* * *
Things had begun promisingly. In the days after his return from New York, Nora or Carrie had been in fairly regular phone contact.
“We’ve gotten a lot of positive reactions from retailers,” Nora would say, or Carrie would tell him, “Everybody is so excited about All My Colors, it’s ridiculous.”
And then nothing would happen. There’d be a few bits of grain strewn his way—someone would pass on a favorable remark, or Carrie would say the cover design was coming along—but nothing was actually happening. It was like a moment in a stage play where an actor has forgotten a line and the prompt has lost her place in the script, so the cast are just staring at each other and saying things like, “Wonderful weather we’re having for this time of year,” as the prompt drops her script on the floor and utters a muffled curse. Except longer. Much longer.
Todd found himself gripped by the dilemma of the writer in limbo. Should he sit back and wait? Or should he call, or write, or even go to New York? He felt certain that if he intervened in person—gave someone a little nudge—he could get the ball rolling again. But the problem lay in the fact that he didn’t know where the ball was or what it looked like or even if there was a ball. And he was also powerfully scared that if he did call, or write, someone would say, “Oh God, did nobody tell you? We decided not to go ahead with your dumb book.”
(There was also a part of Todd—located in a secret corner in his mind, in his memory, maybe even in the deepest, darkest place in his soul—which was terrified that he had been found out, that somebody had walked into Franklyn and Sullivan, picked up his manuscript and said, “But this isn’t by Todd Milstead at all! It’s stolen from that other guy! How come nobody noticed!” and everybody in the office would just wake up and go, “Jesus, he’s right. This Milstead fellow is a rotten thief. Let’s kill him!”)
And then the call came.
“You’re on the Fall list,” said Nora with no introduction or preamble.
Todd was so thrown he just said, “Is that good?”
“It’s good,” said Nora. “Believe me, it’s good.”
“Fall next year?” said Todd. He was a little disappointed. “That’s a way off.”
“Fall this year,” said Nora. “I know, it’s insane, it’s like tomorrow, but they are very eager to get it out there. And for you to promote the book.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Todd. “Will I be on local radio?”
“Maybe,” laughed Nora. “Think bigger.”
“NPR?” hazarded Todd.
“Radio, yes, and newspapers,” said Nora. “But we’re also pushing for TV.”
“TV,” said Todd. He stared at his reflection in the hall mirror. Did he look authorial enough for television, he wondered.
As if reading his mind, Nora said, “Relax, Todd. With that firm American jaw and a tweed jacket, you’ll look the part to a tee.”
“TV,” said Todd again. Like everyone who’d ever wanted to be a writer, his secret fear and desire was television.
“Did they give you any dates yet?” he said. His mind was racing so fast he almost forgot his diary was an aching empty void. Not for long, he thought.
But not for long was a way off. There were delays with the proofs, and then there were delays with the galleys (Todd had no idea what the difference was) and then there was a delay with the cover, and then the galleys looked like they’d been proofread by the Marx Brothers and nothing seemed to go right and Todd just completely freaked at seeing the whole damn book typeset like it was real, which of course it was, it was extremely real.
Either way, it was all too freaking much for Todd and he was seriously thinking of taking a long weekend or maybe a long week or just getting very, very drunk when one morning there was a knock at his front door and he opened it and there was Behm, coughing into his fist like it was a microphone and he was testing it.
“Mr. Behm,” said Todd, once Behm had finished coughing. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Behm looked up, and Todd saw that he was, for the first time since they had met, uncertain.
“I need to speak to you,” Behm said. “Can I come in?”
“I guess so,” said Todd, but Behm was already inside the house.
Behm stood in the kitchen and pulled from his jacket—which seemed, Todd noted, even more threadbare than last time—another yellow envelope.
“You found her?” said Todd. “I wondered where Janis had got to.”
“This isn’t about Janis,” said Behm, and scattered three prints on the table. Todd looked at them. One was taken outside a gas station at night. One was of an undistinguished stretch of grass and trees that Todd recognized as being part of a local park. And the third was taken through the window of a diner on the way to the highway.
“Landscape shots,” said Todd. “Branching out into regular photography. You thinking of going straight?”
Behm didn’t even bother to pretend to smile.
“Nobody in those pictures, right?” he said. “Thought so.”
