The time is 1935, the place St. Louis, where Dorothea, a youngish high school teacher, rooms with Bodey, a plain but kind-hearted German-American spinster. Hopelessly romantic, Dorothea dreams of marriage with her sometime beau, the principal of the school, and Bodey, in an attempt to spare her feelings, hides the morning newspaper, which carries a notice of the principal's engagement to another. Bodey also hopes to make a match between Dorothea and her fat, cigar-smoking brother, and tries to persuade Dorothea to join them for a picnic at Creve Coeur, a nearby amusement park. Their departure is delayed by the arrival of Helena, a snobbish, tart-tongued art teacher, who wants Dorothea to share an apartment with her in a better part of town. Inevitably, a struggle evolves between Bodey and Helena, with Dorothea, lost in her dream world, caught between them. In the end reality shatters Dorothea's fond hopes, and brings her rudely back to earth-but not without clear evidence that, somehow, she will find the strength to recover and go on.