This Little Light

by Lori Lansens

  I wish Fee would wake up. Like, wake up, and sit up, and be well enough to talk me off the ledge. I have to figure out how to find her some fluids. I keep getting up to look out the window, wondering where I could get water. There’s a hose coiled up at the back of Javier’s cabin, but that’s not going to do us much good. When we were little kids, you could still legit drink from a hose in California, but now irrigation water’s reclaimed so not potable, and you can only drink bottled or tap, but only if the tap has a filtration system, which many poor people still don’t have. I can’t see any water bottles on the dashboard of Javier’s truck, but I wonder if he has one of those barrel-shaped water jugs strapped to the back of his flatbed. I should go look, but there are too many moving lights still up in the sky.

  So I’m sitting here in this filthy shed, basically free-bleeding all over my gown because I soaked through the paper towel wad in a second. I feel disgusted with myself, and think of the blog I wrote challenging the logic in the Bible regarding women and their monthly shedding. The Bible shames menstruating women and uses words like untouchable and unclean, but I argued it’s an essential bodily function that ultimately makes conception possible. Why wouldn’t God tell His people to celebrate the bleeding woman, and, like, bring her some chocolate truffles and draw her a hot bath? In theory, I was so right, but I feel so wrong.

  Does Shelley have a lawyer? I mean, she is a lawyer, but does she have a lawyer? I hope she has a sweater because she’s always chilly and needs layers. I hope she eats something, because when her blood sugar dips, she gets snippy. She’s thinking about me, I know, and feeling my pain and fear on top of her own, but I figure she’s also thinking about Sherman, and how none of this would have happened if he hadn’t left us. Maybe she’s right, but also, maybe it doesn’t matter.

  The Santa Anas have arrived from the desert right on schedule. Must be gusting at thirty or forty miles an hour out there. The blue tarp on the Airstream next door is billowing like a sail. It’ll be still for ten minutes, then the wind crashes in from out of nowhere and picks up whatever isn’t tied down—bang, clank, crack, whomp, whoosh, whack. It’s scary. Especially when big branches from the dying oak beside the shed clatter on the roof.

  I can’t even believe, with the trail of blood I left in the hills, that coyotes aren’t circling this shed. I heard a pack howling on the ridge earlier, but they’ve gone silent. I hope they’ve moved on. The coyote population is way out of control, and with all the attacks on humans lately I’m also pretty scared to go outside with my sloughing endometrium. I wonder if the police tracker dogs will pick up on that too? I think we threw them off our scent when we crossed the creek behind the school, but who knows? And the black pit bull next door? It’s only a matter of time until we are sniffed out by one canine or another.

  Look at me. This bloody white Mishka. I loved this gown so much. Eggshell satin, fitted at the bodice, with tulle underlay. Sherman had gone silent on the phone after I told him how much it was gonna cost. He choked on the ridiculous expense of the whole American Virtue Ball experience—thousands and thousands of dollars—but couldn’t say no without looking bad in front of the Oakwood Circle dads. He hadn’t been worried about the rift with me, or Shell, but if he couldn’t go to poker night at Big Mike Leon’s once a month, I guessed he’d have to curl up and die. I was delighted that my participation in the AVB caused a ton of conflict between Sherman and Sugar Tits too. I heard her over speakerphone telling my father that he was nothing but a credit card to me. Ain’t a lie.

  When I tried on my gown, I made a promise to myself that it was the only wedding dress I’d ever wear, because I’m never getting married. I mean it. I’m not ever getting married. But I definitely wanna fall in love. And I’m gonna have sex. We girls talk about it a fair bit. We’ve all chosen our cherry busters. Even Zara said she’d lose it to that half-blazed Nickelodeon kid if she met him for real. For Brooky, it’s Drake. He’s old, but I get it. Delaney said she’d do our piano teacher’s son, who is caliente, but also spectrum-y. Fee’s gone back and forth from the inked-up dude at the iPhone Fix kiosk to the valet with the tight fade at Sushi Raku.

  I’ve been thinking about losing my virginity to Chase Mason since eighth grade. He was a frosh then, and new in town. UnCalabasas without being antiCalabasas. With all the girls who came into the library to hook up with him in the empty media room, it was clear from the start he was a total joystick, which made my crush safe—if he could basically choose any girl, he’d never choose me.

