Clark called Bobbie’s home phone at three-thirty that Saturday afternoon and asked how bad the crime scene had been.
“False alarm. Some idiot dropped a mannequin out of a second story window in one of the downtown tailor shops and a concerned citizen dialed 911 before realizing there was no blood and the body was hard plastic. No biggie, really. Bill was disgusted at the nothing call, but I’d rather have a couple of those every week than real bodies any day.”
“I don’t blame you. So you don’t have a hot news tip for me?”
She chuckled into the phone. “Sorry, no. If I’d known what the call was about, I wouldn’t have left my coffee on the table unfinished.”
Whimsy poked his mouth and he said, “Well, then, let’s go for round two. Same place, same order.”
“Huh.” She paused, and Clark thought she was about to decline. Then she said, “Sure. I can pick up something to munch on, too, unless you’d rather not take food into Starways.”
“I don’t want Kendra to get in trouble. Maybe we can hit a fast food place after.”
“Sounds great to me. Meet you there at what, four-fifteen? I need a quick shower.”
“Sure. I can meander there, take my time and smell the roses along the way.”
Bobbie’s tone turned dry. “Just get there on time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
*****
Clark and Bobbie walked out of Starways together, close but not touching. Clark somehow knew that even if he felt comfortable holding her hand or putting his arm around her – things he assuredly did not feel comfortable even thinking about, much less actually doing them – she was nowhere near ready for that kind of contact.
But they were close to that point, closer than he’d believed possible on the day they’d first met, when she’d shoved him down on the grass at the foot of Lois’ grave. They’d known each other more than six – no, nearly eight months now, and he’d told her things about himself he hadn’t told his parents. Shoot, he’d almost told her about Superman.
That was not a burden he was willing to lay on her at this point in their relationship.
But one of the things that contributed to Lois’ death was her not knowing his secret. Assuming he ever got close to another woman, he’d have to tell her before they got too involved. He’d known that he’d needed to tell Lois, but he’d chickened out more than once. And her not knowing his Big Secret had contributed to her death.
If only he’d told her—
Spilled milk, he insisted to himself. What had happened had happened and there was no going back. No one can change the past and get away with it. Even the Doctor knew there was a price to pay for altering the time line—
“Clark?”
The voice seemed to come from far away. “Yes?”
A woman’s hand on his chest checked his forward progress. “Hey. Where’d you go?”
His vision cleared and he saw Bobbie standing before him with a worried look on her face. “Sorry. I was woolgathering.”
She lowered her hand. “You must have been picking out the sheep, too, and the loom to weave it on. I called to you three times before you responded.”
He shuffled his feet in his best “aw-shucks” manner. “I’m sorry. I was kind of thinking about Lois.”
Her visage cleared. “Good things, I hope.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Some regrets I have, things I did that I shouldn’t have, things I should’ve done but didn’t, that kind of thing.”
She looked at him closely, then smiled, reached out, and took his hand. “Come on. Let’s go sit in the park. You can tell me about some of those regrets and I’ll see if I can top any of them.” With that, she set off for the park with him in tow.
How about that. She’d taken his hand without any prompting on his part. And, surprisingly, her hand felt good in his.
*****
Clark followed Bobbie to a bench in Livingston Park away from the regular foot traffic patterns but not too private. He silently approved of her choice. She obviously didn’t want him to get the idea that she was about to start making out with him.
She tugged him to the bench she’d selected and sat him down, then took a seat close to the other end. The bench could seat four good friends if they were all very slender and willing to sit hip to hip with little or no wiggle room, but it usually had no more than three occupants. So he and Bobbie could sit close together without being shoved up against one another. Clark felt safe sitting next to her.
She released his hand as she sat. “Okay, Clark, I think we should exchange regrets now. I’ll start unless you want to go first.”
He smiled thinly. He hadn’t been very successful going first in serious male-female conversations in his life. “You go ahead.”
She nodded. “Okay. Um – I guess I’ll start with a big one.” She put her hands in her lap and seemed to shrink in on herself. “I – I’ve never told anyone this, okay? Not even my mom. And I – I’m taking a big risk telling you this.”
Clark held up a hand. “Wait, please. Is this going to be some kind of quid pro quo? You spill a deep dark secret and then I do the same thing?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t care if you tell me something or if you don’t tell me anything. That’s entirely up to you. I just – it seems like our – our friendship is at the point where I can tell you whatever comes in my head and you’ll still be my friend.”
He nodded slowly. “I’d like to think that too.”
