“What’s that?” Leo asked, nervous.

And if you drove down Curvy Cougar Street late at night—windows down, music low—you might see a porch light flick on. Not a warning. An invitation. To what, no one could ever quite say. But everyone agreed: it was the best damn street in town.

That’s what the teenagers called the women who lived there, though never to their faces. The original owners had long since retired to Florida or Arizona, and in their place came a migration of women in their forties and fifties—divorcées, artists, professors, and one retired roller derby coach named Frankie. They had gardens that spilled onto the sidewalk, book clubs that lasted past midnight, and cars that were either vintage Mustangs or practical Subarus with a surprising amount of horsepower.