Plot Summary

Five women in Beirut seek love, marriage, and companionship and find duty, friendship, and possibility. Four work at a salon: Nisrine, engaged to Bassam, with a secret she shares with her co-workers; Jamale, a divorced mother of teens, a part-time model, fearing the encroachment of time; Rima, always in pants, attracted to Siham, a client who smiles back; Layale, in love with a married man, willing to drop everything at a honk of his horn. There's also Rose, a middle-aged seamstress, who cares for Lili, old and facing dementia. Rose has a suitor; Layale has an admirer on the police force. Is delight a possibility? Is caramel a sweet or an instrument of pain?—