JONI: Well, I have a little bit of everybody, so, you know what? I had a burning ambition. I mean, outrageous. But I don’t think I knew what it was for. I mean, I knew I didn’t want to be my mother. She was great to me, but her life and growing up in a protected, suburban community … hated it. Boyfriends were everything to me. Frank Taylor, head of the football team, I wore his ring around my neck. I can remember the ring. I remember the ID bracelet with Frank and the safety pin. It was all about boys. It was all about boys. I didn’t make the cheerleading squad — I almost committed suicide. I mean, it was the most important thing. But I can’t remember much else. I mean, I know I wasn’t me yet, but I was a golfer. I was a great golfer. So that was the beginning of men — playing golf, not my mother. Win at golf. Don’t have to play by the rules. I mean, all those things were forming.

CYNTHIA: Did you know you wanted a career?

JONI: Yes. I think so. I mean I didn’t have the specific career. But I had fun. I mean, I was … I was all about necking in cars. I was a terrible student. And I had a mother who would say, “Honey, it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re happy.” Never studied. My sister was the perfect … she was Marjorie Morningstar or somebody. And I was like this kid with enormous ambition.

LESLEY: Second born, right?

JONI: Second born. I was the boy in the family – the golfer.

LIZ: Boy, if there’s one thing you ain’t, it’s a boy.

JONI: No, I didn’t feel pretty. But I was sexy. I was sexy. I don’t know what that meant, but I remember … of course I was necking everywhere. I was … a slut. No, I never went below the waist. That was very important.

LESLEY: First base only.

JONI: First base only. I mean, that’s what I remember. I remember everything. Everything. And I have all my diaries and it would say, “Joe came today … John came … oh, Jack and Lou were starting in the basketball game. I said I would go with them.” It was boys and boys and boys and boys.

LIZ: And you haven’t changed a bit.

LESLEY: You know that my mother had to tell me to kiss a boy. She had to instruct me to do that. She said, “Oh, kiss him. It’s not going to hurt you. Just do it.”

LIZ: Oh, my God.

LESLEY: She did. She did. I wasn’t, you know …

MARY: My mother didn’t know sex existed. I think I happened one night when she was sleeping and had a very vivid dream. Nobody in my family ever discussed anything that ever came remotely near sex.

LESLEY: But, you know, sometimes those people who don’t talk about it, they close the door and turn out the lights …

MARY: Well, actually, when she was dying I found little books of little notes that the two of them wrote to each other when they were first married. They would certainly give you the impression that they had something going, because nothing in my life with them ever did. I mean, they were never together.

LESLEY: Were you an only child?

MARY: Yes. And it was a small town and everybody knew what everybody was doing in that small town. Nobody ever talked about sex.