This Little Light - Lori Lansens Page 0,12
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It’s been a while since I last looked online.
The Internet keeps slurping Jinny Hutsall and Jagger Jonze through a fat fucking straw. Does no one sleep?
People Online just called them the Sexiest Christians Alive. With the hair and the lips and the cheekbones, and that voice, Reverend Jagger Jonze could convince the world he’s the Second Coming.
Is that his plan? “Thank God for American Girls” is holding at number one. People gotta be hate-listening that shit. And Jinny Hutsall? All those pose-y shots of her in the stunning off-white Monique Lhuillier with the bloodstains? “Ethereal beauty.” “Lit from within.” “Modern-day Joan of Arc.” The media’s calling the two of them the Divine Duo. “Touched by God.” “Sexy Saviors.”
Jinny Hutsall? This whole fucking nightmare started when she blew into Oakwood Circle with the Santa Anas, also known as the devil winds, the second Sunday of September.
We’d been expecting her—the new girl who’d be joining our class. Trucks had been coming for weeks, bringing boxes and trunks and furniture protected by plastic and crates. Jinny Hutsall had no social accounts for us to creep, which we wondered about, but lots of parents won’t allow their kids on social these days, and kids have to make fake-name accounts. We didn’t think that much of it.
All we really knew was that the Hutsalls were relocating from Chicago. Our parents, even my mom, had been curious about the new neighbors, especially after they googled Warren Hutsall’s net worth. Super-rich. Super-connected. Import/export king, but also kinda private and mysterious. My mother said he sounded more triple-gater than double-gater, and wondered why he’d be slumming. Good instincts, my mom.
We girls were hanging in my room that random Sunday when Delaney looked out my front window and goes, “Oh my God. The new neighbors.”
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