The Geometry of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  They would hear the elevator climb to the fourth floor, stop, and then descend. Wanting to see the ghost of Mary, the students would dash down to the ground floor, waiting for the elevator to inch downward.

  But then the doors would open and Angus would walk out into the grand hallway, pushing a huge cart full of shattered roof tiles or a cracked gargoyle—things the sea wind had smashed, loosened from their pinnings, that if ignored could fall from the roof and hurt someone on the ground.

  Passing Stephen Campbell on campus one early morning, Maura pointed up at the fourth floor and told him about the strange lights she'd seen there a few nights earlier. He'd nodded.

  “The reflection of Mary's swimming pool,” he said.

  “Mary's pool?” she asked.

  “You've heard about Mary Langley right?” he asked.

  “The school ghost…”

  “Right,” he said. “Well, when Mary became a student here, her father got the school to build her a pool. Apparently she loved to swim.”

  “He must have adored her.”

  Stephen nodded, gazing at her. “Most people react differently— they say he spoiled her. But Newport is Newport—families like the Langleys had unimaginable money. Importing marble from Italy hiring the best architect, making sure their pool was better than anyone else's … that's how it was.”

  “He loved his daughter,” Maura said. She thought of all the ways she'd tried to show Carrie how much she loved her. And now, how she would spend her last penny to find her: she had just authorized another five thousand dollars for the private detective. “Maybe that's all it was. And he realized life is short.”

  “It is,” Stephen said.

  “Who uses it now?” she asked. “The pool…”

  “It really isn't used,” he said.

  “That green light bouncing off the ceiling,” she said. “The pool was illuminated, and someone was swimming.”

  “Must have been moonlight shining through the windows …” he said.

  “No, I don't think so,” she said, staring up at the building, early morning sunlight glancing off the Atlantic, shimmering across the limestone face. “Someone was there.”

  “Let's see,” he said. “Light from an unknown source, plus speed, plus distance, divided by the legend of Mary and her swimming pool, and there you have it.” His smile was crooked and boyish.

  Gazing at the second floor, she saw morning light hit the chapel's stained glass window. She thought of how J.D. had described his great-grandfather, a man of Irish faith combined with New England austerity; she knew he must have had a sentimental side to allow a student's father to demand a swimming pool for his child.

  “It's really not in use?” she asked.

  “Let's just say it's not open to the school community,” he said, smiling. “By the way, Beck is your daughter, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “She's very good at math,” he said. “She's already standing out in my class.”

  “Thank you,” Maura said. And she hurried across campus, to call the detective before her next class, just in case the latest payment had inspired him to work hard and actually find something out.

  Travis had worked out with the football team back home all through August, so he was ready for Newport Academy. He made the cut, no problem, and soon found out that the Independent School League was a long way from the Midwest.

  Newport Academy was not a football school, not the way Thurber and Savage were. Back home, sports were front and center. Here in Newport, everything was aimed at academics, and football was a second thought. The team had the dumbest name he'd ever heard: the Cuppers, as in the America's Cup, the yacht race that used to be held in Newport. Still, Coach Bishop used a spread offense, a three-step/five-step passing game, and a gap-control defense, eight men in the box, stuff that made Travis feel right at home.

  He trained for his position as tight end, falling into step with Jeremy Lathrop, Ty Cooper, and Chris Pollack as they ran up and down the hills of Newport. The September weather was warm; the sun baked the top of their heads, but a cool breeze blowing off the ocean cooled them off. The temperature made it almost too easy.

  Chris was quarterback, and at the first game against Exeter—the first Saturday after school started—Travis blocked for the first touchdown, went out for a last-second third-down pass to confuse the defense for the second, blocked for a long fourth-quarter drive, and finished the winning day as Newport's leading receiver.

  “Hey, you're our secret weapon,” Chris said, slapping him on the back as they left the field.

  “Thanks,” Travis said. “You threw some great passes.”

  “Man, where'd you come from?” Ty Cooper asked.

