A group of four teenage girls in the San Fernando Valley during the late 1970s have painful emotional problems. Deirdre (Kandice Stroh) is a disco queen who is fascinated by her sexuality, likes boys and has many relationship troubles. Madge (Marilyn Kagan) is a bookworm who is unhappily overweight and angry that she is still a virgin. Her parents are overprotective, and she has an annoying younger sister. Annie (Cherie Currie) is a teenage runaway who drinks, uses drugs, and runs away from her abusive police officer father. Jeanie (Jodie Foster) feels she has to take care of them all, is fighting with her divorced mother who cycles through dissimilar boyfriends and is yearning for a closer relationship with her distant father, a tour manager for the rock band Angel.The girls believe school is a waste of time, their boyfriends are immature, and that they are alienated from the adults in their lives. All four seem immersed in the decadence of the late 1970s. (The adults in this film seem to be involved in the crazy nature of the era as well.) The only way for them to loosen up and forget the bad things happening in their lives is to party and have fun. Unfortunately, Annie is the least responsible, while Jeanie is ready to grow up and wants to stop acting like a child. Jeanie is most worried about Annie and continually takes risks trying to keep Annie clean and safe. Annie's unstable behavior keeps everyone on edge, and finally leads to her death in an automobile accident.Fortunately, after the accident, Annie's untimely death brings changes for the rest of the girls. Madge marries Jay (Randy Quaid), an older man with whom she first had sex, Deirdre no longer behaves crazy with boys, and Jeanie graduates from high school and is about to begin moving away to college. After Madge and Jay's wedding, Jeanie visits Annie's grave and smokes a cigarette. With a smile, she muses that Annie wanted to be buried under a pear tree, "not in a box or anything", so that each year her friends could come by, have a pear and say, "Annie's tastin' good this year, huh?".