Little Fires Everywhere

by Celeste Ng

Actually, though, all things considered, people from Shaker Heights are basically pretty much like people everywhere else in America. They may have three or four cars instead of one or two, and they may have two television sets instead of one, and when a Shaker Heights girl gets married she may have a reception for eight hundred, with the Meyer Davis band flown in from New York, instead of a wedding reception for a hundred with a local band, but these are all differences of degree rather than fundamental differences. “We’re friendly people and we have a wonderful time!”

how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

as if she had known already that Izzy was to blame. Every bedroom was empty except for the smell of gasoline and a small crackling fire set directly in the middle of each bed,

Izzy, the freshman, the black sheep, the wild card, had left behind—though they were still certain, all of them, that this hole would be temporary.

No one thought about the recent departure of Mia and Pearl from the house on Winslow Road.

Shaker Heights was like that. There were rules, many rules, about what you could and could not do,

“We move around a lot. Whenever my mom gets the bug.”

At that moment Moody had a sudden clear understanding of what had already happened that morning: his life had been divided into a before and an after, and he would always be comparing the two.

the same idea of creating a utopia. Order—and regulation, the father of order—had

Perfection: that was the goal, and perhaps the Shakers had lived it so strongly it had seeped into the soil itself, feeding those who grew up there with a propensity to overachieve and a deep intolerance for flaws.

One town, one project, and then it was time to move on.

“We’re staying put,” Pearl told him,

“My mom promised. This time we’re stay...

because when he ran out of places to show her, he was sure, she would disappear.

This was how Moody made a decision he would question for the rest of his life.

Until now he had said nothing about Pearl or her mother to his family, guarding their friendship like a dragon guards treasure: silently, greedily. Deep down he had the feeling that somehow it would change everything,

But Moody did not possess Lexie’s warmth, Trip’s roguish charm, Izzy’s self-confidence. All he had to offer her, he felt, was what his family had to offer, his family itself, and it was this that led him to say, one afternoon in late July, “Come over. You can meet my family.”

Mia could not help but notice her daughter’s infatuation with the Richardsons.

She had been pleased at first,

That’s over now, Mia had promised her as they drove toward Shaker. From now on, we are staying put.

But as the weeks went on, it worried Mia a little, the influence the Richardsons seemed to have over Pearl, the way they seemed to have absorbed her into their lives—or vice versa.

wondered every evening if this was wise, if it was right for her daughter to fall under the spell of a family so entirely.

if the worst had happened, what kind of life would Pearl have lived? Nomadic, isolated. Lonely. That’s done with,

“The ironic thing,” Lexie said one afternoon, “is that in ten years we’re going to see Izzy on Springer.”

NOT YOUR PUPPET

This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? For Pearl to have friends.

“I mean, she shouldn’t have agreed to give up her baby in the first place, if she didn’t want to.”

Mia put in suddenly. She turned around, the bowl of popcorn in her hands, and all three of them jumped, as if a piece of furniture had begun to speak. “Maybe she didn’t know what she was giving up until afterward. Maybe once she saw the baby she changed her mind.”

“I’m good at stories. I could even write it for you.”

But both were growing increasingly uneasy.

“Stacie Perry’s having a party this weekend,” she said. “Want to come?”

“I don’t know if my mom will let me.”

“Come on, Pearl,” Trip said, leaning over the arm of the couch. “I’m going. I’m gonna need someone to dance with.”

Moody and Izzy, of course, had not been invited;

everyone was already drunk.

Pearl, left alone, stood in the corner of the kitchen, nursing a red Solo cup full of Stoli and Coke and looking for Trip.

Without speaking, they hurried out to the curb, where Lexie’s car was waiting. By the time Lexie and Brian had gone,

“You could come just for a few hours a day and do a little light housekeeping. I’d pay you for your time, of course. And then you’d have all the rest of your day to take pictures.”

“That’s so very generous of you to offer. How could I refuse?”

Now, every afternoon, she would be there to check on Pearl, to observe these Richardsons who fascinated her daughter so.

she had refused to say anything about what had caused this outburst.

“So you want to hear what happened?” she asked, and the whole story emerged.

All evening Izzy turned over Mia’s story, her question from before: What are you going to do about it?

“I’m doing this,” she said. “I’m only going to get in trouble if you don’t help me.”

were no cameras in the hallways, and no one seemed to have spotted the vandals, whoever they’d been.

she began to come down when Mia arrived and linger in the kitchen while she cooked—much

Mia answered the door of the little Winslow house to find Izzy outside. “I want to be your assistant,” Izzy blurted out.

Izzy’s newfound fascination with Mia proved lasting.

she would walk the mile and a half to the house on Winslow right after school,

Pearl, meanwhile, did the exact reverse, walking with Moody to his house,