This Little Light

by Lori Lansens

  We all dashed for the window as this Town Car pulled into the cul-de-sac. For a long time, no one got out. By the time the driver came around to open the back passenger-side door, the anticipation was killing us. One long leg followed the other, and Jinny Hutsall stepped out of the car. She arrived alone, which did seem a tad odd. Nothing else about her was odd, though—long flaxen hair, lean yet curvy body, huge blue eyes and plump pink lips and a tiny, perfect nose. Brooky whispered, “She looks like a sex doll.”

  Our faces pressed against the window, we watched Jinny juggle her big Louis tote and too many shopping bags. She must have sensed us there, because she turned to look up. We held our breath. She smiled and waved.

  Zara opened my window and called down, “Wait there!”

  We didn’t oh-my-God the situation, or hang back and discuss, like, how nice we’d be, or if we’d be nice at all, or what Jinny Hutsall’s arrival would mean to our sisterhood. We had no game plan whatsoever. The others skipped down our spiral staircase and spilled out the door, but I held back, stopped by crushing waves of panic. Like, the sound of my footsteps should’ve been scored with some dread-y suspense beats.

  By the time I got there, the Hive were throwing themselves at the new girl. We’re so stoked you’re moving in. Is that the new Louis tote? We gotta tell you everything about Sacred Heart High. We’ll help you catch up with the work you’ve missed. I stayed quiet, evaluating her in close-up. No makeup. But those lashes gotta be extensions. That complexion. Does she have no hormones? Bow lips. Shimmering hair. Cheekbones. The thing is, the Hive officially worships beauty, and Jinny’s beauty is colossal.

  “Oh my gosh, you guys,” Jinny said, pretending to be flustered by the attention.

  I stepped forward then, and introduced the girls one by one. “And I’m Rory Miller.”

  Did I see her flinch when I said my name? Maybe I’m just imagining that, in hindsight.

  “Jinny Hutsall,” she said.

  “So you were in Chicago before this?” I asked. It was an innocent question. Just breaking the ice.

  But Jinny narrowed her eyes and goes, “Oh my God—did you, like, google me?”

  “Um, no, I just—we heard you were moving here from Chicago.”

  She threw her head back and laughed in this very actressy way. “Good, because I was feeling so violated.”

  The Hive giggled along with her to defuse the tension, even though they google too.

  “Was your last school all-girls?” I asked.

  “I’ve only ever been to all-girls,” she said.

  “Christian schools?”

  “Of course.”

  “In Chicago?” I asked.

  “Oh my goodness! Do you wanna know my Social Security number too?”

  I think I already had her number. She was evasive, and phony, and beautiful, and I hated her. All I could do was smile hard.

  “Would it be okay for me to carpool with you girls tomorrow?” she asked. “My mother’s out of town for, like, months, and my dad’s busy with the move.”

  Shelley was driving that week. Fuck. “Sure,” I said. “We leave at eight from my house. That one.” I pointed.

  Jinny goes, “I’m excited about Sacred Heart. I met Pastor Hanson. He seems like a big ol’ teddy bear.”

  Brooky cocked her head. “Headmaster Handsy?”

  Delaney sighed. “More like grizzly bear.”

  “His paws are definitely furry,” I added. “You’ll find that out when he strokes your thigh by accident during skirting at chapel next week.”

  Skirting. Ugh. All the Christian schools do it. Row by row, we’re called up to the stage and made to kneel in a line, then the Pastor takes his yardstick and bends down to measure the distance from the floor to our hems, girl by girl. If we’re showing too many inches of thigh, we get detention. Skirting starts in middle school. In sixth grade you’re still too dumb to know dude’s copping a feel. In seventh you’re too embarrassed to admit you know what copping a feel is. When you’re in eighth, you and your friends laugh about it because you don’t know what else to do, and by frosh year you’re just sick of having feels copped. At least I was. That was when I told Shelley about Pastor Hanson’s roving paws. I asked her to, like, do something, and she confessed to me that Sherman had recently decided to stop paying the monthly bill at Sacred and she’d have to “tread lightly.” That’s the day I found out I’d become a scholarship kid.

