Deborah Rose, a talented pianist entering her senior year at Purcell High School on the South Side of Chicago, is a leading contender for the school's coveted music scholarship. On the first day of school, she learns that her apartment building and her father's pharmacy will be razed to make way for a new freeway. So the family must move to North Haven, an exclusive suburb. Deborah is devastated about losing her chance at the scholarship, sad at leaving her friends, and uneasy about life in a town that is overwhelmingly Caucasian and Gentile. She goes through many trials of friendship, romance, and music before finding what is most important in her life, and she learns to see herself as she really is.