The Geometry of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  “Okay you two,” she said, as they drove up Memorial Boulevard, crested Bellevue Avenue, and started down the hill toward Easton's Beach. “Watch for Cliff Avenue on the right.”

  “There, Mom,” Travis said, pointing.

  Maura took a right, drove a short way, and then spotted the tall iron gates. A discreet sign, Newport Academy, was set into the stone post. Her stomach flipped as she realized that this was it—the start of a new life. She drove through, onto a private drive lined with venerable old trees, branches interlocking overhead.

  Breaking into a clearing, they saw the main school building—a limestone mansion with turrets, balconies, pointed-arch windows, and gargoyles—built on the tall cliff's edge, overlooking the crashing Atlantic. Spectacular, and she tried not to think of the pictures Carrie would have taken of this place.

  “That's the school?” Beck asked.

  “It is,” Maura said.

  “It looks like a prison!”

  “It does not,” Travis said. “It looks like a castle.”

  “I hate it,” Beck said.

  Maura didn't speak. She just followed the road behind the main school building—the grand mansion—past other smaller but no less elegant houses, around an ancient, sprawling copper beech tree, into a darkly wooded laurel grove. Several small outbuildings were set here, including the small brick carriage house where they would live.

  “This is it?” Beck asked, sounding incredulous.

  “Yes,” Maura said. “Home sweet home.”

  “It's tiny and dark!” Beck said. “It's horrible!”

  “It's not tiny,” Maura said. “It has three bedrooms, one for each of us.”

  “We had four bedrooms in our other house!” Beck said. “Three's not enough. You know that …”

  “Beck, honey,” she began, her throat shutting tight.

  “Beck,” Travis said, “there aren't five of us anymore. Only three. Come on, you can add.”

  “You mean subtract!”

  “Don't make it worse.”

  “Shut up, shut up,” Beck said. “Why did we have to leave? What if Carrie tries to find us? How will she, Mom? Have you really thought about that, aside from leaving that lame note?”

  “Beck, Jesus, stop,” Travis said.

  “Um, yeah, Beck,” Maura said. “I've thought about it just a little.”

  “Don't be sarcastic to me!”

  “Well, don't treat me like an idiot. If you don't think I think about Carrie, oh, let's see… twenty-four hours a day…” Maura took a deep breath. Be calm, don't lose it, be the mother. “Beck, I have tried everything and will keep trying every single way to find Carrie. I have a detective on retainer. Police forces from here to California have her description. I left word with Justin and all her friends, and I've left a forwarding message on voicemail—”

  “Voicemail!” Beck shrieked. “Carrie's gonna find us through voice mail?”

  Maura threw up her hands—literally. This was like traveling with a three-year-old. Beck was overtired, overstimulated, and exhausted from the ride and her own bad temper.

  “Why didn't you just leave a trail of bread crumbs?” Beck sobbed.

  Travis, good boy that he was, climbed out of the car and started unloading it. Maura saw him carry the heaviest suitcases to the front door, then stand there waiting for her to unlock it. Beck clutched Carrie's portfolio.

  “I want Dad,” Beck said. “I want Carrie.”

  “I want them too,” Maura said, turning to reach into the back seat for her hand. Beck wouldn't take it, so Maura faced front again.

  “I don't want to be here,” Beck said.

  “I know, Beck,” Maura said, staring at the house.

  Beck was right—it was doll-size. Set far from the cliff, deep in the shade of oaks and maples, tall mountain laurel and rhododendron bushes, it nestled in darkness. She thought of the big, airy house they'd just left. This carriage house came furnished, so the movers would be dropping most of their big furniture at a storage facility outside town—maybe that would make it easier, not having to look at all their things.

  She hadn't been able to store Carrie's pictures. She'd kept them here in the car, wrapped in a quilt. Pictures of other girls, strangers as well as Carrie's friends. Her daughter had aimed the camera, snapped the photos, and they had traveled here in the way-back of the car, and now Beck was holding them as if they were Carrie herself.

