Chapter 6 Learning to Play in Summer
Learning to Play in Summer
LUCA SAT cross-legged on Isaac’s floor, enjoying the new brightly colored area rug very much as he taught Mr. Euclid to fetch a catnip mouse with a bell on its tail.
The cat absolutely crushed the game, right up until the catnip really kicked in, whereupon he simply lay there, eyes half closed, drool dribbling from his thin cat lips, absorbing all the pretty cat colors in the room.
“You put the cat in a coma,” Allegra said. “Achievement unlocked.”
Luca chuckled and turned to her, a little dismayed but mostly pleased to see that she’d taken the simple scarf Isaac had given him to create and had whipped out the vertical part and was now working on the horizontal part.
Because the yarn made its own stripes—and because Isaac had promised to teach his sister how to make squares for the end and middle—it was going to be a great scarf.
Different. It wouldn’t look like a beginner scarf at all, but like something bold and fun and very feminine.
And his sister was so delighted with it that even the fact that she was the one who would probably be helping with her own blanket wasn’t enough to make Luca regret asking Isaac.
Hell, getting Allegra moved into Luca’s apartment had made a difference in her life. She’d been funnier and freer and more Allegra than she had been in the last year, and Luca thought of Isaac’s lingering anger at Todd the Terrible, and he couldn’t help it.
Luca wanted to vent about the guy. Todd, who made fun of Isaac’s yarn hobby and his students and his job. Todd, who wouldn’t let him help decorate the house. Todd, who wouldn’t let him cook because he might not do it perfectly.
Todd, who made him feel like it was his job to be the quiet little house-husband, because forever ago, Isaac had been young and lost and had needed direction.
Luca was starting to learn what Isaac had probably known for the last year and a half.
There was nothing more frustrating than anger at the dead.
It was completely unproductive. There was nothing you could do with it.
This was 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 room so much 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 at that was counterproductive because it wouldn’t have let Isaac plan something beautiful that might be more healing than raging at the dead guy who was still 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; then they 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 knew for a fact Todd 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 to not knit 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 was not doing 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 my briefcase. I barely remembered it in the excitement about Mr. Euclid, but I was so excited to 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 are amazing. 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 are really awesome!” 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 actually doable. 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 week before finals—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’s your part of the business. But maybe we, you know… make criteria?”
Isaac nodded. “That’s what I thought too.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a pen and a legal pad. “So, we’ve got practical to make,” he said.
“This one’s really simple,” Luca said—not critically, because it was pretty, but it wasn’t as involved as some of the others.
“So, we’ve got interesting to make,” Isaac said, adding it to the pad.
“And some of these….” Allegra held out one which would have required a whole lot of different yarns that Luca wasn’t positive even Isaac could find.
“Possible to make,” Isaac said. “So that’s three criteria—practical, interesting, and possible. Let me look at these, and then you can judge from the stack that’s only got all three, how’s that?”
“Yes!” Allegra said. “That sounds much easier.” She paused and glanced at Luca. “But Luca’s got to have a say too, because it was sort of his idea.”
Isaac nodded. “Oh yes. Absolutely.” He flashed Luca a quick grin. “Just because he’s opted out of the making, that doesn’t mean he’s not amazing yarn support, right?”
Allegra’s laugh burbled out of her, and for a moment, Luca just gazed at his sister in profound relief.
She’d been so disheartened in this last week. Steve had stopped by Luca’s apartment to “drop the last of her shit off,” and Luca had needed to get in the guy’s face to make him go away.
He’d had to hold his sister while she wept against his chest, saying, “Jesus, Luca, how could I have given that douchebag my time,” and he’d been so sad for her.
And he’d thought of Isaac, working on his knitting and his crocheting and doing things for his students and trying so hard to let go of a ten-year relationship that had obviously hurt him as much as it had helped.
Bringing Allegra here felt like bringing her to a place where she could learn, like Isaac was learning, how to heal.
Except Allegra had seven months to get where it had taken Isaac a year and a half to get—although Allegra had a lot less time invested, if that made things any easier. And she had something to show for that time.
Luca could already see her getting excited about the baby.
“He’s been outstanding everything support,” she said happily, before shooting him a playful glare. “Now if only we could do something about the bathroom situation.”
Luca grunted. “Sorry, honey. It’s a really small apartment.”
Isaac frowned. “Wait… you only have one bathroom?”
“Yup,” Luca said. “I… you see, I’ve been spending all my money trying to get my business to run.”