“Wait a minute,” said Todd. “You came here to ask me if there were any—what’s going on?”
“Those are just three examples,” said Behm. “I must have twenty more back at the office.”
“Examples of what?” said Todd.
“I’ve been surveilling your wife for weeks now,” said Behm. “And her routine is unchanging and unvaried. So I thought that I would try to find out a little more about her lady friend.”
Maybe it was the phrase lady friend that chilled Todd. He felt a strong and cold unease as he waited for Behm to continue.
“I started following her,” said Behm. “And that was a little trickier than following Janis, let me tell you.”
“Hardly surprising,” said Todd. “She may have something to lose by being found out. Maybe she’s got a family at home.”
“Thank you, the great detective,” said Behm. “That’s what I thought. Except she doesn’t appear to have a home.”
“What?” said Todd. “Everybody’s got a home. Except,” he added stupidly, “homeless people.”
“This lady don’t sleep rough,” said Behm. “So far as I can tell, she don’t sleep at all.”
“I’m really not following any of this,” Todd said.
“I went where she went,” said Behm slowly. “It wasn’t easy. She knew how to get me off her trail. I’d be right behind her and she’d just—vanish. I’d turn my head and she’d be gone. Real professional.”
“So she’s done this before,” Todd said. “Broken up a few marriages, got good at shaking the private dick.”
“Nobody shakes me,” said Behm. “I spent three months following a Viet Cong once.”
“In the war?” asked Todd.
“Baltimore,” said Behm. “So I didn’t feel that your wife’s girlfriend was going to be a problem.”
“Guess you were wrong,” Todd said.
“Guess I was,” said Behm.
There was a moment of silence.
“Well, it’s been good catching up,” said Todd. “But I have to get on with my day. Call me when you have something new, won’t you?”
He handed Behm his photos. Behm shook his head.
“I haven’t told you yet,” he said.
“Told me what?”
“Those photos… they’re her.”
Todd took a photo, the one from the park. He scoured it. There were a couple of people in the far distance.
“She one of them?” he said.
“No,” said Behm. “She’s right square in the middle of the shot. Or at least she should be.”
He pointed to the middle of the photograph. There was nothing there.
“Same as these two pictures. Same as all of them. She was in them all, Mr. Milstead.”
“I don’t see anyone,” said Todd. He was starting to wonder if Behm was okay in the head.
“I know you don’t,” said Behm, in the tones of a man who is about to lose his patience
. “Because I don’t see anyone either. The difference is, when I took those shots, she was there. Right in front of me. She was there,” he repeated, his finger stabbing at the prints. “There.”
Todd backed away a little. “Maybe there’s a fault with your camera, or the lab,” he said.
Behm shook his head. “No kind of fault does that, Mr. Milstead. And no kind of fault does this.”
As he spoke he pulled one more photo from his jacket. Great, conjuror’s tricks now, thought Todd. Then he saw the photo. It showed Janis, walking down the street, talking. Talking in a relaxed way, happy even, like she was talking to someone she cared about, someone who probably cared about her.
The only thing was, whoever that person might be, they weren’t in the photograph. Janis was talking to thin air.
“You beginning to see what I mean now, Mr. Milstead?” said Behm.
“You did something to them,” Todd said.
“Why would I do that?” Behm said.
Todd didn’t have an answer.
“Okay,” he said. “Then someone else did.”
“What, you think I send my films to Kodak to be printed? I develop my own pictures.”
“Then I don’t know.”
“Nope, nor do I.”
Todd and Behm looked at the picture of Janis again.
“She looks happy, talking to that air,” Behm said. “Mr. Milstead, we have no evidence that your wife’s lover exists. Only the evidence of our own eyes.”
Todd thought for a moment.
“Can you draw?” he said.
“No,” said Behm. “And even if I could, what good would that be? I could hire a fucking sketch artist and get them to come with me on a stakeout and they could draw her. But so what? I’d just have a drawing. And drawings aren’t evidence.”
“I could show it to Janis,” said Todd.
“If you wanted to,” Behm said. “But she’d just think you were crazy. And she’d have a point.”
“I don’t believe this,” Todd said. “We’re this close to nailing her.”
