Audrey: Want to come over and hang out?
I put on a bra and use the bathroom, then go downstairs to find Mason. He’s not in the kitchen, so I check the basement.
Halfway down the stairs, I stop.
“… just out of the blue,” Mason is saying.
“But why would he contact Sydney?” Cassie asks. “She’s not even active anymore.”
I hold my breath at the mention of Sydney’s name.
Cassie wasn’t always Mason’s partner. Sydney was with us for five years, until I was almost ten. I loved her like the mother I never had, but she fell in love with another Disciple and got pregnant. She left the program and her fake family for a real one, and I haven’t spoken to her since.
According to the rules, when you’re out, you’re out.
Even knowing that, I skulked around the house for months after Sydney left, pretending to be okay with everything but crying into my pillow at night and begging Mason in private to bring her back. Even fully briefed on the rules, I felt discarded like an old pair of shoes.
Feeling icky for eavesdropping, I start down the stairs again, but this time I stomp loudly so they have a little warning. Mason shares most things with me about the program, but even so, the look on his face when I enter the lab tells me not to ask questions. At least not right now.
“Can I go to Audrey’s house?” I ask instead.
Mason raises his eyebrows, and the usually emotionless Cassie looks my way, surprised.
“This is the girl you went to lunch with?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“She invited you over?”
“No, I’m going to show up unannounced,” I say sarcastically. “Of course she invited me!”
“Okay,” Mason says, looking around at the explosion of papers and science stuff on his workspace. “What time?”
“Now-ish,” I say.
“Give me twenty?”
“Okay.”
I head back upstairs, where I text Audrey, then shower without washing my hair. I throw on shorts and a ratty T-shirt and flip-flops because apparently Omaha didn’t get the memo that it’s fall.
Mason makes me agree to eat something before we leave the house, so I inhale half of a sandwich and crunch a few baby carrots. On the way out, I grab a handful of red grapes. The grapes are sweet and delicious; I can’t help but shovel them into my mouth as Mason chauffeurs me to Audrey’s. I don’t really feel like talking—not like I could, anyway—so I let my mind wander. Grapes in my cheeks, I end up remembering the third time I died.
I was five and a half years old, and I went to full-day kindergarten because Mason read some study that said it was better for kids. Anyway, there I was at kindergarten, and maybe I skipped breakfast, maybe I burned through my energy at recess, or maybe I was just a weird kid. All I know is that I was famished at lunch that day. I wolfed down my PB&J, then started in on my grapes, stuffing more than a handful in at once.
A monstrous red grape got lodged in my windpipe.
Since I was at a table alone—my one semi-friend was home sick that day—no one noticed. Apparently, the sounds of a choking girl are no match for a rowdy elementary school cafeteria. I was on the floor by the time a fifth grader happened to pass by.
Sydney arrived in her paramedic outfit to load me into the borrowed ambulance, where Mason was waiting to Revive me. I don’t remember most of it, of course.
I woke up freezing and wheezing, throat sore from whatever Mason used to dislodge the grape. My lungs burned from the sudden return of oxygen, and for the first few minutes, I was completely confused as to what had happened. Mason hugged me for the first time when he told me that I’d died again.
For that, I remember death number three, strangely, with a tinge of fondness.
“This probably goes without saying, but you have to be incredibly careful with new friends,” Mason says, interrupting my thoughts.
“I know,” I mumble around the grapes in my mouth.
“She’ll want to know about your background… your parents… where you lived before.”
I swallow my food. “I know what to say.”
“I know you do,” Mason says.
“Don’t worry, okay? I won’t blow the program.”
Mason looks at me for a moment and smiles genuinely, then refocuses on driving. I turn and look out the window at the suburb inching by. Though not brand-new, the houses are massive, with sprawling front yards and the kind of grown-up trees you can barely stand not to climb. In one driveway I see a family loading into a minivan: Both parents are dressed in weekend casual, their older child is dressed like a princess, and the baby is still in jammies. A block later, we hit a stop sign and three girls with pigtails ride their bikes in the crosswalk, all in a row, like ducklings.
