The Mason Dixon Line (A Horizons Novel) (14 page)

“Ms. Hart,
I loved the book. My mom reads it to me every night.” Carolyn leaned forward to
catch the words of Mallory Brown, a Horizons student with Down syndrome.

“Thank you,
Mallory. That means a lot to me.” She hugged the girl and exchanged a fond
smile with Mallory’s mother. The sweet girl was one of her favorite students,
and she loved her mother as well. They’d both come today for Horizon’s Year-End
Celebration.

The book’s
illustrator, however, was conspicuously absent. They’d finished up the book
collaborating by email, exchanging a series of terse messages that carefully focused
on the project, nothing personal. They’d gone through the editorial process,
reviewed galleys, and sent the final files off for printing, keeping everything
strictly business. She hadn’t even asked about Barney. Now in the last week of
school, she had the final book, now titled
Barney’s
Tail
, in her hands.

She’d
emailed Mason to tell him about the celebration, swallowing her pride and
asking him point-blank to come. He was her collaborator. Still, every time she
thought about seeing him again, her heart ached and her stomach fluttered. After
two days of silence, he’d finally responded, telling her no. “It’s at Horizons.
Your turf. I’ll let you take all the credit.”

She didn’t
deserve all the credit: Mason’s colorful pastel drawings gave the book its life
and heart, but she didn’t argue. He obviously didn’t want to see her, and she
understood. A part of her desperately wanted to see him; another part wasn’t
sure she could endure it.

Kayla stood
by her side, greeting the students and their families. Her friend had given her
a ride tonight. Carolyn still didn’t have a car. The insurance company was
dragging their feet about paying her, something about waiting to see if the car
would be recovered.

Yay, she
was a double loser. No boyfriend and no car. She swallowed her misery and
plastered on a smile.

Mallory
handed her a copy of
Barney’s Tail
to
sign it. She was returning the little girl’s book when Kayla put a hand on her
arm.

“Don’t look
now, but it’s the Fanes.” Kayla had been predictably furious to return from
Bali and learn that Dr. Dunne was even considering granting the Fanes’ demand
to let Jacob skip a grade.

Jacob ran
to greet her and threw his arms around her waist. “Ms. Hart! I can’t believe I
know a real published book author. Sign my book. My mom has it.”

“Say ‘Please,’
Jacob.” Behind him, Mrs. Fane shook her head. “I swear he has no manners at
all.” Her thin hand came to rest on his shoulder, like a mark of possession.

“Please,
Ms. Hart, sign my book,” the boy repeated dutifully, but his enthusiasm had
been dimmed by his mother’s reprimand.

“Of course
I will.” She smiled brightly to let him know she wasn’t mad at him. He might be
wild and impulsive, but he could also be reduced to tears by a harsh word or an
angry look. “Did you read my book? All by yourself?” Jacob read well, but
getting him to sit still long enough to read a book for pleasure was still a
challenge. He had so many other things he’d rather be doing.

“I did. I
thought it was great! I’d like to write books someday when I grow up.” Carolyn
smiled. So far, Jacob’s future occupations consisted of writer, scientist, math
teacher, astronaut, cowboy, and ice cream truck driver.

“Don’t be
silly, Jacob! With your intellect, you’ll be a great man and get your PhD. Writer’s
don’t make money. And stop fidgeting, for heaven’s sake!”

Carolyn’s
smile froze on her face. She tried to keep her face expressionless, but
something of her irritation must have shown.

“No
offense, of course,” muttered Mrs. Fane.

“None
taken. I think you could be a great writer, Jacob.”
No matter what your witch of a mother thinks
. She inscribed Jacob’s
book with a personal note and gave it back to him. “Thanks for reading my book,
buddy. I’m really glad you liked it.”

She waited
for Mrs. Fane to walk away, but instead the woman leaned forward with a confiding
air. “By the way, I want you to know that Dr. Dunne agrees with me. He called
me today to let me know. We’ll be moving Jacob up to the fifth grade next year.”
The gleam in her eye couldn’t be mistaken for anything but malice.

