This Little Light

by Lori Lansens

  “I didn’t ever want anyone to find out. And now the whole country knows.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And if I…you know…when I…they’ll know about that too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess I could say I lost it.”

  “Lost it?” Paula was confused.

  “Fee?”

  “The whole country knows about me, but if they find out about him…Oh, God,” Fee said. “If anything happens to him, I’ll die.”

  “You won’t die. And whoever he is, I mean, he will get what he deserves.”

  “He doesn’t deserve to lose everything he’s built, Rory. He oesn’t.”

  Lose everything he’s built. And then it hit me. Jagger Jonze. Yes. That could explain why she’s been defending him, disbelieving that Jinny or Jagger could be involved in framing us, let alone involved with each other. The Reverend totally eye-fucked Fee that night of orientation. Oh my God. Could he be the father?

  “You’re protecting a guy who clearly is not protecting you, Fee. You get that, right?”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

  “Fee…?” I took a stab. “Is it Jagger Jonze?”

  “What?”

  “Is Jagger Jonze the father of your baby?”

  “That’s crazy.” She hid her face. “It’s crazy. But is it true?”

  “Stop.”

  “You can tell me, Fee.”

  “Leave me alone, Rory. Please.”

  I did. And now I’m sitting here, sad, and angry, and confused. Fee is sobbing, and I can’t tell her she’s being too loud because pregnant and abortion. Paula is comforting her and I just don’t have it in me right now to go join that tableau. Paula is sweet, petting Fee’s head, almost maternal, no, definitely maternal, telling her it’s all gonna be okay.

  Paula is ten years old. I love this little kid. For real.

  Jagger Jonze. I’ve turned it over and over in my head. Could the father of Fee’s baby be the same evil fuck whom I filmed nailing Jinny Hutsall—the same evil skeez who staged that whole scene in the parking lot, and put the bomb in the bathroom, and was so fucking freaky on orientation night?

  I’ve been thinking this whole time that Jagger and Jinny wanted me dead because of what I saw them doing in Jinny’s bedroom. Maybe that’s not it at all. It’s possible they don’t even know. Maybe it’s not about me at all. Maybe Jinny’s just Jagger’s puppet. Protecting him. Maybe Jagger needed Jinny’s help to get rid of Fee and her zygote. Maybe I’m the collateral damage.

  * * *

  —

  Back to orientation night? Buckle up, because a lot happened. After Jagger’s emotional talk, we were completely down to ditch our daddies and go back to Jinny’s for the promised rap sesh. We all wanted to go home and change into something cute before we reconvened, but the Reverend told us, specifically, not to change out of our school uniforms, and to leave our cell phones in the basket by the Hutsalls’ front door. Okay. I mean, not okay, but okay.

  At Jinny’s, we lounged on the sectional in the den where we always did, drinking the lemonade she always served, waiting for him to come down from upstairs, where he was having a long, loud meeting with Mr. Hutsall. I don’t know what that was all about, but with all the questions in the news about Jonze’s financial ties to Jinny’s dad, it must have been about money.

  Finally, the Reverend came into the room, looking less rock star-y than he did onstage. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, or any of us really, now that he was the only adult in the room. And I didn’t want to blog about Jagger’s story. I guess, even then, I didn’t actually believe it. I should’ve left, but I didn’t. I’m realizing that asking questions of yourself isn’t enough. Like, you need to actually answer yourself. Dig deeper. That’s gonna be my motto when all this is over.

  Jonze joined us on the sectional. At first he seemed fine to listen to Jinny and the girls serenade him with praise about his awesome story of redemption and how they cried buckets when he sang “Thank God for American Girls.” But Jagger noticed I was quiet and kept glancing at me, not in a clearly lustful way, like he did with Fee and the others, but kinda threatening. And he kept checking a spot on the bookshelf. It occurs to me now he must’ve put a camera there to record the whole thing. Of course he did.

  “Reverend Jagger?” I said. “There must be so many flowers on Merilee Magee’s grave. People must be putting them there, like, all the time.”

