In the summer of her junior year, sixteen-year-old Ruby McQueen and her mother, both nursing broken hearts, set out on a journey to reunite an elderly woman with her long-lost love, and in the process, learn many things about "the real ties that bind" people to one another.

High school junior Jordan MacKenzie's life was pretty typical: fractured family, new boyfriend, and a dead-end job. She'd been living with her father, the predictable optometrist, since her mother, the hippie holdover, had become too embarrassing to be around and Jordan finally felt that her life was normal. That is, until she met Gayle D'Angelo, her father's girlfriend.