After growing up adopted in the quiet suburbs, 26-year-old Pale is still struggling with identity and career. On a dare from her best friend, she takes a job as a cigarette and candy girl in San Francisco. Some of her customers are downright scary, others a delight ... all of them high-maintenance and ridiculous. Felix, one of the company drivers that she lusts over, is either coolly distant or unnervingly protective, depending on his mood, but insists he just wants to be "friends." His bravado won't hide his secret for long; Pale's determined to find it out. And if that wasn't stressful enough, the Fates weren't even kind enough to warn her of the worst, still to come. Some answers may lie in a letter from her mother, but how can she trust it won't make things worse?