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “Oh my gosh, you guys!” Dee said. “Is the grave in Chicago? We should go there! We should, like, drive there, road-trip it, and lay a huge wreath.”

  “It’d take, like, a week to drive to Chicago,” I pointed out.

  The girls, all but Jinny, seemed pretty excited about the idea anyway. Zee goes, “I would love to pay my respects, Reverend Jagger. I feel her. I feel her spirit here with us right now.”

  Jagger Jonze cleared his throat, ignoring the question of Merilee Magee’s grave. “You girls can call me Jagger when we’re here in this safe place. I just want you to feel comfortable opening up, and sometimes the Reverend part gets in the way. I’m just a man. Just a man.”

  Too true. Apparently.

  Then he quoted some Bible verses about women, which I didn’t listen to because I’m not Christian or a 1930s housewife and I’ve heard enough of it at Sacred. Plus, it was dead boring after Jagger’s tale of drugs and rape. He noticed Delaney scratching her legs. She’s allergic to wool and she has to, like, take Benadryl every day to endure her uniform, and he goes, “What’s wrong, Delaney?”

  Delaney could barely talk to him or look at him, so hard was her crush. She told him about the Benadryl and how she’d forgotten to take it that day because it was the weekend.

  He goes, “I’m sorry about that, but I asked you to wear your uniforms because they are the great equalizer. Do you girls understand that?”

  We did not. I mean, we did, but we hate our uniforms and truly didn’t get why we had to wear them to orientation.

  Then he looks at me—right at me—and says, “Pastor Hanson told me you girls object to the skirting practice. He said your mother lodged a complaint.”

  “That was in freshman year. And it wasn’t a complaint exactly.” Why was I downplaying it?

  Jinny goes, “You complained to your mother and that’s why the Pastor has to humiliate himself now, wearing those plastic gloves.”

  Busted. “Well, yeah, I mean. I think the skirting thing is gross, actually, and sexist.” I started to talk about the femur, but Jagger stopped me.

  “I read your blog.”

  “You read my blog?” I was kinda scared by that.

  “Pastor Hanson sent me the link. You know what Timothy says about women dressing modestly. You’ve read that passage?”

  I nodded. “But who decides what’s modest?”

  Zara got a tone. “Don’t be all heathen-y tonight. I mean, maybe you shouldn’t have come—you shouldn’t even do the AVB if you just want to fight about everything.”

  Jagger goes, “No, Zara. I like a challenge. And I love the heathens. I do. They force me to reexamine and recommit to our Lord Jesus Christ. With every blasphemer, I become stronger in my faith.”

  Then he started ragging on women who wear yoga pants and miniskirts and thigh-high boots and tank tops and tight T-shirts—otherwise known as clothes—which is hilarious, because he was wearing the tightest T-shirt that you could totally see his nips through. And tight jeans that showcased his package. He hangs left. ‘Nuff said.

  Again, I prolly should’ve just gone home, or shut up, but he opened the door, so I questioned his position that women who don’t dress modestly are asking to be disrespected with catcalls or worse violations.

  “I just don’t see why we girls are responsible for what happens in a guy’s pants,” I said. “It’s just, like, we’re feminist, Reverend Jagger, and we believe that boys need to learn how to control their reactions to our bodies.”
>
  Jinny laughed like that was the silliest thing she’d ever heard.

  None of the other girls piped up, so I went on. “We aren’t whores just because we want to express our sexuality through our clothes, or the music we listen to, the things we read or the things we write.”

  Jagger said, “You have a lot of opinions. Tell me more.”

  Brooky could see I was gonna be torched and tried to throw down some flame retardant. “Rory’s just saying, like, we don’t walk around trying to tease anybody. We’re just doing us, you know?”

  “I do know, Brooklyn,” he said.

  Mr. Hutsall stuck his head in the room for half a sec and interrupted to say he was heading to the airport, some emergency biz trip. Whatever. No brothers home. Just the Hive and Reverend Jagger Jonze.

  My temper was coming to a slow boil, but I tried to explain. “We shouldn’t feel guilty or whorish or unclean for growing into our sexual selves.”

