Bobbie stayed latched to Clark until her tears stopped. The part of her mind that catalogued such things assigned this current crying jag to the very top of the how-much-it-hurts list. The one the day Glen was killed was bad, but her weeping had been muffled by the impact of the events of the day, the shooting investigation, and all of the people around them. She had cried at his funeral, but the residual shock of his murder combined with the pomp and circumstance of an official MPD funeral had muted the emotional impact. She remembered feeling as though she’d been surrounded by bubble wrap and had cotton stuffed in her ears.
The weeping with her mother the evening after the shooting was bad, too, and she’d had to comfort her mother instead of being comforted. Mom had treated Glen like a son-in-law almost from the day she and Glen had met, so for her it was a double whammy. Bobbie hadn’t had the time to break down and grieve then.
The department shrink, Dr. Penny Ocampo, had encouraged Bobbie to allow herself time to grieve for Glen. Bobbie had tried, but things had just kept interrupting her. She’d wanted to make detective, and when she got her exam results just a few days after Glen’s death, she’d almost turned the job down. But Bill Henderson had told her to take whatever time she needed to make a decision.
So she’d become Detective Roberta Tracey.
No one had wanted to partner with her at first – not because she was a woman, but because she was brand new to the rank and because she had just suffered a horrible tragedy. Bill had her go out on calls with other two-person teams for a few weeks, along with keeping her in the precinct to do paperwork and other work in the office. After about a month, Bill assigned her to a crusty veteran with the unlikely name of Roger Murdock.
The first time they met, Murdock had nodded to Bobbie and said, “Look, we’re not pals, we’re not buddies, and I’m not babysitting you. I’m five months from retirement and you better not mess it up for me.”
“No problem. I’m only about three hundred months from retirement myself.”
Murdock had blinked at that, then growled, “You can be funny or caustic on your own time, Detective, no matter which way you meant that. We’re on a last-name basis unless I tell you different. What I say goes. You got any brilliant deductions on any case we catch, you wait and tell me when we’re back at the station. Or at least together in the car. And no ‘Airplane’ movie jokes. Got it?”
“Copy that. What’s our first move?”
“Come with me. We got a case, liquor store armed robbery, no shots fired. You a good driver?”
“Three years on patrol. Shared driving, no accidents.”
Murdock tossed her the keys. “You drive. I’ll give you directions.”
She’d been relieved there were no fatalities at the crime scene. She hadn’t known then if she could have taken seeing someone else shot to death.
Fourteen minutes later, Bobbie pulled up in front of a liquor store where a uniformed patrolman was trying to calm an older couple. She recognized the second officer on the scene, the man trying to keep the rubberneckers at bay. She and Murdock got out. Murdock signaled for her to hang back, then walked to the officer with the excited couple.
Bobbie passed the second officer and said, “Hey, Delveccio, how are things?”
He blinked, then smiled for a moment. “Hey, Tracey, long time no see. You’re a detective now?”
“Yep. The old guy’s my new partner.”
She saw the flicker in his eyes that told her he remembered Glen. After a moment, he half-smiled and said, “Plain-clothes detective, eh? So you’re selling out to the dark side?”
She shrugged. “They have low-fat yogurt.” She saw Murdock turn and beckon to her. “Gotta go, he’s yanking my leash.”
“Good luck with the new gig.”
“Thanks. I think I’ll need it.”
*****
She’d stayed with Murdock until his retirement. The station party – all of ten minutes with a rudely-captioned cake and a card signed by all and sundry, followed by taking over the local cop bar that evening after work – had happened three weeks before the Friday when Bill had sent her to the cemetery. She’d been on her own until Bill had given her the Kent job, and now she was crying in the man’s arms, shedding more tears than she had in the previous year.
She would have been embarrassed – no, she’d have been ashamed – had she broken down like this in anyone else’s presence.
But Clark understood. He knew not only where she was coming from, he knew generally where she was and where she was going. His empathy didn’t relieve her pain, but it did make it easier to share it with him.
If he could bear that agony, she could too. Anything he could do she could do, and better.
