Stopping at the stop sign that was the first obstacle that would lead to the school, I waited. Then waited some more for the car in front of me to pull out.
“Jesus Christ!” Caley popped in. “Fucking pull out!”
I looked over at the girl with surprise in my eyes.
“Ummm,” I said. “We should probably watch your language.”
She waved my concern away. “Mom lets us cuss. As long as it’s in the car or at home. We’re not allowed to do it in public, though. Especially not around Grandma.”
That came from the young twin in the seat behind me.
I glanced at him in my rearview mirror, then turned my eyes back to the road.
“Interesting,” I said, still waiting for the moron in front of me to pull out.
“Go,” I said. “Go. Go. Go. Go.”
After his fourth missed attempt, I started to creep forward.
Then I just started getting pissed.
“Listen, dude,” I said to the car. “These people are going twenty. You can pull out in front of them. Go.”
Still the car didn’t go.
Suddenly a truck horn sounded from behind me and the car finally decided to go, realizing that he was holding up the line.
“I think he was shaving,” Caley said. “I can’t be certain, but that’s what it looked like to me.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Idiot,” I growled.
Now I could see why Clancy had been frazzled when he’d come back from school drop-off.
“Just wait, it gets better,” Caley continued.
It did get ‘better.’
But not in the way that she meant.
The highlight of my entire drop-off experience was seeing Dax, full SWAT gear, directing traffic.
“Ho, boy,” I said to the teenager at my side.
The fourteen-year-old said, “Hubba, hubba!”
I snickered and looked my fill of the man.
Dax had his hands up. One was raised in the air, his palm flat, directed at the line of traffic. The other was waving the little kids across that were all of four at most.
“Aren’t they a little young to be walking to school?” I wondered.
Caley shrugged. “Yes.”
I watched, flabbergasted, as two young kids much younger than the two in the car with me crossed the street. One stopped to hug Dax’s leg, and he patted the kid’s head before he urged her on her way.
“He’s here a lot,” Caley said. “Do you know him?”
I was already nodding. “I do.”
“Have you slept with him?” she asked.
I nearly choked on my spit.
“Caley!” I cried. “You can’t ask people questions like that!”
Caley shrugged, unrepentant.
“It was just a question,” she pointed out.
It was just a question. An invasive one at that.
“There’s your turn.” Caley pointed.
I saw it and began to creep forward as the school’s drop-off line moved at the speed of a snail.
“I can see why your father was having problems the other day when he came into the office.”
The traffic was moving until we got to the actual line to enter the elementary school.
I was at least thirty cars back, and the line wasn’t even moving.
Growling in frustration, knowing that I had to be somewhere in thirty minutes, I worried that I wasn’t going to make it.
“It looks like it’s going to take a long time, but it’s not,” Caley said. “Instead of dropping me off with the other kids, I can get out at the crosswalk. I have band first period and it’s a shorter walk if I get dropped off there.”
Doing as she asked, she quickly bailed out of the van.
I watched as she got out so quickly that she nearly tumbled over her own two feet as she swung her backpack over her shoulders.
The next thing I had to conquer was the drop-off line.
“Ready?” I called back to the kids.
“Yes!” all of them said, tones bored and even.
I snorted and reached back, closing the video monitor.
“Aww, come on! That was the best part!”
Snickering at the twin’s comment, I slowly crept forward.
“Get out already,” I urged the young girl that was about Caley’s age getting out and taking her sweet ass time.
“What the absolute fuck?” the eight-year-old from the back seat said. “This is a goddamn drop-off zone. Not a kiss your fucking kid zone.”
I blinked, then looked into the rearview mirror.
“Umm, Beanie-Weanie. Let’s not call them fucking kids, okay?”
“Why?” Beal, the eight-year-old, asked. “Mom and Dad say it all the time.”
“Well,” I hesitated. “What if the teachers heard you?”
“The teachers can kiss my ass,” Beal said.
I would not laugh. I would not laugh.
I loved these kids.
I hadn’t known them for long, but seriously, they were the greatest.
The teachers could kiss my ass. Jesus Christ, it was inappropriate to laugh!
Before I could say another word, they were climbing out of their seats and bolting out the door before I could say goodbye.
“Have a good day,” the teacher who’d opened their door said.
I waved and crept the minivan back into traffic, vowing to myself that if I ever had kids, they’d be riding the freakin’ bus.