It is the summer of 2000 and Bell, a student from Minnesota, is employed at an elite restaurant on Mackinac Island. With a circumference of just nine miles and no automobiles allowed, this unique resort on Lake Michigan is teeming with horse-drawn carriages, top-shelf vodka, bicycles, smoked whitefish and inspiring relationships. Forty years later, Bell is stranded in her St Paul home clearing away the belongings of a lifetime while she awaits the arrival of a guest from that deceptively idyllic summer. "Afloat" is an exquisitely distilled exploration of material and spiritual values and - equally - a riveting story of loyalty, betrayal and survival.