The Geometry of Sisters Read online

  Beck was too busy plotting her next move to do anything but say, sounding like a complete dork, “Uh, thanks.”

  “I'm Pell,” the girl said.

  “This is my sister Rebecca,” Travis said.

  “Hi, Rebecca,” Pell said.

  “She likes to be called Beck,” Travis said.

  “Then why didn't you introduce her that way?” Pell said, laughing, pulling him toward the older kids. “Brothers are idiots.”

  “Got that right,” Beck said under her breath, but she was sorry to see him go. She hung back, major case of dry mouth, what the hell was she doing here in the midst of Lifestyles of the Rich and Stupid? All these dumb girls looking as if they'd stepped straight out of In Style. Beck gave less than a rat's ass about anything but getting the eff out of here, away from the water, back to her real home. C + B = U.

  The bell rang. Scramble, scramble. The rich kids finished up talking and sending messages from their iPhones, just as if they were a mini-cadre of little businesspeople, all doing more important things than heading into high school. She watched her brother break off from talking to Pell and some other very cute girls and walk through the Boys' Entrance door, and her heart broke a little. When had Travis become such a sorry conformer?

  Beck stood there at the base of the shallow steps, determined not to walk in. She felt that by entering the school she'd be selling a big piece of her soul. On the other hand, those thick walls would surely block the sound of waves lapping at the shore. The ocean was so much more intense than she had thought, an endless expanse of water waiting like a monster to swallow her.

  “Hey,” a girl said.

  “Hey, what?” Beck asked.

  The girl giggled. She gestured Beck over. Small and round, about the size and shape of a muffin, the girl had braces and glasses, and Beck felt a little of the ice around her heart melt. She reminded her a little bit of Amy.

  “I'm Camilla,” the girl said. “And this is Lucy.”

  “Beck,” Beck said.

  “Cool name,” Lucy said.

  “Thanks,” Beck said, checking Lucy out. She had that long, tall, turned-up-nose, ironed-hair In Style look that put her straight into Pell's league. So what was she doing hanging with little Camilla? And talking to Beck? Beck hadn't exactly tried to leave the Buckeye State behind; she wore braids, a faded madras shirt, and a pair of dark green cargo pants with an Ohio State patch on the butt.

  “Was that your brother you were standing with?” Lucy asked.

  The nickel dropped. So that's why Lucy was giving her the time of day: she wanted a line on Travis.

  “Yeah,” Beck said, starting to back away. She could fade behind the bushes, run around the building, grab her stuff, hit the road while her mother and brother were in school. The bus station was downtown, and she could hop the next one for New York, head home from there. A bunch of boys lingered under a tree; she saw one, a tall, gawky, awful redhead, look over, catch her eye, and laugh. What's his problem? Beck wondered, scowling at him.

  “My sister told me about you two,” Lucy said. “That you're from the Midwest.”

  Beck nodded. “Columbus, Ohio,” she said proudly, turning her back on the boys.

  “Pell and I are from Michigan.”

  Beck stood there. Just hearing the word “Michigan” made her shiver with grief, paradoxically making her feel closer to home than she had in days.

  “We almost never get to go back,” Lucy went on. “We come to our grandmother's for the summer—she lives up on Bellevue Avenue. And then school starts…. I went to middle school in Portsmouth, and now here I am at Newport Academy with Pell.”

  “You live here? You board?” Beck asked.

  Lucy and Camilla both nodded.

  “We both do,” Camilla said. “I'm from New York.”

  Beck had never met anyone from New York before, but right now she couldn't look away from Lucy. They stared at each other, drinking in the friendliness, openness, and wonder of the great Midwest. The pack of boys moved closer, wanting their attention, but the three ignored them.

  “You never get to go back home?” Beck asked.

  Lucy shook her head. “Hardly ever. We used to get to go to the Upper Peninsula one week a summer, to visit our other grand parents, but our grandfather died last year, and my grandmother's selling the house. I miss that so much…. It was so rustic, and there were loons that came back every year, and there were so many stars!”

