Elinor Mackey has always done the right things in the right order: college, law school, career, marriage. But now everything's going wrong. After two painful years of trying, Elinor has learned that she can't have children. All the doctors can tell her is that it's probably because of her age. As she turns 40, she withdraws into an interior world of heartbreak.

Elinor Mackey has always done the right things in the right order: college, law school, career, marriage. But now everything's going wrong. After two painful years of trying, Elinor has learned that she can't have children. All the doctors can tell her is that it's probably because of her age. As she turns 40, she withdraws into an interior world of heartbreak.

When 36-year-old Sophie Stanton's husband dies, she desperately wants to be a graceful, composed Jackie Kennedy kind of widow. Alas, Sophie is more of a Jack Daniels kind. Adding her job and her waistline to her list of things lost, she moves from L.A. to Oregon, prepared to defy the dismal weather and be rescued by Sam Shepard's twin. Instead, she finds a job as Salad Girl at the local French restaurant and an alarmingly cute actor who Sophie wished she didn't quite trust so much.