In New York City, five concurrent and ultimately intersecting stories of emotional despair are presented leading up to the first anniversary of 9/11. Emme Keeler, a high end cake designer, and her businessman husband Danny are all about presenting the perfect life, much like the perfection Emme strives for with her cake designs. Despite that perfection, Emme and her team have lost most of the recent contracts against their main competitor, Safarah Polsky. Emme is hoping things will change with the upcoming annual competition to win the lucrative contract to provide the birthday cake for now teenager, spoiled heiress Lisa Krindle, Emme who will do whatever she can to get a leg up on Safarah. Married Allison and David Burbage do whatever they need to to provide for their adolescent son Charlie, who is in expensive therapy to deal with disruptive sometimes bordering on violent behavior against others. They may not realize that they are really placing their own relationship at risk in not putting effort into it in focusing on their direct roles what they feel are Charlie's needs. Both married with families, Avi and Satish are best friends, next door neighbors and coworkers, they part of the same security detail for the Indian government. While Avi chatters on about trivial matters in life in general as he and Satish spend hour after hour with each other, he may not be able to see that Satish is a powder keg waiting to explode. Elderly Judy Hillerman is in a routine and thus unsatisfying marriage to Henry Hillerman. Being in the twilight of life, she may contemplate having that small piece of happiness when she meets an old high school classmate, seemingly happy-go-lucky Jerry Binder. And in the lead-up to the anniversary, Sandie's company has offered him therapy as a survivor of the twin towers, many of his coworkers who he didn't know on the seventh floor where he was at the time using specialized equipment who didn't make it. The therapist, Dr. Trabulous, uses provocative, passive-aggressive methods to find troubles buried deep within mild mannered Sandie that may or may not be there, but which on the surface don't seem to exist.