  Chase used to shred me about being a prim little Catholic schoolgirl until finally, like, this year, I told him I was sorta Jewish, but actually atheist, and that my Christian school isn’t Catholic. He didn’t seem to know there was a difference. I tried to explain that all Catholics are Christians but all Christians aren’t Catholic, the main differences being confession and Virgin Mary and Holy Communion.

  My glutes contracted when Chase reached out to touch the gold crucifix hanging on a thread-thin chain around my neck. “So why do you wear this?”

  I have the necklace on right now. Sherman bought it for me when I was four and a half, and asked if I could have a “t necklace” like the other girls. I tell myself I wear it to be ironic. I don’t like to think I wear it because I’m sentimental about my father.

  Chase goes, “So this is just a disguise?”

  I’d shuddered because, as he handled the little gold cross, the back of his hand touched a sliver of my boob, but also because he’d just nailed me. I was in disguise. I was not who I am.

  I tried to think of something flirty to say back. “That’s right. I’m in disguise. Witness protection. And now that you know? Your life’s in danger, Chase Mason.”

  “I’m no stranger to danger, Rory Miller.”

  I snorted at his corny line. “So if I get in trouble, I should come to you?”

  He reached into his pocket and gave me his card. All it said was Lark’s Head—along with his website address.

  “Your card? You have a card, yo? That’s so old-school.”

  “Just in case,” he said.

  “I’ll definitely be needing this, Chase. I’m, like, super gangsta. Always looking for trouble.”

  He was like, “Um. Okay. Well, maybe you’re also looking for a bat mitzvah band? Or sweet sixteen? Or quinceañera? We do a lot of those.”

  Awkward. I changed the subject. “Why Lark’s Head? You guys could come up with something way fresher than that.” What a powerfully uncool name for a band. No wonder they can’t break outta the local scene.

  “I don’t care about fresh.” He looked hurt. “I care about meaning.”

  “Lark’s Head has meaning?”

  “Me and Miles wrote our first song at my uncle’s place on Larkspur.”

  “The music producer uncle?”

  “Yeah. He let us rehearse there for a couple of weeks.”

  “So you wrote ‘Eat My Cheese’ there?” He was impressed. “You remember?”

  “I’m very into early Lark’s Head.”

  “You’re fucking with me right now.”

  “‘Eat My Cheese.’ Hilarious lyrics about twisted sex acts that parents do not get. Catchy with a good beat.”

  “Too true.”

  “So why Lark’s Head?”

  “Because Miles hit his head on the garage door when we were leaving, and because Kyle Keyboard’s always talking ‘bout getting head. And the drummer has a huge head. And because Larkspur is a flower, genius, and we’re a bunch of dudes.”

  I looked forward to Mondays and Fridays at the Calabasas Library as much as I looked forward to anything in my life. I don’t just crush on Chase because he’s so scorch—that would be shallow. I love his mind. I love that we can talk about books and music, and our friends, and whatever’s crazy on our feeds. One time I was bragging about Brooky’s finish times in a track event, and he said something about his older sister being an amazing athlete, and I was like, wha…? He’d told me he didn’t have sibs. I
knew I shouldn’t ask any more questions, though, after he shook his head and said, “She died in a car crash.”

  Later I tried to google her obituary in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is where he lived before his parents moved to Calabasas. His mom’s an X-ray technician at West Hills Hospital. His dad’s retired, but drives Uber and has a five-star rating. Couldn’t find anything else about the Masons. I hate when people don’t have proper identities online. Makes them so hard to creep. I really just wanted to see a picture of the sister whose death haunts my bae.

  When I was thirteen and first started my volunteer hours, Chase told me he thought the YA book he saw sticking out of my book bag was stupid, and turned me on to literature, which he pronounced litricha to be funny. I loved that he read books at all, let alone novels by old black women, and dead Chinese women, and people of other cultures. Not long after I told him I was Jewish, Chase fished a copy of Diary of Anne Frank from the shelf. I didn’t tell him that was required reading at my house and I’d read it three times already, but I did tell him I knew the book, and loved Anne, and loved her writing, and how I thought if she lived in our time she’d be an influencer. He was like, “Rory, if Anne Frank lived in our time, she wouldn’t have had to hide from the Nazis and her entire life would have been different. She wouldn’t have been persecuted.” I thought, but I didn’t say, like, Chase, Jews have never stopped being persecuted.

