Along for the Ride

High school senior Auden West reads an email from her new stepmother Heidi, which details that she is pregnant with Auden’s half-sibling, that she owns a store, and that her father is busy writing a novel. Heidi invites Auden to visit them. She judges Heidi as an annoying, exuberant girly girl ever since the woman and her dad “got involved, pregnant, and married within the last year” (2). At 26, Heidi is much younger than her father. Though Heidi has invited her many times, Auden isn’t sure if she fits into her dad’s life with his new wife, house, job, and soon-to-be new baby.

Auden lives with her mother, Dr. Victoria West, an “acclaimed academic scholar with a sharp, smart wit and a nationwide reputation as an expert on women’s roles in Renaissance literature” (2). In comparison to Heidi, who gets manicures, highlights, and talks about fashion, Victoria is an intelligent, cold professor who considers work the focus of life. She hosts her graduate students for a dinner party. Women are typically jealous of her, and she doesn’t often bond with other women due to her superior attitude.

Auden drives to her favorite 24-hour diner to read since she hardly sleeps.