  “Feliza, right?” Jagger Jonze said, ignoring me and turning on Fee suddenly. “Do you understand why modesty is so important to God?”

  Fee widened her eyes. “Does it have to be a Bible quote?”

  Jagger chuckled, charming and smarmy at the same time. “Feminine modesty is important to God because…”

  Fee opened her beautiful lips and gave this lame answer: “Because we are His children?”

  “Yes, and…?”

  Zara had given this some thought. “I think God has given us our bodies and, like, the power of, like, sex, and everything, and just to, like, squander it is so wrong and disrespectful. To God. So modesty. I think.”

  Jagger Jonze grinned at her. “Well said, Zee!”

  First—well said—really? Plus, I’m thinking, did he just call her Zee? Like he’s one of us?

  Jinny finally piped up. “I’ve been trying to explain to Rory why God wants us to be modest. Last week she wore short shorts and riding boots to the Commons. Not joking.”

  I’d been at the stables riding with Brook. She was the only real equestrian among us, but we all knew our way around a horse. It’s a rich-people thing. (I know that’s gross.)

  “If I wear my boots to the mall, I’m telling men what?” I asked.

  “That you want a ride,” Jonze said. We all laughed.

  “What if I’m not selling tickets?”

  “Your clothes say the ride’s free.”

  “You’re giving too much power to my clothes,” I said. “Besides, why do men get to decide what my clothes are saying?”

  “Men are visual. Does anyone else think that’s true? Show of hands.” He smiled in his smarming way.

  We all raised our hands.

  “So what’s your endgame? You dress in suggestive ways. A man is gonna get the suggestion.”

  “That’s the point. All I’m doing is suggesting that I’m a sexual person. I’m not issuing an invitation,” I said.

  “Why are you making the suggestion? Rory, really think about it. Don’t be knee-jerk in your response. It’s like going up to a boy and asking if he wants to have sex with you and then—psych—just a suggestion. You wouldn’t do that, right?”

  “That would be assholish.”

  “But you let your clothes do that.”

  “My clothes are assholes?”

  Zee goes, “Gosh, Ror.”

  “No. It’s okay, Zara. That’s what we’re here for. Real talk. Rory, I’m just saying, if you dress like a whore, men are going to treat you like a whore.”

  “I wouldn’t say I was dressed like a whore. I was in shorts because it was a hundred and six, and riding boots since we’d just been at the stables. Plus, what about respect for whores? Even Jesus had respect for whores.”

  “Can we not say whores?” Dee asked.

  “It’s false advertising,” Jagger Jonze said.

  “If you want to dress like a whore so much, why are you even here?” Jinny challenged me.

  “Can we please stop saying whore?” Delaney asked. “No one here is a whore. Like, that’s a joke word to us. This feels serious.”

  “Who decides where the line is drawn?” I was getting pissed. “Who decides when I look like a ‘whore’?” I used air quotes.

  “You do, Rory. And you know you do. Stop playing dumb,” Jagger Jonze said.

  Brook apologized for me. “Her parents are Canadian.”

  Zee chimed in, “You know those skirts we got from H&M were actually super-slutty, Ror. We all said they were. We know what we looked like in them.”

  Brook: “I think Jagger’s saying, like, we just need to tone it down, Ror. No big deal.”

  “You’re committing to chastity, Rory, right? That’s why you’re here?” he asked.

  I squirmed. “Yeah.” He knew I was a fraud. But come on, I wasn’t the only faker in the room.

  Jinny got a call then—even though we were all supposed to leave our cell phones in the basket—and said she had to go run some mysterious errand for her mysterious brother.

  She had to go? Wha…? And just like that, she was gone, leaving the original hive alone with this guy.

  At that point, Jonze promised that what we talked about wouldn’t leave the room, and encouraged us to be honest and uncensored. He said that we were there to teach him, because the better he understood us, the more successful he’d be at spreading Jesus’s message of abstinence. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember Jesus actually saying anything about abstinence in the Bible. Plus, there are rumors he was banging Mary Magdalene without puttin’ a ring on it. So.

