Makenzie “Mak” Taylor is a Black girl who lives in North Atlanta. Because her father is a banker and her mother an attorney, they live in the wealthy part of Atlanta with a large home and gated property. She attends a mostly white, wealthy school.

Mak is at the Starlight drive-in theatre in the backseat with a boy, Kamari Funderburke. As they kiss, she thinks about the fact that she had promised her mom that she would never come here. Her mom tells her that it is a place where kids come to have sex and do drugs, and “not a place for nice young ladies like her” (345).

She thinks back to the first time she saw Kamari when she drove by with her cousin, Crystal, and he was leaving the Starlight. Crystal’s family lives in the poorer area of Atlanta, which her mom refers to regularly as “the ghetto,” in a small home with a large family. Her mother often looks down on her sister Trish (Crystal’s mom) and their situation, telling Mak that Trish had no desire to break the cycle and instead continues to live in poverty. Despite this, Mak notes how Crystal is much smarter than she is, with plans to attend Duke on a full scholarship.