In reality, fourteen-year-old Val, the bright and imaginative daughter of wealthy international trade expert Frank Boyd (Tom Bosley) and his unfaithful, snobbish wife Isabel (Angela Lansbury), has developed a teenage crush on Henry after seeing him in concert, and involved her best friend Marian. Although Marian's parents are divorced, Marian lives a relatively happy and stable life in a townhouse in the city with her mother and her mother's also-divorced female friend, while Val, whose parents are still married (albeit unhappily), sees a psychiatrist daily and lives with paid caretakers while her parents travel the world.