Davonte got that response often enough—a resistance to fiction, like it might be the same as lying—that he sometimes thought he might be better off writing a memoir. But the plot of his book, about a dissolute R&B singer who turns his back on old ways and returns to the stage reformed, and newly adored, was still in process, as far as real life went. That was what was exciting about the book, he’d told Coach: the chance to envision life as it should be. As it could be, Coach reminded him. It made him want to sit down and write every word—almost.

He wondered if this woman knew who he was, but guessed against it. If she did, she probably would have taken another seat. He waited for her to say something about his reading—he’d felt compelled to read from one of his favorite scenes, when Damian is tempted by a groupie who is a dead ringer for a young Vivica Fox—but she didn’t mention it again.

“I think it’s good to shake things up,” she said cheerfully. “You know, to experience another art form. Paintings, sculptures. Maybe it’ll help our work. I think that’s the idea.”

“You write about paintings?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I do write about God, our relationship to Him. I think that a lot of the paintings are very old, religious paintings.”

“Not circus art?”

“I think there’s a wing devoted to that, but it’s mostly baroque paintings that they collected. European art.” She pointed at her copy of the pamphlet Davonte had already lost, back at the Ranch.

“I’ll skip the circus art,” he said. “But I don’t get that—the idea that just because you’re writing, you should be looking at paintings or sculpture or whatever. My mother thought that. Used to drag me around to art museums, got to where I dreaded Saturdays.”

“She wanted you to be cultured,” said the woman.

“She read this book about raising gifted children. She checked it out from the library and carried it around so everybody could see what she was going through, having to raise someone gifted. Sometimes people acted like because she had only one child, her life was easier. The book told her that if you were gifted in one area, you were likely to have gifts in another. So she had me taking piano, going to museums, stuff like that.”

“That’s what mothers do,” she said. “My mother didn’t, of course—I don’t think it would have occurred to her, but I’ve tried to encourage my daughters in all of their gifts. Your mother saw your writing talent when you were a child?”

“Not writing,” he said. “Singing. I used to sing in church. Solos, even, before I was in kindergarten.”

“So the book was true! Singing and writing, all for God. That’s wonderful.”