fourteen-year-old Ricky does movies and is booked to fly from L.A. to New York for an audition. At the last minute, the agent can’t make the trip and a guy in an airline uniform agrees to watch out for Ricky until he gets on the plane to New York from a Chicago connection. Chicago is socked in by a blizzard when they land there, though, with Ricky needing and getting more help than had been anticipated.
Elian, having survived a boat trip from Cuba to Florida that his parents didn’t survive, has gone to an aunt in Miami. She sends him to her estranged husband, Duardo, in Islamorada Key for the summer to work on Duardo’s charter boat. Duardo also has a gay bar and initiates Elian to serve men there. Elian is pulled into more sinister work on the charter boat, though.