After recent college graduates and best friends Jude St. Francis and Willem Ragnarsson get turned down for an apartment rental contract because of their precarious financial situation, they meet up with their other two closest friends, JB Marion and Malcolm Irvine, for dinner at a cheap Vietnamese restaurant. The four have been inseparable ever since sharing a suite in their freshman year. Malcolm is currently living at home while Jude stays in the Irvines’ basement.

JB, meanwhile, rents a loft from a wealthy college friend. He works as a receptionist at an art magazine, planning to network with the staff successfully enough to eventually be one of the artists featured in the magazine’s pages. He remembers that one of his colleagues has an apartment to rent and offers to introduce her to Willem and Jude. Willem meets JB’s colleague the next day and tours the apartment on Lispenard Street with her. It is cramped and shabby, but Willem and Jude cannot afford anything better and decide to take it.

JB has a moment of pity for Willem and Jude, who, unlike himself and Malcolm, have no family money to help them in times like this. JB’s father, a Haitian immigrant to New York, died when he was three, but his mother, a second-generation Haitian American, has been a strong and supportive presence throughout his life and eventually became principal of a Manhattan magnet school. She and other female relatives who helped raise him believe him to be endlessly talented and therefore give him a level of self-esteem that often crosses over into entitlement.

Malcolm, meanwhile, has a more contentious relationship with his parents, especially his success-oriented father. Mr. Irvine seems to favor Malcolm’s sister and even seems to favor his temporary houseguest, Jude, over his own son. Nevertheless, Malcolm is unwilling to face the hardship of moving out on his own.

On Jude and Willem’s move-in day, the apartment building’s elevator is out of service, forcing the friends assembled to make numerous trips up and down the five flights of stairs. Jude is unable to do this because of chronic pain in his legs. In fact, his first and only trip up the stairs triggers one of his occasional episodes of severe pain; the friend group has learned from experience that they can do nothing for him at these times, and he prefers to be left alone to lay down and wait for the pain to pass.