The Mason Dixon Line (A Horizons Novel) (2 page)

Jesus Christ, were the angry elves dancing
in her head ever going to give up and go home?

Carolyn fumbled on the table for her water
bottle and took a drink. It was her third of the morning, but somehow no matter
how much she drank, it never seemed to assuage her fierce thirst.

She’d had one too many—or perhaps three too
many—gin and tonics last night. The best thing she could say about the night was
that at least she hadn’t done anything truly stupid. She’d been at the corner
of Loneliness and Drunken Stupor, an intersection that sometimes resulted in
her going home with a guy she didn’t know.

Her cell phone chimed again. She’d ignored
it three times in the last fifteen minutes. She’d even ignored incoming texts.
God love her, it was probably Suz, another Horizons coworker and her designated
driver from last night, checking to make sure she was okay. Nice of her, but
she wasn’t up to interacting with anyone human right now. Not even a
telemarketer. Not even a telemarketing recording.

On the other hand, what if it was truly
something important?

Her grandmother had an artificial hip. What
if she’d fallen and broken something?

With a groan, Carolyn checked the readout.

It wasn’t a call. It was a reminder from
her calendar.

Ten minutes
until event: Dunne at Java Jones.

Shit!

She leaped off of the couch, hangover
forgotten. God, how had she totally blanked on the meeting?

Several gin-and-tonics probably had
something to do with it.

She looked down at her yoga pants and tank
top. She hadn’t even had a shower yet.

Could she skip the shower? She sniffed her
shirt.

No
. She could
not skip the shower.

She raced for the bathroom, shedding clothes
as she went. She yanked the ponytail holder out of her hair and grabbed a towel
from the linen closet. Something niggled at the back of her brain.

She paused, taking a deep breath to ease
the nausea. Between panic and a surfeit of gin, she was about to empty her
stomach and it wouldn’t be pretty. She struggled to retrieve information from
her alcohol-soaked brain cells.

Her car. She had no car! It was in the
teacher’s parking lot at Horizons, where she’d left it when she hopped in Suz’s
car to go to Short Dogs after she’d finished grading papers. She’d meant to ask
Suz to drive her back there today to pick it up now that she was basically sober,
if not yet fully functional.

Oh, God.

She needed to get cleaned up and dressed
before she did anything, then she’d worry about how to get to Java Jones with
no car. And how she would write a children’s book when she had absolutely no
experience or interest in the idea.

No time to wait for the water to warm up. As
the icy spray blasted her in the face, she shivered and took comfort in the
fact that at least there would be coffee.

#

Her cell rang as she parked Mildred’s car
in the only free spot in the Java Jones lot. Her neighbor across the hall had
sweetly agreed to let her drive her 15-year-old Dodge Neon on short notice. The
driver's seat belt didn’t work, the passenger door didn’t match the rest of the
car, and the upholstery was toast, but it had gotten her to the meeting more or
less on time.

Mildred could afford better, she just didn’t
want to. “It gets me around. Why waste money on something new?”

The elderly woman was sweet as could be,
but Carolyn didn’t understand that line of thinking at all. Why drive a dump
when you could have something nicer?

She checked the readout on her cell. It was
Dr. Dunne. “Yeah?” she asked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. She was
only 10 minutes late. Why couldn’t he keep his pants on?

The thought of him with his pants
off
made the bile rise in her stomach
again.

“Carolyn. I’m afraid I’m going to miss the
meeting. I’ve received an important call from a board member and I have to take
it.”

“We can reschedule—”

“No, I’ve already spoken to Mason and he’s
at Java Jones. I want the two of you to get started over spring break. You’ll
be working closely together and it’s best if you can get started while you’re
off. He’s wearing a red hat of some kind, so you’ll know him when you see him.”

“A red hat?” An image of a chubby guy in a
trucker cap sprang into her mind. What kind of a guy had Dunne hired for this
project?

“Call me later if you have any questions.
Carolyn, I’m counting on you for this.”

“I understand, Dr. Dunne. I won’t let you
down.” She winced at how eager she sounded and ended the call.

The aroma of dark roast hit her as soon as
she opened the door.
Yes
. Coffee
first. Maybe then she’d be human enough to face this Mason guy with a smile on
her face.

