New York playwright in a slump Ben accepts his friend Kevin's invitation to spend some quiet time is his sleepy Connecticut harbor town. Although his polite order of a tea in Kevin's partner's sister Donavan's coffee-shop owes him an absurd scolding from the owner, whose incompetence runs that business into the ground, Ben is amused and interested and a curious bond grows between them. The local banker having sold out to a large company, her trouble loan is about to foreclose in three days. Then her former perfect lover, whom she failed to follow to his big town dream job, returns to town with a surprise deal to get a nice bonus from selling to a mall developer before, yet gets an even ruder reaction from the 'idealist barista', whose clientele enjoys the informal dwelling place socially. Despite another precipitous insult, Ben rides to the rescue.