Tess thinks she and David might get along better if she were more precocious, like Em or Zoe. David says if Tess spent half as much time reading as she does on her nails or makeup, she’d get into an Ivy League school. Tess writes often and reads magazines and Chicken Soup books, but she doesn’t enjoy the books she reads for English class. She doesn’t feel an emotional connection even if she understands writers are skilled, and she thought The Crucible was a good story after she saw the movie but didn’t get that from the text. She isn’t popular, but her self-confidence comes from the way she looks. David seems less worried about Em than he does about Tess, and Tess suspects it’s because Em is David’s biological daughter, whereas Tess has her father’s genes.

Tess remembers a time her father picked her up in a new truck shortly after starting his own construction company. He named the company after Tess and arrives to pick up Tess and her friend Amy in a rusted truck labeled Tess Construction on both sides. Tess tells her father she isn’t getting in the truck, and David comes up behind her, holding Zoe, and whispers “just go, sweetie” in Tess’s ear (19).