On the surface Rebecca is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation, something she slipped into when Joe Davitch spotted her at a party in his family's Baltimore row house, where giving parties was the family business. Soon this man, divorced and with three little girls, swept her into his orbit and, before she knew it, she was embracing his family plus a child of their own and hosting endless parties in the ornate rooms of The Open Arms. Now, thirty years later, Rebecca wonders if she has turned into the wrong person. Caught unawares by the question of who she really is, how she answers that question is the story told in this funny and deeply moving novel.