A German couple vacationing in the U.S. get sick of each other somewhere in the Nevada desert and the wife (Marianne Sägebrecht) takes her bags and walks off on her own. Sägebrecht ends up at a seedy motel/cafe where she takes a room. The owner of the motel/cafe (C.C.H. Pounder) is a single mother of two teenagers. The daughter is a free-spirited "valley girl" type and the son is an unmarried teenage father who has a penchant for playing Bach on the piano. Jack Palance has an atypical role as a sensitive artist in the midst of an array of truckers who all hang out at the cafe. Sägebrecht's peculiarities -- including her attempt to clean up Pounder's dusty, disheveled office and storage room -- initially rub Pounder the wrong way. In the meantime, however, Sägebrecht has a magic kit and spends hours in her motel room teaching herself magic tricks. Sägebrecht eventually starts working at the cafe and everyone, including Pounder, take a liking to her -- especially when she starts performing her magic act.