George, a young-looking (to his chagrin) and unhappily married 28 year old writer, waits for his friends—an “outrageously glamorous” group of artists and writers— at McShane’s Bar and Grille. He is approached by Mary who relates to him a dream that George presciently interprets as indication of her pregnancy. As George consoles her, his friends arrive, and she swears him to secrecy. George later forgets the whole episode. Some time later, after George and his friends each experience their own professional success, they take a 10 day trip to the Caribbean along with 2 other people, one of which— Susan Strand, an actress—takes a liking to George, the two spending much of the trip on covert trysts. The group doesn’t suspect anything, and George later feels guilty that he had fooled his friends. Years pass, and George’s marriage ends, he sinks into a depression intensified by the malpractice of a “corrupt doctor,” and his friend group falls apart, prompting his move to a small town in Maine. There, after several years, he marries a local girl— Kate. During a particularly harsh winter in 1978, George, $3000 in debt, receives an offer to teach fiction for a semester at a university in Kansas. Desperate for the money, he and Kate drive for 5 days in the inclement weather. After two weeks of teaching at the university, a graduate student in the poetry program, Joan Levin, asks to be transferred into George’s prose program. He agrees and the two spend the remainder of the semester in a close mentorship—spending hours with each other, George reviewing and honing her already impressive writing skills—during which time, George grows increasingly fond of her. 

Towards the end of the semester, Joan begins missing classes, and not wanting to set off any alarms by inquiring as to her whereabouts, George concentrates on his other students and tries not to think about her. On the last day, he and Kate pack up the car and stop at the university, where after he rechecks his office for anything left behind, he searches the halls for Joan. He finds her posting notices on the school bulletins, and the two say goodbye. A year passes and George receives a letter from Joan asking that he review a manuscript. The two begin a correspondence, and George asks why Joan had dropped out from his program so abruptly. She responds that a rumor had been circulated that she and George were sleeping together, a rumor started by Mary’s husband Joshua who was still miffed by George’s interpretation of Mary’s dream years before. Kate, incensed that Joan was forced to leave because of a silly rumor, suggests that George is flattered by the rumor at which point George divulges his affair during his first marriage. The pain caused by the rumors are a necessary component of human relations that only underscore the love that humans have for each other. He says this is what his age has taught him.