The thought made her chuckle slightly. Clark felt or heard it and pushed back far enough to look into her eyes. “You okay now, Bobbie?”
She averted her eyes from his deep, warm, caring chocolate orbs. “That’s a relative term that doesn’t quite fit. Better, though, I think.” She snorted lightly. “Under the circumstances that’s not too bad.”
He smiled. “No, it’s not bad at all. You want to head to Starways or call it a morning?”
She pulled out a handkerchief and cleaned her face. “I’m ready for a coffee, I think. I’m about wiped out for now.”
He helped her stand with him. “Copy that, Detective. We’ll walk slow so you don’t trip on anything.”
She managed a mildly piercing look that didn’t penetrate far. “Oh, thank you, kind sir, you are so attentive to the emotionally disabled.”
He flashed that high-powered smile at her and the dark cloud around her heart thinned a little more. But it was still there, still filtering the light that shone on everyone else in the world.
*****
Clark was concerned. Bobbie hadn’t said much as they’d walked to the coffee house, and she’d mumbled “The usual” when Kendra had asked her what she wanted. They sat at a table toward the back of the dining area, away from the rest of the patrons.
She sipped her coffee and stared listlessly out the window. Clark had to do something to get her mind on something other than her pain and loss, but what could he do? What might they talk about?
Then it came to him. He should tell her a Lois story. Preferably a funny one.
And he had the perfect one for her.
“Hey, Bobbie, do you have much experience on stakeouts?”
She barely shook her head. “A little. Enough to know how crushingly boring they usually are.”
He nodded. “Lois and I were on one when she made up a word.”
Bobbie frowned at the window, then turned her frown to him. “Connection, please.”
“Huh?”
“What’s the connection between stakeouts and Lois’ new word? Or are we making up sentences based on free association?”
He half-smiled. At least he had her attention. “She and I were on an overnight stakeout in a hotel room, and we passed the time by playing Scrabble. She put down ‘chumpy’ and I challenged it. She picked up the dictionary and—”
“Chumpy?”
“Yes.”
Bobbie began to look interested. “She tried to use a non-existent word in a game of Scrabble? With you, the human dictionary slash thesaurus?”
“She did. She insisted that if someone were behaving as a chump, then that person was being chumpy. I challenged it and she decided to look it up. Of course she didn’t find it, so she challenged the dictionary.”
Bobbie’s mouth twitched. “She didn’t find her made-up word and blamed the dictionary?”
“Yes. I remember it well. She tossed it aside and said, ‘You call this a dictionary?’”
Bobbie’s smile broke through and she chuckled. “Lois must have been a real bottle rocket.”
“At times.”
She sat back and chuckled again. “Reminds me of the time Glen and I rolled up on a van in a mall parking lot, early one morning about dawn. The van was rocking back and forth, so we got out to investigate.
“We got closer and we heard noises from inside, sounded to both of us like people fighting. We drew our weapons and Glen grabbed the handle on the back door and yanked it open.”
“It wasn’t locked?”
“Nope. Surprised me that it wasn’t. But Glen was even more surprised when he leaned in and confronted a man and woman in – ah – the French call it au natural.” She paused. “And they weren’t exactly fighting.”
His eyebrows rose. “You mean they were – um – engaged in – in amorous conduct?”
“Having sex, yeah. With a good deal of enthusiasm.”
Clark smiled. “The Italians call it ‘en flagrante d’elceto’.”
“They were both pretty flagrant, yeah.”
Clark bit his lip to keep his laugh from bursting out. “It was – um – mutually consensual, then?”
Bobbie kept pausing to control her own laughter. “Oh, yeah. The woman was – she was – sitting up and facing toward the back door and when Glen pulled the door open she – she moaned with her eyes closed, then smiled, exhaled, and relaxed. When her eyes drifted open a second later and she saw us, she started screaming at us for – for breaking up a moment with her husband that she’d dreamed about and – she told us about a couple more pretty explicit fantasies we’d messed up, too. Boy, was that chick mad. We’d interrupted a tender honeymoon moment, and Glen was bright red until after lunch.”
