It's 1970, and the optimism of Trudeaumania is starting to give way to fears of wage and price controls. In Varnum, Ontario, where the smell of industry is the smell of money, a lot of that money's heading south, just like Bobby Orr.

The Checkout Girl is the story of Kathy Rausch, whose life these days is something that just seems to happen to her. After sneaking out on her boyfriend in Vancouver, Kathy moves back to Varnum and hides out in the basement of her high school buddy, Penny Lehman, in a room she shares with Penny's skittish boa constrictor, Freddie.

When Kathy isn't checking out groceries, she practices hockey drills. And when she isn't practicing, she's warding off advances from fellow basement dweller "Little" Barry Bender, ignoring her well-meaning mother, Connie, hanging out with her best friend, champion baton twirler Darlyn Smola, and dealing a bit of marijuana for Penny's husband Pete. But when Kathy stumbles upon a brutal murder she is finally driven to put her hockey stick where her heart is: on the ice.