Jennette helps her mother get ready to see her high school friend Karen, assuring her that she is beautiful. Jennette is confused by her mother’s relationship with Karen because her mother oscillates between describing Karen as her best friend and denigrating her and bringing up old grudges. Her mom rants at her about her old dispute with Karen about baby names, intermittently criticizing Jennette for not being an active listener as Jennette brushes her hair.

Jennette’s mother asks her father to take Jennette to dance class before her acting classes later that day. Jennette’s mother had signed her up for 14 dance classes a week after Jennette did poorly at an audition for a Paula Abdul music video. To Jennette’s own surprise, she enjoys dance class. It lets her get out of her head, and she is relieved to not be under her mother’s watchful eye. While it doesn’t happen often, she likes it when her father takes her to dance class, because he doesn’t yell at anyone at the studio like her mother does. Her parents have a very strained relationship, and Jennette is always busy with her acting career. She remembers the few occasions that they have spent time together well but doesn’t feel she is as close to him as she does her mom: “Being around Mom can be tiring, sure, but at least I know what to do to make her happy.