The setting is a rural college town with a typical overabundance of coffeeshops and dill-breaded, woodplank-floored eateries. For five blocks in the center of town the sidewalks are artificially cobblestoned and pink flowering crabapple trees line the street. They are a soft cloud of color in springtime, and bright-ass wicked twinkling Christmas tree pretenders in the holiday season. The storefronts are all painted colonial beiges and greys with navy or burgundy shutters and doors. Everything is extraordinarily clean.

The locals can't afford to shop in the village proper, thus the ambience is of youthful music and tech gadgets, academic anxiety and explorative sex.

In the centrally located Starbuck's, five friends sit having late night lattes and croissants. They are all third-year students and they all live in off campus housing.