  “Our family goes to Mackinac Island,” Beck said quietly, picturing the sky. “I know what you mean.”

  “Well, there will be tons of stars when we go to Third Beach at night, if the seniors deign to let us, that is, little freshmen that we are. It's so dark, no streetlights at all,” Camilla said.

  “Not like Michigan,” Lucy and Beck said at once.

  An engine sounded, and a golf cart roared up. A big, gross old guy with a mustache beeped his horn as he drove past, calling, “Inside now! School is starting!”

  “Come on, we'd better get in there,” Camilla said.

  “Well,” Lucy said. “Shall we?”

  Beck stared from one to the other. It felt disloyal to Amy and Ellie, not to mention Carrie, to even consider walking in with them. She'd spoken to Amy last night, promised she'd be back in Ohio by the weekend. She had plenty of friends who would hide her, let her sleep in their basements and attics. She would spend her days looking for Carrie.

  “I have English first,” Camilla said.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Beck said, aware that the boys were coming closer. They'd all find out her mother was the English teacher sooner than later.

  “What, you hate English?” Lucy asked. “So do I. Give me math any day!”

  “Math?” Beck asked.

  Lucy smiled, nodding. “You too?”

  Beck nodded.

  “Are you in Steve—Mr. Campbell's class?”

  “I think so,” Beck said.

  “Cool—see you there!” Lucy ran after Camilla.

  Beck should have followed right behind her, but now she was stuck. Glancing over, she saw the redhead kid standing right there, as if sent to monitor her. Across the grounds, she spotted the security-patrol guy watching the kids straggling by the door. She'd never be able to sneak past him. Her heart banged in her chest, and she had the feeling that once she walked into the school, her plan would fall to pieces. She'd never get back home.

  She watched Camilla and Lucy walk up the wide and stately limestone steps, past the urns spilling over with ivy, white petunias, and perfect pink geraniums. They entered through the Girls' Entrance, holding the door open behind them for Beck. She licked her lips, clenched her fists, felt as if she was about to parachute out of a plummeting plane.

  The red-haired boy sprang up the steps to the Boys' Entrance. He opened the door ceremoniously and stood there waiting for her, daring her with a wild smile.

  “You think I'm a boy?” she asked, pointing at the chiseled words.

  He grinned even wider. “I think you're a rule-breaker,” he said.

  “I'm not,” Beck said, offended.

  But then, and she couldn't even say why, she walked straight through the boys' door as he neatly crisscrossed, a double helix, behind her as he walked through the girls'. They met inside, in a common hall that proved the entrances were just stupid, some dumb tradition invented by the school founder. But Beck found herself grinning back at the kid, and they high-fived as Beck followed Lucy and Camilla up a wide staircase to their first classes.

  That night, the campus was dark and still. Lights burned in some of the rooms—most boarders lived in the main building, a few others in smaller houses on the cliff and along the side streets.

  The Shaws' house was silent. Windows were open to allow the night air in, and the cats lay on the windowsills, listening to the crickets and crashing surf, gazing out into the darkness. Beck and Travis were asleep, so the cats were the only ones to see Maura quietly slip into her shoes, find her keys, and step outside.
>
  The car was parked around back, in a small garage also used to store garden equipment. The structure muffled the sound of the engine starting, but Maura winced as she backed out, gravel crunching under the tires.

  She passed academic buildings, faculty houses, and the security cottage. No lights on anywhere; the whole campus seemed to be asleep. Then she happened to glance through the trees, toward the mansion—completely dark now, but what was that on the top floor?

  A green light glowed from the tall windows. She stopped the car, gazed upward. She peered through foliage, inching her car forward for a better look. The glimmer danced, green-blue and cool. And then she realized: it was the ocean reflected on the ceiling. Bouncing through the great seaward windows, refracted upward.

