Once a year, ballet-obsessed Carlisle Martin spends a few precious weeks with her father Robert and his partner James at their enchanted apartment in Greenwich Village. Time spent with them is impossibly glamorous, filled with art, dance, beauty, books, and grown-ups who take her seriously as they battle the AIDs crisis and Then, one summer, a devastating betrayal sees her exiled from their world.

Now in her 40s, Carlisle has forged a successful career as a choreographer, and hasn't seen Robert or James in nearly twenty years, when James calls to summon her to her dying father's bedside...