Before We Were Innocent

Back in Calabasas, Joni seems entirely unchanged, but Bess struggles. She hates leaving the house because of the bad publicity, and the only escape she can find is to take late-night walks through the neighborhood. Joni gets an internship at a media company and moves to New York. She thrives there and remains defiant in the face of the attention that she continues to receive about Evangeline’s case. After a few months at her internship, she is given a radio segment in which she dispenses advice. There, too, she does well. Bess becomes increasingly mortified by the negative press that the two continue to receive, but Joni addresses the rumors head-on and uses the attention to bolster her own burgeoning career.

Theo shows up at Joni’s. The girls never followed up on their promise to explain what happened the night Evangeline died, and now, years later, he wants answers. He accuses Joni of having made a career by capitalizing on his family name and spinning a false pretense of radical honesty. Joni is stunned. Over many glasses of wine, Bess and Joni explain the details of the events in Greece that occurred after he and his friends had left. Joni explains that there is nothing special about the night of Evangeline’s death and emphasizes that it was a tragic accident.