He bit both lips for a moment, then asked, “What did the guy do?”
Bobbie kept calm with visible effort. “He rolled his head back, looked at us upside down – while his wife was sitting on his midsection going totally berserk at us, mind you – and when she stopped to breathe, he said something like, ‘Can you close the door, man? There’s a draft.’”
That did it. Clark laughed so loud he almost dropped his coffee. After a moment, Bobbie joined him. They laughed so hard that Mrs. Adams, an older retiree and another of the Starways Saturday regulars, got up from her table and walked over to them.
“My dears,” Mrs. Adams said quietly, “Are you both all right?”
Clark recovered first. “Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, “we’re fine. It’s just that Bobbie has been humor-deprived for quite a while now. She’s making up for lost time and she’s having a reaction.”
Bobbie grabbed her stomach and nearly fell out of her chair. Mrs. Adams nodded and said, “I see. You two just enjoy your lives. We’ll all listen in and try to enjoy your enjoyment.”
Clark managed a ragged “Thank you,” then started laughing again. Mrs. Adams tottered back to her table, then turned and lifted her cup of tea to them in a silent salute.
When Clark and Bobbie finally calmed down, he lifted his cup as in a toast and said, “To our crazy partners. May we ever remember how they made us laugh.”
After a moment, she met his eyes and lifted her cup. They tapped the edges together and each took a sip.
Bobbie’s smile warmed his heart. He was glad she was his friend.
*****
Bobbie decided to grab lunch at Arby’s before she swung by the station. She and Clark had parted outside Starways, just as always, but this time she went to the precinct after lunch instead of home. The request she wanted to make was just a little out of bounds, but since it was really part of the assignment Bill Henderson had given her, and since no arrests could possibly come of it, she felt like it was sorta kinda okay.
She could still rationalize with the best of them.
Good, she thought. Sergeant Kowalski was at the front desk. He was a big marshmallow where Bobbie was concerned. “Hey, Ski,” she called, “I need to check some older files. Do you need to get them for me or can I just walk in and snag them myself?”
Kowalski shook his head. “You know the drill, Detective. You give me a name and a date and I go check to see if the file’s here. If it is and there aren’t any sensitive tags on it, you can take it to your desk and give it back to me when you’re done.” He stood and leaned on the desktop. “What’s the name?”
“Lois Lane. Used to be a reporter for the Daily Planet.”
His eyes narrowed a little. “What date?”
“Everything you have on her.”
She saw his mouth make that ‘Ah’ shape that meant he was hearing more than she’d said. Didn’t matter, though. She didn’t report to him. He looked at her quizzically for a few moments until she said, “Is it going to appear as if by magic or do you actually have to go get it?”
He sighed. “You’re sure that’s the one you want?”
“Positive.”
“Okay. Be right back.”
Sergeant Kowalski was as good as his word. Within a minute, he’d returned with a thick manila folder held in both hands. He dropped it on the desk in front of Bobbie and said, “Please don’t lose any of the paper-clipped notes, Detective. They represent a lot of man-hours.” He heaved a big sigh, then said, “Woman-hours, too.”
She glared at him fiercely for a moment, but his face didn’t smolder or smoke at all. That was disappointing. So she picked up the folder – which was quite heavy – and strode to her desk.
Lois’ picture, a five-by-seven posed upper-body publicity shot, was clipped inside the cover. Bobbie saw it and immediately deflated. The woman had been beautiful. Beauty-contest beautiful. Stunning, even.
The best Bobbie had ever gotten from a date – any date, including from Glen – was “You look very nice tonight.” Back-handed praise, indeed.
She looked at Lois’ educational background – the woman had had a B. A. in Journalism, Dean’s list all four years – and post-grad work toward a master’s degree. Her family was impressive, too. Her father was a successful transplant surgeon who worked with amputees, and her mother was a surgical nurse. Her sister was enrolled in the paralegal certification at Empire State University. A sticky note indicated that she was working part-time as a paralegal for a criminal law firm in the city.
Bobbie shook her head and turned the page.
