Poughkeepsie, a small town in the northern suburbs of New York City, in the mid-1980s: Anatole runs a trendy hair salon, Lydia has returned from New York as a failed existence, and Chris, who fled to Poughkeepsie after a tragic relationship, operates a record store. Anatole and Lydia are both in love with Chris, but he keeps everyone at a distance. Paul Russell tells the story of how the three twenty-somethings try to get along with each other—and how eighteen-year-old Leigh significantly disrupts their tranquil trio: "In the shopping mall on Main Street in Poughkeepsie, a boy is sitting. That's how it begins: Lydia and Anatole see the boy sitting on the backrest of a bench from two different windows." Anatole, who constantly falls for handsome boys, keeps a close eye on the "boy god of the shopping mall.".