On May 26, 1987, New Jersey Jessie James an unpopular girl, celebrates her 13th birthday. She especially wants to join the popular girls which are called the “five chicks”, a school clique led by Lucy Wysman, who takes advantage of Jessie's desire to fit in by manipulating her into doing a school assignment. Before her birthday party, Jessie’s best friend Matty Flamhaff gives her a doll dream house that he built for her and a packet of "magic wishing dust", which he sprinkles on the house. Lucy and the rest of the five chicks show up at Jessie's party where they play a cruel practical joke on her during a game of "Seven Minutes in Heaven". Jessie, mistakenly thinking Matt was responsible, barricades herself in the closet where she put the …show more content…
The next day, she reminisces by looking through school yearbooks and other items from her school days and catches up on the 17 years she doesn't remember. Over several outings and working together on a magazine project, Jessie becomes friends with Matt again, asking his help for her project. Although Matt is engaged and Jessie has a boyfriend, they kiss. After arranging a magazine photo shoot with Matt, then making a presentation for a revamp for Passion, Jenna gets bad news from the publisher: Passion is shutting down because the work she put into the relaunch ended up in Sparkle. Jessie learns from Lucy that she was responsible for sabotaging Passion by sending their material to Sparkle for months. When Lucy had earlier learned this, she had conned Matt into signing over the photo rights from the relaunch shoot to her. Lucy was given the position of Sparkle editor-in-chief instead of Jessie. When Jessie remembers that Matt is getting married that day, she rushes to his house and begs him to call off the wedding. Dazed, Matt realizes he loves Jessie but cannot change the past. From his closet, he pulls the "dream house" he made 17 years before, and Jenna asks for it