This Little Light - Lori Lansens Page 0,14
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