Opening Credits

In the locker room at the college, Bailey is changing back into his street clothes after working out on the hockey rink. The coach approaches him to tell him he thinks Bailey has good form and should spend a year in intramurals to get more experience and then come back next year to try out. Bailey is none too happy about this.

Julia is in her room, searching for papers and yelling at the two roofing guys. She continues to carp about only having four days to get all her college applications together. The older guy introduces himself to her as Sam and points to the other guy as his younger brother, Alec. Alec leers at her. She wonders how long this roofing job will take and it most perturbed when they tell her at least a week to get everything done. She storms out.

Sarah bursts into Bailey's apartment and finds him icing down a sore shoulder. Sarah prattles on about an audition she had to sing, but instead, she was picked to sing in a carpet ad. She is so excited about this and dives onto Bailey, who is quite sore from the hockey workout. He tells her what happened at practice and how the coach thinks he should play intramural. She apologizes to him.

Later that evening, Alec wanders into the Salinger's kitchen and finds Julia at the table working through her applications. He asks her, "doesn't all that college stuff fry your brain?" She doesn't seem too amused. When she asks if he should be working, he admits to be taking a break to hit on her and encourages her to take a break as well. He invites her up on the scaffolding to see the view. He asks her how much college costs? She's surprised to see he actually graduated from high school and he tells her the only reason he's working is because his parents cut him loose. Now, he's Sam's "problem." Julia feels for him. Just then, Alec pulls out a cigarette, only it's not a cigarette, it's pot. He lights it and offers it to Julia, who tells him she has to get back to work. He asks if she's offended, but she insists she's not, and makes it known that he better not do it on the job.

Bailey and Sarah are sitting at a restaurant eating and he's complaining about "cheeseless" pizzas. He is drinking beer, which seems to annoy Sarah, although she doesn't say anything. She tells him he seems "bugged" about something. Trying to be helpful, she tells him not to get down because of the hockey thing. Bailey laughs, telling her he doesn't care about not making the hockey team. In fact, he's celebrating - celebrating good things - her singing job and his new fake ID.

Charlie has picked a winner for the motto of the restaurant: "Salinger's - 'cause you gotta eat!" He's sharing this information with his wait staff, who actually regognize the name of the winner, Jim Sealy. Jim Sealy, a local celebrity, walks into the restaurant and the waiter, Stuart, points him out. Charlie shakes his hand, congratulates him and gives him fifty-two coupons for free meals at the restaurant. As he's talking to Sealy, Charlie notices some not so clean and apparently homeless people standing in the doorway. Sealy informs Charlie he would like to use six of the coupons right now and ushers the homeless people to the table with him. They are quite dirty and smell very much. The smell is obviously bothering the other patrons and people begin to leave.

Commercial Break

At the house the next day, Julia is checking out the progress of the repairs and notices that Claudia's room is now painted black. Sam is just putting on the finishing touches. Julia yells at Claudia, telling her that this rebellion has got to stop. Sam tells Julia she should let it go. She explains that she has to look out for Claudia and she wants the room back to the way it was. He sighs and shrugs, obviously disturbed at the way Julia is bossing around Claudia and he tells her "Pay me, I'll paint it polka dot."

Walking together, Sarah is singing the coffee jingle song to Bailey as he says it would be better to skip his lecture and go for coffee for his apparent hangover. He opens mail, which includes a letter from the college hockey coach wanting him to try out for the team. Bailey crumples up the letter, as he's not interested. Sarah takes yet another stab at encouraging him.

Grace comes into Salingers to see Charlie. She is there to see him about a story she heard about homeless people being thrown out of the restaurant the night before. She is none too pleased and doesn't particularly want to hear Charlie's explanation. Charlie informs her he's running a business and the people were dirty and smelled and his customers started leaving. Grace snarkily replies that homeless people tend to be dirty as they don't get to bathe every day like he does. She tries making her case for letting the homeless eat with his other patrons, but he tells her that he is not the problem. She leaves in a huff.

