Tony: We really started to have fun when you began junior high.

Jenna: Yeah, but I was a nerd.

Tony: But you had good friends.

Jenna: I was in my awkward phase. All the girls my age were coming into their own, and I looked like a little boy. I had glasses and these old clothes and this funny pageboy haircut with bangs. Actually, it was a mullet. Then I finally convinced Dad to let me grow my hair out.

I always had this really strong sense of fashion when I was young, but we had no money for it. Before the first day of junior high, all I had in my closet were three pairs of pants and two pairs of socks and ratty old shoes. I was fucked. So I started grabbing my grandma’s clothes and cutting them up and trying to sew them.

Larry: It was that bad?

Jenna: I had no friends. I didn’t know anybody. I had no idea where to go. I was sweating because I was so scared. All these kids looked so much older than me. But later I started hanging out with Karen and Beth. We were like The Three Amigos. Then my hair started to get long and I decided to bleach it. I was still kind of an outcast, because I looked like a little kid. And Dad didn’t get me contacts until years later. But I felt a bit more centered.

Tony: And you were a cheerleader for a while.

Jenna: Well, we decided to go to cheerleading class. I had experience with dance and gymnastics, so I was super good and they weren’t. So they pretty much ganged up on me and decided they weren’t going to be my friends anymore. They wouldn’t talk to me, and would go out of their way to make me feel foolish. I went through about three months of being completely alone at school. I had to eat lunch by myself. A lot of the time I would skip lunch and leave school grounds to read a book. I lost a lot of weight during that time. Vivian would make me lunches in brown paper bags, and I would store them in my locker. After a couple months, the smell coming from my locker was so gnarly. They would give me notes during school saying that I had to clean my locker out. It stank like a dead body.

Larry: Vivian had been one of my students when I taught the police academy in Carson City.

Jenna: She was after Marjorie. She was kind of cool and nice to me, but by that time I was cold and turned off by that kind of crap. She would talk about things that really mattered to me and listen to what I had to say. And she was really bubbly. I remember Dad wouldn’t let me shave my legs. I’m Italian, so I’m a little hairy. And I stole one of his razors and told her I shaved my legs. She saved me from Dad getting mad. But there was no way I was going to open up to another one of my dad’s girlfriends. And sure enough, he eventually gave her the boot. She and Dad would fight a lot, and that pissed me off. My brother was so mean to every girl my dad brought home. He would throw stuff at them.

Tony: Anyway, back to school.

Jenna: What happened was that I eventually broke down. I had to quit cheerleading class and act as if I wasn’t as good as I was so I could have friends again. That sort of sucked for me.

I remember being very confused because, after Dad and Vivian split up, I had no one to ask woman questions to. The big thing for me was when I wanted to get a bra really bad. I had no boobs. But I wanted a bra because all the girls wore bras. And I was like, “How am I gonna get a bra?” I can’t ask my dad to get me a bra. So I stole it! I went into the dressing room and put it on and left.

I wore that fucker every day. It was the cool thing in school to have your bra strap sticking out of your top, because it made you look like a woman. At least, that’s what I thought. So I’d always make sure that my bra strap was out a little bit. I was a wacky kid.