This Little Light - Lori Lansens Page 0,2

there’s no such thing as the Red Market. She says it’s a construct—evil alt-right propaganda. I don’t know what to believe. I mean, people have been talking about the Pink Market since long before abortion was banned again. Everyone knows there’s a Pink Market out there helping minors access birth control, and morning-after pills, and getting them to underground clinics and all.

But the Red Market? Supposedly it’s a baby-stealing mafia that supplies product to illegal stem cell research labs. Even the media say “alleged” or “rumored” when they talk about it. Law enforcement officers and politicians are rumored to be involved in the Red Market too. Even if my mother’s wrong, and people are actually that depraved, Fee and I are not, and never have been, and never would be, involved in such foul shit.

I’m scared. No, terrified.

When my father left us, I was scared. I thought my mother’d die of heartbreak and I’d be left alone. When the wildfires got close again last year, and we had to evacuate, I was scared for the neighborhood pets, and Mrs. Shea at the end of our street because she’s deaf and takes too many pills. I remember being lost in the grocery part of Target when I was little, staring at the chevrons on a stranger’s herringbone pants. So scared.

But this? This fear has fangs. I’ve never felt so awake.

Why are we targets?

Not for nothing—I’m Jewish. Spawn of two Canadian Jews twice removed through birthright and marriage outside the faith, which is why Jewish, not Jewish. My parents, Sherman and Shelley Miller, immigrated to southern California, legally, from Toronto, the year after they finished law school. My best friend and costar in this horror show, Feliza, is the daughter of immigrants too. Her mother’s Guatemalan. Her father’s from Mexico. Fee was born in Tijuana the day before their illegal border crossing. They used to call people like her Dreamers. Now they’re Probationary Citizens. Procits for short.

We live in Calabasas, California, which is famous because Kardashians. For anyone who doesn’t keep up with the Kardashians and might be reading this outside our bubble, you have to know that my town isn’t a town the way people think of towns. Calabasas is spread out over fifteen square miles of coastal paradise: gated communities of big-ass mansions tucked into the nooks and crannies of the northwestern part of the Santa Monica Mountains, linked by scenic roads to tour-class golf courses and high-end strip malls and gold-label private schools. The sheriff’s blotter in the local paper reports on crimes like: “a pair of sunglasses valued at $1,800 were stolen from an open convertible Maserati in the six thousand block of Las Virgenes Road.” There’s no smoking in Calabasas. No Styrofoam. No plastic bags. No straws. No fast food. No trash on the streets. No homeless. No ugly, basically. The rocky outcroppings, and the blurry ocean horizon and the chaparral-covered hills, make a stunning backdrop for the photos we post. We post a lot.

From the outside we must look like assholes. Maybe from the inside too. We have too much. We are too much. The student parking lots at all the schools are filled with the Beemers and Bentleys and Mercedes and Teslas driven by the progeny of all the entertainers and athletes who moved here for the clean air and good schools—second-generation superkids—super-good-looking, super-talented, super-rich. The Kardashians reign over us as we #Bless the crap out of our Maui vacays and shiny new cars like they all came straight from the Maker.

But wait. How can we be blessed? The way I understand the Bible from my Sacred Heart education, Christians are supposed to get their rewards in heaven. Like the Muslim martyrs with their virgins. And the Crusaders from history. Could it be that all the #Blessers might be setting themselves up for a hard drop at the Pearly Gates? Using up all their blessings on earth and leaving no bank whatsoever for the hereafter?

Afterlife? I can barely make it through presentlife.

The Internet’s losing its shit with all the Kardashian references, and blaming Kendal and Kylie Jenner for the crimes we did not actually commit! They’re speculating that Fee and I could have become involved in the rumored Red Market, because we needed money for our retail habits—our Balmain this and our Blahnik that—in order to keep up with the Kardashians. Not a crazy theory, I guess. They’re comparing us to the kids from Indian Hills High who broke into celebrity houses and stole clothes