When the GPS lady tells us, “You have arrived,” an unfamiliar jolt of what I realize is nervousness pokes me in the gut. Too quickly for me to will it away, Mason turns into the driveway of a brown brick plantation-style house. It’s impressive, with columns flanking the front porch and everything. I want to stare, but Mason quickly opens his door to get out, so I do the same. Audrey must have been watching for us; she flings open the front door.
“Hey!” she says.
“Hi, Audrey!”
Mason walks toward the front porch and gets there before I do.
“This is my dad, Mason,” I say as he opens his mouth to introduce himself.
“Hi, Daisy’s dad,” Audrey says. Her mom appears behind her in the doorway, and you’d think Audrey and I were getting married for all the hand-shaking that goes on.
“Joanne McKean,” Audrey’s mom says as she takes my hand in hers. “It’s so nice to meet you, Daisy.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
Mrs. McKean has manicured nails and soft skin and smells a little like maple syrup. She’s wearing a gold cross and a light blue cardigan with worn jeans and flats. Her blond hair is blown dry into a sleek bob, and she looks like she should accompany the dictionary definition of mom. Even though they are nothing alike, Mrs. McKean makes me miss Sydney.
We all chat until finally Mason takes my (overt) cue to leave—“Dad, don’t you have to be somewhere?”—and Audrey and I go inside. She gives me a quick tour of the main floor of the house, which is a cross between an art gallery and a Pottery Barn catalog, before we retreat to her bedroom.
I like Audrey even more when I step into her space.
The wall behind her bright yellow lacquer headboard is painted with black chalkboard paint, and it’s covered with doodles and drawings, sayings and notes, scribbled floor to ceiling. The bed’s made with simple white linens, but there’s a funky throw pillow on top that has a cartoony map of Nebraska embroidered on it.
The rest of the walls are white. On the one directly across from the bed is a modern low black dresser; the wall with the door holds a small white desk, with no-frills shelves hanging over it. There are photos as well, but most are of Audrey and her family; the few shots of friends show faces I don’t recognize. I wonder again why Audrey doesn’t have more friends. Then, happy to be here regardless, I move on.
In the corner near the largest window is a little seating area with a small futon and a striped yellow, red, and black chair. Between the two seats is a see-through coffee table, where a stack of magazines seems to be floating in midair.
“Is that Lucite?” I ask, pointing to the table before settling in across from Audrey.
“I guess,” she says.
“It’s so awesome,” I murmur. “Did you design your room?”
Audrey nods proudly, smiling.
“I’m into that, too,” I say.
“Cool.”
There’s a pause while I wonder what on earth to talk about next. Have I entirely used up my conversation starters after only a few days?
Thankfully, Audrey keeps things moving.
“So, your dad seems interesting,” she says.
I raise my eyebrows. “Really?”
“Sure,” she says. “He talks to you like you’re an adult.”
“Yeah.”
“And don’t hurl, but he’s hot,” Audrey says.
“Where’s your bathroom?” I joke, standing halfway up. Audrey laughs and I sit back down.
“I’m sure everyone tells you that,” she continues. “He looks like George Clooney… only not as old.”
“I’ve never thought about that, but you’re right. He sort of does.”
“Totally. But your coloring is so much lighter. You must look like your mom,” Audrey says.
“Maybe,” I say before I realize what I’m saying. When Audrey gives me a funny look, I proceed with caution. There are things I can share; there are things I can’t.
“I’m adopted,” I admit, which is mostly true. What I don’t admit is that I was an orphan when I died in a bus crash; that after the government brought me back to life, it wasn’t quite sure what to do with me; that ultimately it gave Mason a lifelong assignment to raise a child… or at least until I turn eighteen. That if we’re getting technical, the adoption isn’t legal because the real me died in Bern, Iowa, eleven years ago.
