Staggerlee doesn't feel like she belongs in her own home town. She's a loner by nature, and her family is set apart by her parents' interracial marriage and by her celebrity grandparents' tragic deaths. Staggerlee claims her dog and harmonica are all the company she needs, but she yearns to have a friend who understands her. She once had a friend, Hazel, whom she felt connected to in a way she'd never felt before, until Hazel rejected her.

Then Daddy's sister Ida sends her adopted daughter, Tyler, to stay with the family for the summer. Staggerlee learns Tyler has been sent there to get over her "misguided" feelings towards girls. The two girls soon discover they can tell each other the thing they can't tell anyone else, but they struggle with what their feelings mean and how others would react if they knew.