  Maura breathed salt air. Soon school would begin, a fresh start. She glanced at Beck in the rearview mirror, saw her sitting there in a knot, arms tight across her chest and the portfolio.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ready, Mom,” Travis said, back at the car, holding out his hand. Maura handed him the key so he could unlock the front door.

  “Come on,” Maura said. “Let's get the cats inside. They need water.”

  “They need to go back to Ohio,” Beck said.

  Maura grabbed the two cat carriers, and Beck loaded her arms with Carrie's photos, and they followed Travis into their new home.

  Travis sat with Beck on the cottage steps, wanting to make sure she wasn't going to bolt like Carrie. While his mother waited for the movers and Beck went into the world of tangents, pentangles, quadrangles, triangles, and whatever, plotting her escape—as if he and their mom didn't know her plan—he was checking things out.

  Then, continually circling back to see what was happening in the house, to make sure Beck hadn't darted through the bushes for her big return to Ohio, he prowled the walkways of Newport Academy in search of, among other things, a spot where he could get decent cell reception.

  He looked for the athletic fields. Down a path and across a gravel road, he found them. The gym looked pretty new. The football field seemed okay. He had tryouts scheduled, but that was a formality. The coach had talked to him on the phone, seemed excited he'd be playing for them.

  When he got close to the main school building, he realized he had four bars on his phone. He saw he had five missed calls from Ally, started to call her back, suddenly noticed something odd about the mansion. Approaching the building from the woods, he saw a big portico extending over a circular driveway. There were large doors on either side, words heavily etched into the limestone above: Girls' Entrance over one door, Boys' Entrance over the other.

  Staring up at the words, wondering how lame it was going to be to go to a school with rules like that, separate entrances for boys and girls, he didn't hear the golf cart. A security guard zoomed over, bouncing across the gravel drive. Old, fat, with dark aviator-style glasses and a shaggy mustache snowy with doughnut sugar that also sprinkled down his bulging belly, he slammed on his brakes in front of Travis, blocking his way.

  “What are you doing here?” the security guard said.

  “Uh, looking around.”

  “And you are … ?”

  “Travis Shaw,” he said. “My mother's the new English teacher.”

  “Got some ID to prove that?”

  “Relax, Angus!” a voice called from around the building. “He's with us!”

  Digging his wallet out of his jeans pocket, Travis handed the guard his license and leaned back to peer around the portico's pillar. There, sunning themselves on the lawn by the cliff, were three girls, all wearing bathing suits. They looked about his age, or maybe Carrie's—a year older.

  “Logan, the headmaster catches you out there like that, you'll be in trouble again,” the guard yelled.

  “I know, Angus, but he's still in Europe and won't be back till school starts Monday, and you're not going to tell him, right?”

  Angus tensed his shoulders, handing Travis back his license with a glare. “Don't expect to get away with anything once classes start,” he said. “They don't pay me to look the other way. You go over there and tell your friends what I said.”

  Travis nodded, putting his license away, jamming his wallet into his pocket as he headed across the perfectly manicured grass. The three girls looked up at him, smiling. The
ir hair was long and straight, their gazes curious, and because he was loyal to Ally he tried not to notice anything else.

  “I'm supposed to tell you they don't pay him to look the other way,” Travis said.

  “Oh, Angus,” one of the girls said, laughing. She was small, blonde, very tan, with short cut-offs over a faded green bathing suit. “He's the biggest joke. Truly, he's a softy. He never busts anyone for anything.”

  “Do you go here?” Travis asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” the taller of the two brunettes said. She had huge cat eyes—widely spaced, gold-green, and looked very familiar. “Why else would we be sitting on school property on a perfect beach day?”

  “Well, why are you?” he asked. “Considering school doesn't start until next week.”

  “We board here,” the smaller brunette said. “Day students don't arrive till the minute classes start, but boarders can move in up to a week earlier. We have delicate spirits and need time to adjust to being away from home.” She gave him a big grin that made her bright blue eyes sparkle even more, and managed to make him think she was both funny and wicked.

