CYNTHIA: Oh, I feel my racing heart just saying this. I wanted something. I didn’t know what. I wanted something. I was in Auburn, ME, in a little tiny town. There was actually a very big high school because it was a regional high school. So there were 1,500 kids in my high school, which sounds amazing if you’re growing up in Auburn, ME. But, you know, I was bossy and ambitious and sort of like I am now, and it wasn’t so attractive. I mean, it wasn’t … so attractive now, but I am it now. But I liked being the center of attention. I liked running things. I was the editor of the school newspaper. I won the state debate championship when I was a junior in high school.

JONI: But then you were who you are now.

CYNTHIA: Friends always say: “You’ll never lose an argument.” I mean, I will argue until you just say, “uncle,” because you don’t want to argue anymore.

LESLEY: Cynthia’s the same person. Right?

CYNTHIA: I am. I am.

MARY: What about you, Lesley, in high school?

LESLEY: Well, mine is kind of peculiar because my memory and my sense of high school is that I was absolutely miserable. I don’t remember high school. I’ve completely repressed it, however, except for a diary. And the diary says that I was happy.

CYNTHIA: I see you as, like, the cheerleader, the most popular girl in the room. I bet that is who you were.

LESLEY: Well, according to the diary I was very happy and I was a cheerleader – a substitute cheerleader. But, my memory … if I hadn’t had that diary I would swear to you that every day I was miserable, I was just depressed and unhappy. And so I can’t explain high school. And I don’t remember high school.

CYNTHIA: Hey, did you feel pretty?

LESLEY: No. Not at all. I wasn’t pretty.

LIZ: What happened to you? You are now.

LESLEY: So how did this happen? I absolutely don’t remember high school. My mother threw a 40th birthday party for me and I walked in the room and I said, “Who are these people?” And they were my best friends. Oh, I remember junior high school, grade school, college. But those four years in high school just vanished.

CYNTHIA: Were you precocious? I mean, did you have boyfriends in high school?

LESLEY: Oh, well there’s a wonderful story about me and boyfriends. I don’t know if it’s too long to tell, but it’s pretty good. I didn’t have boyfriends at the beginning of high school. Then my mother, who ran my life – I mean, talk about a puppeteer, this is the ultimate. And all my girlfriends had boyfriends and my mother said, “You do know what to do?” And I said, “No.” She said, “Just get yourself a boyfriend, any boy. Doesn’t matter. Any boy. Then all the other boys are going to want to know why he likes you, and then you’ll have boyfriends.”

CYNTHIA: It’s good advice, actually.

LESLEY: Well, she told me to do something — I did it. So I got a boyfriend. The whole relationship took place on the phone. So, OK, he was my boyfriend on the phone. And I had him for about a month. And then another boy I liked called me. And so it happened. My mother made it happen.

CYNTHIA: Alright, Joni. You’re up.