Better Days

Summary

When his boyhood friend vanishes, a man who has coasted through life on the fading memory of high school heroics, risks everything to save him.

They had a parade for Darwin Burr years ago when his team won the state title. He's coasted through life on that memory. Still lives in Claxton, Illinois - but the bucolic farm town now simmers with racial tension. He has a cushy job working for his wheeler-dealer boyhood friend, Billy Rourke. He has a country house, a healthy 401k, and still drinks for free at Clarkie's Bar. His wife Daina, who escaped from Latvia and never looked back, disdains Darwin's lack of ambition. She's consumed by her job helping Claxton's underclass and has little time for Darwin or their daughter, Astra.

When Billy arranges for Darwin to assist Astra's high school basketball coach - the mysterious and flirtatious Fariba Pahlavi - Darvin stops coasting. He discovers a passion for coaching. And Fariba.

Just as Darwin is getting back in the game, Billy vanishes, the FBI wants Darwin's help to find him, and Darwin learns his wife's secret past has put her life in jeopardy. Darwin know's Billy's guilty, but he can't betray his friend, and he's falling in love with Fariba, but can't abandon his wife. He has no good choice, no winning shot , and in this world heroes don't get parades.