  Deep as they got, our convos never seemed to last very long. We were usually interrupted by a blonde in a tube top jiggling in the local history section, or a smokin’ redhead in booty shorts, or a skinny brunette from his school waving him over. He’d just grin at me like “what can a dude do” and motion them into the media room to conversate. I died a little. Every girl. Every time. I have no claim to Chase Mason, but it still razed me. Fee says I’m too good for Chase, and that I’m only obsessed with him because of the familiarity thing—a guy who would prolly, definitely, cheat on me? Daddy issues.

  I do have daddy issues. I saw a girl wearing a T-shirt with those words in the parking lot at the public school. That is such a fucked thing to announce because it’s clearly a sexual invitation, yet an acknowledgement that our relationships with our fathers shape our relationships with men. Daddy issues. Does everyone have daddy issues?

  Delaney hates Tom Sharpe for having an affair on her mom and then marrying the woman, who’s twenty-five years younger than he is, after her mom died. Dee had to go on Wellbutrin to get through the holy shit of it all. Zara’s dad owns four Pasta Gardens and he’s hardly home because work. In the time they do spend together, Zee’s prickly because she resents him for always being away and wants to make him pay. Brooky idolizes her dad, Big Mike, but she’s so afraid of disappointing him she can’t tell him she wants to quit track and field. She can’t tell him that she wants to go to design school and not the Olympics. And Fee? Oh my God. Fee’s got huge daddy issues. She tells people that her dad died when she was a baby. The truth is that her father went to Mexico for a relative’s wedding when she was a few months old and he never came back and was never seen again. So he disappeared, which is worse than dead. Sorta my point with Sherman.

  Fee’s mom, Morena, has worked for Tom Sharpe for sixteen years, and two wives. When Fee’s dad went away, Morena lost their apartment, and you can’t be a homeless procit without risking deportation, so Mr. Sharpe and Delaney’s mom, Miss Amber, let Morena and baby Fee move into the two-story guesthouse. Delaney and Fee were raised together, like sisters, which is why they’re the least best friends. Everyone, including Fee, has heard the rumors that Tom Sharpe Schwarzeneggered Morena back in the day, which would make Fee and Dee actual half-sisters, and Tom Sharpe Fee’s actual father, which could make a whole bunch of things make a lot more sense.

  I asked Fee once if her mom was bitter about her life, 24/7 servant to Tom Sharpe. Fee rolled her eyes at the question and started listing: Mr. Tom—both Fee and her mother call him that—pays Fee’s tuition at Sacred Heart High. Mr. Tom enrolled her in dance and soccer, and piano and horses, and bought her Patriot Girls dolls and iPads and phones. Mr. Tom has made sure she’s had every single thing all of the other girls on Oakwood Circle had. He threw her a huge quinceañera just last year! Bitter? No. Fee was sure that Morena felt blessed. I see the lovey-dovey way Morena looks at Tom Sharpe. I have definitely searched for genetic similarities between Fee and Mr. Sharpe. The nose, I think. The rest of the Hive and I joke about it—just a little—when Fee’s not around.

  Daddies and daughters. Think of all the daddy issues the American Virtue Ball has stirred up.

  Sherman showed up at the Hutsalls’ tonight while we girls were still up in Jinny’s room doing finals on our faces. His was the loudest voice on the lanai, joking and dirty-laughing about fuck knows what. When the housekeeper came up to say the limo’d arrived, we fluffed our tulle and smoothed our satin, and headed for the staircase single file.

  In the foyer, in their stupid white tuxes, the dads looked like a boy band reunion. They whooped when we appeared and whipped out their phones to film our beauty parade as we began our descent. Then there was Sherm. He wasn’t recording us coming down the stairs. He was texting. Sugar Tits no doubt.

  While the other girls twirled for their admiring dads, I waited for Sherm to look up from his phone. He seemed to take a sec to recognize that it was me standing in front of him. “Rory!” he said. And he smiled. But it was a fake-ass smile that I wanted to smack off his face.

