Growing up in a small Mississippi River town, Fannie Leary works at the local café, trying to hold her own in a world of slow expectations and hard boundaries. Dreaming that her cooking will be her ticket out of Persia, she cleaves to Mattie, the irrepressible black woman who runs the kitchen; to Will, the troubled, quiet boy she falls in love with; and eventually to Sheila Jones, a reclusive young girl who has returned with her mother from California...