“You need to suck in for it to stay alight.”

She sucked in a little, blew the smoke out, and then held the cigarette above her head.

“Does my sister smoke?”

“Annie does a lot of things you don’t know about,” she said, drawing what power she could from the cigarette, which she clearly had no intention of putting to her lips again.

“Like what?”

Clutching her knees into her chest, she rested her chin on them and smiled up at him with sly innocence. He knew she was just fishing for something to get his attention, but with this she had touched off all that confused anger in him. What was more, with her chin pushed out and her eyes shadowed, he became more acutely aware than he had ever been of her father’s face in hers.

“Like what?” he said again.

Examining her cigarette as if such things bored her, she said, “Like we’re not kids.”

He looked at her again: Bennet’s face, Bennet’s daughter, her slender legs. He turned back to the road. What was wrong with him? He thought of what happened last night at Linus and Hattie’s engagement party. Esta and Rudy were there. God, that hurt. Hattie was showing everyone her ring. Drunk, he danced suggestively with her. People were smiling, but he could tell it was getting uncomfortable. He was killing the party, but he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t stop thinking about that day he had driven Hattie home. She was as two-faced as the rest of them. A terrible convulsion of shame now moved through Frank. In the middle of the dance he had asked Hattie to go outside with him. In front of Linus; in front of everyone. Hattie pretended she didn’t understand, smiling. Everyone was smiling, a whole room full of stiff smiles, no one knowing how to react. And smiling Linus said, “Quit messing, Frankie.” And smiling Jude saved him by taking hold of him like King Kong, bellowing and carrying him outside.