In 2014, thirty-three-year-old Brooke Orr, a former school teacher and the adopted Black daughter of Maggie, a single, middle-aged white woman, is starting her first day at work for the Asher and Carol Jaffee Foundation, a small group which is seeking to give millions to worthy causes, as its aging founder, Asher, a famed, eighty-three-year-old billionaire businessman – his daughter, Linda, died while working at the World Trade Center on 9/11 – wants to do good with his fortune in the December of his days.
Also at the foundation is executive director Sandra; consultant Jody; eager office assistant Kate; and Natalie, Asher’s middle-aged, devoted, long-time secretary. Brooke’s first assignment is to research monies needed to repatriate the oyster to New York Harbor. She soon meets Asher, newly returned from vacationing with his second wife, Carol. Asher takes an avid interest in Brooke, bringing her to lunch at a modest diner, and Brooke is moved by his sincerity. He selflessly wants to make great change for the good of society with his money. He urges her to find a worthy cause of her own for his foundation.
At the same time, Brooke is irked by her white, thirty-year-old adopted brother Alex, who’s marrying Rachel, a Persian Jew, in a ceremony which will largely be paid for by Maggie. Though Brooke has no plans to ever marry, she feels she’s deserving of the equivalent monies.
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