The Geometry of Sisters

by Luanne Rice

  7THE DAY OF THE ST. GEORGE'S GAME DAWNED bright and clear, the sun blasting out of the ocean, throwing down the gauntlet on one of the great prep school football rivalries. St. George's was located on a hill just a few miles from Newport Academy, its square bell tower dominating the inland landscape across the bay from Cliff Walk. Each year the Newport Cuppers built a replica of the tower, stormed it, and tore it down, symbolic of what they hoped to do to the St. George Dragons on the playing field later.

  Travis and the team had game-day obligations and traditions, so Maura and Beck went to the airport to get Ally. They headed north to T. F. Green Airport, just south of Providence. They got there early, and waited in the restaurant with the big windows overlooking the runways.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” Maura said.

  “Mmm,” Beck said, her head in her book.

  “More math?”

  “Mmm,” Beck said.

  “Are we okay on what we talked about the other day?”

  “We're fine.”

  “Dr. Mallory ….”

  “No, Mom. I know what I have to do.”

  “You're quiet.”

  “I don't really want to see Ally,” Beck said, finally looking up.

  “I know, honey,” Maura said. “But I wanted us to be together. I've been working too hard, and I know you've been stressed. I don't want us to get off track. You've been doing so well, and—”

  “I just don't feel like picking up Ally,” Beck said. “She hates me.”

  “Oh, Beck. She doesn't,” Maura said.

  “She looks down on me,” Beck said.

  Maura sipped her coffee, staying calm. She knew that Ally had said some things when Beck had first gotten caught stealing. Maura leaned across the table, closer to her daughter. “I love you,” she said. “And I'll send Ally away in ten seconds if she even starts to do that.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Beck said, holding her math book.

  Just then Ally's plane arrived, and they went down to security to wait. People jostled through the gate, heading toward baggage claim. Five five, blonde, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked, Ally wore jeans and a red jacket over a raspberry top and could barely hide her disappointment when she spotted Maura and Beck. Maura's back went up on Beck's behalf.

  “Hi, Mrs. Shaw,” Ally said. “I know Travis said he had to stay with the team, but I thought maybe that was just so he could surprise me….”

  “He would if he could have,” Maura said. “Beck came, though!”

  “Hi, Beck,” Ally said.

  “How's Columbus?” Beck asked.

  “It's just not the same without you,” Ally said, giving Beck a hug. As Maura watched, Beck broke into a surprised smile and hugged back. Maura led them to the garage, listening to Ally chatter about school, some of Beck's friends. Out to the main road, heading south, the conversation continued with Ally including Beck and Beck actually engaging.

  “How do you like it here?” Ally asked from the back seat.

  “We're adjusting,” Maura said.

  “How about you, Beck?”

  “I miss Ohio and all my friends,” she said. “I guess people still think I'm kind of a jerk, though, right?” Maura watched in the rear view mirror for Ally's reaction.

  “People know everyone makes mistakes,” Ally said, sounding understanding and kind. Maura tried to catch Beck's eye, but she had turned to look back at Ally.

  By the time they got to Newport, Beck was completely warmed up and relaxed. Maura loved her daughter's quirky way of seeing places, and smiled as Beck pointed out the graveyards on Farewell Street, the Point section where Newport Academy's founder had come from, the bus station where Beck admitted that she had intended to catch the next Greyhound to Ohio.

  “I'm sure your mother and brother are really glad you decided to stay here,” Ally said, after the briefest pause.

  Maura glanced across the front seat at Beck; it pricked her heart to realize how little it took to make her daughter glow, and she realized with a small jolt how long it had been since she'd seen that happen.

  They pulled in through the gates of Newport Academy, and Maura checked the mirror just in time to see Ally's eyes widen as she looked around. The limestone mansion gleamed in the clear autumn light, and sun trickled silver onto the bay. Leaves had been raked, but more fell slowly and constantly, drifts of orange and gold on the wide, perfect lawn. Imposing hedges, impeccably trimmed, ringed the property. Students hurried past, on their way to the game.

