Present:Mary Elizabeth Sims, a Birmingham wife, mother, and aspiring writer, reaches out to her estranged childhood friend Rene Jackson, a prominent Washington attorney, when she returns home upon the death of her father. The friends reconcile, and Rene decides to remain in Birmingtham and take over her father's law practice.Past:It's 1962, and Mary Elizabeth and Rene strike up a friendship over a shoplifted pack of cigarettes. Rene, a recent transplant from Detroit, has difficulty adjusting to the segregated South.