Verdi and Rowe have lived together for a long time when Verdi runs into her old college boyfriend at a party, reawakening memories not only of young love but of the drug habit they shared until Rowe helped Verdi change her life. Interwoven with Verdi`s story is that of her cousin, Kitt, as well as her other relatives and friends in a novel that moves from the 1970s to the 1990s.