Shell-shocked, confused and lonely, the recently widowed Rebecca isn't alone for long because with the immediate arrival of her eccentric best friend Sylvie, her neurotic younger sister Lucy and her overbearing ex-stepmother Alberta comes a convergence of support and enough emotional baggage for a therapist to need new springs on the old couch--or at least a new couch. Rebecca's loss slowly begins to reveal insecurities in everyone's life: a best friend who fears her marriage is crumbling, a sister whose physical hang-ups insure against any hopes that she may get a date, and a ball-busting former stepmother whose boardroom tactics alienate everyone around her. When, for Rebecca's birthday, Alberta hires a house painter to "spruce up her siding," this mysterious man causes the these four women to peel away their own layers--to confront their sexual feelings, share their fantasies, and get back to the essence of who they are.