Dorita has made a success of life: she has a husband with a good position, children, furs, jewels, cars, a rich social life. In a crowded shopping street she meets Carmen, an old school friend she has not seen for years. Carmen is the dowdy, studious one. She has qualified as a teacher but is unmarried. She has none of the glamour of Dorita, but her self-esteem is bolstered by her belief that she is indispensable to her sister's family as a baby-sitter. A coffee to have a chat over past times is followed by a Martini, then another and another. Beneath the friendly chat, each woman tries to assert her sense of her own value, and things become more and more fraught until, in a grotesque attempt to prove her sexual superiority, Dorita goes to the toilet for a sexual encounter with a man sitting at the next table.