They'd driven all the way to Mr. Styles's house before Anna realized that her father was nervous. First the ride had distracted her, sailing along Ocean Parkway as if they were headed for Coney Island, although it was four days past Christmas and impossibly cold for the beach. Then the house itself: a palace of golden brick three stories high, windows all the way around, a rowdy flapping of green-and-yellow-striped awnings. It was the last house on the street, which dead-ended at the sea.

Her father eased the Model J against the curb and turned off the motor. "Toots," he said, "Don't squint at Mr. Styles's house."

"Of course I won't squint at his house."

"You're doing it now."

"No," she said. "I'm making my eyes narrow."

"That's squinting," he said. "You've just defined it."

"Not for me."

He turned to her sharply. "Don't squint."

That was when she knew. She heard him swallow dryly and felt a chirp of worry in her stomach. She was not used to seeing her father nervous. Distracted, yes. Preoccupied, certainly.

"Why doesn't Mr. Styles like squinting?" she asked.

"No one does."

"You never told me this before."

"Would you like to go home?"

"No, thank you."

"I can take you home."

"If I squint?"

"If you give me the headache I'm staring to get."

"If you take me home," Anna said, "you'll be awfully late."

She thought he might slap her. He'd done it once, after she'd let fly a string of curses she'd heard on the docks, his hand finding her cheek invisibly as a whip. The specter of that slap still haunted Anna, with the odd effect of heightening her boldness, in defiance of it.

Her father rubbed the middle of his forehead, then looked back at her. His nerves were gone; she had cured them.

"Anna," he said. "You know what I need you to do."

"Of course."

"Be your charming self with Mr. Styles's children while I speak with Mr. Styles."

"I knew that, Papa."

"Of course you did."

She left the Model J with eyes wide and watering in the sun. It had been their own automobile until after the stock market crash. Now it belonged to the union, which lent it back for her father to do union business. Anna liked to go with him when she wasn't in school -- to racetracks, Communion breakfasts and church events, office buildings where elevators lofted them to high floors, occasionally even a restaurant. But never before to a private home like this.