Maeve Fanning, Irish but raised among the Italian families of Boston's North End, is determined to better herself despite the hardships of the Great Depression. A fondness for strange men and bootleg gin results in Maeve becoming an unwilling patient in a psychiatric hospital. There she strikes up a friendship with another woman unable or unwilling to control her un-lady-like desire for freedom. Once out, armed with a bottle of bleach and a few white lies, Maeve lands a job at an eccentric antiques shop catering to Boston's wealthiest collectors. Delivering a purchase to the Van der Laar family, she discovers that socialite Diana Van der Laar is the young woman from the hospital. The connection pulls her into a world of moral ambiguity and deceit, and ultimately betrayal.