In line at the cashier, she tried not to
scan the tables for a guy in a red trucker cap.

She paid for her tall Colombian roast and
faced the music, searching the clusters of small tables. Most of the patrons
were businesspeople tapping on their laptops or moms, sipping lattes while
their kids sucked down boxes of organic chocolate milk.

In the corner, she saw a tall guy with his
back to her, wearing some kind of weird Nordic-style knit hat with earflaps and
tassels hanging down the sides. She skimmed right by him, and then dragged her
eyes back. It was red.

Apprehension dawning, she did a quick scan
of the other tables. No other red hats. Nothing even close.

Her heart sank. She was going to be stuck
with a weird guy all spring break, clearly. Why was she surprised? Anything Dr.
Dunne touched turned into a disaster.

She took a sip of coffee to fortify herself
and tried to ignore the angry elves in her head. She approached the man and tapped
the shoulder of his dusty black trench coat. He turned and she stared into a
pair of dark eyes behind Buddy Holly glasses.

He rose to his feet, looking as surprised
as she felt for a second.

Then those dark eyes narrowed in a way she
couldn’t mistake for friendly.

“You must be the
teacher.
” It wasn’t a question. He said it the same way someone
else might say, “You must be the ex-con,” or “You must be the registered sex
offender.” With disgust rather than doubt.

No matter. She could give as good as she
got. She looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. “And you must be the
artist
.”

Mason should never have agreed to this. He
and the educational system had never gotten along.

The girl—what was her name? Carol? Caroline—shifted
her cup to her left hand and stuck out her right. He took it, more out of reflex
than anything else. It was soft, and still warm from where the heat of her cup
had penetrated her skin.

He let go, not wanting to get too
comfortable touching her.

“I’m actually a teacher’s aide, not a
teacher.”

Whatever. Teacher, aide, same difference to
him. She was the enemy, even if she had soft, warm hands and the kind of
perfect bone structure you expected to see on a comic-book illustration. The
kind of bone structure his pencil would love to sketch, even though it would be
a challenge to capture the combination of sensuality and attitude she carried.

Mason loved a challenge.

They took their seats in silence.

As he always did when he spotted an
interesting face, he pulled a sketch pad and a drawing pencil out of his bag
and went to work.

She watched in silence for a few moments
until the first lines on the page began to take shape.

“You’re drawing
me
?” She sounded surprised.

“Yeah. You mind?”

“No, I
guess not. I’m Carolyn Hart, by the way.”

Carolyn Hart. He let the name roll around
in his brain for a minute and wondered how it might sound on his tongue. The
name sounded like a spunky heroine from one of those old comic strips with a
single woman as the lead character, back when that was a novelty.
Mary Worth
.
Juliet Jones
. Lu Ann Powers in
Apartment
3-G
.

He could picture her as a superhero in her
own comic. She had the strong facial features for it. And the petite, curvy body.

“Mason Dixon.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s my name.”

“Seriously?”

“As a heart attack.”

Her brow furrowed. “Like the line between
north and south?”

“You got it.”

“Is that some kind of pseudonym you use for
your work?” Her nose wrinkled. Too bad. It was a cute nose, when she wasn’t
looking down it at him.

“Nope. That's the real deal. My parents had
a great sense of humor.” And an abysmal sense of responsibility, but hey,
nobody was perfect.

“Huh. Some sense of humor.” Her dark brows
dipped in a frown. They didn’t match her streaky white-blonde hair.

“You color your hair, huh?”

Now her brows positively slammed together
in a scowl. “What do you care?”

“Nothing. It’s just an observation. Artists
get paid to observe things.” His tendency to blurt out exactly what he thought had
caused a few eyebrows to rise over the years.

“Try keeping your observation to yourself
next time.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

“Will it mess up your drawing if I keep
drinking my coffee?”

“Nope. If you don’t mind me saying, you
look like you could use it.” Her concealer couldn’t quite hide the purple
smudges under her eyes.

“Yeah. Thanks for the reminder.” A long
silence hung in the air with the aroma of freshly roasted coffee.

“So I guess we’re supposed to be working on
a book,” she finally ventured.

