Kenny is a disillusioned and apathetic ice cream vendor. He meets Lolita, a quick-witted, downtrodden insurance actuary, on a Chicago bridge. Lolita invites Kenny to travel with her to San Francisco, where they will jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Along the way, they meet a host of characters, and as their relationship deepens, they include each other in final connections with people they have known intimately: the woman who left Kenny at the altar, as well as Lolitas ailing mother. Kenny and Lolita are guarded and even combative with each other at first (as they are with most everyone in their lives). But as they continue their journey, small details about each of them emerge and they soften. They begin, reluctantly, and certainly without having had proper practice in the art, to fall in love. As they reach San Francisco and Lolitas resolve to end her life intensifies, Kenny begins to waver. He knows that he is the only human who can stop Lolita from jumping and he is finally ready to embrace that challenge, and all the ones that will naturally follow in the course of a life lived fully.