  Maura parked, and Beck and Ally ran ahead to the field. The bleachers were packed. Energy crackled, electric and wild. Maura heard cheers from both sides, boisterous and getting louder as kick-off time approached. She scanned the stands—Beck and Ally had found a place six rows up and right behind the team. Travis had spotted them, and climbed straight up to hug Ally before the coach yelled at him to get back on the bench.

  “Maura!”

  Hearing her name, Maura squinted into the sun. Several teachers were sitting off to the side, at the very end of the bleachers. Amy was waving, and Stephen had jumped up to make sure she saw. Waving, she walked over.

  “We saved you a seat,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she said, squeezing in between him and Lonnie Delisle, a history teacher she didn't know well yet.

  “Travis looks happy,” Stephen said, nodding at Travis and Ally.

  “He is,” Maura said. “He's been waiting for this ever since we got here. His girlfriend is visiting….”

  “She flew in from Ohio?”

  “Yes,” Maura said.

  “There seems to be a pipeline between Newport and the Midwest,” he said.

  “A pipeline?”

  “Of people falling in love.”

  Maura snapped her head around to look at him, but just then Newport won the toss and elected to receive. The crowd went wild even before the kick, and Maura pushed Stephen's words from her mind and was on her feet cheering for her son and the team. Ty Cooper received just out of the end zone; Travis blocked for the first down. The Dragons were fierce, pushing them back on the next play, but then Chris Pollack threw to Travis, and he ran straight down the middle for a touchdown.

  Maura cheered—all the teachers did, leaning over to slap her back and congratulate her on Travis's play. Beck and Ally were a few rows away. Turning to see them, she felt a sharp stab. Carrie had always gone to see Travis play. And when Carrie was a baby, Maura and Andy had taken her to see the high school games.

  Perfect football weather today—bright, crisp, blue sky. Everyone needed a jacket, but the game was so exciting, layers were peeled off as the touchdowns were scored. Travis was having a great game, moving the ball twenty yards, receiving twice on the same drive, blocking so Chris could score again. At the end of the first half, Newport was up 21-14.

  Everyone went to the parking lot to tailgate, and the congratulations on Travis's performance continued to flow. Ted Shannon actually bowed to her, saying her son was going to take them to the championship. The sun was bright, and glinted in Maura's eyes. She shielded her face, thanking him, and as she did glimpsed a young woman at the far end of the parking lot.

  Small, dressed in a bulky jacket, holding a child, the woman stood alone, off to the side, away from the tailgaters. Maura's heart clenched and she felt herself moving through the crowd. Cars, trucks, people between them, charcoal grills, music playing, tall trees, a baby squawking, and Maura started to run. Light flashed, as if someone standing in the shadows had just snapped a picture.

  She reached the place where she'd seen the young woman, but no one was there. Standing still, she looked around, her heart pounding. Had she imagined it? A girl with a young child at a football game; Maura could almost feel Carrie in her arms. Time had flown—it was just yesterday that she'd carried her daughter to Thurber Field, snuggled her in the autumn air. The sharp memory brought tears to her eyes. Where was Carrie now? How could she stay away?

  Glancing down, Maura spotted a pacifier. She picked it u
p, brushed away dirt and bits of grass, felt it all come back. So there had been a mother and baby—at least Maura wasn't losing her mind. She saw Stephen approaching with two Styrofoam cups, smoothed away tears, and stuck the pacifier in her pocket.

  “Everyone's right,” he said handing her a cup of hot cider. “What a game Travis is having.”

  “He's pretty amazing.”

  “Is it my imagination, or have you been avoiding me?”

  She stared at him, hesitating. Memories were swirling around; she felt the pacifier in her pocket, thought of Carrie's father. “You're married to Patricia Blackstone?” she asked.

  “I was,” he said. “We're divorced. She remarried, lives in Bristol now.”

  “I never met Patricia, but I knew her brother one summer,” she said, watching for his reaction to that.