She took a breath and let it out slowly. “Okay. Oh, just one more thing. Whatever I tell you, it won’t be that I’m involved in something crooked or illegal.”
“I never thought you would be into anything like that, Bobbie.”
She seemed to relax a little. “Thank you. That makes me feel better about what I’m going to say.” She looked down at her hands, which were clasping each other in her lap. “Glen and I – we spent a night together.” Clark didn’t respond. “You know – the whole night together.” He still didn’t respond. She turned her face to him and all but demanded, “Are you listening to me? Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you, Bobbie,” he said softly. “I’m waiting for the regret part.”
“Ah. Thank you. Again.” She hunched forward on the bench. “He was my first. You know, the first one who – anyway. It was the – the morning after that night that Glen asked me to marry him. I know I disappointed him when I told him that I had to think about it, but the answer would probably be yes. I said I just had to kick it around first, you know, look at it from a lot of angles, not just the horizontal one.” She blushed a little. “And that was a really great angle, too. That night was epic, almost magic. He – wait, you – you really don’t want to know all that, do you?”
He smiled. “Probably not.”
“Yeah. I mean no! Anyway, we had a dinner date set up four days later. I was going to tell him ‘yes’ during dessert and see how he reacted. But we – we never – he was shot – the day – the day before and I never – I never got to tell him – I never told him how much I—”
Clark scooted to her side and touched her hand. “Bobbie—”
She turned and buried her face in his shoulder. Her long arms wrapped around his chest and squeezed. If he hadn’t had his powers, he would have had a hard time breathing.
Clark held Bobbie until she finally slowed down. His shirt was soaked and her nose needed a good blowing or two. When her arms released her death grip on him, he fished out a handkerchief and tried to clean her face.
“It’s okay, Bobbie. It’ll be okay.” She took the kerchief from him and wiped her upper lip. “I’m sure Glen knew you loved him.”
She nodded but didn’t speak. “Do you want to hear one of my great regrets now?” he asked.
She sniffed hard. “Only – if you want me to know.”
“I do.” He gently pushed her upright. “But I’d like to tell your face and not the top of your head.”
She sat up and assayed a damp grin, then wiped her eyes and nodded. “Please, Clark, go ahead. I’ll try to be as understanding as you have been.”
He tried to smile but it wouldn’t form on his face. “Okay. Here it comes.”
*****
Bobbie knew this was going to be big. Clark might not have been willing to tell her anything if he’d thought she was trying to pry, but she understood that he wanted to let her know how much he trusted her.
Because Bobbie trusted Clark completely. And the realization startled her.
He took a deep breath and pulled her attention back to his words. “I told you that I regret not sharing my deepest, darkest, most private secret with Lois, right?” She nodded to him. “Another dark secret of mine is a little like yours. I never – Lois didn’t ever—” he stopped and ran his hand through his hair. “Let me start over. Lucy has told me several times that Lois really did love me, that she would have married me if she – if she had survived. But I never heard – she never told me that herself. And I deeply – I wish more than anything that she had. And that I’d somehow made her understand that I loved her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”
She reached up and touched his cheek for a moment, then realized how intimate the gesture was and let her hand slip away.
Just not very quickly.
“Thank you for trusting me,” she whispered. At a more normal volume, she said, “I understand how painful that memory is. And – because you’re such a good friend, I wish I could take the pain away from you. I wish I could take away your grief and loss, just like I wish someone could take mine away.”
He took her hands in both of his and gently massaged them. “As much as those memories hurt me, Bobbie, as much as I grieve because of them, as much as I miss Lois, as much as it cuts me at times, I don’t want to forget anything I went through with her. As often as she frustrated me, as much as she infuriated me, as many times as I got angry with her or she got angry with me, all that is part of me now. I’d have to give up a big part of myself if I lost all that.”
She looked at their joined hands and smiled. “I think I understand what you mean. But – in the long run, is it worth it? I mean, think of all the empty days you’ve had since Lois – since she left. And all the long, lonely nights you’ve spent alone, knowing that your aloneness wouldn’t go away with the morning sun. Is all that ongoing pain, all that heartache, all that emptiness worth keeping that part of yourself?”
She knew she was projecting her own experiences on Clark, but she also knew that he’d understand that. And he had to have gone through many of the same things she’d gone through. Maybe he’d never become hysterical at three in the morning and destroyed his bedroom along with half his clothes. Maybe he’d never stepped out of a department therapy session into the hall and started screaming incoherently and been restrained by other officers nearby. But he had a sensitive heart and a beautiful soul. He’d know what she was saying, what she was asking of him.