“Guess so.” He wasn’t in the mood to make
things easy for teacher lady. Come to think of it, had he ever made things easy
for a teacher? Doubtful.

“Have you illustrated a children’s book
before?”

“Nope. I’m a graphic artist and cartoonist.
I work for the big comics as a freelancer, but I have my own strip on the web
too. What about you?”

“Me? I’m not an artist.” She made it sound
like the very idea of drawing pictures as a career was absurd. It probably was,
to her. How many teachers had told him he’d never make a living drawing stupid
pictures?

Tons. About a hundred teachers, just like
this girl across from him, had lectured him.
“Stop wasting time! You’re never going to amount to anything until you
learn to listen and follow directions!”

Fat lot they’d known. He still never
followed directions, but he’d definitely amounted to something. Who cared if he
didn’t have degrees on his wall or letters after his name?

“Have you written a kids’ book before?” he
said.

“No. I have a background in creative
writing though.”

“What does that mean, ‘background in
creative writing’?”

“I took some classes.”

“Oh.” She was one of
those
. She probably went to workshops, and took classes, and read
books, and never actually wrote anything at all.

He moved his pencil across the page in
broad strokes, filling out the outline of her head and shoulders. The collar of
her shirt would be tough to get right, the way it hung in drapes across her
chest. It was a nice chest, large proportionally to her slender frame. Wonder
Woman and her bullet bra had nothing on Carolyn Hart.

“Please stop staring at my boobs.”

He dragged his gaze away and studied the
shape of her eyes, hoping the heat in his face wasn’t obvious.

“I told you. I’m an artist. I have to
observe my subjects.”

She tapped her nails on the table in an irritated
staccato. “A lot of men must be artists then. My chest seems to get observed
frequently.”

That he could believe. Her clingy
short-sleeved sweater left little to the imagination.

He’d gotten the rough-in of the chin wrong,
he decided. Too blunt and rounded. Hers was almost pointed, the lovely nadir of
a heart-shaped face. He erased and made a few adjustments.

There. That was better.

“So what do you have against teachers?” Her
left hand, lying slack on the table, twitched. She played with her nails, in a
nervous-looking gesture. Her manicure looked expensive. Hell, everything about
her looked expensive. What kind of salary was she pulling down as a teacher’s aide?

“Who said I had anything against them?”

“Please. Your tone of voice said it all.”
She took another pull of her coffee, fiddling with the cardboard ring around
the middle. She crossed her arms, the gesture tugging the clingy top tight
across her breasts. He dragged his eyes back to his sketchpad.

“If you hate teachers so much, why did you
agree to this stupid book project of Dr. Dunne’s?”

“You think it’s stupid to make kids who are
different feel good about themselves?” His grip tightened on the pencil and he
forced himself to relax. A tight grip would ruin the line.

“Of course not. That’s not what I meant. I
mean, if Dr. Dunne’s involved in it, it’s probably going to suck.” She
immediately looked like she wanted to take the words back, giving him a wary glance
between her lashes. “You’re not a friend of Dr. Dunne’s or something, are you?”

“Hardly. I’ve never laid eyes on the guy. I’m
here because of my aunt. She’s on the board of Horizons now.”

“On the board, huh? That explains a lot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The
charcoal tip of his pencil hovered over the rough grain of the paper, her left
eye half-formed.

“If your aunt is on the board, she must
have money. And if she has money, Dr. Dunne wants to suck up to her.”

“Now wait a minute. You think I got this
job because Dr. Dunne wants my aunt’s money?”

“Sure. I know most of the board. Who is
your aunt, anyway?”

He didn’t want to tell her, but he hardly
had a good reason to hold it back. “Marjorie Freeman.”

“Oh, my God. The chairman of the board of
Freeman Pharmaceuticals?” She put a hand to her forehead. “That explains
everything!”

He didn’t like what her knowing expression
implied. “Yeah? What of it?”

“First off, that explains why Dr. Dunne
gave you this job.” She ticked off points on her lovely nails. “He is a suck-up
extraordinaire. Even if you did all of your art with a crayon clenched between
your teeth, he’d give you the job to curry favor with your aunt. But I bet that’s
not all. I’m guessing you were willing to give him a break on your fee because of
your connections to your aunt, am I right?” She crossed her arms, sure she’d
figured it all out.

