Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.

A young woman's past catches up with her five years later and nearly shatters her life. As a footloose cocktail waitress, she unwittingly once spent the night in Manhattan with a political assassin and now, as a happily married cop's wife, has the misfortune of running into him after all this time in Portland, Oregon -- and the pursuit begins.

Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

Walt is a lonely convenience store clerk who has fallen in love with a Mexican migrant worker named Johnny. Though Walt has little in common with the object of his affections — including a shared language — his desire to possess Johnny prompts a sexual awakening that results in taboo trysts and a tangled love triangle.