Recognizing that it has been a long time since she took a vacation, the building's landlady Anna Madrigal decides to travel to Greece to meet with her daughter Mona Ramsey on the island of Lesbos.

During her time there, Anna develops a romantic fling with Stratos, a local man, while Mona explores the island and its lesbian pilgrims.

In San Francisco, Mary Ann Singleton and her husband Brian Hawkins have moved to a condo in the Russian Hill high-rise The Summit with their adopted daughter Shawna.

However, the sudden call from television producer Burke Andrews, her old boyfriend, changes everything when he offers her a job as the host of a new, nationally syndicated talk show in New York City.

Michael continues to co-own his nursery Plant Parenthood with Brian while monitoring his scheduled AZT dosages to keep his HIV infection in check.

However, Brian is enthused by Mary Ann's move and obliviously begins making plans to leave San Francisco and start again in New York.

Brian stays with Thack and Michael for the time being, and Mary Ann accepts the new position and begins making preparations for her move to New York by the end of the month, including rubbing elbows with famous fashion designer Russell Rand (relatively known to be a closeted homosexual by the LGBT community) and his celebrity wife Chloe.

As Michael reflects on the toll of the AIDS crisis, the deaths of his friends and former lover, and sees the continued deterioration of the once vibrant gay men in his community, he begins to wonder if he has the luxury to be unpolitical.

When Mary Ann learns of their altercation, she scolds Michael, and he angrily breaks from her, feeling that her interest in stardom has replaced her ability to recognize the social justice issues at hand.

Michael goes in for treatment and finds, to his relief, that the growth on his leg was only a bruise from when he bumped into a picnic table days earlier and is not Kaposi's sarcoma; he has not yet developed AIDS.