"Portia Cuthcart and her two sisters find their way from Texas to Manhattan over the years, the heiresses to a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper West Side. Portia is running from a bad divorce and the knowledge that she has always been a little bit different, a little bit strange: the talented cook who knew exactly what to serve on what occasion, even to the point of predicting events that hadn't even happened yet. But she doesn't cook anymore....

When Carlisle Wainwright Cushing left her native Texas to start a new life in Boston, she had no regrets. The former Texas debutante, who never felt at home in her Southern skin, had finally found liberation--or so she thought.