Therese Belivet is an aspring theater set designer who is just starting her life as an adult in Manhattan. She is very lonely and has always felt abandoned, because her father passed away when she was a child and her mother sent her off to boarding school in Europe shortly afterwards. She has a boyfriend, but she doesn't love him, and feels no joy in their romance. Whilst Therese waits for her big break in the theater she is working over the Christmas holiday season at a huge department store, where she works in the toy department.
Therese becomes fascinated with a customer; a thirty-ish woman who is beautiful and sophisticated. Her name is Carole Aird; Therese knows this because the woman has given her her name and address so that the toys she has purchased can be delivered to her home. Therese does not know why, but she sends Carole a Christmas card; Carole, going through a divorce and feeling rather low and lonely herself, responds, and the two women strike up an unlikely friendship. Therese falls in love with Carole, but Carole does not take her feelings that seriously because she considers Therese to be experiencing a schoolgirl crush on her.
It's not that Carole would be averse to a same-sex relationship; she recently admitted to her estranged husband, Harge, that she had a sexual relationship with her best friend, Abby, and for this reason Harge becomes increasingly suspicious of Carole's friendship with Therese. He uses his suspicions as a weapon in their divorce proceedings, taking their daughter, Rindy, to live with him and preventing Carole from seeing her very much. It is almost too much for Carole to bear and so she suggests getting out of New York for a little while. Therese jumps at the chance; the two take a road trip, heading west and reaching Utah. During the trip, Carole begins to admit her feelings for Therese, and the two become lovers.
Harge has hired a private investigator to follow them on their trip; they discover this as he is less than discreet in his tailing of them, and Carole realizes that he is on an evidence-gathering mission so that Harge can use her affair with Therese against her in their upcoming custody hearing. Carole finds a bug in their hotel room and realizes that he has taped them having sex. Carole confronts the detective when they are traveling through Nebraska and pays him a significant amount of money for the tapes, and any other evidence that he has on her. He accepts her offer, but tell her that he has already mailed some evidence to Harge. It is becoming clearer to Carole that she needs to choose between Rindy and Therese, because if she continues to have a relationship with Therese she will lose access to Rindy all together. She returns to New York right away, promising Therese that she will return to her as soon as she can.
Therese waits for her in Nebraska, but soon receives a letter from Carole ending their relationship. However, Harge has already enough evidence to get his own way; he gets full custody of Rindy, and Carole has extremely limited access to her daughter. Harge, hell bent on winning at all costs, gives no thought to the fact that Rindy would actually quite like to see her mother.
Therese, suffering from a broken heart, returns to New York to start picking up the pieces of her life again. She and Carole arrange to meet but Therese refuses to move in with her because she is still very hurt that Carole abandoned her, despite the fact that she only did so in order to maintain contact with her daughter. That night, she goes to a party without Carole and flirts with an English actress. Afterwards, she is ashamed of her behavior, and ashamed that she has been so harsh in her judgment of Carole. Loneliness engulfs her again and she goes to find Carole, who is more pleased to see her than she ever has been before.
