No one could take the place of the recently departed Jackson, but artist Marlowe Stewart and her lover Daa (formerly Sheila Swenson of Minnesota) need someone to occupy his space - and share their house rental in the heart of San Francisco's Mission district. Their housemate Jack, a masseur, is delighted when Marlowe's long lost cousin Sheba McKenzie arrives by bus from Indigo Falls, Virginia, seeking room, board, and enlightenment.

Soon Jack is leading Sheba up the two flights of stairs to his attic room for a full-body massage. Then comes her introduction to Immortality Thinking and banana smoothies. That's when Vic Morris arrives in his Chevy pickup, stuffed panda in hand, to bring his high school girlfriend, Sheba, home to marriage and motherhood back East.

They've burned off their pasts to reinvent themselves in California: Marlowe, a political lesbian ready for a life change; Daa, her devoted lover; Jack, whose brilliant hands belie his head; Sheba, the innocent in Paradise; Dante, the gentle troubadour who specializes in unrequited romance; and Vic, primed for lessons in love, San Francisco style.

Here in a land of Buddhist rituals and midsummer nights, full-moon parties laced with magic mushroom tea, they play out their destinies as the realities of life and death intervene.