Gwen Pendergrass has a problem.
Well, a whole bunch if you really want to start counting, but then again, what sixteen-year-old doesn't?
Her latest is an assignment for her high school English class to write a paper on her earliest memory of doing something meaningful with her father, only she's got zip. Nada. Absolutely no memories of him at all.
She strongly suspects this is due to never having actually met the man. In fact, the only presence he's ever had in her life is as a face in a small strip of photobooth photos taken somewhere in Las Vegas during "The Weekend She Was Made" (ew....!) In these photos, both he and her mom look really happy, and kind of drunk, which Gwen figures explains a lot. Or, if not a lot, at least her birth nine months later.
Aside from showing her the photo strip, Gwen's Mom has flat out refused to tell Gwen anything about him, not even his name, leaving Gwen with an enduring mystery that she's worried like a loose tooth. Though without the shiny dollar coin that the tooth would bring at the end.
All this changes when one of Gwen's forgotten plans suddenly gives Gwen's Mom the chance to utterly change her life and reclaim the opportunities she'd given up when she'd dropped out of college to have Gwen. It actually seems like their luck might have finally changed... until Gwen's Mom announces she has to turn it down solely because of her parental responsibilities.