  “J.D.,” he said.

  “Is that what you meant by ‘the pipeline’?” she asked. “The connection between Newport and the Midwest?”

  He sipped his cider, and she saw redness spreading up his neck into his face as he stared into her eyes. The direct gaze made her squirm, but she couldn't look away.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “Well, partly. Tay Davis—Pell and Lucy's dad—was from Michigan. He married a girl from Newport.”

  “You know about me and J.D.?” she asked, unable to hold back any longer.

  Stephen just nodded. After a pause he said, “He's a good friend of mine. We've known each other since we came to the academy. He talked about you that autumn—after you left to go to Ohio. After.”

  Stephen didn't have to say it: after J.D.'s fall.

  “I was engaged to someone else,” Maura said.

  “Yeah, I heard,” Stephen said, an edge in his voice.

  “What did J.D. say?”

  “It was a really long time ago.”

  “Yes,” she said. Did he blame her for the rest? She felt her shoulders hunching, closing in, protecting herself.

  “We were sorry not to meet you back then,” Stephen said, his tone softening. “Ted, Taylor, and I were in Europe that summer. The classic bumming-around-after-college. J.D. was supposed to meet us in Rome. We couldn't get him to break away from his job for the whole two months….”

  “He worked hard,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Stephen said. “He never rested on his family's name, that's for sure. But we convinced him to connect up with us for at least part of our trip. He never did, though. He wanted to stay here with you.”

  “How is he now?” Maura asked.

  “He keeps to himself.”

  Maura waited for Stephen to say more, and he stared at her for a few long seconds, as if trying to decide how much to tell her.

  “He went to Providence for more surgery a year ago,” he said. “They kept him completely immobile for months. It was a serious procedure, but the complications were worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He developed an infection right after the surgery. It started in his spinal cord, went to his brain. He nearly died.”

  “After all this time?” she asked.

  “Yes. They had to put him into a coma, to get the swelling down. He couldn't move. They kept him that way until he was out of the woods. When he woke up, he realized he wasn't any better than before the operation.”

  “That's devastating.”

  “Don't say it to J.D.”

  “Why?”

  Stephen looked down. “He can't stand anyone pitying him. I think he's afraid of giving up. I'm not sure he really believes he'll get better, but he never stops looking into new doctors, treatments, programs.”

  “Nothing's worked?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “At least not that I can see. But J.D. doesn't talk about it. He doesn't want us worrying about him.”

  “I want to see him,” she said.

  Stephen glanced away, toward the sea beyond the stately school building. When he looked at her again, she saw a warning behind his eyes, dark and fierce—protecting his friend or, she thought with a shock, protecting her?

  Ally came running over as the crowd began flowing back toward the stands. They walked together. Maura waited for Stephen to say more, but he didn't and, swept away with the other teachers, they separated. Maura found herself scanning the crowd for the young mother; she wanted to give her baby back the pacifier.

  The second half started. St. George's received. The game went on. Travis scored a touchdown, and Beck waved at her from the stands with Ally. The Newport lead mounted, but Maura was thinking of J. D. Blackstone, of a summer eighteen years ago….

  The heat rose from the cobblestones, hardly a breeze in the old alleyway. Katharine was welding in the studio, an ironworker's inferno. Maura stood on the granite step outside, trying to cool off. It had been only a little over a week since she had joined her sister in Newport, but already she felt more at home in New England than she had during her four years of college in Ohio. Hard to admit, but she was glad for the break from Andy, a chance to think about his proposal.

  She spied a spigot on a building down the alley. Eight at night, sky still light, stones and metal glinting as if someone had spilled butterscotch; no one was around. Walking over, she glanced up at a small blue metal medallion attached to the old stone building: Local 23.

  Turning the faucet, she heard water rush through copper pipes. She wore cutoff jean shorts and a blue shirt, a scarf holding back her long hair. Cupping her hands, she splashed water; untied the scarf, soaked it, and cooled her arms, her throat, backs of her legs. She rinsed out a small tin pail and filled it to drink.

