 A pregnant teen (Natalie Portman) goes on the road with her dreamer boy friend (Dylan Bruno), who abandons her in a Wal-Mart store in Oklahoma. Left alone with virtually no money, she hides out in the store for 6 weeks until her baby is born. After the birth, she gets national recognition as giving birth to the "Wal-mart baby". She makes friends with two local women (Stockard Channing as a religious, but promiscious woman & Ashley Judd as a woman with a pile of kids, who also seems to have considerable man problems until she marries the local exterminator). She also becomes friends with the Wal-mart photographer (David Keith), who leads her to a career, and with a young man (James Frain) who runs the library and takes her of his alcoholic sister, who is the real librarian.