A young girl, Dorothy, receives word that a local women's organization is sponsoring her junior high school because it has the highest rate of eighth grade girls dropping out to have children. Her family is of Jamaican descent; while Dorothy's mother was pregnant with her, she left a life of privilege in Jamaica to come live in the United States. The mother and daughter attend the orientation ceremony and find out that the organization consists of a sorority for Black women who want to train the girls to be effective members of society. At the group's first event, the young girls are shown a video about powerful Black women of history and are asked to write about a woman who was not in the video. Most of the girls write about their mothers and the sorority sisters are disappointed and ask them to try again. This time, they are to write about women who broke barriers and did something revolutionary. Dorothy raises her hand and says that her mother was the first in her family to leave Jamaica. Near the end of the sessions, the sorority girls plan a formal tea to celebrate the girls' progress. Dorothy's father is not in the picture and she knows that she will not have anyone to escort her. The leaders of the group tell the girls that their mothers will not have a role in the tea; their presence is optional. Dorothy finally understands that part of the purpose of this "charity" is to keep the girls from turning out like their mothers and living in poverty. Dorothy's mother is ecstatic about the tea and takes her to buy an elegant dress. Dorothy is frustrated by her mother's exuberance and her refusal to share information about her father, but Dorothy deduces that his social status must have been beneath her mother's. Dorothy's mother asks Leon, the laundry man, to pose as the girl's father. Dorothy fears she will be embarrassed by his lower status. The day of the tea, Dorothy takes her dress and gets on the train, but she ends up getting off on the wrong stop. She never shows up for the tea because she is angry that she does not have a father and that her mother has never tried to meet another man. Dorothy dreads going home to face her mother, who she knows will be devastated.