Lois’ parents were divorced and her father was often out of the country. He’d had some legal trouble a few years back and had been censured by the New Troy state medical board. He’d kept his license, though, and he appeared to be in good standing at the moment.
She sighed. Doctor, nurse, paralegal, professional journalist. The family was impressive on paper. Hard to compete with a background like that.
Wait – no. Another sticky note at the bottom of the page told her that Dr. Lane had bought a beach bar and grill on some island she’d never heard of down in the Caribbean. Mother and daughter had only intermittent contact with him.
Poor guy. Lost his daughter and apparently gave up on life. Including his ex-wife and younger daughter.
She turned the page and was confronted with Lois’ personal record.
Bobbie’s eyes almost fell out as she skimmed all the citations and awards and peer accolades Lois Lane had accumulated over the last five years of her life. She also noted several arrests for various non-felonies, then scanned for convictions. She wondered how much time Lois had spent behind bars.
None, apparently. That surprised Bobbie.
Not one of the arrests stuck. All but a few minor citations were withdrawn or dismissed by a judge. And by different judges, too. She wasn’t just some judicial figure’s pet reporter.
She skimmed over the official summary of her non-wedding to Lex Luthor. It tallied with the bare bones of the tales she’d heard, as long as you discounted the nutty rumors you heard at the coffee machines and in the locker rooms or before roll call. Like the one where the police held her back from jumping off the balcony after Luthor. Or the one where she tried to stab Luthor with a hairpin because he’d stepped on the train of her dress at the altar and he fell over the balcony rail trying to get away from her. Or the one where Luthor jumped because she’d threatened to hunt down and kill all of his old girlfriends.
Some of the other stories were even crazier.
A significant number of pages listed the cases on which she’d materially assisted the MPD. Most of those cases had resulted in several conspiracy indictments, in arrests and convictions, and a number of them had generated plea bargains for testimony against other bad guys. The woman had wrecked a lot of criminal careers in her short time.
Starting a little more than three years ago, Clark’s name had started popping up alongside Lois’, and they’d written a string of hard-hitting articles, broken only when the Daily Planet had been bombed. Bobbie remembered that day. She and Glen had worked traffic control on the east side of the building with several other uniforms. She remembered being angry, because whoever had set off the bomb had broken her morning routine of reading the Planet at breakfast for several weeks.
She hadn’t been surprised when she’d learned that Lex Luthor was ultimately responsible.
She closed the folder, still impressed by its contents. Lois Lane had been a beautiful, talented, headstrong, overachieving dynamo. No wonder Clark missed her so much.
She’d have to walk softly around his memories of her. Bobbie would’ve had no chance to compete with her when the woman was alive. Competing with Lois’ ghost – she would’ve lost before she started. It was a good thing that she and Clark weren’t actually dating.
Bobbie sat up straight and gritted her teeth. She could still be Clark’s friend.
And he could be hers.
Just then a finger tapped her on the shoulder. “You busy, Tracey?”
She controlled her surprise and looked up at Detective Mitchell Cameron. “Not at the moment, Mitch. Why, you got a case?”
“Armed robbery at a corner grocery down on Eleventh and Ponder. My regular partner’s out sick today and Lieutenant Parnell told me to take you with me if you were available. Get your gear and let’s go.”
“Lemme give this file back to Ski and I’ll be right behind you.”
She grabbed her weapon and made sure her shield was looped around her neck. A robbery investigation was just the thing she needed to get her head on straight and forget about Lois Lane for a while.
Bobbie didn’t want to feel chumpy next to Lois.
*****
When Clark walked into the newsroom the following Monday, Perry stepped out of his desk and waved for Clark to come to the editor’s office. Clark followed, thinking his boss had a new assignment for him.
“Close the door, son. Sit down, get comfy. And just so you can be comfy, you’re not in trouble.”
“Okay. What am I in?”
Perry almost smiled. “You’re in my office for a friendly chat. I wanted to ask you how you were doing.”
“Okay, I guess.”
“I hear you met a cop.”
Without question, Perry knew more than he was saying, but Clark decided to play along. “Yes. Detective Roberta Tracey, last name spelled with an ‘e’ and you’d better not forget it.”
