The life of teenager Rainbow Gold as she enters womanhood and navigates standards of beauty, self-image, and the rights women have over their bodies. Rainbow attends a strict parochial school, studies dance, and lives with her strait-laced mother Alma, who runs a hair salon in the parlor of their home and disapproves of her daughter’s newfound interest in boys. When Alma’s free-spirited sister Ruby returns from Paris after a ten-year absence, the sisters clash over what constitutes the “proper” direction for Rainbow’s life.