  I was about to say something snarky when Warren Hutsall strode over. Jinny’s dad clearly thinks he’s a silver fox. He is not. He does have a full head of thick white hair, but he also has a potbelly and mean, ferrety eyes.

  Sherman smiled for real when Warren patted him on the shoulder. “Aren’t they all just lovely?”

  My father nodded, then used his sincere voice. “They sure are, Warren. I’m so proud of Rory for making this choice.”

  Gross. Even if he believes this is a real thing for me? An actual commitment to chastity? All he’s talked about since I first brought up the AVB is his wallet. Never his pride.

  We were heading out the front door when Jinny grabbed my arm and asked in a baby voice if I would “be a bestie” and run up to her room to grab her white pashmina because she had to fetch her tote from the kitchen.

  My father widened his eyes at me. I widened mine back. And then Warren Hutsall, who hadn’t yet acknowledged my existence, gently pushed me in the direction of the stairs, going, “Of course you’ll get Jinny’s pashmina, won’t you, darling?”

  I couldn’t find the shawl. I’d seen it earlier, when Jinny was trying it on in the mirror, but it wasn’t in the bedroom or closet. I found it, finally, in the bathroom. By the time I made it back downstairs and out the door, the limo was gone and Sherman was standing in the empty driveway looking confused.

  Jinny had accidentally booked a too-small white limo and they were way crammed in as it was, and so they’d gone on ahead. Without me. Wha…? The drive to Sacred Heart was less than fifteen minutes, but that wasn’t the point. And my girls—how did they just leave me like that? They know I have abandonment issues.

  Sherm had come in a car service. My Prius was parked on the street and we obviously couldn’t wait for an Uber, so instead of riding with the Hive I had to drive with my freaking father. I stepped on the gas, tearing through the empty streets, daring Sherman to mention my speeding. He did. And he couldn’t bite his tongue when I didn’t signal a turn at no one on the road. Then he cleared his stupid throat and goes, “That dress looks a size too small. It’s pulling around the waist.” I flipped the radio on to stop him from saying more. He turned the volume down. I turned it back up. He turned it down. I turned it up. He shouted over the music, “Everything okay?” Nothing was okay and questions like that just pissed a person off when they were in the middle of being torn. I turned the volume up until the windows rattled. Sherman slapped my hand away from the button and turned it down. “Gosh, Rory.”

  �
��Gosh? Gosh? No more Jesus Christ?”

  “Don’t be offensive. You know I found the light.”

  “Offensive? Sherm, you said ‘Jesus Christ’ a thousand times while I was growing up and you said ‘Jesus fucking Christ you’re crazy Shell!’ when my mother found out you were cheating.”

  He cleared his throat. “I didn’t cheat.”

  “Really? That’s your move?”

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Um. Kinda does.”

  “I am your father and I deserve your respect.”

  “I think a person has to earn respect, Sherm.”

  “Like the money I earned to spend on the ball? This night is setting me back nearly ten grand. Do you understand that? I deserve your respect, and your gratitude. I deserve those things.”

  “I guess people don’t always get what they want, Dad. Isn’t that what your Rolling Stones say? And Jagger Jonze?”

  “Don’t embarrass me in front of the Reverend tonight.”

  “Um. Okay.”

  “What has your mother done to you, Rory? How is she raising you?”

  “Alone.”

  He hissed through his teeth. “I only agreed to this thing because I thought it’d be a chance for us to bond.”

  I hissed back through mine. “I only asked you to come because I had to.”

  He made a pout face. “RorRor.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “I want you to know my—”

  “Wife? I already know her. I creep her Zipix. Actress. Wife. Spontaneous Dancer.”

  “Stop.”

  “All that dancing must be fun. My mother doesn’t dance much anymore.”

  “What happened between me and your mother doesn’t change anything between you and me.”

  But you’re wrong, Sherman. What happened between you and my mother revealed you to me, and changed everything. What happened broke the most important person in my world. What you did changed the way I understand love. Which is not at all. I didn’t say any of that, though. I just said, “Glad you’re walking in the light, Sherm. Hope you don’t get burned.”