Bailey shows up at wrestling practice and meets with the coach. The coach wants him to just get a feel for everything and matches him up with a guy named Jimmy who makes quick work of Bailey, taking him down several times. Bay sighs.

Julia enters the kitchen to find Alec foraging through the fridge. He tells her he's simply on a break, but she tells him he can't just take what he wants. He is working there, not living there and what he is doing is rude. He takes out a jar of olives and wonders how the pimentos get in the middle as he takes them out and starts eating them. Julia realizes he's stoned and says something to him. He doesn't like her fussing at him, so he leaves.

Bailey is in the locker room changing when the coach advises him he wants him back. He says, one month and "you'll be a wrestler."

Julia goes to Sam and tells him about Alec and the pot. Then she tells him about him doing the same thing when they were on the scaffolding last night. Sam defends him, while chastizing her for fraternizing with him. He tells Julia she might enjoy telling everyone else how to live, but all he wants to do is finish this job he's started.

Charlie comes home and is extremely tired. Claudia comes up and asks him about throwing the homeless people out of the restaurant. There is a story in the evening paper, saying Charlie shoved a man out. Charlie defends himself, saying he was helping the man up. The story says the Harvest Program, the program run by Grace, is calling for a boycott of the restaurant. He runs his hands through his hair, quite frustrated. Claudia smirks and says, "and you're making decisions in my life?"

Commercial Break

The next morning, Julia can't believe what the paper says. Charlie thought the paper was thrown away, but Claudia smarts off, saying she bought extras just in case. Bailey walks in and can't believe what's happening. They all sit at the table and Charlie attempts to explain what happened, saying the story is garbage. He assures them he will straighten it out and everything will be okay. Sam comes in, ready to start work for the day, and comments to Charlie, "at least they spelled your name right."

Bailey sits on the bench at the wrestling match - there is no one there. The guy sitting next to him tells him that last season the team went 0-20. The coach slips up to give Bailey pointers, and Bailey watches as his team mate is pined. And this guy is the star of the team.

Claudia comes in from school and Julia is at the desk working on her application. Claudia hands her a test with an "F" on it from school and Julia can't believe her! Trying to encourage her, she states she won't be able to get into the conservatory with grades like that, no matter how mad she is at Charlie and stressing that screwing up her grades is only going to hurt her. Claudia storms up to her room. Alec comes in and asks Julia if she wants to get him fired? He tells her his brother doesn't care about him and what he does and then he walks away.

Charlie's waiter, Stuart, tells him he can't in good conscious work for him anymore because of the boycott. People are calling to cancel reservations. Charlie accepts Stuart's resignation, as Stuart feels he has to go on his morals.

Back in the locker room, the coach builds up the team's confidence with a pep talk - telling them the improvements will pay off. He talks to Bailey afterwards and tells him he needs to go on a high protein diet. Bay shakes his head and tells the coach that he just doesn't want to do this. It's not for him. The coach says okay and walks off.

Julia brings the telephone outside to Sam and tells him it's Alec calling. Sam takes the phone from her and listens. He snaps, "work it out!" and hangs up. Seems that Alec was stopped by the cops and is being held because of drugs and alcohol. Sam convinces himself that Alec has to take care of himself. Julia goes off on him, saying he has to take care of his family. Sam is riled and tells Julia to "pull the power princess routine" on Claudia and leave him alone. She firmly tells him it's not cool to ignore people who need you, and before walking away, she tells him, "I don't like you."

At the apartment, Bailey is listening to music. Sarah comes in, hyped from her afternoon at the recording studio. She informs Bailey that they want her to do more jingles and starts singing the next one to him, which is done in a baby voice. He is none too impressed and tells her she's not using her talent doing baby voices and jingles like this. He makes a veiled reference to her selling her singing to prostitution...well, sort of. He doesn't think she should commit to this "career" and basically tells her this work is an embarassment.