  “Where's home?” he asked.

  “Well, my grandmother's house is in town here, but really, I come from Grosse Point, Michigan,” she said.

  “The Midwest!” he said.

  “Are you a boarder too?” she asked. “A fellow Midwesterner?”

  “Sort of,” he said, watching the Whiteflower Van Lines truck pull into the driveway, heading toward the carriage house. “That is, I'm from Ohio. But now I live here.”

  “Was that your sister I saw you with before?” the Michigan girl asked.

  “You board, you mean,” the blonde girl said at the same time.

  “No. Well, not exactly. I live over there,” he said, pointing into the laurel grove. “As of today. That's our moving truck. And yes, that's my sister.” One of them, he thought.

  “You're the new English teacher's son!”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Travis Shaw.”

  Introductions were made: the tall brunette was Logan Moore, the smaller one was Pell Davis, and the blonde girl was Cordelia St. Onge. Logan was from Los Angeles, Pell from Grosse Pointe but had grown up summering with her grandmother in Newport, and Cordelia came from Boston. Travis tried not to stare at Logan, wondering where he knew her from.

  “Want to sit with us?” Pell asked.

  “I should go help unload the truck,” Travis said. He was glad for its arrival, because he found Pell's invitation, and the smile in her blue eyes, ridiculously unsettling.

  “We could help you unpack,” Cordelia said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Logan said, stretching out, face to the sun. “I don't unpack moving vans.”

  “Spoiled Hollywood child,” Cordelia said, and Logan smirked without opening her eyes, and that's when Travis figured it out. She looked just like Ridley Moore, the actress.

  “Is your mother—” he began.

  “Yes,” Pell said, answering for Logan. “That's her.”

  “Cool,” Travis said, hearing the truck's metal door clang open, starting to inch away from the girls.

  “Hey, I'll walk you home,” Pell said.

  “You don't have to,” Travis said. But she ignored him.

  “Word to the wise,” Pell said, when they were out of hearing of the others, “and I say this with love. Don't be impressed by people's parents. This school will eat you alive if you don't know that.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” he said. “Just because I asked if that was her mother didn't mean I was impressed.”

  “Well, whatever you say,” she said, humor in her eyes. He saw her looking at him that way, and felt his face and neck get scalding hot. His cell phone rang. Looking at the screen, he saw Ally's number.

  “Who's that?” Pell asked.

  “Hey Al,” Travis said, answering the phone, ignoring Pell's question.

  “Hey, you,” Ally said. “How is it going there? Why haven't you called me yet today?”

  “Really crappy cell reception,” Travis said. His eyes locked with Pell's. “I miss you,” he said into the phone, turning away.

  Ally told him about what he was missing, how they'd gone to the lake for a midnight swim, how she'd lain on the raft staring up at the stars thinking of him, how football practice was under way and how badly the team was going to do without him. His stomach clenched at that—even more than hearing about the raft and the stars—and missing the team as much as he missed her made him feel guilty.

  “When can I visit?” Ally asked.

  “As soon as you can get here,” Travis said.

  When he turned to glance at Pell, she was halfway across the grounds on her way back to Logan and Cordelia. Just as well. She'd figured out he had a girlfriend. That's what he wanted. Put it right out there.

  “Trav!” his mother called, waving him over.

  He gestured that he'd be right there, spotted Beck still sitting on the front step, elbows on her knees, fists bunched up under her chin, staring down at her math notations. His younger sister looked like the scruffy tomboy she was: freckles, reddish brown hair in braids, an Ohio State T-shirt over baggy shorts. He knew she'd never be impressed by anyone's parents, but he stared at her, thinking that if those three girls were any indication, the school would eat her alive anyway.

  For Carrie, it would have been easy. After his father's memorial service, one of her teachers told their mother Carrie had grace. That was true. She could fit in anywhere. Everyone who met her wanted her for a friend. She'd have outclassed all three of those girls, no contest. They'd have been lucky to know her. Travis knew his mother had heard from her over the last year, but nothing the last month or so. He couldn't stand to think it, but he wondered if she was still alive. He could not believe she'd be out of touch with him, with them, for so long if she was.

