Read The Geometry of Sisters for Free Online Page A

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 notto 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