Rick is a pre-med student who becomes obsessed with a beautiful classmate named Julie. She spurns his every attempt to talk with her so in desperation, and on the advice of a fellow student, he buys her a green scarf. He has been warned about her overprotective father, an officer in the Marines, but decides to pursue Julie in spite of the obstacles. Rick is drawn into a world of duplicity, uncertainty and danger, where people are not whom they seem to be, and facts shift as easily as flipping a light switch.

Her eyes went back and forth between mine, and it seemed that she was trying to extract some truth, some insight from them. Before I could say what was starting to form in my head, she turned, walking away from me, pulling my life force with her, stretching it farther and farther as she disappeared into a crowd, leaving me leaning into the wall with my shoulder, aching to have gone with her.