Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tell Me Three Things, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Blended Families
Intimacy and Growing Up
Wealth, Fitting In, and Bullying
Home
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
SN wakes Jessie up with three more things. One is that he used to dream about his sister a lot, but now, he doesn’t dream about her at all. In response, Jessie says she doesn’t dream about her mom anymore but she does sometimes forget that she’s dead. They discuss SN’s idea to sell wheatberry juice. After school, Jessie heads straight to work, worried that Gloria has already packed Jessie’s duffel bag. At breakfast, Rachel came into the kitchen alone. Jessie momentarily panicked that Dad had already left as Rachel looked for all her belongings, listing each thing out loud. When Rachel asked where her sunglasses were, Jessie realized how rattled Rachel was. Jessie reminded Rachel that the sunglasses were on her head.
Because Jessie has no experience with couples who fight so passionately—and she’s so accustomed to her life being uprooted—she jumps immediately to the conclusion that Rachel meant what she said. Here, the novel seems to imply that it’s Dad and Rachel’s job as parents and stepparents to communicate more openly with their children and assure them that arguments—even emotionally charged ones like in this passage—don’t necessarily spell the end of a relationship.
Themes
Liam is playing and singing when Jessie gets to Book Out Below! They discuss his plans for life after high school; Liam’s mom isn’t excited about his plan to go to a music school in Boston or to skip college to tour with “Oville” (their band’s nickname). He asks if Jessie is coming to his gig at Gem’s party and Jessie hesitates, even though she, Dri, and Agnes have already picked out outfits. Jessie asks if Liam is working and if he wants Jessie to leave, but he says they can both work. Jessie is relieved; she doesn’t want to go home to Chicago and give up on SN. Jessie wonders if Liam feels sorry for her. She thinks of the Gap-wearing scholarship kids at school. Gem doesn’t bother them. Liam starts to play an original song as Jessie texts Dri. The song is catchy and Dri is beside herself.
Jessie is, once again, made uncomfortably aware that as a middle-class student at Wood Valley, she’s different from her peers—she has to earn money, unlike them. She’s also still convinced that the fight between Dad and Rachel means that she and Dad will have to leave. This speaks to just how freaked out she is by what happened. To her, it wasn’t just a fight—it was, potentially, the thing that could once again rearrange her life completely. The only thing keeping her grounded at this moment is her new friendship with Dri, proof that this life is already starting to look familiar.
Themes
Scarlett texts and asks if she should have sex with Adam after homecoming; it’d be nice to lose her virginity with someone who isn’t intimidating and then move on. Jessie is shocked and reminds Scarlett that sex is meaningful. She privately runs through all that could go wrong and thinks that Scarlett is just pretending to be casual about this; Scarlett is more like Jessie and Dri than Agnes’s sister when it comes to something like sex. They discuss that Adam’s face is clearing up and Jessie mentions Dad and Rachel’s fight. Scarlett returns to wondering about whether to have sex with Adam.
Scarlett clearly wants to talk about whether or not to have sex, a conversation that Jessie simply isn’t prepared to have with her right now. While Jessie is understandably preoccupied, her reaction continues to show Scarlett that Jessie doesn’t care about her and her life as much as Scarlett would like. Jessie’s unwillingness to give Scarlett her attention means that Scarlett will have to turn to others instead for advice.
Themes
When Jessie gets home, she eats the meal that Gloria left on the counter under a glass dome and thinks about Mom’s hearty stews. Jessie notices Dad on the deck and steps outside. She’s annoyed when Dad looks at her like he forgot she existed. She wants to ask if they have to leave, but can’t do it. Dad says he just realized that he’s truly an adult, but he doesn’t feel like it. Jessie reminds him that he’s 44, and Dad’s voice goes shaky. He says that he wishes that someone had told him long ago that these are the good times and it’ll all end at some point. He says that his relationship with Mom was never hard. Jessie vows to not look at him after he uprooted her life. She reminds him that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
What Jessie wants more than anything is for Dad to act like a parent. In her mind, this means that he needs to act strong and in control of what’s going on. Bringing the conversation back to Mom and their relationship only makes Jessie more worried about Dad and Rachel’s situation—if his relationship wasn’t hard with Mom, what does that mean about his relationship with Rachel? If it’s hard, does that mean it’ll end?
Themes
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Dad says that Jessie has been able to see through him since she was a baby, but Jessie thinks this is a lie: Dad has ordered the “correct” drink with steak often. She again decides to not ask if they’re leaving and laughs at Dad’s joke about being old.
Jessie doesn’t understand why her dad ordered the “wrong” thing with his steak at dinner with Rachel, which only makes her more nervous about what’s going on in her new family. Though she may be wise and mature in some ways, she doesn’t have the insight into Dad’s relationship with Rachel that Dad seems to think she does—and it seems inappropriate for him to cast her in the position of an all-knowing adult when she’s still a child.
Themes
