Content Warning: This section discusses miscarriage and mental illness, including depression and panic attacks.

The novel opens with Minnie Cooper at a New Year’s Eve party with her boyfriend, Greg. The entire novel takes place in a world where the COVID-19 virus and subsequent pandemic do not exist. As they struggle to find the private party they have been invited to, Minnie reminds her boyfriend, “[B]ad things happen to me at New Year’s. It wouldn’t surprise me if this whole building went up in flames before the night’s out” (2). Minnie watches the revelers count down to midnight, resenting the performative romantic displays. Her thoughts are interrupted when she realizes that a passing stranger has thrown up on her.

Greg and Minnie find the private party, and Minnie is chagrined to realize the event is formal, as she must remove her stained blouse. She meets Greg’s colleague Lucy, who is throwing the party for her boyfriend. Minnie doesn’t know it yet, but Lucy’s boyfriend is Quinn Hamilton, who was born the same day as Minnie in the same hospital. Greg tries to impress Lucy with Minnie’s food business, a pie company with a social mission to provide meals to the elderly, but Minnie downplays her work.