Anise slid into the driver's seat of the almost-new F-450. She was grateful that Pa wanted his kids in the heavily insured vehicle instead of The Rustbucket that he tooled around with on the farm. Any day he needed this truck for something important? That's the day The Rustbucket came to school with her.

That was the understanding--and she was to treat this thing like it was priceless. No wrecks. No fooling around. Of course, she fooled around, what was the point of a new truck if there wasn't any play?

Too bad it had a custom paint job to make it look like an Autobot. Pa was an old-school nerd under that farmer's tan.

Ah, well...the boys thought it was cool. She was forgetting something...oh, a text.

She pulled the phone from the backpack's side pocket. Scrounging around further caught that crumpled paper with his number.

Anise paused.

Was this a change in her life, or would he be someone she kind of forgot by the time college rolled around? The possibility that he could mean something to her made her hands shake a little. She typed in his phone number and saved it under 4HTall, then shot out her address. A small quirk of her lips acknowledged that she forgot his name already. It hadn't been important in the heat of the moment. Now, she wished she had his number under something real instead of a description that screamed more about what she couldn't ignore. For extra self-inflicted agony, Anise almost edited it to add in Dark, Hot. God help her if anyone read that afterward. Fairytales fought within the grip of pragmatism, where every little thing she did could be the start of something epic vs. the ennui of reality being far more mundane.

Anise's weak, strangled laugh jarred her out of the daydream. Who sees my phone, anyway?

She did as she promised, despite her meandering mind. With her phone plugged into the charger, it was away from her hands or Ma would have her hide.

Anise had to pick up three boys from two different schools. John was in 8th grade, only a few years younger. He was so serious that he might as well have been her older brother. John made it out of the school before his sister reached them, every single time. They always waited a couple more minutes on Gray (the 6th grader).

The youngest boy--Bailey, 1st grade--was a full decade younger than Anise. He was at the little Podunk Elementary about a mile from the farm--if you took the back roads. It was more than five on the main circuit. Like she would take that paved monstrosity for anything other than a full-on washout. There was nothing about "them city roads" that screamed fun. Either way, it took half an hour to get to his school from theirs--traffic permitting. It made them wait just as long in the pick-up line as it took them to drive there. If it wasn't for the helicopter parents she'd be first in line. As it was, she had to park off the side of the road because too many early parents took the on-property line parking. That was half an hour of tractors and other big equipment trying to edge down the 2 lane road without hitting everyone.

Time passed, and Bailey would buckle in with John's help before she took off for their back roads.

"Buckle up!" Anise told them before she hit every pothole she could find. Gray complained about needing to pee with each dip. Bailey squealed with his arms in the air while John held onto the "Oh, shit!" bar like he was on the Titanic, gritting his teeth.

Then the fun came to a grinding halt. A full-on half-skid of the truck nearly broad-swiped the half-fallen shed on the back of the property.

John screamed, "Could you NOT hit my baby?!" as he slammed his left hand into the dashboard.

That wiped the grin off Anise's face as she parked at the back door of the house. Get John pissed enough to mutter about his baby and Ma would know that she'd been jumping potholes again. It was a lecture each time, one they all knew to not start, but John had a temper about it. "Come on, I wasn't even close!"

"Three inches! Three inches and I'd have to build another shop to work in. Just slow down at that last one, ok?"

"Yeah, yeah...get over it before we walk in."

"Hrmph."

They walked into their mother's personality--a trim woman full of sunshine in a billowy sheer blush blanket-jacket. She interrupted her sweet tea by squeezing each child to death as they walked in the door of the Emerald Green den. John always stepped in first to get this part out of the way--a contrast of lights and darks. The younger two would hang on Ma's neck before falling back on the den's couches. Then Anise would wait for Ma to come for her and wrap her up in one of those slow hugs that felt like it would be their last one. "Oh, my babies are home! How did the club meetings go?"

Gray ducked out to the half-bath while Bailey's words came out rushed. Only Ma could process it before he started in on his normal wheedling. "Can I eat some cake?'

"A healthy snack is on the table, Bubba, then go take care of your school work...John?"

"We got the ring tosses built, and Mr. Edison is going to get them there by nine." John had a habit of crossing his arms and shrugging when asked for details he didn't find useful. "You know, the thing I said we would do, last time?"

"What about Dina?" Ma's teeth flashed in a sharp grin, stepping towards her boy to ruffle his hair.

"Who?" Jon knew better than to give much emotion to the word, or there would be far more questions about his feeling. He swore he had none, most days.

"That cute girl you worked with, two weeks ago?" Ma, the ever-eager for her kids to show an interest in people latched on to the littlest details.

"There's a cute girl in my club?" It was so deadpanned that it would shut down most conversations--except the family was not cowed by the boy's attitude.

Anise shook her head. "Well, at least you know they are girls."

"Shut it, Ann." He lost his composure with one jab from his sister, so he backed out like a lion tamer who had lost his chair in one chomp. Staying would get him riled into admitting something to these two women, and the teasing wouldn't end.

That was Ma's cue to question Anise. "So, did you see any cute boys in your new 4H, my girl?"

"Sure. Cute girls, too." The problem is Anise would mess back with the feral beast that was her mother. "I'm bringing one of each home to meet you and you're going to have to figure out which one I'm bringing to meet the parents."

"Oh Lord..." Ma sat down rather abruptly, trying to figure out exactly what to address in that tangle. "I hope it's the boy. I want grandbabies one day."

"Ma, it's neither--but there are two coming over to help prep."

"But it's one of each..."

"Yeah, and likely starving if they don't pick up something on the way out here--practice? They look like a sports power couple--like clones or something, so don't start getting ideas."

"Well, at least you're making more friends than that Kaylee girl." Kit was into boys on a level that scared Ma, one step away from wrecking her life. It had been Anise and Kaylee everything since the 4th grade--although Anise didn't bring her home or talk about her until this past year. Little Miss Independence knew that a friend brought home was a friend managed. She couldn't stand the interference when she was younger. Now, it was sleepovers. To hell with sleeping anywhere but her own bedroom--despite the fact that she was too old for the French Princess look of her childhood.

Anise and Kaylee managed to keep their friendship going with almost nothing in common. "There ain't nothing wrong with Kaylee...much."

There was something wrong with Kaylee. Enough so to cause her to come over as often as she could manage, but she wouldn't open up. It bothered Anise. Her ma was even more anxious about the situation--the urge to heal everyone warred with protecting her own children. People buried their hurt, and neither Ma nor Anise could stand that behavior with much patience.

"You think about six?" Ma moved on, settling for her girl admitting something was off. That would have to be enough without controlling her daughter's life.

"Probably a bit later."

"Alright, I'll place two more plates by you and John, then. "

Anise huffed with exasperation. "Just stick them on the same side. I think they're dating. No need to go all weird on them, you know."

"They will be right across from each other, no harm done." Ma shrugged in mock supplication: one hand up, free, the other regripping her glass. "Now, go get some of that homework finished so we can work tonight."

Anise peeled herself off the doorjamb and tromped upstairs to type up a half-assed paper. Refining it to grade-worthy could happen tomorrow.