  “The Cuppers might actually have a season this year,” Turner Reed said.

  Travis didn't reply, but he felt proud. They walked off the field to the cheers of a small crowd nothing like the monster hordes they'd get at his public school back home. He scanned the bleachers and saw his mother standing with a few teachers. She waved both arms, embarrassing him. No sign of Beck, big surprise. But Pell, Logan, and Cordelia had come; he saw them out of the corner of his eye, and after he and the guys walked out of the gym, they were still waiting there in the sun.

  The September Saturday was hot, almost like summer. The class load was heavy, but a general feeling of celebration was in the air, and everyone planned to head down to the beach. Travis hung back. He wanted to join in, but he'd promised Ally they could talk. The academy gave all the students brand-new laptops, so he and Ally had started web conferencing—talking online with the camera going so they could see each other. She had said she wanted him to see what he was missing. He worked at controlling his expressions, wondering why seeing her didn't make him miss her more.

  “Hey,” Pell said, breaking away from the others to run back to where he was standing by the gym.

  “What's up?”

  “You were great in the game,” she said.

  “You like football?” he asked.

  She laughed and nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “My dad played in college at Brown and got us to love it. I was hooked early. I love watching you guys mangle each other! The harder you hit them, the better I like it.”

  That got his attention, sort of surprising him. She looked so delicate and expensive. He'd come out of a total jock school, where everyone lived and breathed sports, and this place did anything but. There was a politeness about the Independent School League, about Newport Academy's football program, but here was this elegant girl socking her fist into her open hand, hungry for blood.

  “I'll remember that,” he said. “Next time I'll annihilate someone just for you.”

  “Yay,” she said, shaking her hands as if she was holding pompoms.

  “I thought maybe Michigan had left you,” he said. “Considering you spend the whole year in Newport, pretty much.”

  “It could never leave me,” she said. “It's true, I stay with my grandmother. But you only have one home … right? And even when you move away, it's where you think of when you think of where you belong.”

  He nodded. She was right. Maybe that explained the heaviness he felt. This didn't feel like his team—his real team was back in Columbus, in their stadium, with all his friends. His mom had come to the game, but he missed his dad.

  “So,” he said, checking his watch. “I better get going.”

  “You're not coming to the beach?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked, surprising him with her directness.

  “I have to talk to my girlfriend,” he said.

  “She's back home?”

  He nodded. It was already four; he was late calling. But Pell was gazing at him with those wide blue eyes, and he stood there staring back.

  “You'd better go call her,” Pell said after a minute. “Tonight we're hitting Truffles, a club downtown. But if you finish up talking to your girlfriend and want to come find us now, we'll be at Third Beach.”<
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  “Third Beach?” he asked.

  She nodded. “There are three … Easton's, right at the bottom of the hill, then past St. George's School to Second Beach, and you just keep going, all the way to the end, to get to Third.”

  “Is it far?”

  “You'll need a ride,” she said. “But call, and we'll come get you.”

  “I have my mom's car,” he said. “But I probably won't make it.”

  “Hope you do,” she said.

  He nodded, started to walk away. “Hey,” he said. “Why go all the way over to Third Beach when Easton's is so close?”

  She grinned, giving him that wicked sparkle he'd seen the first time he met her. “Because it's Saturday,” she said. “And we want to be far from the prying eyes of school.”

  He stood there, watching her run to catch up with her friends. Seniors could have cars on campus, so she piled into a Jeep with a bunch of older kids he'd seen in the halls. Hesitating, he felt the pull, wanting to call out and say he'd changed his mind, he was going to the beach. Instead he turned and started to run, across the field, along a stone walkway, through a woodland path that led straight to his front door.

  Letting himself in, he saw his mother was already there, correcting papers. He felt churned up, bewildered. She smiled at him, coming across the room to hug him.

  “You were amazing,” she said. “They won because of you!”

  “No,” he said. “Chris is really good.”

