Little Fires Everywhere: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

Pearl feels that everything around her lately is “saturated with sex.” The Lewinsky scandal has just broken, and all through school students are cracking jokes and telling stories about President Clinton’s affair. Pearl realizes that everyone around her knows more about sex than she does.

Pearl arrives at the Richardson household one afternoon to find it empty except for Trip. She is excited to be alone in the house with him: anything, she thinks, might happen. She joins Trip on the couch and helps him with his math homework, and then the two begin to kiss. Pearl takes Trip by the hand and leads him upstairs to his bedroom, and the two have sex. Pearl is eager and excited; it is her first time. She is “thrilled” by the effect she has on Trip. Shortly after it’s all over, the two of them get dressed and Pearl leaves, afraid that she will somehow look different to her mother and to her friends. Trip tells her that he’ll see her tomorrow.

That night, Pearl is relieved to find that Mia doesn’t seem to notice anything is different, though Pearl spent all afternoon checking her reflection in the bathroom mirror. As soon as she and Mia are done eating, Pearl goes to her bedroom to “mull” over her afternoon and what her and Trip’s status might be. The following morning, when Moody arrives at the house on Winslow to walk her to school, she cannot meet his eye.

Pearl feigns normalcy throughout the school day, both excited and afraid to run into Trip in the hallway. After school, Pearl tells Lexie and Moody that she isn’t feeling well, and goes home instead of to the Richardson’s house—she doesn’t want to see Trip again for the first time in front of the two of them. The following day after school, Trip approaches Pearl at her locker, and asks her what she’s up to. She tells him that she has plans with Moody, “unless [Trip] has a better idea.” Both of them run silently through all the places they could possibly go to be alone, and Trip quickly comes up with an idea. He pages his friend Tim Michaels, and Tim tells Trip that his basement is free if Trip wants to use it. Pearl intuits that Trip has brought many girls to Tim’s basement, but Trip assures her that she is the only one he wants to be there with now. Pearl decides she doesn’t care about the other girls anyway.

Once at Tim Michaels’s house, Pearl feels guilty, remembering that Moody will be waiting for her outside the science wing at school for their walk home together. However, as soon Trip opens the door and takes her hand, she forgets her worries. After the two have sex again, Pearl asks Trip if they’re dating, or if it’s “just a thing.” She wants to know, she says, what it is she’s “getting into.” Trip tells her that he doesn’t want to see anyone else, and Pearl believes he is being sincere. She tells him that Moody and Lexie will “freak out” upon hearing that they’re together, so Trip suggests they keep their relationship a secret, and Pearl agrees.

Tim Michaels hounds Trip to tell him who the new “mystery” girl is as Trip sneaks off every day to meet Pearl at Tim’s house. Though Pearl longs to tell Lexie, she knows that the whole school would know “within a week.” Pearl thinks of Moody, and knows there is no way she could ever tell him—she is aware of his feelings for her, and remembers a moment when the two of them went to see Titanic and he took her hand. She begins lying to Moody, leaving notes on his locker telling him that she needs to stay late at school when really she’s sneaking off to meet Trip. Mr. Yang is the only person who sees Trip and Pearl together, one afternoon when they are making out in Trip’s Jeep. Mr. Yang recalls his own youth in Hong Kong, and thinks that “the young are the same, always and everywhere.”

Lexie and Brian have been having sex as often as they can since Halloween, often at Brian’s house but occasionally in Lexie’s car beneath a quilt. Lexie dreams of a future with Brian. The two of them are irresponsible when it comes to condom use, and one day Lexie decides to take a pregnancy test—it’s positive.

At first, Lexie believes she’ll be able to keep the baby. After raising the subject of a baby with Brian, talking first about May Ling and then about their own future babies, Brian shuts her down quickly, telling her that “everybody would say, oh look, another black kid, knocked a girl up before he graduated.” Realizing that Brian is right, and that teen pregnancy is not at all the Shaker Heights way, Lexie concedes to herself that she must have an abortion.

At dinner, Mrs. Richardson tells her family that she’ll be traveling to Pittsburgh for research on an article she’s writing, much to Lexie’s relief. The following morning, Lexie pretends to be running late and then, when the house is empty, calls a local clinic and makes an appointment for the first day of her mother’s trip.

The night before the appointment, and before her mother leaves for Pittsburgh, Lexie calls Pearl and tells her that she “need[s]” her—she is having an abortion. Pearl is in disbelief, but doesn’t judge Lexie, and agrees to accompany her. In the morning, Lexie picks Pearl up from the house on Winslow. Pearl has told Mia that Lexie is giving her a ride to school. Pearl asks Lexie if she is sure about her decision. Lexie experiences a moment of panic, but decides that she is.

At the abortion clinic, Lexie gives the receptionist Pearl’s name—she has made the appointment for herself under Pearl Warren. Furthermore, she tells the receptionist that Pearl is her sister, and will be responsible for driving her home. Pearl is upset at the fact that Lexie used her as an alias, but Lexie tells her it’s “just a name,” and then Pearl begrudgingly agrees to help Lexie to fill out her intake forms. When it is Lexie’s turn she heads back into the clinic. Pearl wishes that they really were sisters, and had nothing to hide from each other.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Richardson has arrived at the Wrights’ home in Pittsburgh after driving excitedly nonstop for three hours. She introduces herself using her real name, but claims to be writing an article on “promising teen athletes whose careers were cut short,” and proceeds to interview them about Warren. Mrs. Richardson, finding the Wrights to be easy interview subjects, quickly turns the conversation to Mia, asking the Wrights to provide her with Mia’s contact information—but the Wrights admit that they have been estranged from Mia for many years. The Wrights almost eagerly tell Mrs. Richardson that they cut ties with Mia when she came home for Warren’s funeral pregnant, carrying a baby for a couple called the Ryans.