If Leah thought the author of All My Colors might have had something more insightful to add, she didn’t say anything.

“That’s just the advance ticket holders,” she said. “People have been calling all day. We’re also expecting a big walkup. Which brings me on to my final point—”

Leah nodded at a large table nearby. Todd took a moment to let it sink in. It was piled to chest height with hardback copies of All My Colors.

“I really hope you like signing books,” she said.

*  *  *

Todd sat in the office with Leah’s copy of the new Joan Didion, which he found confusing, but the only other reading matter was his New York Times, and he was damned if he was going to be seen reading that in public (besides, his eidetic memory was almost back at full strength now, and he found himself quite able to recall whole chunks of the review).

Leah brought him a Coke and said, “I’m going to say a few words to introduce you and then you’re on, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” said Todd. “When?”

“Now,” Leah said.

*  *  *

Later, Todd could only think of the evening as a movie, the kind where everything unfolds in slow motion with elegiac music underneath all of the action.

As he walked across the carpet, the bookstore staff moved back to let him through, applauding as he neared the lectern. Leah said a few words and, at the sound of his name, there was a small eruption of clapping and cheering.

It was the best moment of his short career.

Todd took his place behind the lectern, smiled, pulled his notes from his pocket, and held them up semi-humorously as if to signal to the audience that this wasn’t going to take all night. He looked over at Leah.

“I left my darn book at home,” he said, and got a burst of this guy’s all right laughter.

Then he placed his hands on either side of the lectern, and took a good look at the audience. There were plenty of them, mostly young, which was good, but one or two older people, a real mixture of men and women, and not all white faces either.

“I guess you all get the New York Times in Chicago,” he said, and earned himself an easy, but warm, shot of laughter. “Okay,” he went on, after the laughing died down. “I promise not to keep mentioning my full-page rave review.”

There was more laughter, which Todd could see was also enough laughter.

“Good evening,” he said. “My name is Todd Milstead, I’m from DeKalb, Illinois”—he paused for, and got, a whoop from a college boy—”and I am here tonight to read from my novel, All My Colors.”