Frank’s fingers tightened now around the steering wheel as he again endured a spasm of intense shame and sadness, the feeling like a flame, though cold, spreading just beneath the surface of his skin. Jude had tried to talk to him, but he had just pushed him away and driven off, his mind infested with all those images: Esta in that bastard’s arms; Hattie in his truck; Miss Kelly, her filthy home, peanut-butter breath, and that knot at the heart of her life; his mom in sluttish, senseless rut; Annie when he went to her room the other day and she was wearing only her favorite Steamboat Mickey nightgown, almost transparent with age. Through it he could see that her body wasn’t a girl’s anymore. God, she wasn’t far from eighteen now. It made him so afraid and angry that she didn’t seem to know, had just been sitting there doing her math homework.

“Frankie, Frankie,” Evy crooned coyly.

Snatching the cigarette from her hand, he flung it out his window. “Take your feet off the seat.”

She did. Smoothing her skirt and blushing, she became once more the little girl he had driven home hundreds of times. He put his hand on top of her head and squeezed it affectionately.

As he turned into the driveway of her house, he saw Mrs. Burger sitting on the porch, smoking.

Just before he pulled up, Evy said, “I’m sorry, Frankie. I didn’t mean nothing. I didn’t mean Annie was doing nothing.” She looked as if she were about to cry.

“I know, honey.” He playfully pinched her cheek. “I know you didn’t mean anything.”

When Evy had got out, her mom came around to his side of the truck and leaned in.

“Thanks for driving her.”

“No problem, Mrs. B.”

She was a handsome woman whose hair was always curled and set. She had a broad smooth forehead, which softened her somewhat hawkish look. Whenever he thought of her, he thought of her nostrils for some reason, perhaps because she tended to speak with her head tipped back and had the charmingly unfeminine habit of blowing smoke out through her nose.

“Where’s Mr. B?”

“Hounding around with the boys somewhere, I guess.”

Mistress: the word came to him. He had heard rumors of others, one in Jenison, another—half Osage, some said—in Marriotville.

“What fun there is in chasing little critters through the woods all night, I can’t imagine,” she said, leaning into the open window but looking off toward the cherry orchard, the trees shedding their pink blossoms. He wondered if she was lonely out here, spending most nights flicking through magazines, playing canasta with her daughters, ordering her maid around.

“I’m heading in to KC.”

“Paint it red, huh?” She let her gaze slide lazily down the little barrels of her nose to him.