  “Yes, he's an excellent quarterback. But you just shined. It was thrilling, it really was. The teachers I was sitting with practically screamed themselves hoarse.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said.

  “Your dad would have been proud.”

  He nodded; his eyes stung. The words hung between them, and he hoped she wouldn't say more. He watched her mouth quiver. He always knew when his mom was going to cry.

  “It's okay, Mom,” he said.

  “He should be here to see you,” she said.

  “I know,” Travis said.

  “This place,” she said, looking around. “It's so new, so different. And you're already doing so beautifully. You're such a fine player, Travis.”

  “Because of Dad,” he said. “He helped me get this far. All through last season, even without him …”

  “He believed in you,” she said.

  Her words, the emotion in her eyes, made him feel as if he were upside down, all the blood rushing to his head. At first, any mention of his dad had made him feel he could die himself—the top of his head blow off. He couldn't believe the reality, couldn't stand it—none of them could.

  It was unbearable, the idea of never seeing his dad again, never having his dad see him play again. Even more incredible, worse in a way, was the fact that they were all getting used to his absence, Carrie's too. They were missing in separate ways, but neither one was here. A year had passed, and the mention of them no longer made Travis feel as much like exploding, and that upset him.

  “You okay?” he asked his mother.

  She nodded shakily. Tried to smile. Did smile. “I'm fine,” she said.

  “Good,” he said, even though he didn't believe her.

  “Oh, Ally called,” she said after a minute, relieving the tension. “She wanted me to remind you …”

  “I know.” He started toward his room.

  “Would you like something to eat?” she asked. “Dinner's not for another couple of hours; how about a sandwich? Grilled cheese?”

  He shook his head. Usually he was starving after a game, but right now he had no appetite at all. Food was the farthest thing from his mind. Ally had known his father. He just wanted to make the call, to see Ally's face and hear her voice, to be reminded of what he was doing, where he was going, and where he came from. To make a connection back to his past, to Ohio, to his father and sister. To get his mind off Third Beach and who was waiting there.

  Beck sat on the stone wall, ten yards back from the chain-link fence along the top of the cliff. Far in the distance was a lighthouse. She could just make it out on the horizon, and it made her think of the tower that had suddenly appeared on the island in Lake Michigan. She tried to focus on height, distance, declination, but her usual method of filtering scary things through math wasn't working.

  She felt dizzy. But she told herself she was safe here—she couldn't possibly tumble off the wall, over the tall steel fence, and down the steep ledge into the water.

  From thirty feet back, she couldn't even see the waves breaking on the rocks sixty feet down. But she saw white spume geysering straight up, and when she licked her lips, tasted salt water sprayed by the wind. Tourists walked along the path between her and the cliff, craning their necks for a sight of the school. She realized they saw her as a real live Newport Academy student, attending one of the most prestigious institutions on the East Coast. The thought made her jump up and run away.

  Camilla and Lucy came across campus toward her, walking with Redmond O'Brien.

  “Hi, Beck,” Lucy said. “You missed a good game. Your brother was the star.”

  The last game of Travis's she'd gone to, she'd sat between her parents. Carrie had been in the row ahead of them with Ally. Last year, without her father or Carrie there, she'd avoided every game. She'd known it was killing Travis to play at all.

  “You couldn't be bothered to go watch?” Redmond asked, his Boston accent making it sound like “bath-ud.”

  “Like it's any of your business,” she said and watched him turn red. God, he was so provokable.

  “Yeah, you probably don't want to go to the beach either,” he said.

  “Got that right,” she said.

  “Want to head down to Bannister's Wharf?” Camilla asked. “Lucy and I have a major craving for hot chocolate chip cookies.”

  “There's a cookie place?” Beck asked.

  Lucy nodded. “They bake them right there.”

  “Come on, let's go to the beach,” Redmond said.

  “It's all upperclassmen at Third,” Lucy said. “My sister would not appreciate me showing up. Besides, we don't have a car.”

