The Geometry of Sisters (5 page)

“That was you!” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “You looked lost in thought, and I didn't want to disturb you. But right now, it looks as if you could use some help.”

“Oh,” she said. “I can't find my keys.”

“Hang on,” he said. “Do you mind?”

He took the book bag from her before she could even think to protest. Reached in, came up with a key ring.

“These?” he asked.

“Yikes,” she said. “Yeah.”

He fit the right key in the lock, heard the sharp click, and opened the door. She preceded him in, feeling embarrassed. Dumping the notebooks on her desk, she turned to him. He had very dark hair and eyes, a friendly wide smile with a slightly crooked front tooth, and that angular body, sharp cheekbones.

“I'm Stephen Campbell,” he said. “I teach math.”

“Maura Shaw,” she said, shaking his hand. She knew that hers must feel like ice, but he didn't react. “I teach English.” She paused, then added, “This is my first day.”

“At Newport Academy, I know,” he said. “Welcome.”

“No, I mean as a teacher,” she said. “My first day ever. I've practice-taught, in labs with supervisors, but I've never stood before my own class.”

“You'll do great,” he said.

“How can you tell?” she asked.

“Because you're nervous. If you didn't care, you'd just be coasting. Here you are, ready to illuminate your students' minds, fill them with poetry and drama and new ideas …”

“For a math teacher, you're very eloquent,” she said.

“Ha, that's a typical English teacher's way of looking at mathematics. I don't teach computation—I teach philosophy,” he said.

“Hello, Stephen, and hello, Maura!”

Wheeling, Maura saw a big, rumpled man, dressed in tweed, with bushy eyebrows and a neatly trimmed beard, burst into the room. She'd met him once before, when he'd been in Ohio and she'd interviewed.

“Maura,” Stephen said, “you know our headmaster, Ted Shannon.”

“Good to see you again,” she said, feeling grateful to Stephen for getting her out of the jam with her keys, hoping that he would be Beck's math teacher; she had the feeling they'd speak the same language. “Thank you for this opportunity …”

Ted laughed, shaking his head. “Glad to have you with us, Maura—yell if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” she said. Feeling good, she caught Stephen giving her an odd look.

“He recruited you,” he said.

“Well, if you can call it that—he sent out a general mailing, I think.”

“I'm sure it was more personal than that,” Stephen said, gazing down at her, making the top of her head prickle. Just then the bell rang, long and resonant and echoing down the stately stone hallway, and Maura's heart clutched. She glanced at the clock on the wall: eight-thirty sharp.

“Good luck, Maura,” Stephen said, heading out the door, leaving her to pass out the blue notebooks, one on each desk, and wonder about what kind of math teacher taught philosophy, and what he'd been doing alone on the school steps last night.

Beck had stood outside the school in the early morning light, sun bouncing off the ocean, practically blinding her, reminding her that water was lapping at the rocks, just waiting to get her. She'd stood with Travis at first, but then some girl with long seal-brown hair, straight as corn silk, very gorgeous, Ally's worst nightmare, had walked over, said she wanted to introduce him to some other juniors. The girl had shined her baby blues at Beck, saying, “I saw you the day the moving van came! Love your braids!”

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.