He took a breath and let it out slowly. “To quote a cynical passage in a very enjoyable and otherwise optimistic recent movie: ‘Life is pain, princess. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.’ I know it’s hard – those memories will always be painful – but they teach us, too. They teach us that loving someone is a huge risk, no matter what the character of that someone might be. It’s a risk to love your parents, your siblings, your children, your friends, because they all have the potential to break your heart.”
He gave her hand a soft squeeze. “But those folks also make life fuller, brighter, more interesting—” he paused as she snorted lightly. “Yeah, you can take ‘more interesting’ any way you want to take it – but in the long run, I believe that loving people is better than not loving people.”
She nodded and turned away – she didn’t look at him, couldn’t look at him. For this question, she couldn’t see his face as he heard what she asked. “Clark – I kinda want – I guess I need to know – have you always felt this way?”
She felt him stiffen for a moment, then he exhaled again. “No. After Lois died, I wanted – I tried to build a fortress around my heart. I did a pretty good job, too, almost had it finished – until the morning when you pushed me down on the cemetery lawn.”
She looked up and smiled a little. He met her gaze and said, “You reminded me that I’m not unique, that I’m not the only person in the world who has suffered a great loss. Other people survive pain like this and build active, fruitful lives. I don’t want to leave this life yet. There are still stories to write, criminals to catch, corrupt politicians and businessmen to uncover, good people who need their stories told, and people who want me in their lives. I may question their taste in friends, but I’m not selfish enough to take the choice away from them. Not now, not anymore.”
She watched his face – his handsome, caring face – and decided that there was no guile in Clark Kent. None whatsoever. He was indeed the straight shooter Bill had told her he was.
It was more than enough to build a friendship on. She just hoped she could be the rock for him that he was for her.
Maybe even more than a friendship.
All she had to do was risk her heart again.
*****
On the following Wednesday afternoon, his work phone rang.
“Clark Kent, Daily Planet.”
“Hey, Clark, this is Bobbie.”
He couldn’t help the smile that grew on his lips. “Hi, Bobbie. Long time no see.”
“Yeah, right, four whole days. Hey, I had a real good time at dinner with Ellen and Lucy at The Steak Palace last week. The manager almost put us out of the restaurant, we laughed so much.”
“You’ve told me, and I’ve told them, and you’ve told them, but I’ll pass it along again the next time I see them. Is that the only reason you called?”
“Well – no, it’s not. See, I kinda wanted to have dinner with you – just you – but not in a public place where people might see us and maybe get the wrong idea or where we can’t talk about – you know, stuff, the kind of stuff we talk about sometimes, so how would you like to eat at my place on Friday?”
Interesting. He hadn’t had dinner alone with a woman – much less in her apartment – since the last meal he’d shared with Lois. The memory of that meal, and the gentle time following it, didn’t distress him as much as he would have thought.
Maybe it was time to reach out to a friend.
“Clark?” she quavered. “I – I’m sorry. I’ve overstepped, haven’t I?”
He’d been quiet too long, and she’d gotten nervous. He didn’t want that. “No, Bobbie, you haven’t. I was just – remembering, that’s all.”
“Was it a good memory?”
He paused, then said, “Yes. It was a very good memory.”
“Did it make you smile? You sound like you’re smiling.”
He smiled wider. “Yes, I am, and it did. And I’d love to have dinner with you Friday evening. Are you as good a cook as you say you are?”
“Oh, no way, Kent!” The impish grin was back in her voice. “You’ve bragged on your culinary skills once too often. You’ve got kitchen duty.”
“Me? Little old me?”
She chuckled. “Yes, little old you. I’ll provide the setting, the beverages, the spices, and the cooking utensils. You pick the menu and bring the food. And don’t forget the receipts! We’re going Dutch on this one and splitting the cost.”
“As you wish, my lady. What time shall I begin preparing this repast?”
“Let’s aim to start eating about seven-thirty, so you let me know how much prep time you’ll need and you can come over then. Okay?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Great! I’ll see you Friday if not before! I’m supposed to finish up some paperwork on a case we just handed off to the DA’s office, that knife killing you and your hungry snitch helped me with, so I have to go. Bye!”
“Bye, Bobbie.”
She hung up almost before he finished his salutation.
He sat back and smiled. Dinner with an attractive, professional, slightly dangerous woman with a past that probably made her a safe friend for him. He wasn’t sure he was ready for a relationship with her – or with anyone, for that matter. Lois was still prominent in his waking thoughts.
