“Tricky,” she said. “I mean, we can’t fuck on ’em, they’re too hard.”

In the end, they settled for fucking on the bed, with a copy of the book on the bedside, so they could look at it. It was weird, but it was funny, too, and they both enjoyed it, a lot.

Afterward, Todd was getting dressed again when his old pal the telephone started ringing. He picked it up and this time it was Carrie. Todd zipped his pants up—he always felt strange talking to people on the telephone in a state of undress—as Carrie said, “Did it come?”

“Excuse me?” said Todd. “Oh. Oh, yes it did. Thank you, it’s great. I didn’t know I’d get so many copies. I sure don’t think I know enough people to give ’em to.”

“Firstly, you’ll be surprised. People if they know you, no matter that they never read a book in their lives, they’ll want a copy,” said Carrie. “Secondly, take my advice. Put the whole box under the bed.”

“You think they’ll come in handy one rainy day?”

“Todd. These are first editions of your book,” Carrie said. “They’re going to come in more than handy. They’re going to be valuable.”

*  *  *

Todd went and looked at the books again. It seemed less bizarre now to have a table covered in identical books, a miniature ziggurat with his name written on every brick. But he knew then that there’d always be a little frisson whenever he saw a copy of All My Colors, in a store or maybe in someone else’s hand.

“Oh yes,” he might say to the person looking at his book, “I wrote that. The name? Todd Milstead.”

For some reason, the idea didn’t feel as satisfying as he’d imagined.

It didn’t feel entirely real.

It didn’t feel entirely right.

*  *  *

Later on, he took Carrie’s advice, and put the whole lot under the bed—after giving Sara a copy (“To the amazing Sara, with all my love, Todd”), one to Mike (“To an old friend, with thanks, Todd”), and, after some reflection, one to Timothy at Legolas Books (“To Timothy at Legolas Books, from Todd Milstead”). Then he sat down with the telephone in one hand and a pen in the other as Carrie began to discuss possible dates for his book tour with him. It was an interesting conversation from Todd’s point of view. First of all, there was the sheer volume of appearances.

“This is a huge country,” said Carrie. “Even if you appeared in one city in each state, that’d be fifty appearances. But Franklyn and Sullivan want to break this book.”

“Feels more like they want to break me,” said Todd, as he wrote down the name of another city he’d never heard of outside the atlas.