At the Harvest office, Grace is on the telephone as Charlie walks in. She tells him she doesn't want to argue with him and is most offensive in nature when talking to him. He tells her he needs a truce and he needs her help. She cops an attitude an tells him she's an advocate for the poor - not "people like him." She goes off on him, telling him how he hasn't had to struggle a day of his life and how he has never had to take care of anyone or anything. She bets his daddy called him into the study one day to tell him it was time for him to take over the family business. Charlie is so put off over all of this that he doesn't even try to defend himself against her accusations. She tells him he's had everything handed to him. He doesn't want to be there any more and waves his hand at her, telling her, "you're always right."

Commercial Break

Charlie comes into the kitchen, paper in hand, furious at Claudia. The paper reads that Claudia was disavowing Charlie's actions. "My father wouldn't have handled it this way." Claudia shrugs, saying she didn't realize how bad that sounded. He screams at her, asking her if she thinks this helps? Claudia goes into her "I didn't get to go to the conservatory" mode and tells Charlie that he doesn't care about her or anything and angry and frustrated, Charlie yells that she needs to grow up!

Bailey rushes into the coffee house and finds Sarah, who is on her way to the recording studio. She can't understand why Bailey isn't being supportive of her and why he was trying to shame her out of doing the jingles anymore. She asks him if he's jealous of her and this success? She fusses that he doesn't do anything anymore and goes off that Bailey has adopted Callie's theories of "blow it off and lag it."

Sam and Alec have a fight in the back yard of the Salinger's after Sam has obviously bailed Alec out of jail, but even so, Alec went out and partied all night. Sam fires him and tells him to work it out on his own. Julia is in the kitchen and overhears this. Alec glares at Sam and then sees Julia and shakes his head at her as he leaves.

Back at the restaurant, Charlie is on the telephone, telling an employee not to come in to work that evening. Grace comes into the restaurant and tells him she feels terribly stupid. She reads from the paper how Charlie obtained the control of the restaurant - because of his parent's death - and how he has to take care of his siblings. She apologizes to him. He tells her he'd like to milk her sympathies, but he has to lay off more of his staff, and continues dialing the phone. Grace suggests a way to settle this and offers to help. Charlie is ticked and lashes into her, saying, now that she knows his parents are dead and he's not the priviledged boy she thought he was, it's okay for her to help him? He tells her that she makes it very hard for him to do the right thing. She suggests that between shifts, once a week, he serve a meal to the homeless. He won't have to use his staff, as she has a file full of volunteer names and it won't cost him a lot of money.

Julia finds Claudia painting over the black walls of her room with a more vivid off white color. She tells Julia the black is too depressing. Julia offers to help and Claudia takes her up on it.

Bailey seeks out the wrestling coach to tell him wrestling isn't what he wanted to do...it was more like his 4th or 5th choice. He asks the coach if it's worth being on a team thinking something like that? The coach tells him he took the job for the money, but he stayed because he liked it. Bailey tells him he'll give it a try.

The restaurant is full of homeless people and volunteers serving up a meal. Charlie and Grace are standing together and he offers to get her strawberries. She tells him she's allergic - makes her mouth swell up. Charlie laughs, saying he wish he had known that earlier that week. She looks up at him and comments on a movie theatre down the street showing "The Wild Bunch" and asks Charlie if he wants to go see it with her. He says, why not?

Julia climbs the stairs to her room, covered with paint from helping Claudia. Sam is up there finishing up for the day and she compliments him on how he handled the situation with Alec. He tells her he felt sick and she tells him it's okay to struggle with it. Julia comments that Sam reminds her of Charlie. He laughs at the whole situation, telling her he has never had such a negative response from anyone he has worked for. He thanks her for the heart to heart. Julia feels she has to tell him that she's not a "princess." They sit opposite each other in the room and smile. She suggests they go up on the roof to check out the view. He tells her it's dangerous and she could fall. Julia smiles and tells him "you can catch me." He takes her hand and leads her up the ladder.