On Spain's Costa Blanca, a girl writes notes, sticks them in bottles, and tosses the bottles into the sea: "Hello, Stranger! I'm Paula and I'm 10." Fernando, a solitary man of 59, finds one of the bottles and writes to Paula. A correspondence ensues in which she tells him about her personal life (her father dead, her mother remarried, her friend gone to Algeria) ; he tells her he's not happy. Fernando's wife asks who the girl is in a photo on his desk. He makes up a story. Paula calls him ("How did you get this number?"), her mother wants to get rid of her dog, she'd like to meet Fernando. Where is this leading?