  “Travis?” Ally said. “You still there?”

  “Yeah, Al,” he said. “I am, but the truck's here. I have to help unload.”

  “Call me as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” he said, and hung up.

  Then he ran toward the carriage house, dropping one shoulder as if blocking a play, dodging, faking left, right, running for a touchdown.

  “Dork,” Beck said. “This isn't a football game.”

  “Oh, really?” he asked, tugging one of her braids and flicking her paper. “It's not a math problem either.” She protested, pulling her paper back as he turned to grab a carton of books from one of the movers. He happened to look up, across the clearing, and saw Pell watching. Even from here, he caught her grin.

  He wheeled away, carrying the box into the small, dark house.

  J. D. Blackstone knew Maura was back. His friends and her sister had told him, and it made everything about Newport different. Even the air currents and tides seemed to have shifted; he felt restless, and had started swimming more. His dreams were of her, but that wasn't new; they'd always been. The dreams were immediate, here and now, not buried in the past. He could almost believe she'd walk through the door, and they'd be the same as they were. It was happening again.

  Days became weeks, weeks months, two years short of two decades. There had been another woman; he might even say there'd been love. The way some would define it, that was true. He'd “found someone.” He'd been faithful, stayed with Linda five years; she had wanted him to move into her big house near the bridge in Jamestown. She'd thought he would marry her. He'd tried to want that too. But in the end, he backed away. He'd already given himself to one person.

  Maura had been gone a long time. She'd left him to go back to Andy, calling what she had with J.D. a “young mistake,” or something like that. The exact words didn't matter, because he knew she'd been lying. What happened that summer made them belong to each other forever.

  He held on to certain thoughts. Once they were making love on his bed behind the boxes. The windows were shut so no one would hear. The air in the brick building was stifling, the hottest all summer
. Her back stuck to the sheets with sweat. It was after the catwalk, it might have been their fourth or fifth time together.

  He'd already needed her. The friction of their bodies melted them into each other. They were starting to figure each other out, and this was going to be their life. Their eyes locked. This is it, he told her. I know, she said. Yet no words came out.

  This is it: that was the truth then and still was now.

  J.D. couldn't help that. Maura wrote her name on his heart that summer. It was there forever, like it or not. And now she was back in Newport.

  3THE WEEK PASSED QUICKLY AS THEY UNPACKED and settled in, trying to get used to everything being new. Maura checked voicemail back home constantly. Nothing. Travis met with the coach, started workouts with the team. Beck refused to leave the house, spending all her time on her bed with Grisby, Desdemona, and her faithful notebook full of proofs and numbers, patterns of shapes. Maura tried to bribe her, offering a picnic out on the lawn, with that sweeping view of the Atlantic.

  “No way,” Beck said.

  “Honey, it's one of the benefits of living here. Do you know how much people would pay to have a house overlooking the water?”

  “I'd pay not to,” Beck said, huddled over her notebook.

  As much as she craved the view, Maura served dinner in the small, dark kitchen. She had tried to cheer it up—new curtains, Carrie's pictures on the wall. But the tiny space made her think of who was gone, realize the five of them never could have fit in here. She, Travis, and Beck sat at the small enameled table. They stared at their food, trying to get used to a new house without Andy. They'd left a place for Carrie, wondered if she'd ever fill it.

  Each night Maura took a cup of tea out to the cliff. She thought of Katharine. She wanted to call her; it felt strange to be in Newport and not see her. But she was afraid of how her sister would react.

  She'd walk past Blackstone Hall, the school's main building, and sit on the grass, listening to the surf roar below. The sound was loud and constant. The harder the waves broke, the better; they'd shatter against the cliff, and the spray would fly up, and she'd know the waves had been doing the same thing forever. The ocean touched every continent, every bit of land; it seemed to pull everyone together.