This time Perry did smile. “How is she doing?”
Clark tilted his head. “That sounds like you already know.”
The editor shook his head. “I know she lost her partner in a shootout right at a year ago. I know those kinds of dates are significant. I know that you and she have been meeting at or near the cemetery just about weekly for about three months. That’s it.”
Clark sighed. “I don’t feel comfortable telling anyone else about her. The things we’ve shared with each other, about Lois and her late partner, they’re mostly private.”
“I don’t want you to violate any confidences. I’m just asking if you think she’s making progress, you know, dealing with her loss and coming to terms with it.”
Clark pressed his lips together and looked away for a moment, then turned back to Perry and said, “Yes, I think she is. She’s been through some tough times. And she’s due for some more. But I think she’s handling it as well as can be expected.”
“That’s good.” Perry paused, then asked, “Are you making progress too?”
Clark took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. I can’t tell you I won’t regress, but I can say I think my nose is above water. At least for the moment.”
“Good enough.” Perry picked up a thin folder and handed it to Clark. “Got a story for you, a feature on a retired man who rebuilds and refurbishes classic and antique furniture in his garage. Good human interest piece, right in your wheelhouse. Shouldn’t be a tough assignment.”
Clark opened the folder and nodded. “Can I call him now or should I wait a bit?”
“Wait till about ten. He should be available by then.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“No. Oh, wait, there is one other thing. Catharine Grant may be coming back to us.”
“Really? I thought she was doing well in California.”
“She is, but it turns out she misses Metropolis, so she sent me her resume just in case there was an opening. When I called her to set up an interview, she asked to work with you if you’re open to it.”
Clark felt his face frown. “Me? You want us to be partners?”
“No, not permanently. I just wanted to touch base with you about it. I think I’ll probably hire her back no matter how you feel, but Cat wants to get more into the investigative side of things. She could learn a lot from you.” Perry leaned back and laced his fingers together over his belly. “Be a nice change for you, being the old and grizzled veteran in the team instead of the eager young beaver.”
Clark blinked, thinking of himself as the eager beaver and Lois as the grizzled vet. The comparison between him and Lois versus him and Cat stung.
A little.
More than a little.
But Perry was right. He could help Cat if she did come back. And it was time he started pulling his own weight at the paper.
After a long moment, he nodded and said, “Might be at that, Chief. If Cat comes back, I’ll help her all I can. I know she can write.”
“All she needs is someone to point her at the best things to write about.” Perry stood. “That’s all I got. Now shoo. We both have other work-type stuff to do.”
*****
Martha’s phone rang the following Thursday afternoon and she answered with a brisk “Hello!”
“Martha? It’s Ellen. How are you?”
“Ellen! I’m glad you called. Jonathan and I are just fine. He’s out in the north field checking the harvester or I’d get him on the extension. We still have a winter wheat crop to get in before it gets too wet.”
“Well, I’m not a farmer, so I won’t tell you that I understand, but if congratulations are in order, you have mine.”
Martha laughed. “Thank you. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
“I just wanted to touch base with you and find out how you and your fine husband were doing. I also wanted to ask you if you’d heard from Clark lately.”
Martha smiled as she quickly replayed her son’s last visit the previous evening. He’d told them about Cat Grant’s planned return to the Planet, about the article Perry had given him about the furniture repairman, and about the police detective he’d met. Martha had been quietly thrilled when he’d casually mentioned that the detective was a woman.
“Yes, we talked with him last night for quite a while. I think he’s doing as well as we can expect.”
Ellen’s sigh came through the line. “That’s what I thought, too. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t just putting up a brave front for us. Oh, did he tell you that he took us out to dinner last week?”
“No, he didn’t. Wait – he wasn’t flirting with Lucy, was he?”
“What? No! Absolutely not!”
“Was he flirting with you?”
“Me? Martha, you – wait, you’re having me on, aren’t you?”
“Maybe just a little, yes.”
“You sly kitten! You just wanted to get a reaction out of me.”
“Again, yes. And it was a goodie.”