Although, he mused, she was inhabiting his dreams less frequently. And he was sleeping through the night more and more, not waking up out of a nightmare as often. They still snuck up on him occasionally, but even those didn’t yank him out of slumber with frozen heart and stilled lungs any longer. He still missed Lois – he knew he would always miss her – but he no longer pondered the various and sundry ways he might join her.
Bobbie surely wasn’t looking for a relationship either. Glen was still important to her, was still the real reason she visited the cemetery every Saturday morning, and still had a hold on her soul. Just as he missed Lois, he was certain she still missed Glen and always would.
That didn’t mean they couldn’t be good friends.
And he had work to do, too. It was time he attacked the background data Jimmy had dug up on the subject of his current investigation. There was something there, something the man was hiding, something that would damage his budding political career if it were made public. If it was a real scandal, something with legal repercussions, Clark would ferret it out and publish it.
The truth was still important to him – or, rather, it had become important to him once again.
*****
Six-forty-five on Friday evening came slowly, but it did finally come.
Clark shifted the canvas bag in his right hand to his left to join its mate and knocked on Bobbie’s front door. His cooking skills were on the line tonight, and he’d promised her a delicious dinner. She’d promised beverages and to make her spice rack available to him, plus provide the after-dinner entertainment.
It was shaping up to be a good night to have a friend. Especially a friend like Bobbie Tracey.
She opened the door as he moved a bag from his overloaded left hand back to his empty right. Her honey-blonde hair was down and brushed to a fine sheen. It shimmered as it danced on her shoulders. Her smile felt full and open and – and soft. He wasn’t sure how that had happened or why he perceived it that way, but that’s the impression he got.
“Come on in, master chef,” she said. “Kitchen is thataway. Cookware is already pulled out and waiting for you, as requested.”
“I remember where it is, Bobbie.” He lifted both bags for her inspection as he crossed her threshold. “I have flank steak, pork ‘n’ beans, sweet potatoes, green salad – no onions, I don’t much care for store-bought ones—”
“Good,” she broke in. “Wouldn’t want your onion breath in my face after dinner.”
He set the bags on the kitchen counter and began unloading it. “Just what will we be doing after dinner? I’m really curious.”
“Oh, you’ll enjoy this, Clark. You can bet on it.”
With that slightly cryptic comment, she turned to the silverware drawer and took out place settings for the two of them. He noticed that the plates were already on her small dining table.
“Hey, Clark, I almost forgot something. I talked to Glen’s folks yesterday and they told me again how much they enjoyed having you over for dinner the other night. Wanted me to invite you for a third time. Evonne said you surprised her again by being such a wonderful gentleman.”
Surprised, he stopped and turned toward her. “Really? Even with my behavior after that volleyball game? She thought I was a gentleman?”
Bobbie smiled. “She’s used to the stereotypical Ugly American going to Paris and insulting everyone he meets. And you really wowed them when you discussed the Seine with them in French.”
He nodded. “I see. They were looking for a younger American male who wasn’t a complete idiot.”
She gave him a lop-sided grin. “Actually, Étienne said he wanted to host the young man who’d put the smile back in my voice again. And they want us both to come back again soon. Evonne promised to make a traditional French dinner.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised again, but he was. Bobbie had told him a great deal about Glen’s parents, just as he’d told her a great deal about Lois’ family, but he hadn’t realized how close they still were. It sounded like they’d informally adopted Bobbie just like Ellen and Lucy had informally adopted him. It confirmed the impressions he’d received the day they’d had lunch and volleyball with the LeCour family, impressions they’d reinforced with the recent dinner at their home.
After a moment that almost lasted too long, he nodded and said, “Sure, I’d be glad to. Just let me know when would be a good time.”
“I’ll talk to them about it. Hey, chef, let’s get to cooking!”
As he began loading the stove, he noted with some pleasure that the burners were well-used but clean, as was the oven below. He unwrapped the steak and laid it out on the cutting board. “Hey, Bobbie, how do you like your steak?”
“Still mooing.”
He stopped, a bit startled, then realized that she’d told him to cook it rare. “Still mooing it is. When you slice into it, you’ll probably tell me you’ve seen cows hurt worse than this get up and walk away.”
Her liquid laugh filled his ears and he smiled widely. She sure was fun to be around, especially now that they both felt free to tease the other, and neither of them was afraid to say anything to the other.
