Diana tends bar at Queequeg's Tavern, where she meets Pete, a recent retiree always ready with a joke, and Jeb, a homeless student driven by a poet's Romantic aspirations. Tangled up in a history of the family blues, she sometimes takes refuge in a church she can't decide to join for good. Tom, the manager of a video store near the tavern, is settling into a new marriage with Helen, an adult film producer wealthy enough to save Tom's store from impending doom. But when a figure from his past walks through the door, who will save his marriage? Who will help whom as this nest of birds unravels?