  That had to be it, right? She stared another few moments, wondering about the light source. There was no moon to illuminate the waves. Starlight? She thought of Carrie, her love of the night sky. Maura's memories of her had been so magnified since their arrival in Newport. Was it possible her daughter was here, close by?

  She stared at the shimmering light, realized it was the reflection of a swimming pool. A pool on the top floor of a boarding school? It seemed so jarring, decadent in a very-Newport way, and she wondered why she hadn't seen anything about it in the school brochures, why no one had mentioned it, why the pool wasn't at the large athletic facility.

  In that moment the fourth floor went dark, and she put the questions from her mind. She had a mission.

  Maura drove down the tree-lined drive, through the arching iron gates, toward town. On Bellevue Avenue she passed the grocery store where she and her sister had shopped, the Newport Casino with its grass tennis courts hidden behind the dreamy old shingled façade by McKim, Mead, and White, all the big houses. Newport had a great story, full of history not taught in school.

  Breathing deeply, Maura tried to clear her head. She'd just taught her first day. She'd worked hard to get to this point, and wished she had someone to celebrate with. Beck had come in after school, hadn't said a word. Travis had been sweet, congratulating her on a good job—two of his new friends had been in her class, told him that they'd liked what she'd written on the blackboard: Chaucer's observation that life is a “thinne subtil knittinge of thinges.”

  And that was true. Last night's emotions and memories had stirred her up—things knitting together here in Newport. Being here brought back that summer, how she'd nearly ruined her relationship with Andy. She ached for him, the father of her children, the feeling dissolving into something else, an old longing she'd kept below the surface all these years. But tonight she couldn't wait any longer.

  The city had sections, clearly divided. Thornton Wilder, in Theophilus North, had written about them, but Maura made her own distinctions. Leaving the very rich Bellevue Avenue, she headed down the hill, crossed Spring Street—where she had lived with her sister so long ago—and descended toward the wharves.

  Time had changed the city. Condos were everywhere. T-shirt shops, ice cream parlors, saltwater taffy stores and bed-and-breakfasts had replaced hardware stores, marine repair shops, and boat sheds, all that was new offering tourists the chance to buy a feeling: the sense of being part of amazing, magical Newport. But the true essence could never be bought. It had to be lived, breathed in like the sea air. Maura had done it that summer.

  The wharf area, mostly developed, still had one dark and gritty stretch. Half a block down from Spring Street and up from Thames Street, away from the water, hidden from sight, was a row of warehouses.

  She had to turn off the main road, onto Blackstone's Alley—a narrow cobblestone drive from the era of whaling, steamships, and carriages. Her heart beat harder, out of control. What if she saw him? Nothing here had changed since their summer together.

  This area still reeked of industry. It was the part of Newport that stayed hidden, that tourists weren't supposed to see. Within sound of the harbor—the happy din of visitors strolling, eating, drinking, taking pictures—this was the Newport no one cared about. There were no views, lawns, gardens; instead, it was a place of ramshackle garages, machine shops, abandoned carriage houses, ancient boat sheds, some with iron rails heading down to the harbor.

  Her sister's welding studio had been here before she converted the barn in Portsmouth. Maura passed it slowly, almost seeing Katharine standing there in her fireproof mask, wielding a torch. Shuttered for the night, it and all the buildings were deserted. A stray cat sprang across the road, startling her. She braked, watching the cat chase a rat behind a brick garage.

  Inching along, Maura felt every sense alert. This was where she had come to life. She'd discovered the danger in her own heart, found the thrill of it all. If the alley had been torn down, razed, developed into yet another condo complex, she might have gone back to Newport Academy, quit then and there, packed up the kids, and returned to Columbus. For she hadn't realized until right now, this very instant, how badly she needed this. She needed something not to have changed.

  She needed the alley and warehouse to be just as it was. There was the other building she knew so well, the square structure just four doors down from Katharine's, up ahead. She stopped a few yards back.

