Plot
Lifelong best friends Lena Kaligaris, Tabitha "Tibby" Rollins, Carmen Lowell, and Bridget Vreeland are teens from Bethesda, Maryland who are about to spend their first summer apart — Lena is visiting her grandparents in Santorini, Bridget is attending soccer camp in Baja California, Carmen is visiting her father in South Carolina, and Tibby is staying home. While shopping together, the four find a pair of jeans that inexplicably fit them all perfectly despite their very different figures. They decide to share them equally over the summer, before parting the next day.
While wearing the pants, Lena is saved from drowning by local Greek boy Kostas Dounas. She later discovers her family has been feuding with Kostas' for ages due to a fiscal dispute between their respective grandfathers. Kostas pursues Lena, insisting the feud has nothing to do with them. She initially rebuffs his advances, but eventually begins to secretly date him. Just after Kostas tells Lena he loves her, her family drags her away before she can answer. Lena's grandmother berates her for seeing him, but Lena appeals to her grandfather, who allows her to see Kostas before he leaves for Athens.
Working at a department store, Tibby finds a young girl unconscious and calls 911. Later, the same girl delivers the pants to Tibby's home when they are erroneously delivered to hers. Fascinated by Tibby's film-making, she introduces herself to Tibby as Bailey and appoints herself Bailey's assistant, to Tibby's initial annoyance. Tibby later learns that Bailey has leukemia. She visits Bailey in the hospital with the pants, pleading with her to take them and let their magic cure her, but Bailey declines. She later dies. Devastated, Tibby then edits her film inspired by and called “Bailey.”
Arriving in South Carolina, Carmen finds that her white father Al is about to marry Lydia, a single WASP mother to teens Paul and Krista. Although Al's step-family initially seems welcoming, they soon begin to emotionally exclude Carmen, whose Catholic Puerto Rican upbringing creates a cultural disconnect. They dismiss Carmen when she speaks Spanish to Al, assuming he still understands her from his marriage to her mother, and reject her when she suggests making Puerto Rican recipes for dinner. Carmen overhears Krista and her friend talk mockingly about her.
Carmen soon begins to resent Al for being an enthusiastic and present father to Krista and Paul while he has been largely absent from her life. Humiliated at a dress fitting when her bridesmaid dress is too small and the saleswoman refers to her as "the other one", Carmen lashes out at everyone before fleeing.
Carmen returns home and sees Al and her step-family happily enjoying dinner together, oblivious to her absence. Enraged, she throws a rock at their dining room window, shattering the glass, and returns to Maryland. Tibby tries to help Carmen reconcile her feelings toward her father, but Carmen lashes out at her. Tibby leaves upset, but they eventually reconcile.
Tibby convinces Carmen to confront her father via phone, during which she expresses her feelings of neglect and abandonment. He apologizes sincerely, but Carmen says it is not enough.
At soccer camp, Bridget develops a crush on coach Eric Richman. Despite relationships between coaches and campers being forbidden, she flirts with him and seeks his attention during games, eventually losing her virginity to him on the beach at night. Bridget becomes depressed after their encounter and isolates herself upon returning home. Carmen and Tibby visit her, whereupon she confides she is afraid of turning out like her mother, whose depression lead to her suicide. The two reassure her that she is stronger than her mother and comfort her with happy memories. On his way back to Columbia University, Eric apologizes to Bridget and expresses hope that she will reconsider him when she is older.
The girls meet Lena at the airport before driving to South Carolina to attend Al's wedding, despite Carmen's reluctance. Al publicly apologizes for neglecting her, and Carmen accepts his apology, joining the blended family onstage for the ceremony.
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