joe comes into their lives when he is sent out to do a residency check by the school: emily and tim have been lying about where they live so he can go to a better school. the price for tim is loneliness: he can't tell anyone where he lives. joe, who is an aspiring novelist and an inventor of gadgets, decides not to report them and strikes up an unlikely friendship with tim that gradually escalates to include emily as well. previous romantic entanglements - for emily, the withholding jim; for joe, the beautiful but self-absorbed carrie - intervene while emily gains courage and independence and joe comes to understand where his real talents lie.