“Really?” Audrey asks, clearly intrigued by the whole adoption thing. Her brown eyes are wide and sparkling.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“I don’t know anyone who was adopted,” she says. “Did you always know, or did they pull a Lifetime movie on you and surprise you when your birth mother needed a kidney or something?”
Laughing, I say, “I always knew. Like you said, my dad treats me like an adult. Same goes for my mom. We don’t really have secrets.” At least not from one another. I scratch my nose before remembering that some agents would call the gesture a “tell.” I return my hand to my lap.
“Gotcha,” Audrey says, not seeming to notice. “But don’t you wonder about your birth parents?”
“Not really,” I say honestly.
“Seriously? I think I’d wonder.”
“The way I see it is that I don’t want to know people who didn’t want to know me. I don’t mean that to sound bitter, because I know they had their reasons. I mean it like I don’t want to spend energy worrying or thinking about people who aren’t in my life.”
“I guess that’s a good way to look at it,” Audrey says. “You seem incredibly well-adjusted about the whole thing.”
“Thanks, I think,” I say, laughing. I tip my head to the side. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called ‘well-adjusted’ before.”
Audrey chuckles, too, and despite my concern about whether or not I’m sticking to the script, it feels good to have someone ask about my past. I’m so into the conversation that when Audrey asks how old I was when my parents adopted me, I blurt out the truth.
“Four.”
“Where did you live before that?” she asks.
Screeching tires and warning bells sound in my brain; I actually feel my fingers wrap around the armrests. For practical reasons, like if I have to go to the emergency room or something and my blood doesn’t match my parents’, it’s okay to tell people I’m adopted. But the story is that I was adopted at birth. Where I lived before is not part of the dossier.
“I can’t get over your mom letting you chalkboard your entire wall,” I say, looking over Audrey’s head. I force my hands back into my lap. Apparently okay with the change of subject, Audrey turns in her seat and admires the décor, too.
“My mom lets me do what I want,” she says in this weird way that doesn’t sound egotistical. It sounds strangely… sad. Audrey shifts her gaze from the wall to her feet; there’s a brief pause in the conversation. Then, just when I start to feel awkward, her head snaps up and her eyes are on me again. “Hey, you want a soda?”
“Sure,” I say, thankful she’s not asking any more about my adoption.
“Regular or diet?”
“Regular.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back,” she says, standing to leave but then pausing in the middle of the room. “Want music?”
“Sure.”
Audrey goes over to her desk, but when she gets there, she huffs and shakes her head. I wonder what she’s annoyed about but don’t ask because it feels intrusive. Instead I look around some more as she opens iTunes on her laptop, selects a playlist, and turns up the volume on the little speakers.
“This okay?” she asks.
“It’s great.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
Audrey leaves me alone in her room. As I relax into the lounger, I can’t help but think that it’s cozy here, in this chair and in this house. And for a girl with no real roots, cozy feels a lot like home.
One of my favorite new songs comes on, and I’m so happy that I can’t help but sing.
eight
Something shifts in the doorway. I stop singing mid (tuneless) note and drop my arms to my sides. I look, expecting Audrey, but instead it’s none other than the guy I’ve been drooling over in English all week, Matt something.
“Wicked air drumming,” he teases, smiling a fidget-inducing half grin. His villain’s eyes are shining. Playful. He looks like he’s happy to see me.
“Thanks,” I say, at a loss for words because I’m confused about why he’s here. Is he Audrey’s boyfriend? Just a friend here to hang out, too? Then I realize that not only is he barefoot, but he’s leaning on the doorframe like he built it. My brain clicks. He lives here.
Duh.
Matt is Audrey’s brother.
“You should see my air cymbals,” I joke, happy to have solved the mystery. “They’re even more worthy.”
