George Roundy is a Beverly Hills hairstylist whose uncontrolled libido stands between him and his ambitions. He wants the security of a relationship. He wants to be a hairdressing "star" and open his own salon. But the fact that he beds down with the wife, daughter and mistress of a potential backer doesn't help. It also does little for his relationship with his current girlfriend.
At the age of twenty-nine, Elgar Enders "runs away" from home. This running away consists of buying a building in a black ghetto in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Initially, his intention is to evict the black tenants and convert the building into a posh flat. But Elgar is not one to be bound by yesterday's urges, and soon he has other thoughts on his mind.
A woman named Emily checks into a hotel and offers the bellboy $2000 to temporarily marry her. We soon find out Emily is the caretaker of a wheelchair-bound mute named Helga, who was the childhood guardian of a pair of siblings: Miriam Webster and her half-brother, Warren, who is about to inherit the estate of their late father. Who is the mysterious Emily and what are her intentions?
