Charlene sponsors Mary Jo's daughter in the Miss Pre-Teen Atlanta contest, and despite her depression over her own upcoming 30th birthday, Suzanne coaches Claudia on how to walk and smile.

Suzanne's intimate dinner party, planned to impress an important client, goes awry before it begins when she arranges a date between a more-than-hefty man and a reluctant Charlene.

Julia's nineteen-year-old son, Payne, is bringing his girlfriend home from college for a visit, and Julia wants everything to be perfect for her ""baby."" Payne then presents his girl, Primmie, who is tall, attractive...and forty years old!

Concerned that Mary Jo hasn't dated since she and Ted broke up, Suzanne arranges a bind date for her with an old acquaintance, J.D. Shackelford, head scout for the Atlanta Braves baseball team, while Julia struggles through an I.R.S. audit conducted by the same Ray Don Simpson who tried to pick up the women at a restaurant and suffered a tonguelashing from Julia.

Since Suzanne has money invested in Sugarbaker's and is tired of her image as a front bimbo for the firm, Julia assigns her to do the decorating of their next project. Unfortunately, the house burns to the ground while Suzanne is working on it.

Perky Sugarbaker, Julia and Suzanne's mother, and her friend Bernice hope to escape the dull routine of their lives in the retirement home by joining the girls and their ex-con handyman Anthony for the festive occasion, considering it an exhilarating change.

The dinner is perfect, the champagne flows, Julia is presented with a single rose, and on a lark she and her current beau Reese get married. The next morning both parties regret their hastiness, and Reese appears with annulment papers. An argument ensues, and Julia finally agrees to sign the papers, thereby annuling their marriage and their entire relationship.

When her boyfriend Mason takes a job in Japan, Charlene finds she has chemistry with another man, a man who happens to be married to one of the Sugarbaker clients.

Arriving at work one morning, Suzanne tells Julia, Mary Jo, and Charlene that when she tried to fire her maid, she put a voodoo death curse on her and proclaimed that Suzanne would be gone by midnight. Mary Jo invites Charlene, Julia and Suzanne to help her with Claudia's slumber party.

Suzanne picks up a client who wants period furniture on a shoestring budget, and the Sugarbaker women find that antique furniture at bargain prices is no bargain.

When Mary Jo's divorced father arrives in Atlanta for a four-day visit and dances cheek to cheek with Charlene, Mary Jo becomes very protective.

When Anthony saunters into the shop wearing an enormous cowboy hat, followed by a breathless Mary Jo who has obviously been out all night as she is wearing the same clothes ahe had on when she left the day before, the others clamor for an explanation. It seems their appointment with Sugarbaker's newest client turned into an all-night bash, complete with Cajun buffet and country-western band.

When Mary Jo undertakes the decoration of Hence Winchester's new home, she finds herself the object of sexual harassment by her wealthy client.

Mary Jo gives Claudia permission to go to a school dance with a black youth, contrary to his father's wishes.