Page 23 of Karma Kitty Christmas
Luca was starting to learn what Isaac had probably known for the last year and a half. There wasnothingmore frustrating than anger at the dead. It was completely unproductive. There was nothing you coulddowith it.Thiswas the reason Isaac tried to bottle it up, to not talk about it, to not mention that, say, Todd’s taste in home decor was boring and Isaac had true taste and a love of color that made this living roomsomuch more exciting with a rug and some drapes that used earth tones—cinnamon, autumn purple, cantaloupe—to jazz up the furniture that Isaac reluctantly admitted still had some years of use on it.
Raging at Todd would have resulted in… poor choices.
For example, Luca would have put the furniture on the side of the road and gone out and put new furniture on his already-stretched-thin credit so he could get rid of that ass-boring tan stuff.
But with the rug and drapes, they could wait on replacing the expensive stuff, and the room still looked way better. Luca rather slyly suggested an afghan for an accent, and Isaac had almost instantly been transported to “design his own knitting” land, which made Luca wonder if Todd had told him that afghans were tacky and he didn’t want any of Isaac’s work in the room.
And see? Getting mad atthatwas counterproductive because it wouldn’t have let Isaac plan something beautiful that might be more healing than raging at the dead guy who wasstill pissing Luca off.
Wow.
This was tangled. This was complex. No wonder Isaac interrupted himself and didn’t finish sentences that began, “Todd used to….”
Isaac was probably as ready for Todd to be well and truly out of his life as Luca was, but dammit, he was like a demon that needed to be exorcized.
First they had to say his name;thenthey had to find the right combination of words and deeds that would make his presence fade from Isaac’s house!
But as Luca sat on the rug Todd would have hated and threw the catnip mouse for the cat Todd would have hated and helped Luca’s sister make a scarf Luca knewfor a factTodd would have hated, he was starting to see that the subtle approach might be best.
They’d started with the giant box of yarn that Todd would have hated, and Luca was there for that.
Look at what had happened in the two weeks since Luca had given Isaac permission tonotknit with that ass-ugly shit-brown yarn.
“What?” Allegra asked. “What’s that crinkly expression on your face?”
Luca shrugged. “You’re doing a good job with that,” he said. “I mean, I wasnotdoing a good job with it, and I felt like shit, but you’re doing a good job about it, and now I’m not obligated to feel like shit, so everybody’s happy.”
Allegra laughed. “Well, Nonna tried to teach me when I was a kid, and I think I drove her batshit. This feels like… I dunno. Redemption in yarn.” She aimed a brilliant smile at Isaac. “Thanks, Isaac. I can’t tell you how much this has settled my nerves. Have you figured out what picture you’re going to make with all the tiny squares?”
Isaac stood up abruptly, suddenly excited. “Wait!” he said. “I’ve got to show you guys something! Here—let me get mybriefcase. I barely remembered it in the excitement about Mr. Euclid, but I wasso excitedto show them to you!” He ran out of the room, leaving Allegra and Luca to stare at each other in bemusement.
“I sort of adore him,” she whispered into the sudden silence. “Find a way to keep him.”
“Working on it,” he mouthed back, and at that moment Isaac returned from the yarn room/office with his briefcase, sat down, and started rifling through it.
What he produced from the center zipper pocket was worth all the fuss.
“Wow,” Luca said. “Are these all of them?”
“No!” Isaac said. “These are just the first batch—the ones that came in early. I gave them until the week before the final to turn them in, but I thought I’d bring these home to show you. What do you think?”
He handed the batch to Allegra, who looked at them one at a time before passing them on to Luca.
“Wow,” she said, after looking at only a couple. “These… these areamazing. Isaac, can we really do these?”
Isaac laughed. “Well, some of these are big enough to cover a large bed, so I may have to, you know, draw a line….”
“Right?” she laughed. “Luca—what do you think?”
Luca stared at a depiction of the Little Mermaid using squares as pixels and shook his head in impressed disbelief. “I think these arereallyawesome!” he said. “Allegra, how’re we going to pick one?”
Allegra bit her lip while checking out an ethereally lovely depiction of a bouquet of flowers, all done in squares, with, Luca assumed, embellishments for the stems and bow.
“Maybe,” she said slowly, staring at that one longingly, “we should ask Isaac which ones are actuallydoable. Which ones are,you know, crib sized.” She glanced at Isaac. “They all get extra credit, right?”
“Oh yes,” Isaac said, smiling. “If you turn them over, you can see their algebra work. They were really thorough. It’s why they’re due a weekbeforefinals—I want time to get all their extra credit entered into the gradebook before we do the judging.”
“Turn them over? Absolutely not,” Allegra said. “That’syourpart of the business. But maybe we, you know… make criteria?”
