The last thing she saw as she left the gallery was the wall filled with her work.
Jack stood at his office window, staring out at the beautiful spring day.
This ought to be the best day of his life. Twenty-four hours ago, they’d offered him the best job in broadcasting: NFL Sunday.
He’d been dreaming of a moment like this for years, maybe his whole life, and yet, now that it was here, he felt curiously numb.
The door to his office cracked open. “There you are,” Warren said. “I just heard the news about your photo shoot. People magazine, huh? Pretty hot stuff.”
“I’ll probably be the oldest guy in the issue.”
Warren frowned. “That’s it. There’s something wrong with you. Let’s go.”
Jack grabbed his coat and followed Warren out of the building. By tacit consent, they went straight to the pub on the corner and headed for the back booth.
“Double bourbon on the rocks,” Warren said when the barmaid appeared.
She looked at Jack.
“Club soda with lime.”
“Now I know something’s wrong,” Warren said. “A club soda?”
“I’ve been drinking pretty hard lately. It blurs the lines.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
“I used to think so. Now I’m not so sure.” He paused, then said, “Fox just offered me NFL Sunday.”
Warren sat back. “Jesus, Jack. Most guys would give their left nut for that job, and here you are, slurping club soda and practically crying. What gives?”
Jack glanced to the left. It wasn’t his way to talk about shit like this, but these silences—and the new loneliness—were killing him. And if there was anyone who ought to understand marital problems, it was the thrice-married Warren. “We told the kids about the separation.”
“Ouch. That’s the reason I’ve never had kids. How’d they take it?”
“Badly. They cried and screamed and stomped around. Then they went back to school. I’ve been getting the silent treatment ever since.”
“It’ll pass. They’ll come to accept their new family after a while. Trust me.”
There it was, the source of his sleepless nights. New family. “What if I can’t accept it, either?”
“What do you mean?”
“I miss Birdie.” There, he’d said it.
“You made a bad trade, Jacko, but you’re not the first guy to do it. You thought the heat of all this was real, but at the end of the day, all that matters is finding a woman who loves the real you.” He looked at Jack. “One who’ll be there for you in the bad times. And that, my friend, was Birdie. You never should have let her go.”
“She left me.”
“Birdie left you?”
“The marriage went to shit slowly. I’m not even sure when. I think it started with me, though, when I lost football. All I could think about was what I’d lost. I’d gotten married so young; I never got to be the young hot shot of my imaginations. You know, the superstar who slept with a different woman every night. I wanted that.” He sighed. “For years, I dreamed about going back in time and making a different choice. I guess, after a while, all that dreaming of somewhere else became a goal; it ruined our marriage. Maybe a part of me even blamed her for tying me down. I don’t know. All I know is that I was desperate to be someone again. Then this job came along, and I got it all back.” He smiled bitterly. “For the first time in my whole adult life, I’m free, rich, and famous. I can do anything I want. Hell, I’m sleeping with a beautiful woman half my age, and she doesn’t care that I don’t love her. It’s what I always dreamed of. And I hate it. I miss Birdie all the time.”
“Have you told her?”
He looked up. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”
Warren took a sip of his drink. “I’ve never met a woman who’d stay with me for twenty-four years. Who’d get me off dope and forgive my screwups. If I found a woman like that, Jacko, I’d never let her go.”
“What if she tells me it’s too late?” He paused. “What if she doesn’t love me anymore?”
Warren looked at him. “Then you aren’t gonna have a movie ending, my friend. Sometimes, a bad choice can haunt you forever.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
The drive home from the gallery seemed to take forever.
Elizabeth had failed.
The realization was like a canker sore; no matter how much it hurt, you couldn’t leave it alone.
She felt Anita looking at her from the passenger seat, staring worriedly every now and then, but fortunately, her stepmother kept her opinions to herself. This was not the time for one of those pumped-up pep talks. Elizabeth had listened to plenty of those in the last few months, from Meghann and Anita and Daniel. She’d listened to her friends and let herself believe.
And here she was. Forty-six years old and a failure.
She turned onto Stormwatch Lane and drove home. When she’d parked the car, she turned to Anita and forced a tired smile. “Thanks for everything today. It meant a lot to me that you were there.”