Page 12 of Karma Kitty Christmas

“No—this is important,” Marcelle said. “You are the only teacher here that’s out. Did you know that?”

Isaac sighed. “Do Iever.”

“Yeah, and you don’t… we didn’t even know youhada husband until he passed away last January. You get to be happy. Like Ms. Michaels with all them kids. She’s happy, and her husband’s a computer programmer, and she’s run off her ass. We know that because she tells us that. You don’ttellus anything.”

Isaac knew that was the trend in teaching—to be a real person to your students. Todd had hated that trend, hated that Isaac had to host clubs or spend his time after school supervising activities. In spite of the fact that other teachers brought their significant others to things like football games and plays, he’d never shown the slightest interest in Isaac’s job and had insisted, with a faint curl to his upper lip, that Isaac keep his name out of any class discussion.

And now….

Isaac thought about his boring house and his quiet life and how the highlight of his day was knitting on his porch with hisaudiobook or going yarn shopping with Luca’s grandma. Hell, babysitting for Roxy was a big deal on the weekend.

“I’ve got a small, boring life,” he said apologetically. “I—”

“Yeah, now.” Marcelle’s eyes had narrowed. “I bet you were hell at a rave back in the day, weren’t you?”

Isaac should have said no to that—he should have. But Marcelle was looking at him with… admiration. And camaraderie. And for a moment, Isaac wanted to feel young. He didn’t want to begrieving; he wanted to behopeful.

So Isaac held his finger to his lips and pulled out his phone, calling up Katy Perry’s “Part of Me,” which had been his anthem in his twenties.

Then, after setting his knitting and his phone on the table in front of the whiteboard, he stood in the space between the table and the student desks and…

Danced.

Marcelle came up next to him, watched his feet, and started parallel footwork, following him through the first half of the song, when Roxy—who had apparently heard the music from the hallway—walked in and joined them, her own moves not bad at all.

And she was joined by Sheryl before the song finished winding down.

The song came to an end, and it was the four of them, a little breathless and definitely warm in the spring afternoon, laughing.

“Yeah,” Marcelle said, grinning as he grabbed his backpack. “You were a hell-raiser. You too, Mrs. Michaels. Don’t deny it. You guys give us hope that being a grown-up isn’t all the suck, right?”

“Sure,” Isaac said, still catching his breath. He was reaching for what was left in his soda as the kids walked away laughing.

“That was fun,” Roxy said, taking a swig of her own soda. “Why’d we do that again?”

Isaac gave her a bemused smile and indicated the extra credit assignment on the board. “Apparently,” he said, as surprised as anybody, “I am not allowed to be dead yet.”

He watched her smile grow. “You never will be. Now explain what this is to me so I can do it too.”

He did, and she got impressed, which he felt like she shouldn’t be, because dammit, thekidshad thought of it, but even after they called it quits and went out to their cars, he realized he’d dodged a bullet.

Marcelle had asked him what Luca had done that had made Isaacsograteful he’d go to such an awful lot of trouble for a near stranger.

He told me it was okay to be angry.

And that’s something Isaac hadn’t had permission to do in a long, long time.

Learning Curve toward June

LUCA SWALLOWEDand looked unhappily at the teeny tiny hook and teeny tiny yarn in his thick work-roughened fingers and thought,I am going to suck so bad at this.

Next to him, Isaac grunted and sighed. “Okay,” he said, like he’d thought about it for a minute. “You’re brand-new, and you’ve never used these tools. I feel like we’re starting you out with the advanced set. You don’t give a kindergartner a ball-peen hammer and a chisel, you give him a plastic hammer and a peg board. You’re smarter than a kindergartner, but the theory is sound.”

Luca set the tiny yarn and tiny hook down and felt a rivulet of sweat slide down his back, which spoke more to his discomfort than to the temperature in Isaac’s climate-controlled room.

“Yeah,” he said dispiritedly, “but I can’t help you build a blanket with a plastic hammer.”

Isaac gave him a gentle smile. “No, but right now I’m just excited somebody wants to do this with me who’s not your grandma. How about we start you off with thick yarn and thick hooks—something that won’t make you feel like you’ll rip it up if you breathe on it? Once you get good with that, we can work our way down. And in the meantime, maybe some moisturizer on your hands at night so your cuticles don’t catch the yarn?”