  On the morning that Shelley went in to tread lightly with Pastor Hanson, we girls waited in the hall, listening through a crack in the office door. I was so proud. Then Shelley started to talk and I wished I were spying alone. She spent the first part of the meeting thanking the Headmaster for the financial aid, which I hadn’t told the Hive about—so humiliating. Then she dropped her voice and told Handsy she’d heard murmurings about the girls feeling uncomfortable about his bare hands on their bare legs during skirting.

  We all jumped back when we heard Pastor Handsy’s chair hit the floor; he must have stood up so fast he knocked it over. We froze in the hallway as he started raving about how skirting was necessary for modesty, and discipline, and Shelley must understand that he was like a clinician, a doctor. The idea that someone might think his intentions were anything but righteous enraged him. Shelley assured him it was just a rumor she’d heard on Parent Day but thought he should know. I can appreciate she didn’t want this confrontation, which was no confrontation, to come back on me, but there was a part of me that wanted that fucker to know I told. Shelley chilled him out, oh-so-gently suggesting he needed to change the skirting practice or, better still, eliminate it altogether if he wanted to avoid the rumor mill.

  My mom came out of the Pastor’s office smiling like she nailed it, and we all just looked at her. Like, without even discussing it, we were all thinking the same thing. Thanks, but wha…? She didn’t call him out for the perv that he is, and she left with no resolution.

  The girls and I managed to avoid Pastor Hanson until the next chapel day. He knew which pew I was in, and zeroed in on me, waiting until basically every girl in the school had followed the direction of his gaze. “We here at Sacred Heart have a long history of generosity to those less fortunate,” he said, outing me as a charity kid. Then he went on to say that he’d had a visitor, a concerned parent, who came to tell him that his students might be uncomfortable with being skirted. We were silent. All six hundred girls. How many had told? How many wanted to?

  Then Hanson’s assistant, Mrs. Bunty, marches out to the stage with her polyester A-line and buttoned-up blouse and we girls look at each other, like, okay, maybe Shelley knew what she was doing. So now Mrs. Bunty’s going to do the skirting? Slightly less disgusting. But the Pastor’s secretary reaches into her blazer pocket and takes out a pair of white latex gloves, which she passes to Handsy, and he stares straight at me as he slides his hands into the gloves like he’s strapping on a Trojan. “Rory Miller. Let’s start with your row.”

  The gloves made skirting worse. Just saying.

  I didn’t tell Jinny Hutsall that whole long story, but I did ask her if she had skirting at her old school.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Okay, well, then you know the whole idea of skirting is pretty objectionable.”

  Jinny laughed. “You’re so funny. Objectionable. What are you, a lawyer?”

  Brooky explained. “Her parents are lawyers.”

  “Plus, she’s a writer,” Fee added. “So she likes vocabulary. A lot. And talking. A lot. You’ll see.”

  “Stop.” I knew Fee was teasing. But I loved that she called me a writer.

  “Rory wrote a blog about the skirting thing,” Brooky said. “Comedy gold.”

  My post “Consider the Femur” wasn’t actually funny at all. I argued that since we all have unique body types, and our skirts hang differently, and the length of our femurs differs substantially, the ruler becomes irrelevant and the practice of skirting unreliable. I didn’t out Pastor Handsy or even get into
the sexism. Still, I got more likes on my skirting piece than any other blog I’ve posted.

  “Laughter’s the best medicine,” Jinny said. Like, what is she? The voice of the Reader’s Digest from Gramma and Pop’s bathroom?

  “Be sure to wear a padded bra to school,” I warned.

  “Why?”

  “If your nipples show through your shirt, Bunty—Hanson’s secretary—makes you wear the shame poncho.”

  “I always wear my sweater at school,” Jinny said, clearly made uncomfortable by the word nipples.

  “It’s like a thousand degrees here for half the year—you won’t want a sweater. Besides, you don’t wanna look like the Crusaders. We’ve got a lot of those types at school. Watch out, because they’ll try to recruit you with all that walkwithusinthelight shit, like, they don’t actually say shit, or any other curse, and they, like, don’t go on social except to Crusader sites, so they’re not exactly looped into life. They have posters of Kirk Cameron in their lockers. So.”

  “I’m a Crusader.” The way Jinny Hutsall said those words. Like a challenge. I mean, it was a challenge.

