MBTI Type: ESFJ

Carmen is notorious for her “hot temper.” She feels strongly about things and is happy to vent to her friends, whom she trusts to love her unconditionally, but is more hesitant to open up about her feelings to her dad. Once she does, however, she feels better. She has a tendency to vent to others about her feelings and can be somewhat selfish, but also cares what other people think about her and is always there for her friends. Only rarely does Carmen step back and view her life with objectivity. She is completely gutted when she thinks that her dad is replacing her in his affections by adopting a new family, and doesn’t stop to think through what is really bothering her until after she has hopped on a bus home. Eventually, Carmen reaches a point where she can view her family and friends with clarity, see their true motivations, and analyze them from a more objective standpoint. Her father marvels that Carmen can remember a conversation … and where they were … and the details of what happened that day, from a memory of her childhood. She has subjective memories of her past, which she shares with the reader. She lives mostly in the present, and is not always eager to embrace “big change” (her anger over her dad’s remarriage, and her sense of him “replacing” her and her mom with a white family). When she and her friends start to drift apart, Carmen becomes upset that there is nothing familiar to hold onto. She immediately sees the potential in the pants, and how they can connect the circle of friends together over their summers apart. Carmen is fairly good at reading other people and sensing their connections to one another. She enjoys opening up and being silly when it comes to deciding what the rules to the pants will be – tying her imaginative ideas to something concrete that also represents, to her, an abstract ideal of friendship.

Enneagram: 2w1 so/sp

Carmen does a lot for her family and friends. She enjoys arranging time for them to spend together, and bringing them together through sharing the pants. Carmen organizes everything for the group, figures out who gets them when, etc. She sees herself as holding them together through thick and thin – and she gets angry when they are unappreciative, uncommitted, and unresponsive. She wants to take an active role in others’ lives and is upset when they won’t allow her to. Under stress, Cameron moves into her 8 – being upset about being ignored and not included, and reacting by becoming aggressive (throwing a rock through her dad’s window, storming off, giving Tibby the silent treatment). She is frank whenever she tells off someone.