Her smirk made him feel like a fool, but
damned if he’d show it. “I neither confirm that nor deny it. But what if I did
give him a break? It’s for a good cause.”

“So, Dr. Dunne is, among other things, a
cheapskate. How do you think I got this job? I’m a teacher’s aide at Horizons,
so he could bully me into doing this book cheap. He can guilt-trip you and keep
you from charging your normal rate.”

His conversation with his aunt had centered
on his duty as a kid who’d struggled in school to help other kids struggling in
school. She’d made him feel so bad he’d offered to do this project for free,
but she wouldn’t allow that.

Carolyn Hart didn’t need to know that,
though.

His hellish school years were behind him. Nowadays,
he rarely thought about them. That didn’t mean they hadn’t shaped every part of
him, though.

“I did this project because Aunt Marjorie
asked me to. She’s a special woman. That’s it. I don’t care anything about your
school, Dr. Dunne, or you. No matter how they dress up Horizons, calling it a
special-needs school, education is all about one thing: conformity.”

“What?” She straightened in her seat. “What
kind of ridiculous generalization is that?”

“You asked what I had against teachers?
Fine. Here it is. Teachers like kids who do what they’re told, stand in line,
and show zero imagination. Schools are good at training corporate drudges, not
people who can think for themselves.”

She was looking at him like he was a
madman. Maybe he was. He’d long since given up trying to hide his emotions. He
didn’t do it well, so why bother trying?

“That’s completely crazy. Let me guess. You
did badly in school, so now you’re thinking that since you couldn’t hack it, that
there’s something wrong with the whole educational system, because there couldn’t
possibly be anything wrong with you?”

Something
is wrong with you! Why can’t you listen? Why do I have to tell you everything
ten times?

The shriek of a dozen teachers who’d said
that and worse echoed down the years. He kept his face impassive.

“This has nothing to do with me.”

“Right.” She leaned back in her chair, hands
flat on the table.

He put his pencil down with a click. He
didn’t feel like drawing her anymore anyway. “It has to do with you, and what I
think of your profession.”

“Which is not much, apparently.”

“You got it.”

“
You
don’t get it. It’s Dr. Dunne’s idea, and he’s my boss, so I have to go along
with it. I have no choice.”

Please. From her carefully highlighted hair
to her perfectly tipped nails, this woman had had it easy. “Wow. It’s almost
like you’re a corporate drone who can’t question authority.” He drummed his
fingers on the table, needing some outlet for his pent-up energy.

“Please. Can you be any more sanctimonious?
You say you don’t want to be here, associating with a conformist educator like
me, but you are. Why is that?”

“I told you. Because my aunt asked me to.”

“And you can’t stand up to her?” The taunt
in her voice pulled at him, even though he knew it was bull. He’d taken his
shots at her, and she was fighting back. Fair enough. He admired her for it
even as it pissed him off. Her eyes narrowed. “Let me guess. She’s holding the
purse strings, keeping you in goofy hats while you pursue your artistic
ambitions.”

He hated the sneer in her voice when she
said “artistic ambitions.” Typical. What teacher ever cared about anything
besides staying quiet, following directions, and doing what you were told?

He took a deep breath, which he had learned
to do when his anger threatened to truly run out of control. “The only strings my
aunt holds on me are emotional, not financial.” He adjusted his hat. “And what’s
wrong with this hat, anyway?” Truth be told, he’d been dreading this meeting
and wore it to be ridiculous, to annoy the middle-aged teacher type he thought
Dunne would be pairing him up with.

Carolyn Hart wasn’t middle-aged, but she was
every bit the closed-minded prig he’d expected. He had knocked her back on her
heels, that much he could tell. Good.

She shook her head. “That hat is
soooo
wrong. If you don’t know what’s
wrong with it, I can’t explain it to you.” The diversion seemed to cool things
off, though. Anger seeped out of the conversation like air out of a punctured
tire.

“Look,” she continued. “I don’t like your
hat, and you don’t like my job. Neither one of us wants to be on this project,
but we are. We might as well make the best of it. Deal?”