“I plead guilty. And that brings me to another piece of news. Lucy’s due to graduate with her Associate’s degree in Law in December and take the official paralegal license exam for New Troy. It’ll mean more hours at work, a big bump in pay, and real employment benefits.”
“That’s wonderful! She’ll be able to support you in your old age in the style to which you would like to become accustomed.”
Ellen laughed. “Absolutely. Oh, let me tell you about Lucy’s new boyfriend. I think this one’s a keeper.”
“Knowing your high standards, he must be. How close are he and Lucy to something more than just casual dating?”
“I’m not sure, but from the way he watches her walk into and out of the room, I’d say he’s got it bad. I think she’s got it, too, just not quite as bad as Ryan. Not yet, anyway.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll make the right decision about him.”
“She’d better. I told her last year I’m going to buy a shotgun if she brings home any more sketchy unemployed guys.”
Martha chuckled. “I assume, since you’re not calling to get me to send you bail money, you haven’t been arrested for shooting him, so I’m sure he’s walking around still in possession of all of his body parts.”
“He is. Oh, I’m sorry, I have another call. Can you hold for a moment?”
“Why don’t you call me back tomorrow? I’ve got some chores of my own to finish.”
“Okay, Martha. You’re so sweet. Bye for now!”
Martha clicked off the phone and smiled. Her friendship with Ellen Lane had been unexpected but welcome. She’d been able to provide some comfort to the woman who’d lost her older daughter, and Martha had received equal comfort back from her.
Martha still missed Lois fiercely, still wished Clark had chosen differently, still wished somebody had come up with a better plan to free them from those sociopaths. But Martha could remember Lois and smile now instead of bursting into tears. And Clark, at long last, seemed to be recovering from losing her. There were cracks in the walls around him now, little openings that let others in and leaked smiles and real interest back.
Her son was coming back to life. Even Superman was more active now, more relaxed, and it showed in the interviews he’d once again been giving. And Martha was no longer afraid of answering the phone. She’d picked up the line easily just now, never considering the possibility that someone was calling to tell them that Clark had taken his own life.
That wouldn’t happen now. And maybe that lady detective was part of it. But Martha would wait and let Clark tell them if he cared for her as more than a friend.
*****
The Saturday after Bobbie’s near-breakdown, she and Clark met at Lois’ grave at their regular time. He knelt at the foot of Lois’ grave and thought whatever it was that he thought to her, then stood and walked with Bobbie to Glen’s headstone. She knelt and put one hand on the stone, then repeated her silent litany – that she loved him, would always love him, was so very sorry that he’d died, was sorry that she hadn’t backed him up like she should have, and that she’d see him again one day.
This time, though, she included a caveat to him, saying that she probably wasn’t coming any time soon and she hoped he didn’t mind too much.
She finished and stood, then walked beside Clark to “their” Starways.
Bobbie didn’t remember when she’d started thinking of this Starways as theirs, but the identification lay easy on her heart. Clark was a good friend, a good listener, and he understood where she was and where she was probably going. These times were vital for her continued emotional balance and she knew it.
Bobbie hoped Clark got some benefit from them too, besides the satisfaction of helping her. She always tried to give him whatever help or counsel or support he seemed to need at the moment.
They sat down with their coffees. Clark finished his sip first and said, “I had dinner with Ellen and Lucy Lane on Tuesday evening.”
She lowered her cup and nodded for him to continue.
“Ellen has been so sweet to me ever since – since Lois died. So has Lucy. I actually went to a party with her classmates last night. She’s been bugging me about going out occasionally for months, and a lot of times she asks me to be her plus-one for things like that. They’re a pretty funny bunch, too, for lawyers and paralegals. Lucy used to be flighty and a little shallow, but she’s really grown up in the last couple of years.”
Bobbie’s throat closed up as Clark spoke of Lucy Lane so glowingly. Was he falling for Lois’s sister? If so, was he thinking of her as a replacement for Lois? Or as a substitute? Would he try to push her into working at the Planet?
Bobbie didn’t like this at all.