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say.

  Jinny Hutsall didn’t wait to pounce. “Are you a hater? Like, are you a Crusader Hater?”

  “No.” I totally was. Am.

  “Rory, right?” The way she said it—it was like she already had a file on me. Now I’m thinking, did she? Fuck.

  “Rory Miller.”

  “Doesn’t my father know your father?” she said. “I think he does.”

  “I don’t know who Sherman knows. He’s a bag of tricks.”

  “Sherman Miller…right…Your father’s on the board at my uncle’s church in Orange County. I’ve heard about the Millers. You’re mega donors. Bless.” She made prayer hands at me. Ugh.

  “Mega donors? Um. No. Not me. My mom and I don’t go to church. Plus, I’m Jewish.”

  “Jewish?” She said it like she’d never heard the word before and someone needed to explain.

  The pavement tilted under my feet as the Hive stood silent.

  “Wait, what? Are you being serious?” Jinny said, looking around at the others. “You’re Jewish? Are you girls being real?”

  “Well, my dad was sort of Jewish, but atheist before his recent conversion,” I said. “His parents’ parents’ parents were observant. And I have, like, survivors in my bloodline. So I’m Jewish. Like not in an observant or religious way, but still.” Why could I not just shut the fuck up?

  Jinny turned her blue eyes on my girls, a pretty little frown between her brows of threaded perfection. “Sacred Heart allows that?”

  Brooky shrugged. “You know what they say about Californian Christian schools? Jesus on the walls. Jews in the halls.”

  “They say that?” Jinny looked muy confused.

  Fee goes, “We even have Muslim girls.”

  I’m an asshole for saying this, but I wished Fee hadn’t lumped me in with the Muslims at that particular moment. I think even Muslims would get why.

  Jinny wrinkled her nose. “Jews and Muslims? At Christian school?”

  Fee goes, “Anyway, Rory isn’t, like, Jewish-Jewish. They totally have Christmas.”

  Zee added, because Zee’s always been a tad edgy with me, “But then again, she’s got one of those methuselahs at the front door. So Jewish enough for that.”

  “It’s called a mezuzah, Zee, and it’s a Hebrew prayer that you put at your door.”

  “But you just said your parents aren’t religious,” Jinny said.

  “They’re not. They just always had one growing up, so…”

  Jinny nodded in this way superior way, and goes, “I get it. It’s, like, superstition.”

  And I go, “Yeah. Like putting a crucifix on the wall.”

  “You’re so funny! It’s not the same at all! Anyway, why would your parents send you to Christian school if you’re Jewish?”

  “Like I said, I’m not Jewish…that way. And I don’t know what it was like in Chicago, but here, like, a quarter of the student body at most Christian schools are not practicing Christians. So. I’m just one of them.”

  “God moves in mysterious ways,” Jinny said with a shrug. “Just, aren’t there other private schools you could go to?”

  Bee encircled my waist. “We’ve known each other since we were babies. Rory wasn’t gonna be the only girl in our cul-de-sac going to King Gillette, which is public school. Other than that, there’s Hippie High in Topanga. No. Crest Point. Double no. Or New Jew. It’s not like she was gonna learn Hebrew.”

  Jinny still seemed confused.

  Fee explained, “Sacred Heart is progressive. So, like, Rory has every right to be there.”

  So tell me, how did we go from a bunch of besties hanging in my bedroom to standing in my cul-de-sac defending my right to attend my own fucking school? Scholarship kid or not?

  Jinny goes, “Progressive Christian? Oxymoron? Jesus was right two thousand years ago. And He’s just as right today.”

  “My mother says Sacred Heart got progressive because the libtards ruined the economy a long time ago and they have to take anybody now,” Zara said. “No offense, Ror.”

  “Oh my God, you guys. I’m an atheist anyway. So what. Like, can we flip the script now?”

  “We kid Rory about being our very own heathen,” Brooky said. “But Rory kicks…it.” She’d been about to say “ass,” but Jinny. Already we were censoring ourselves. Already we were shape-shifting.

  “We really respect everybody’s beliefs.” Dee was sticking up for me too. “Rory used to be a huge believer…but now she’s not. Even Jesus doubted.”

