Tara Richards is unhappy with her job as a rehabilitation nurse and disenchanted with her marriage, but lacks the courage to make a major life change. When her best friend Lisa disappears, Tara's life is thrown into turmoil. Has Lisa jeopardized her sobriety by going on a drinking binge or is she hiding the news that she may be pregnant from her partner Ryan, who has a history of battering, and it's not his baby? Lisa is her rock, her confidant, her reality check. Tara can't live without her. Despite the near paralysis of bad hair days and her dread of turning forty, Tara joins a massive search to look for her friend in conjunction with the police, her colorful women's collective, Lisa's old-world Italian parents, and a twenty-four-year-old man Tara finds particularly captivating.