Alessa Woo works at an upscale downtown Toronto private art gallery, she who has among the keenest eyes for art in the city. For those not in the know, Alessa comes from a wealthy Chinese family still in Asia. For those in the know, she is really plain old Ellen Woo who is trying to escape her working class Scarborough upbringing. The reason for this deception is that she is deep in debt - she already three months behind in rent - and wants to marry into money so that she won't have financial problems which have always plagued her. She, however, does have her standards, and as such doesn't give Nathan, who is trying to woo her to the point of stalking her, the time of day. Without even knowing him, she dreams of marrying someone like Brad Unger, the local magazines which list him number one of the top forty under forty in the city. Into her life comes Ben Crowchild, a First Nations up and coming artist who moves into the same rooming house where she lives, the two who end up sharing an adjoining bathroom. Beyond the connection they have to art and the bathroom, they become bosom buddies, he who ends up knowing what "Ellen's" marriage plans are. They end up falling in love, but Alessa still does not see Ben anywhere close to a Brad Unger financially, and thus not marriage material. Closer to that ideal of a husband is Patrick Aucoin, an art collector who outbid her for a piece she truly was eyeing at an auction, he who she begins to seriously date. Ben knows more about Patrick than he lets on, this information among associated information which he doesn't divulge to Alessa in his want for her to want to be with him for who he is, and not for what he may or may not have.