  “I don’t get it,” Jinny dug in, coy as fuck. “You don’t even believe in Jewish God?”

  “No God. Godless. Deity-free zone. That’s what heathen means.”

  Jinny Hutsall peeled me with her eyes. “Heathen.” She rolled the word around in her mouth as if she liked the way it tasted.

  * * *

  —

  Fee opened her eyes again a little while ago. I saw her watching the moon through the window. I asked her if she was feeling any better and she said she feels like she swallowed a sea urchin. I asked her if she thinks it’s possible that Jinny put something in those ganache thingies at the AVB. She made a face like I’m actually crazy. Maybe I am.

  I asked her what she thought was happening. The bomb. The accusations. “Jagger and Jinny obviously had something to do with this,” I said.

  She closed her eyes again and went back to moaning. This is the longest night of my life. Waiting for the winds…

  * * *

  —

  It’s the Shelley Hour online right now. My mother is everywhere in the news, because of us. They’re showing cap ‘n’ gown pics of Shelley Frumkin from her University of Toronto graduation. Unpacking clips of her speaking on abortion rights at women’s conferences from years ago. Surveillance vid from a DACA march. They showed a piece in the local paper from when she was trying to persuade Hidden Oaks to harvest the fruits from our thousands of backyard trees—oranges, lemons, grapefruits, persimmons, plums and peaches, avocados and whatever else—so that the food could go to the homeless instead of the roof rats. Nothing the media’s “exposed” proves anything but that my mother has a social conscience.

  Her photos. Oh Shell. Her style has not evolved past her freshman year. Same long blond hair parted in the middle. Same makeup palette—mascara and ChapStick. Same untailored shirts and roomy khaki pants. She’s always stood out in Calabasas. Never leaned into the Hidden Oaks vibe. She loves the other mothers in the neighborhood, and they are, well, were her friends, but there’s a language barrier. Shelley doesn’t speak shopping, or hair, or mani-pedis. She doesn’t understand plucking and exfoliation, or Swedish massage at Four Seasons. She buys her moisturizer at the drugstore, and she never used the facial and fillers gift certificates the other mothers got her for birthdays. I love Shelley’s wrinkles, but her friends don’t understand why she’
d let her face tell a story when there’s such a thing as Botox.

  It’s unbearable to think my mother is in detention. What does that even mean? Is she in a room? In a cell? God. I hope Aunt Lilly’s on her way. I mean, she is. She must be. She’d never let us down. She’s our rock. She got here in time to witness my birth, which she has described to me in disturbing detail. She’s never missed a Christmas or Thanksgiving or birthday. She even made it to my eighth-grade graduation. Sherman didn’t.

  My father was joining Sugar Tits on her movie shoot in Portland instead of attending my grad night. I didn’t want him there, but I wanted him to want to be there. It’s not like I went, Oh, well, my dad’s a dick so there must not be a God. I’d been questioning my faith for a while, plus graduation day was the same day the story broke about that slave camp in West Africa and there were all these pics of bony babies covered in flies and all those chained human beings. Then at chapel, Pastor Hanson went on about how we should pray for those African people but remember that it’s all part of God’s glorious plan. God’s will be done.

  No. Just. No. And that empty seat between my mother and Aunt Lilly at the graduation ceremony? I wanted a word for how I felt. How hard I wanted to reject my father, and God’s fucking will. Heathen was it.

  I think the girls respected that I knew when to leave a toxic relationship. They didn’t care what I thought about God. Well, Zara did. She’s just more comfortable when people believe the things she believes, I guess. Mostly we played “don’t ask don’t tell.” Like with Santa, when you know your friend still believes and you don’t challenge, like, Dude, all those chimneys in one night? The truth is I don’t think any of the girls, except maybe Brooky, have ever really questioned their faith. They’re not evangelical types, obviously. Not Crusaders. They’re more down with the loving Jesus than the eye-for-an-eye Old Testament God. They support gay marriage and LGBTQ rights. And we’re, like, feminist. We all think equal pay for equal work. Not one of us ever talked about saving our virginity for our wedding night. Not even Zee. Jinny Hutsall’s cast a spell on them. She’s the witch, on a witch hunt. I’m living the fucking Crucible.