In 1985, a New Jersey single mom has two teenagers named Zack and Nora. Only a year apart, the two are in their junior and senior years of high school. They are beautiful kids with a lot of friends, and they participate in extracurriculars. On the weekends, however, Zack and Nora go to parties with friends, where the kids drink and smoke, only to return home and tell their mother all the details. Sometimes, the mother says that she is going to phone the parents of these children and let them know what they are up to, but Zack and Nora convince her this will do no good. The mother is dating a man named Steven. The two get along well, though they do not have any particular shared interests. Zack is dating a girl named Bibi, and Nora has a boyfriend named Mark. At the weekend parties that Zack and Nora attend, parents begin requiring the kids to give up their car keys before they enter to drink, but Bibi always pretends that someone else drove her. Then, after a few drinks, she and Zack and Nora slip off and drive to a diner. There, they sober up until they are ready to go home. Nora asks her mother one day if she can go to Florida with Mark. Her mother says no. Nora begins crying because she feels bad, she says, since she is going to go anyway. The weekend partying continues to get wilder as the year progresses. One night, Zack and Nora do not return at a reasonable hour. Their mother begins calling all of the parents, many of whom also do not know where their children are. Nora returns home and receives a lecture from her mother, but she informs her mother that she was with Mark and does not know where Zack is. Zack returns early the next morning, looking disheveled. He tells his mother the unbelievable story of where he was: his friend Alan threatened to join the army, so his friends went on an excursion to Philadelphia to visit the home of his friend Holly's absent father, who was a Green Beret. Bibi's car got a flat. Then, they slept at Holly's father's apartment. Alan drank tequila throughout the night and, in the morning, tried to get in a car and drive. Zack stood in front of the car to stop him, but Alan proceeded to hit him with the car. Zack passed out, and when he woke up, he and Bibi went home. After that night, the partying stops. Nora does not go to Florida. Zack gets into college. The mother begins spying on her children but never catches them doing anything. She and Steven break up. She realizes that she cannot live without her kids, but they also cannot leave fast enough.