“Not sure what you mean by nailing,” said Behm. “Like I said, evidence of adultery itself won’t help you in court. Especially given you were the first offender, as it were. And even if we did find some magical court with a judge and jury who were all crazy down on women, and we had film of Mrs. Milstead and her pal sitting in a diner together, so what? We’ve got proof that she knows another woman. Big deal.”
“Can we get footage?” said Todd, seizing on the first thing Behm had said that made sense to him. “Not of them in a diner.”
“What, film them in bed?”
“Fucking, yeah.”
“You think a film camera will work when a photographic camera won’t?”
Todd said nothing. Behm took a deep breath.
“Mr. Milstead, I’m biting the hand that feeds me here,” he said. “But my advice? You need to drop this.”
Todd felt something tighten inside his chest.
“I’m not going to drop this,” he said. “I’ve got to nail her.”
Behm was about to reply when the phone rang. Todd grabbed it.
“Not now!” he shouted.
Sara said, “Todd, it’s me.”
Todd held the receiver out. He inhaled.
“Sara,” he said. “It’s not a good time.”
“I accept your apology,” Sara said, and rang off.
Todd breathed deeply. He fixed Behm with an angry glare.
“I want you to carry on with this,” he said.
“There’s no point,” said Behm.
“Just do it,” said Todd. “I’ll pay.”
Behm considered the man before him. Todd was breathing heavily. His eyes were round and staring. He looked like he was barely in control of his emotions.
“No,” he said.
Todd lunged at him. Behm stepped to one side and Todd crashed into the table.
“Shit,” he moaned. He sat down heavily on a stool. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“I’m sure you’re under a lot of pressure,” said Behm, not sounding too sympathetic. “And I’ve had worse. You weren’t even armed. But I’m not going on with this, Mr. Milstead. It’s too fucking—”
The word came into Todd’s head just as Behm said it.
“—weird.”
* * *
Todd said goodbye to Behm. Then he called Sara.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Oh. Hi.”
“Sara, I’m really sorry. I’m under a lot of pressure.”
“Hey, who isn’t?”
“I’m really sorry. How can I make it up to you?”
There was a pause.
“I guess by not doing it in the first place. Look, can we talk later?” Todd continued.
“I thought you called me.”
“That was then. This is—”
A huge crash of something resounded in Todd’s ear.
“What the hell was that? Are you okay?”
Sara sighed.
“Terry is moving the rest of his stuff out today. That was some of his stuff.”
“I see.”
“I’ll come over later. At this rate Terry’s stuff is going to be shrapnel.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“I have floorboards. They’re being dented. Look—”
There was another crash.
“Call me later.”
“You got it.”
* * *
Time went by. Todd visited Sara in her now-empty home. Mike came around, not every Saturday night, but oftenish. Behm didn’t call.
Todd still had a knot in his stomach, a knot that remained there until one morning he got a knock on his door and the UPS guy was there, looking stressed.
“That is a huge package,” said Sara. “And for once I don’t mean you, big guy.”
Todd didn’t get it at first and when he did, he was slightly embarrassed (Janis never talked dirty, not to him anyway).
“It’s from New York,” he said, setting the long, heavy box down on the table. Sara found scissors and they began cutting into it.
“Oh my God,” said Sara. She reached into the box, and then stopped.
“Sorry,” she said. “This is your moment.”
Todd pulled back the flaps atop the box and put both his hands in. Then, like a medic assisting at a birth, he pulled out a book.
“All My Colors,” said Sara, almost reverently. “My Lord, Todd, look at it.”
Todd held up the hardback. Its jacket featured the head of a woman in profile and around it, almost like an Afro, a rainbow.
“By Todd Milstead,” he read out loud. He dove back into the box and pulled out another copy, then another, then another. Sara joined in, and within a few moments they had pulled out every single copy of the book.
“Now what do we do?” said Todd. He found he was crying. Sara wiped his eyes.
“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 sai
d. “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.
“Think of yourself as a rock star,” said Carrie, and Todd remembered the Elvis Costello pin she’d been wearing at their first meeting. “You’re taking on America. And America is not going to win.”
Todd couldn’t argue with that. He was too busy being fascinated by the concept of a full schedule. He watched, almost distantly, as his hands wrote out an itinerary that didn’t so much straddle the U.S. as spiral around it, crossing coasts and circling into the Midwest and out again via cities in the South which might be sympathetic to him, and then out to the coasts again.
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