A high-maintenance realtor forced to do community service must lead a group of hopeless girl scouts in the regional cookie drive competition.

Joy Robertson's two sons will both be off to college next year, so she wants to make this "the best Christmas ever." Joy is feeling unappreciated, however, since her husband and sons are preoccupied with their own concerns, and providing no assistance with the many Christmas preparations, while still expecting Mom to handle all the arrangements for hubby's office party and parties for her sons' friends, as well. Inspired by a grocery workers' strike in town, Joy decides to follow suit, and goes "on strike for Christmas."

Jennifer and Ryan are students at UC Berkeley, acquaintances off and on since early adolescence. She's quick, witty, ironic, literary, and independent; he's deliberate, literal, serious, studying structural engineering, always working on a plan. They take walks, they console each other over break-ups, he shares his plans. She's headed for Italy after graduation. Then, to their equal surprise, they spend a night together. Her response is to skitter away from continued intimacy and want to stay friends; he's hurt by her response, so he withdraws. Can it all get sorted out before she leaves town?

2002: Jake Mitchell is the defending World West Coast Swing Champion. He's got everything going for him: looks, personality, and style. He's at the top of his game when he and his partner Corinne are crowned the unexpected winners at the World Swing Dance Championships. As the crowd cheers and the celebration begins, Jake appears uneasy. Did he really deserve to win? The music blasts and the bass is thumping, and Jake hears none of it. He feels it. Jake is completely deaf, due to an ear infection when he was a teenager. He learned how to dance by feeling the vibrations of the music. Now he feels something else: that perhaps the judges gave him the win out of sympathy. Present Day: Jessica Donovan's life is boring. When she was younger, she was a dancer who had dreams of Broadway. Now she's an English teacher for disinterested, upper class middle school kids, and she's dying to let loose...

-A high school choir is fading in popularity, as it continues to lose most of its' members one by one...    »