After recent college graduates and best friends Jude St. Francis and Willem Ragnarsson get turned down for an apartment rental contract because of their precarious financial situation, they meet up with their other two closest friends, JB Marion and Malcolm Irvine, for dinner at a cheap Vietnamese restaurant. The four have been inseparable ever since sharing a suite in their freshman year. Malcolm is currently living at home while Jude stays in the Irvines’ basement.

JB, meanwhile, rents a loft from a wealthy college friend. He works as a receptionist at an art magazine, planning to network with the staff successfully enough to eventually be one of the artists featured in the magazine’s pages. He remembers that one of his colleagues has an apartment to rent and offers to introduce her to Willem and Jude. Willem meets JB’s colleague the next day and tours the apartment on Lispenard Street with her. It is cramped and shabby, but Willem and Jude cannot afford anything better and decide to take it.

JB has a moment of pity for Willem and Jude, who, unlike himself and Malcolm, have no family money to help them in times like this.