked, not that he minded that plan, really.
“Because,” she said with a sigh, leaning back in her seat and rubbing her still-flat tummy some more. “Because we don’t want to walk up to them pregnant and scattered and crammed in the same apartment with no happy ever after in sight, do we? Your business is gonna make it—hooray! And I’m going to have thisbaby—also hooray! But we want to walk up to them in a place of power and say, ‘We can organize our lives, bitches, and aren’t you sorry you didn’t want to be a part of them!’”
Luca chuckled. “How very dramatic,” he said. “I swear, you got me so charged up I could go do that right now.”
“No.” She yawned. “Tomorrow, I go tell Nonna and Pop Pop. That’s going to be hard enough. Seriously, I like this plan. Let’s do this plan.”
“Mmm… it’s too easy to back out of this plan,” he said shrewdly. “There will always be a reason to back out of it. Let’s say… let’s say October. Your birthday. You’ll be seven months pregnant and twenty-six, and no matter where we are in our lives, you and me, we can go visit the ’rents and say our piece. That way, when this baby comes into this world,you’llknow two things.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The first is that you’re strong enough to clear the air with Mom and Dad, so you’re strong enough to raise this baby,” he said, and he saw her nod.
“The second?”
“That you’re strong enough to raise this baby and be happy with whotheyare, not who you thought they would be. You can be a good parent through and through—you can see this kid totheirkids and beyond. You don’t need all the old memories to do this right. You can goddamned go make your own.”
“Righteous,” she said, nodding some more. “Okay. Fair. You don’t need a boyfriend to do this. I don’t need a man. We can go announce our adulthood and walk away.”
It soundedgreat. Grandiose, butgreat.
And then Allegra brought him right down to earth.
“But I still hope you and Isaac get together, because he’s a sweet guy, and today was a lot of fun.”
He smiled to himself. “It was, right?”
“Seriously. I can’t wait to show Nonna my scarf. She’ll be over the moon that somebody could finally teach me. I can’t wait to start helping with the crib blanket. I’m going to have so much fun.”
Yeah, Luca thought, liking the idea more and more.Yeah.
And the Winner Is….
“REALLY?” MARCELLEsaid, disbelieving and ecstatic. “You guys really like it?”
Allegra and Luca had dressed up to come to the campus and announce the winner on the Friday before finals week, and Isaac was so, so proud of his classandhis friends.
