Monica, a naive schoolgirl from a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, meets Virginia, a former neighbor, now living in Copacabana. Influenced by her, she decides to take on a double life: in the morning she is the suburban girl, in the afternoon she attends a brothel in the South Zone. One day she meets Flávio, a friend and eventual lover of Virginia. Flávio falls in love with the purity of Monica and wants to drive away her friends, for considering Virginia a bad company for her beloved.
The naïve young Renato arrives in Rio de Janeiro from Cachoeiro de Itapemirim with the dream of becoming a doctor. Without knowing anyone, he goes to a nightclub where he is mistaken for a male prostitute by Pedro, a homosexual nurse obsessed with Greta Garbo. That same night the two go to Pedro's apartment and after several arguments, they decide to move in together. Three months later, Renato introduces his girlfriend Gracinha to his friend, who doesn't know it, but Pedro soon realizes she is a prostitute.
Employees on a local supermarket plot an epic heist for robbing the place's vault, but things start to go wrong when they notice a police detective on their heels.
After marrying everyday man Zózimo, Engraçadinha, who had been through intense sexual experiences as a teenager, settles to live a quiet and normal life. As the years go by, her teenage daughter's behaviour seems to call back Engraçadinha's own teenage days.