Distant Shores

, it was clear, but no one would say anything on the record.

After another fruitless day, Jack and Sally went to a local steakhouse for dinner. They sat in a back booth where it was dimly lit and quiet.

"What now?" Sally asked.

Jack looked up from the notes spread out across the table. He was surprised to find that the place was almost empty. When theyd come in for dinner, every table had been full. "I think its time for another drink. " He raised a hand, flagged down the waitress.

She hurried over, pulled a pencil out from above her ear. "What can I get for you, Mr. Shore?"

Jack smiled tiredly, wishing--for once--that he hadnt been recognized. He felt like getting drunk. "Dewars on the rocks. "

"Margarita rocks, no salt," Sally said.

The waitress returned a few moments later with the drinks.

Jack sipped his, staring down at the notes again. Hed been staring at them for an hour, trying to glean something hed missed. Someone to whom he hadnt spoken. But there was no one. He couldnt figure out where in the hell to go from here. All he knew for sure was that hed failed. Again. This time, hed taken bright-eyed Sally down with him. "Henry will be back from Australia tomorrow. Maybe you should take the story to him. "

"Well nail this story, Jack. You and me. "

Her confidence never seemed to waver. Throughout all the dead ends and no comments, shed kept believing in Jack. He couldnt remember the last time someone had had such faith in him.

He looked at her. Even now, when things were going so badly, her black eyes shone with optimism. And why not? She was twenty-six years old. Life was just beginning for her; it would be years before she learned the tarry taste of disappointment.

At her age, hed been the same way. After three stellar years at the UW, and that amazing Heisman win, hed been a first-round draft pick--to a loser team who needed him desperately. Behind an ineffective line, hed had to run his ass off just to stay alive, but hed worked hard and played his heart out. Three years later, the Jets picked him up.

That had been the first of his Golden Years.

In the fourth game of his first New York season, the starting quarterback had gotten hurt, and Jacks moment had come. He threw three touchdown passes in that game. By the end of that season, no one remembered the name of the quarterback hed replaced. Jumpin Jack Flash had been born. Crowds chanted his name; cameras flashed wherever he went. He led his team to back-to-back Super Bowl wins. It was the stuff of which legends were made. For years, hed been a superstar. A hero.

Then hed been hit.

Game over. Career ended.

"Jack?" Sallys voice pulled him back into the smoky bar. For a second there, hed been gone. "What happened to you?"

He sighed. Here it comes.

"When I was a little girl--"

Oh, good.

"My dad and I used to watch football together. You were his favorite player. He pointed out every move you made, analyzed every pass you threw. I was eleven when he died--cancer--and when I remember those days, I always think of football. Every day after school, I sat beside his hospital bed. On the weekends we watched the games together. I think it was better than talking. " She looked at him. It took her a second to smile. "He always said you were the best quarterback to play the game, and now youre in Portland, Oregon, on the lowest rated newscast in town. What happened?"

It was what they all asked, sooner or later. How did you lose it all? He always gave the same answer. "You know I blew out my knee. "

She leaned forward, gazed at him earnestly. "Theres more to it, isnt there?"

It felt dangerous suddenly, this moment; a slow, conscious skate toward the edge of intimacy. He knew better, of course. Every man his age did, but hed been lonely for a long, long time, and just now that burden seemed heavier than before. "It started in the hospital. "

Amazingly, he told her all of it, how hed gotten addicted to his pain medications and blown his shot on Monday Night Football.

It came back to him like a handful of broken glass, all sharp edges and reflected light. He knew that if he held it too tightly, his hand would bleed, but he couldnt stop himself.

Hed tried so hard to pretend that losing football didnt matter, but the game had been his life. Without it, his days and nights had unfurled like scenes in a silent black-and-white movie. Hed anesthetized himself with pills and booze. His excesses had become legendary. He went from golden boy to party animal. There were huge chunks of time he couldnt even remember.

But he remembered The Accident. It had been late, or early, depending on your perspective, on a cold and snowy night. He shouldnt have been driving, not after a long night spent drinking at the Village Vanguard. But hindsight was twenty-twenty. What he remembered most was the screeching scream of tires and the smell of burning rubber.

"I didnt hurt anyone," he said softly, but that wasnt the point. "My agent kept it out of the papers, but my career was over anyway. After a stint in rehab, the only job I could get was for a local station in Albuquerque. Its been a long, slow climb back. "