  “I mean right down there,” Redmond said, pointing at Easton's Beach. Beck glanced at the long strand glistening in the sun, the hard silver sand left wet under the wash of long, lacy waves. She stared at the water. It spread to the horizon like a blanket, like eternity, and you couldn't see what was underneath, and in spite of the day's heat, Beck felt a long chill slide down her spine.

  “Cookies,” she said to the girls, turning her back on Redmond. “Let's go get cookies.”

  So they did. But they couldn't shake Redmond. He walked along with them, all the way down to the wharf. He was tall and lanky, totally gawky, with corkscrew curls of carrot red hair springing off the top of his head. He wore big goofy sneakers, a bright green Celtics T-shirt, and rumpled beige cargo pants. Beck noticed that: she liked cargo pants too.

  “Lots of pockets,” she said as they walked along.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Isn't it great that your name gives you the perfect nickname?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Red,” she said.

  “Uh, gee, that's original,” he said.

  She stared at him, squinting in the afternoon sun. “You know, your freckles form a perfect map of Ohio across your cheeks,” she said.

  He tightened his lips, and she suddenly felt bad. She wanted to tell him she meant it as a compliment. The thing was, she did tease a lot. It was one of her bad habits. She opened her mouth, started to say she was sorry, then clamped it shut again.

  They walked along America's Cup Boulevard, crossed the street to Bannister's Wharf. It was cobblestoned, lined with stores and restaurants. The shops were small, quaint, filled with lovely things, the kind of places Beck had had problems with in the past. Her fingertips tingled, and she shoved her hands into her pockets. Suddenly Lucy pointed out one place whose heavy wooden sign bore a carved mermaid with two curving tails.


  “That's the Candy Store,” Lucy said. “It's one of the best restaurants, and the Sky Bar's upstairs, where all the sailors go, and the Boom Boom Room's downstairs, and that's where people go to dance.”

  “The Boom Boom Room?” Beck asked.

  “It's very Newport,” Lucy said.

  “It's where all the older yachties go,” Camilla said.

  “Kids my sister's age—you know Pell—go to Truffles. It's over there,” Lucy said, pointing toward the next wharf.

  “But what are ‘yachties’?”

  “Sailors,” Redmond said. “With yachts.” But he made it sound like “yawts.”

  “Does your grandmother have—” Beck started to ask Lucy.

  “She does,” Lucy said. “It's docked right out there. Want to see?”

  Beck hesitated, but no one noticed. They stopped into the bakery and bought huge, warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies, then walked past the red umbrellas of the Black Pearl's outside terrace, past the shingled building at the end of the wharf, through a white gate that said Private: Yacht Owners Only Past This Point.

  Beck's stomach flipped as they walked through the gate. The harbor lapped beneath the slatted wood under her feet. Lucy and Camilla strode down the dock as if they owned the place. Beck and Redmond hung back slightly. The pier was made of wood, and although Beck was afraid it would wobble, it was solid as a brick wall. Refusing to look down at the water, she focused on enormous boats tied to the dock, some bigger than the carriage house, and saw the owners sitting in the shade on their decks, and knew she didn't belong here.

  “You like boats?” Redmond asked.

  “Not really,” she said.

  He didn't reply. For all she knew, he was the biggest boat-lover in the world. She wanted to amend her comment, to say it wasn't that she didn't like boats, it was that she was scared to her bones of water. But then everyone stopped, and they were staring at what even Beck had to admit was a vessel of rare grace; all polished wood and bronze, belonging to another century.

  “Grandmother!” Lucy exclaimed.

  “Lucille,” the old woman said with a smile that somehow didn't touch her eyes. Sitting in the shade of a wide blue awning, she had silver hair pulled back in a French twist, white pearls at her throat, and huge diamond rings on her gnarled fingers. She wore a navy blue silk dress, and appeared to have been deep in conversation with a younger man with wavy blond hair, wearing a starched blue-and-white-striped shirt.