Carolyn and
Kayla exchanged glances.

“But I didn’t
sign off on the Consent to Advance form,” Kayla said. Horizons policy stated
that the student’s educational team, including his teacher, Dr. Dunne, and any
therapists or special education professionals assigned to his team had to unanimously
sign off on an advancement. Such consensus was hard to achieve, so students
rarely skipped grades.

Mrs. Fane
shrugged, her thin shoulders lifting in her twinset. A little smile played
about her lips. “I guess Dr. Dunne decided to put the needs of a child above
red tape. He saw how exceptional Jacob is and decided he needed to take action,
regardless of what bureaucrats thought.”

Bureaucrats?
They were teachers, damn it, not pencil-pushers. Where did this lady get off?

“But Jacob
is doing so well in his current class,” Carolyn said. “He’s not ready to move
on to fifth grade socially. It’s not necessary. He’s now gotten to the point of
making friends and not being bullied or teased. If you make him skip a grade,
he’ll be right back to square one.” Only when Mrs. Fane gaped and even Kayla
looked at her with surprise did she realize she’d spoken out of turn. She was
the aide, not the teacher.

Kayla
folded her hands in front of her. “I think Carolyn is trying to say that we as
his team had some concerns about his advancement. Have those concerns been
addressed?” Thank God for Kayla and her tact. She saw Jacob wide-eyed, looking
back and forth between the adults, and could have kicked herself for speaking.
She would not say another word about the subject in his hearing.

His mother
had no such scruples. Mrs. Fane glared down the bridge of her narrow nose. “I
know better than any teacher what is best for my son. And I’m certainly not
going to listen to the opinion of some
aide
.
Good evening, ladies.”

She tugged
at her son’s hand and moved off.

“Bye, Ms.
Johnston, Ms. Hart.” Jacob’s little voice sounded sad. Clearly he recognized
they’d had words with his mother. She only hoped the substance of the
conversation had gone over his head.

She would
not chew this woman out in front of Jacob. She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t, she
wouldn’t.

With
difficulty, she swallowed her humiliation. “Goodbye, sweetheart.” She gave him
a little wave as she watched his slumped shoulders retreat.

“Do you
believe that woman?” Carolyn glared at her friend.

“Oh, her I
can believe. I can’t believe Dunne is going along with it!”

Carolyn crossed
her arms. “Something tells me a big check changed hands.” Jacob’s mother and
Dr. Dunne had both gotten what they wanted, and Jacob had been forgotten.

Kayla hugged
her. “I’m so sorry about the way she talked to you. You’re so much more than an
aide to me. I couldn’t do it without you.”

“Thanks,
hon.” Her lips curled ruefully. “Unfortunately, what she said is true, though. I’m
not a real teacher. My opinion doesn’t really count for anything. Not where Dr.
Dunne is concerned. And when money is on the line, he doesn’t care what you
think either. Jacob Fane is going to advance and there’s nothing we can do
about it.”

Kayla didn’t
argue. Clearly, she recognized truth when she heard it.

#

After the
evening ended, Carolyn stopped to buy a Coke from the lunch room vending
machines and ran into Dr. Dunne pouring packet after packet of powdered creamer
into a cup of the school’s foul coffee.

“Dr. Dunne.”

“Carolyn!”
He greeted her with a wide smile. “The evening was a smashing success, don’t
you think?”

Smashing
.
Especially that part where Mrs. Fane talked at me like I was a piece of
furniture
. “Yes, it was amazing. I met a lot of great kids and got to talk to
a lot of Horizons families, too.”

“Oh yes,
that.” Dr. Dunne gave a wave of his hand. “But even more exciting, it gave some
marvelous publicity for the book. I mentioned it every chance I got.”

“Really?”
She’d been uncomfortable using a school event to plug her book, but as usual,
Dr. Dunne hadn’t listened.

“We’ve sold
out of the first print run and I’ve ordered a second,” he enthused. What’s
more, we’re now planning on an electronic edition for tablet computers and
e-readers. This is going to be a big fundraiser for Horizons.”