  “You have to know that what we’re doing with the AVB is about being accountable, to God and to yourself.” He paused to look each one of us in the eye. “You can be honest. The AVB is a ritual of commitment. You can be re-virginized with your pledge. So? Virgins? Show of hands.”

  We all raised our hands.

  “What did we say about truth?” He was trying not to sound irritated. “We’re here to be honest. Who here is a virgin?”

  All five of us assured him that we were pure.

  “Not one of you has a boyfriend?” He looked straight at Fee.

  We all shook our heads.

  “Five hot high school girls?”

  It seemed weird that he would refer to us as hot.

  Brooky said, “Sacred Heart High. It’s the chastity belt of schools.”

  “We’re at school all day, then music or sports and homework, and same on weekends and church on Sunday and we have our girl time. Even if we knew many boys, we wouldn’t have time for them,” Zara said.

  “We only really know my brother and a few of his friends,” Brook added. “Chase and Kyle and the guys in Miles’ band. And anyway, I’m too busy with school and track.”

  “Don’t tell our dads, though. They’ll think we’re only into the AVB for the dresses,” Dee said.

  “Are you?”

  We all shook our heads. Lying liars.

  “You’re lucky,” Jagger Jonze said. “This won’t be as hard for you as it is for girls who face more temptation in their lives. Some of the schools I’ve been to…God tests them by the hour.”

  “My parents are totally on board with AVB, no matter how much it costs,” Zara said. “They’re afraid I’ll come home pregnant. That happened to my mother’s older sister, and the family shunned her.”

  “What’s your experience been, Zee?” Jagger Jonze asked. “Your sexual experience?”

  Zara, who always has something to say, just shook her head.

  “You can’t pass. No passes,” he said.

  “What about that guy you made out with on the Disney Cruise in frosh year, Zee?” Dee reminded. “Huston?”

  Zee’s been talking about Huston Hardon—that’s what the Hive nicknamed him—from the Disney Cruise for two years. Texts so private she’d never share—just grin at her phone and go, “Oh my gosh, Huston is such a perv.” Or, “Huston is asking for pics again.”

  Brooky chimed in. “Yeah. Tell about Huston.”

  Zee took a breath. �
��He doesn’t exist.”

  We could not believe it. Zara wouldn’t look at us as she told Jagger, “I was thinking of what you said about God loving honesty. So I wanna be honest. I made up Huston from the Disney Cruise. It never happened.”

  Jagger nodded, and Zara went on. “I made up Huston because that guy stuck his tongue in your ear in Maui, Dee, and Brook, you French-kissed the keyboard player from Lark’s Head! I just…I didn’t want to be left behind.”

  “I appreciate your honesty, Zara,” Jagger Jonze said. “God loves your truth.”

  Zara batted her eyes and folded her hands in her lap.

  Jagger leaned over and squeezed her arm, then turned to Brook. “French-kissed the keyboard player, Bee?”

  “They dared me. And there was no tongue. I was scared my dad or my brother might see.”

  Delaney goes, “Did we dare you, Brooky? Or did you say, ‘Dare me to French-kiss Kyle’?”

  Jagger Jonze turned to Fee next. “Fee?”

  “Nothing really.”

  I was getting bored. Okay. Fee’s got nothing. I’ve got nothing. Rap sesh over. But Jagger wasn’t buying Fee’s answer.

  “You love God, Feliza,” Jagger said.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled and winked at me as he said, “Not a heathen like your friend here?”

  She shook her head.

  “So you love God. And I’m a man of God. And you know what God loves more than anything? Truth.”

  “Truth?” Fee took a look around at the other girls but wouldn’t meet my eye. She took a deep breath. “I fooled around with my cousin Dante last summer when I was at my abuela’s.”

  The fuck? Jagger Jonze sat forward on the sofa. “Your cousin?”

  “He’s not really my cousin, but my abuela raised him. It’s not incest.”

  “How old is Dante?” Jagger asked.

  I was shocked. Not that it happened. That she didn’t tell us. That she didn’t tell me.