Nineteen-year-old Zippy is the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, “San Francisco’s Finest Department Store.” For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother’s madcap boyfriend, Howard, and who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how, I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one. Zippy may not be in school, but she’s about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. However, just when she thinks she’s getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.

In 1970s Baltimore, 14-year-old Mary Jane is glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. The doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job --- helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in. Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.

Twenty-year-old Allie Dodgson has adventures that rival those Alice had down the rabbit hole. Or those of Nancy Botwin from “Weeds.” To help pay for college, Allison is working at a dress shop that turns out to be a front for drug dealers. She ends up on the run --- with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine. With a hit man after her, Allison wants the help of her parents but has no way of contacting them.