Page 8 of Karma Kitty Christmas
“Isaac?” she asked, sotto voce. There were always those hidden teachers who were “fine with his sexuality as long as he doesn’t rub it in our faces,” which was code for not mentioning his husband or his dating or even celebrities who were gay or shows that had gay characters. His first year he’d almost gotten fired for telling a student he likedGlee, and he’d since tempered any public utterances accordingly.
“It’s nothing,” he said, still not able to fight the flush. “Just, do you remember those nice Giordanos who lived next door?”
“That older couple who moved? Isn’t the grandson remodeling their house to sell?”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah, well, he came over to chat while I was out on the porch last night and….”I almost trauma dumped my bad marriage and nonexistent self-esteem all over him.“And anyway we got to talking, and it turns out his sister’s pregnant, and her boyfriend dumped her and… well, I offered to make him a baby blanket for her so she could remember that she’s always wanted kids, and she’s going to do just fine.”
“Aww,” Roxy said, holding her hand to her heart. “That’s sweet!” She checked out the many,manytiny squares he’d already crocheted. “So this is going to be what? I mean, you sew the squares into a blanket but… Isaac, those squares are awfullysmall.”
They were, in fact, two-round squares in sport-weight yarn. They were tiny. And Luca hadn’t been blind to that fact when he’d seen the book that showcased blankets that used the small squares as pixels on a grid to make pictures. In this case, a rainbow under the sun. He’d said, “Oh, this is cute—but look at it. It’s probably super labor-intensive, right?” And without waiting for an answer, he’d set the book aside.
And then Isaac had apparently suffered a nonlethal brain lesion or had an out-of-body experience, because like that, he lost his mind.
“Yes,” Isaac said to Roxy now, “but I’m not the only one making them. Or I won’t be. Luca—that’s Allegra’s brother—is coming over Saturday, and I’m going to teach him how to crochet so he can help me make them.”
He saw Roxy’s eyes widen. “Luca?” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said with dignity, finishing off a square and snipping it with the little attachment he kept on his key lanyard. So far everybody thought it was a charm—only Roxy knew it was scissors.
“Okay, then,” Roxy said. “Let’s walk around the quad and not talk about it.” And with that, she packed up his lunch detritus—reused Ziploc bag, aluminum water bottle, and insulated lunch box—and grabbed it by the handle before standing up, allowing him the moment to pack up his knitting.
“Where you guys going?”
Both of them turned toward Paula Lamphere, their department head, and pasted on smiles. “Out for a wander,” Roxy said breezily. “There’s ten minutes left, so I thought we’d walk around the quad before we stare wistfully out the window for the next two hours.” It really was a beautiful day. Roxy taught Geometry and Algebra II, so she was stuck inside like Isaac, but they understood one of the senior English teachers let her kids sit out on the sidewalk on days like this, while she read bookexcerpts to them and led discussions. It was the only time Isaac wished he’d majored in the humanities, actually.
“Just make sure you get to your room on time,” Paula said, as though she was speaking to students.
“Of course,” Isaac said, his hand on Roxy’s bicep before she could shoot off at the mouth. Hating Paula was one of those things they both saved for “walks around the quad.”
“Sure, Mom,” Roxy muttered under her breath as the door swung shut behind them. “Be sure to round up your flying monkeys before you go back to your classroom.”
Isaac snorted at their standing “Wicked Witch of the Math Department” joke, then coughed and then had to endure three of his students staring as Roxy pounded him on the back.
“Okay,” she said when he was done. “That’s it. We’re heading for the soda machine—I swear, all water and no cola makes Isaac a very dull boy.”
“I thought you were going to say coke, and I was gonna say not in this decade,” he told her, and it was her turn to spit-take. By the time they had their shit together, they were halfway to the H-building and the last soda machine on a high school campus in California, because sometimes parents liked to suck the joy out of kids’ lives, that’s why.
“So,” Roxy said as they caught their breath, “tell me about this Luca and trauma dumping. After all of that, you owe me some tea.”
Isaac laughed a little. “He was nice,” he said after a moment. “I… I was having a bad Todd moment. I kept hearing his voice in my head. He was telling me what to knit.”
“Asshole,” she muttered, and then gave one of her mom smiles when he looked at her sharply.
“He liked to keep me from spending too much on—”
“Isaac?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you have lots of money in the bank?”
“Yes.”
“Buy all the fucking yarn you want. Buy some more art. Buy more of those glorious stained-glass pieces. Whatever you do, don’t knit whatever shit-brown masterpiece your ex-husband told you would make your poops better, okay?”
Isaac gave her a bemused smile. “You know, that’s funny—that’s almost what Luca said. Except for the reference to poop, but then—”
“He’s not up to his elbows in diapers when he gets home from work,” Roxy muttered with a sigh. “So anyway, this Luca guy, he asked you to—”
