Tiffany Churchill, a shy only child living with her troubled parents in their Manhattan town house, spends a happy summer with her new boyfriend and classmate, Nevio, from her university architecture school class. But then when they head back upstate to the demanding rigors of their sophomore year, an incredibly handsome Swiss transfer student is assigned to the seat next to Tiffany in her design studio. Concurrently, her father, Willis, hires a comely Hungarian immigrant as his home secretary for his new business venture of becoming a conservative talk show host. Willis rents her the basement flat under their town house where his home office is located. Trouble brews as his wife Grace, a literary agent, becomes wildly jealous and suspicious of Willis's new office assistant while simultaneously Tiffany finds herself trapped in a triangle situation at school. Boyfriend Nevio decides that he needs to go to extraordinary measures to maintain his relationship with Tiffany. Some unusual events occur and come together at Christmas time.