  With the car windows open, she heard the faint sound of halyards whipping and clanking in the harbor a block away. Or was it the ka-chunk of J.D.'s machine press, working there behind the corrugated steel shutters of the old warehouse? She'd met him here in the alley, one day when she was visiting Katharine's studio. They'd both stepped outside into the sunshine.

  Sometimes everything in life crystallizes in one moment, one place. Time doesn't matter; years trickle away. For Maura, all that had happened since was linked to what took place long ago right here. The roar of a motorcycle, the defying of gravity.

  Maura thought of Andy. She had loved him with all she had. For seventeen years they'd had the happiest family they could make. But she knew he would have divorced her if he hadn't died, and she understood that this place was why.

  Patterns in the old brick: the arch of concreted-up windows, holes where gales had roared off Narragansett Bay, grabbed the mortar and shaken it loose, cast iron reinforcing the corners. J.D.'s great-grandfather had been a shipbuilder, had constructed this warehouse and most of the others on Blackstone's Alley.

  Some people said James Desmond Blackstone had run Newport— not as mayor, not in any legal or recognized form of government, but from this grimy, hidden warren where he'd made a fortune, halfway between the waterfront and the world of high society. An uneducated man, he'd been determined that his children have the best, attend school with the children of rich men. He had founded Newport Academy.

  J.D. had been proud of his family heritage, of his greatgrandfather's vision and might, but he had paid his family rent for this place. He had needed to pay his own way, cared nothing about power. He'd wanted one thing: Maura.

  Did he still come here? What would he look like? Would she be able to bear seeing him after all that had happened? She closed her eyes and imagined him still climbing towers, scaling bridges, scaring girls almost to death. The vision was so acute and cruel, she actually moaned.

  She had another visit to make, and it wouldn't be easy; she had to see Katharine. Something between the O'Donnell sisters had broken at the end of that summer. The distance between Rhode Island and Ohio wasn't all that kept them apart. How could love do so much damage?

  Katharine would know how J.D. was, whether he would even see her. Maybe telling J.D. the truth would finally set Maura free; perhaps it would return her to her sister, give her back Andy, help her find Carrie. Maybe it would give her back herself.

  Or none of the above …

  4WHILE MOST OF THE GRAND GILDED AGE MANSIONS of Newport were built for the summer enjoyment of wealthy New York and Boston families, designed for lavish balls and grand-scale entertaining, Blackstone Hall, the main building at Newport Academy, had always been intended for education.

  The founder had come from Irelan
d and had strict notions of propriety—separate entrances for girls and boys, distinct living quarters, and a chapel on the third floor. There were many hidden passageways, built so the teachers and masters could spy on the students, make sure they were behaving.

  Those corridors had been boarded up for years. But rumors of secrets remained. Students claimed they heard the ghost of old James Desmond Blackstone roaming the halls at night, keeping everyone in line. They saw apparitions of a young girl, Mary Langley who'd died one winter day a hundred years ago—the December anniversary commemorated school-wide each year.

  “Who was she?” the new students would whisper.

  “The richest girl in America,” some upperclassmen would say. “So wealthy her father demanded she have her own private floor, the top floor of Blackstone Hall.”

  “Her father was a rival and the brother-in-law of the Dark Lord—Percival Vanderbilt—of Newport's second-richest family, and he wanted Percival's envy. He sent Mary to school practically on Percival's home turf, with every luxury imaginable.”

  “Her own private carriage.”

  “Her own private swimming pool.”

  “Her very own elevator.”

  It was true: a creaky rarely used elevator existed. Sometimes it would growl to life, frightening students who hadn't heard it before. They lived in large, bright rooms with tall windows overlooking the grounds and ocean, the walnut-paneled walls lined with bookcases.

  Upperclass students had rooms with wide fireplaces built of Italian marble. At night, with a sea wind rattling the panes, wood fires would crackle on the hearth and the students would gather round to study.