“It sounds like a meeting of porn stars. What do they talk about? How to keep your lipstick on during a blow job?”
“Funny. Maybe you should try stand-up. And God knows a blow job has saved more than one marriage.”
“Meg, I—”
“Listen to me, Birdie. I have a lot of clients in Grays County, and I send them to this meeting. It’s a group of women—mostly newly divorced—who get together to talk. They’ve all given up too much of themselves, and they’re trying to find a way back.”
Elizabeth stared down at the note. She knew that Meg was waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice. It was one thing to get drunk and complain about her unhappiness to a best friend; it was quite another to walk into a room full of strange women and declare that she had no passion in her life.
She hoped her smile didn’t look as brittle as it felt. “Thanks, Meg.” Still smiling, she flagged down the waitress and ordered another martini.
Echo Beach, Oregon
The bedside clock dropped one blocky, red number after another into the darkness. At 6:30—a full thirty minutes early—Jack reached over and disabled the alarm.
He lay there, staring at the slats of light sneaking through the louvered blinds. The bedroom was striped in bands of black and white; the horizons of darkness made everything look strangely unfamiliar. He could make out the barest hint of rain falling outside. Another gray, overcast day. Normal early December weather on the Oregon coast.
Elizabeth was asleep beside him, her silvery blond hair fanned across the white pillowcase. He could hear the soft, even strains of her breathing, the occasional muffled snore that meant she would probably wake up with a cold. She’d probably caught a bug last week when she’d gone to Seattle.
In the earlier days of their marriage, they had always slept nestled together, but somewhere along the way, they’d started needing space between them. Lately, she’d begun sleeping along the mattress’s very edge.
But today, things were going to get better. Finally, at forty-six, he was going to get another chance. A Seattle production company was starting a weekly sports program that would cover the highlights of northwest sports; it had been picked up by the NBC affiliate. If he got the anchor job, he’d have to commute three days a week, but with the extra money, that wouldn’t be such a hardship. It was a hell of a step up from the pissant local coverage he’d been doing.
(Not where he should be, of course, not where he belonged, but sometimes one mistake could ruin a man.)
He’d be someone again.
For the last fifteen years, he’d worked his ass off, making progress in steps too small to be seen by the human eye. In a series of shitty little towns, he’d paid for his mistakes. Today, finally, he had a decent opportunity, a chance to get back into the game. There was no way in hell he was going to drop the ball.
He got out of bed and immediately winced in pain. This damp climate played hell with his knees. Grimacing, he limped toward the bathroom. As usual, he had to walk over fabric samples and paint chips and open magazines. Birdie had been “redoing” their bedroom for months now, planning every move as if she were the defensive coordinator in a Super Bowl game. It was the same story in the dining room. Stuff heaped in every corner, waiting for that rarest of moments: his wife actually making a decision.
He had already showered and shaved when Elizabeth stumbled into the room, tightening the thick cotton belt on her bathrobe.
“Morning,” she said with a yawn. “God, I feel like crap. I think I’m getting a cold. You’re up early.”
He felt a flash of disappointment that she’d forgotten. “Today’s the day, Birdie. I’m driving up to Seattle for that interview.”
A tiny frown tugged at her brow; then she obviously remembered. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure you’ll get the job.”
In the old days, Birdie would have pumped up his ego, assured him that it would all work out in the end, that he was destined for greatness. But she’d grown tired in the past few years; they both had. And he’d failed to land so many jobs over the years, no wonder she’d stopped believing in him.
He’d tried like hell to pretend he was happy here in Oregon, that all he wanted out of life was to be the noon sports anchor, covering mostly high-school sports in a midsized market. But Birdie knew he merely tolerated living in this nothing town on the edge of a barely-there city. He even hated being a mid-level celebrity. All it served to do was remind him of who he used to be.
She gave him a perfunctory smile. “More money will be great, especially with the girls in college.”
“You can say that again.”