A waitress at the Betsy Ross Diner, Elsie hopes her nickel-and-dime tips will add up to a new life. Then she meets Bashkim, a married man who left Albania to chase his dreams and wound up working as a line cook in Waterbury, Connecticut. Seventeen years later, headstrong and independent Luljeta receives a rejection letter from NYU and a suspension from school on the same day. Now she's stuck in Connecticut with her mother, Elsie - a fate she refuses to accept.