“An
electronic edition?” Carolyn thought for a moment. “I don’t remember that being
in my contract.” Would this mean more money? In some place at the back of her
brain, she’d never stopped hoping for a miracle that would allow her to pay off
her debts. In her dreams, when that happened, Mason usually showed up at her
doorstep, swept her into his arms, and made passionate, inventive, wild love to
her all night long, making her forget all about designer clothes and the Home
Retail Channel.

And then
she woke up, alone and feeling worse than ever.

“You worked
for a flat fee, Carolyn, and signed the rights away. We can do anything with
the book that we want to.”

“Oh.” So
she was getting screwed. That sounded about right. On top of insults from Jacob’s
mother and Dunne caving to the woman’s unreasonable demands, it pretty much
made her evening complete. “That’s actually not what I wanted to talk to you
about anyway. I ran into Jacob Fane’s mother.”

“Really?”
The self-satisfied glow dropped from his face in a wink.

“Really.
She seems to think that Jacob is skipping the next year, even though Kayla and
the rest of his team didn’t sign off on it.”

Dr. Dunne
swirled a stir stick through his coffee, paying an inordinate amount of
attention to this simple task. He didn’t meet her eye. “I found a clause in the
Horizons handbook. Children can advance without the entire team’s approval with
just the principal’s authority, if the circumstances are exceptional. And you
have to admit, Jacob is exceptional.”

Yeah, and his mother’s bank account is
exceptional too.

Did she
even want to get into this? This was a fight she couldn’t win. And she was just
an aide, anyway. She ought to let Kayla handle it. She was his teacher, and had
a million times more tact than she did anyway.

She’d
nearly rationalized her objections away when she remembered.

Kristin
Cooper, the little girl who’d soiled her pants on the playground when she was nine
and never lived it down. And Mason, the gifted kid who’d been tormented by
older boys and called “retard” because of his learning problems. She couldn’t
change the past. She’d never stood up for Kristin, and she hadn’t known Mason
back then.

But she
could stand up for Jacob, even if the bully was his own mother.

“You know
it’s wrong.”

The frantic
swirling of the stir stick stopped and Dr. Dunne peered over his glasses. “Excuse
me?”

She took a
deep breath to calm her butterflies. “You know that Jacob Fane is not ready
emotionally or socially to go up a grade, no matter how good he is at math.
Putting him in a higher grade won’t do anything for him except make him smaller
and weaker than all the other kids, and take him away from all the friends he’s
made in his current class. Do you know how hard it was for him to make friends,
Dr. Dunne?”

He tossed
the stir stick in the trash and shrugged. “He’ll make new friends. He’s a kid.
Kids are very flexible.”

She shook
her head. “How long have you been doing this, Dr. Dunne? You still don’t know a
damn thing about the kids you teach. It’s like the chameleon. He changes his
colors to adapt to his circumstances, but inside, he’s still the same. Some
things don’t change. Jacob can adapt to a certain extent, but he’s never going
to be a neurotypical kid.”

Dr. Dunne
blinked. “What chameleon?”

“Barney.”
He didn’t react. “In the book?
Barney’s
Tail
?” He still looked blank. “God, you haven’t even read it, have you?”
Unbelievable.

He
shrugged. “My job is to raise money for Horizons, not read a children’s book.”

“Your job
is to do what’s best for the students here and you suck at it.” She blinked,
unable to believe she’d spoken the words aloud. Holy crap. What had she done?

“I beg your
pardon?” Dunne stared at her. For once in his life, he actually seemed to be
listening to her.

She licked
her lips. No point denying it now. “I said you suck at your job.” The words
came out in a half-croak.

“That’s
insubordination!” A lock of hair fell over his shiny forehead, obscuring his
astonished eyes.

She’d gone
too far to back down now. “It’s the truth and you know it. His mom doesn’t give
a damn about what’s best for him. She’s ashamed of his differences and hates
the fact that he has to attend a special-needs school. She’s trying to make up
for it by pressuring the hell out of him academically. It’s wrong. You’re only
going along with it because you’re afraid she’ll pull him out of the school and
take her money along with it if you don’t.”