“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.”