Clark must have seen something in her face. He stopped and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”
So much for her vaunted poker face. She looked down at her coffee cup and grumbled, “You seem to think a lot of Lucy.”
He blinked once. “Well, yeah, I do. She was almost my sister-in-law, and I’ve come around to thinking of her as the baby sister I never had. She keeps telling me I’m the closest thing to a big brother she’ll ever have. I just hope this guy she’s seeing treats her right.”
Sister-in-law.
Baby sister.
He thinks he’s Lucy’s big brother.
And Lucy’s dating some other guy.
Bobbie felt herself relax. Clark wasn’t falling for this younger version of Lois after all. Nor was she falling for him.
Bobbie made a mental bet that Lucy was just as stunning as Lois had been. With Bobbie and Lois and Lucy competing, Bobbie would come in fifth in a three-girl pageant.
She hadn’t meant to show her relief, but she must have.
Clark smiled a little. “Bobbie, I think you were just a little jealous for a minute. Weren’t you? I mean, just a teensy bit?”
“No!” She played with her cup before taking another sip. Then she sighed and said, “Well – maybe a little. But only because you were making her sound like another Lois for a minute!”
His smile vanished. “No. She’s not Lois. You’re not Lois. I’m not trying to replace Lois with anyone, especially not Lucy. She’s cute and I like her and I’ll defend her any way I need to, but I’m not going to date her. She has her own life, and replacing her sister is not her life’s goal.”
He reached out and placed his hand on hers. “And I’m truly sorry that I made you think that, even for a moment. I’m your friend, and I never intended to hurt you. I was only trying to tell you about another part of my life.”
She turned her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry too. I guess for a second I was afraid of – that you wouldn’t be available as often. As a friend, that is.”
He nodded. “Not gonna happen. Not in this lifetime.”
She refused to cry. She squeezed his powerful hand and denied her tears of relief access to her eye sockets. There was no reason for her to be jealous.
It bore repeating. There was no reason to be jealous. No excuse for jealousy. She and Clark weren’t exactly dating anyway, were they?
*****
Saturday came again, and with it an unseasonably cool breeze with a chilly drizzle. Clark arrived first, so he knelt beside Lois’ grave and, as usual, tried to visualize her speaking to him. He didn’t know what he thought he wanted her to say, but whatever it was, she didn’t say it to him.
After several silent minutes, he stood and brushed his knee clean, then turned and looked toward Glen’s grave. Bobbie was already there, but instead of kneeling, she was standing under a raggedy umbrella and watching him. He waved hesitantly, and she tipped the umbrella toward him.
He took that as an invitation to join her. As he stepped close, she gave him a muted smile, then knelt beside Glen’s final resting place.
Clark watched silently as she performed whatever ritual she’d designed. Like his, hers was silent, even though her mouth was moving, so she had words to say. He still deliberately looked away to keep from reading her lips. She granted him his privacy with Lois. He would grant Bobbie her privacy with Glen.
After a brief time, she stood and smiled hesitantly at him again. “Ready for coffee?”
He gestured toward the exit. “Lead the way, my lady.”
She inclined her head and fell in step beside him. After a few silent strides, he said, “I’m glad you weren’t offended when I called you ‘my lady.’ It’s an archaic English address of respect to a woman who is equal to or higher than the rank of the person speaking to the higher one. And it wasn’t gender-specific. Both men and women used the syntax pretty freely. ‘My lord’ was the masculine address.”
She gave him a Spockian single-brow raise and said, “Wow, Clark, I never would’ve figured that out by myself. Good thing I got you around to learn me all this fancy stuff, cuz I’m just a dumb old cop.”
He looked at her, concerned for a moment, then saw the grin playing around her mouth. He smiled. “Yeah, well, I do what I can for the less educated of our society.”
She chuckled shortly and stopped just out of reach of the Starways entrance. He looked at her, puzzled. “Is something wrong?”
She stared straight at the door, a grin still dancing around her cheeks. “You’re not holding the door for me, Kent.”
He sighed dramatically. “There goes that merit badge.”
He pulled the door open and allowed his chortling companion to precede him.