  Just then the heavy door swung open, and she felt a blast of heat. A tall man stood there, streaked with soot and sweat. He tilted his welding mask back, staring at her with bright blue eyes. They were alone in the deserted alley with the sun setting behind the old warehouses.

  “Want a drink?” she asked.

  “Sure, thanks,” he said.

  She filled the pail, handed it to him, suddenly hyperaware of his eyes, and the feeling of cool water evaporating off her skin in the twilight heat. He drank, watching her. The sense that she had stepped out of time, into the nineteenth century, this hidden byway, these whaling-era buildings and cobblestones, seemed overwhelming.

  She crouched by the faucet, wet her scarf again, and handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said, wiping his face.

  “You're welcome. It's your water.”

  “True,” he said. “Although everyone on the alley uses my faucet.”

  “I'm not the first?”

  “No,” he said. He didn't smile, didn't joke, didn't flirt. But he stared at her so deeply she felt everything shift.

  “Would you like more water?” she asked.

  He nodded, and took the heavy mask off the back of his head, laid it down on the step. He was wearing Nomex flameproof overalls, and unhooked the buttons at the top, swung the straps over his shoulders, let the bib fall down. He had a ripped gray T-shirt underneath, and sweat made it stick to him. He washed his hands. She watched him fill the pail, take another long drink.

  “What do you do in there?” she asked.

  “I'm welding the railing for a balcony,” he said.

  “Heavy industry on this alleyway,” she said, thinking of her sister working in her own studio.

  “Yeah,” he said, wiping his face. “Newport's still a city.”

  “Not just docks with big boats,” she said. “And candle shops on the waterfront.”

  “No, but that's where the bars are,” he said. “Do you want to get a drink?”

  She glanced at Katharine's door. Would her sister mind her going off to hang out with her neighbor? She knew how obsessed Katharine got with her sculpting, how often she worked past midnight. But Maura's own feelings stopped her. This guy was making her heart pound like crazy, and she kept thinking of Andy.

  The welder waited for her answer, and the streetlights crackled on overhead. She heard the electricity humming thro
ugh the transformer; it might as easily have been coming from him, or from her. She felt the charge sparking between them, saw it flash in his blue eyes.

  “What's Local 23?” she asked, pointing up at the medallion, trying to slow it all down.

  “You should know,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked, laughing nervously.

  “Well, because your sister's in it too.”

  “My sister.”

  “Katharine,” he said.

  The alley was small, very few occupied warehouses. Of course everyone would know each other; hadn't he just said they used his water faucet? But the truth began to dawn. She stared at his hair, brown and short, and she knew that her sister had cut it for him.

  “Ironworkers Local,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We're in the same union.”

  “You're J.D.,” she said.

  “You didn't know that?” he asked. “I knew you were Maura.”

  They shook hands, and the feeling of his skin sent another jolt through her.

  Katharine had always said they were just friends, and Maura had always hoped she was wrong about that. She had always wanted there to be something between Katharine and J. D. Blackstone.

  And now she didn't. She wanted to go to the wharf with him, forget about everything, have that drink.

  “Let me clean up,” he said.

  “Should we ask Katharine to come with us?”

  He laughed, a look of warmth filling his eyes as he glanced over at the studio door. It was closed, but through it came the high-pitched sound of metal sparking metal. Arcs of fire welding Katharine's sculptures together.

  “She won't come,” he said. “She's always so focused when she's in the middle of a piece.”

  “In other words, you're doing her a favor,” Maura said. “Taking me off her hands.”

  “If that's the way you want to see it,” he said, his eyes glinting.

  And in that moment that hot summer night eighteen years ago, Maura O'Donnell forgot all about Andy Shaw. And about her sister too.

  Newport beat St. George's 28-21, their first victory over the Dragons in seven years. Everyone was saying Travis had won the game for the Cuppers—even Chris, the quarterback, said Travis was the hero, he didn't care who got credit as long as they had a winning season.