“Actually, what I liked most was the singing,” Matt says, smiling full-out this time. “The high note at the end was pure genius.” He scratches his defined jaw with the back of his index finger. It’s oddly sexy.
“Awesome, right?” I say, hoping I sound more casual than I feel.
He gives me a double thumbs-up and a totally cheesy smile. “I think you could easily get a recording contract.”
We both laugh, and when it subsides, we’re still for a few seconds.
“I’m Daisy,” I say, in case he doesn’t recognize me. “We’re in English together?”
“I know,” he says automatically. He looks down and away for a second, smiling a little to himself like he’s embarrassed for having answered so quickly. Then his narrow eyes are back on mine. “I didn’t know you were friends with my sister.”
“Our lockers are in the same hall,” I explain. “That’s how we met. She told me she has a brother. I didn’t know it was you.”
“It’s me.” Matt nods again, shoving his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans. He looks conflicted, like he wants to stay but thinks he should go.
“Audrey went to get sodas,” I say just to say something, hoping that if I keep talking, he’ll stay put. It works, at least for a minute.
“How’d you do on that quiz?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say. “I got an A.”
Another nod. “Me, too.”
We hold each other’s gaze for a slightly uncomfortable but still glorious moment. I feel like I did that time I had to present my science project in front of the whole freshman class: exhilarated and apprehensive at the same time.
Matt pulls an iPhone from his right pocket and steps into the room only far enough to put it in the charger on the desk. His being that much closer makes me shift in my seat.
“Don’t tell Audrey about this, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, confused. “Don’t you have your own phone?”
“Yeah, but hers has better music. One time, I accidentally—” Matt stops himself, as if remembering that he has to be somewhere. “Never mind. Long and boring story.”
I want to say that I’ll listen to any story he has to tell, but I manage to hold back. He returns to the doorway.
“Guess I’ll see you in class,” he says, hesitating before giving a slight wave and turning to leave.
“Bye,” I say quietly. Just then, as
if the playlist is the soundtrack to my life, a lighthearted love song starts. But before I have too much time to skip into fantasyland, Audrey’s back.
“Sorry about that,” she says, a little out of breath as she rushes into the room. “My dad called from work and was grilling me about my homework. I didn’t mean to leave you alone in here for so lo—” She stops and looks at me curiously. “What’s with the goofy smile?”
“Oh, I was thinking about a guy,” I say cryptically, keeping my crush on her brother a secret for today.
“Does he look like Jake Gyllenhaal?” she asks. “Because Jake is the hottest guy on the planet.”
“No,” I say with a little head shake. To me, Matt is even better.
Audrey and I read gossip magazines and talk about celebrities we’d like to have dinner with. She shows me the shoes she told me about earlier this week and I doodle daisies on her chalk wall. After a while, her mom invites us downstairs for cookies, which makes Audrey roll her eyes and causes my stomach to rumble. No one bakes cookies in my house. We jog down the steps and saunter into the kitchen, then plop ourselves onto the bench next to the rustic wooden table. Mrs. McKean gives us two cookies each, saying, “Don’t worry, I made the lower-fat option, and the milk is skim.” Audrey nods and we both start snacking.
Then every happily relaxed muscle in my body tenses when Matt walks into the room.
“What’s up,” he says to his mom.
“Hi, Mattie,” Mrs. McKean says before standing on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. He doesn’t pull away, but he does look a tiny bit embarrassed when our eyes meet, and I wonder whether it’s about the kiss, or being called Mattie, or both.
Matt goes to the cabinet and retrieves a mug, then pours himself black coffee from the pot and adds a touch of milk. No sugar. He grabs a cookie and sits down with me and Audrey at the table.
My stomach flips at the sight of the little wisps of hair behind his ears. They’ve become my English-class distraction. Being so close now, I fight the urge to reach out and touch them. As if he can read my mind, he looks at me curiously, like he’s wondering if I just might do it.