"There they are again - Nan and Lily and Alice, sipping Joy Juice on Alice's front porch. It's the middle of the afternoon. And it's the middle of the week. And who's that with them, the stiff one with the pouting lips? That's Delane, Alice's mannequin, all dressed up and nowhere to go. Not that the others have anywhere to go in Augustine, Ontario. Nan and Lily and Alice are a troubled trio, each more eccentric than the next, each trying to escape her own demons. If only they had Delane's serene existence." "But they don't. Nan concocts a scheme to run Lily over with her car to restore Lily to her husband Mark's affections. It doesn't work. "Then Daryl brings Alice a trophy - a severed hand he's found in the middle of the highway - hoping to restore himself to her affections. Oddly, that works. But then Detective Harris Cool arrives. Lily has disappeared." "Jolted from their front porch indolence, the women are at last forced to face the complexities of their tortured pasts. Prompted by Cool - a man with his own secrets - Nan and Lily come to a startling truth about their fraught relationship, while Alice - the new girl in town - awakens to a fresh recognition of life's purpose. And Delane? Delane remains serene, a front porch mannequin forever.