That didn’t mean that either of them ever made light of the other’s loss. Clark respected Glen’s memory as much as Bobbie respected Lois’. But they each took their reference cues from the other. If Bobbie told him a funny story about Glen, he felt free to laugh or even poke a little fun at her, and if Clark told her a tender story about Lois, she sympathized with him and offered comfort. The reverse was true, too.
The thought made him curious, and he decided to risk a question. “Bobbie, can I ask you something about you and Glen?”
She stepped to the kitchen opening and said, “Sure.”
He hesitated and almost changed his mind, then decided to forge ahead. “How often did Glen make dinner for the two of you?”
He was startled when she barked out a laugh. He turned to look at her and saw a sad smile on her lips. “Never. For all his other accomplishments, Glen was no cook. He could burn sandwiches.”
He stopped and blinked at her. “What?”
Her smile widened. “It’s true! He came over one night and tried to make grilled cheese sandwiches and the bread caught fire. Ruined a good baking sheet and scorched the inside of the vent hood. To this day I don’t know how he accomplished that feat. You can still see the residue if you bend over a little.”
He looked, and yes, there were scorch marks in the paint on the inside of the vent hood. He shook his head and went back to prepping the steak. “Wow. And I thought Lois was a bad cook.”
“She was, huh?”
“’Fraid so. She wanted to make dinner for me one night, so she made rumaki.”
“I didn’t know that was a dish all by itself. I thought it was a method of preparation, you know, for shrimp and meatballs and such.”
“It is. Lois didn’t realize that until she started following the recipe. She managed to finish it with hamburger meat, and I ate it, but it gave me indigestion.”
She snorted again. “And here I thought you could eat anything, you renowned world traveler you!”
“Just goes to show you, I guess. Some things just aren’t meant to be eaten.”
He glanced up at her. Her mouth moved as if she were about to add a comment, then apparently thought better of it and didn’t speak. She smiled wide and nodded at him, then went back to the dining area.
“What kind of music do you like?” she called out.
He continued prepping the steak. “Oh, just about anything as long as it’s not too loud or non-melodic.”
“How about some Mozart? I’ve got ‘Eine kleine Nachtmuzik’ on a CD, along with some other pieces of his.”
“Including that nifty solo piano thing, oh, what’s the name of it?”
“Starts out in A minor, switches to A major, then comes back to A minor again? ‘Rondo Alla Turca’?”
“That’s the one! He wrote so many wonderful piano solo pieces. I like his orchestral stuff, too.”
He heard her load the disc and tap the buttons to start it, then adjust the volume to a background level. “I hope you’re not a big opera fan. I can’t sit still that long.”
He grinned. “No, not really. I like some operatic pieces performed by themselves, but rarely the whole work. Can’t stand to listen to some soprano or tenor lament about a lost love for two hours. The singer ought to stand up to life and do something about it instead.”
All he heard was Mozart for a long moment. The thought that he might have crossed a line appeared in his mind. Then Bobby spoke from the kitchen doorway. “How’s my wounded cow coming along?”
He grinned at her, thankful that the line was further away than he’d momentarily feared it might be. “It’s about ready to slap on the burner. I’m going to start the potatoes and beans. I’m making my steak with yours, so we should be ready to go soon.” He turned toward her. “You want to toss the salad for me? I thought I’d have more time, but live cow cooks pretty fast.”
She smiled. “Sure. Hand me the fixings and I’ll get started by the sink.”
“Fixings? I think you’re the first Metropolitan I’ve ever heard use that word.”
“I was born here, but I spent most of my summers in West Texas on a ranch not far from Midland and Odessa. My uncle owned the place, and he made sure his nieces and nephews earned their dinners and beds. Met my best girlfriend Wanda Dallas there, too. We—”
“Wait a minute! Her name is what?”
“Wanda Dallas. She’s a firefighter in Marshall, Texas. Why? You don’t know her, do you?”
“No. It’s just – a very unusual name.”
She grinned without looking at him and paused for a long moment, then continued. “As I tried to say, we worked as ranch hands from the time I was eleven until I turned eighteen and graduated from high school. That’s when I applied to the Police Academy here in Metropolis.”
“You said you were in a patrol car for a while?”
“Started as a rookie. Five plus years either walking a beat or riding in a patrol car. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering. You’re a detective now, though. How’d that happen?”
She stopped her salad prep for a moment, then resumed. “I took the detective’s exam three weeks before that last patrol with Glen. I didn’t find out I’d passed until a couple of weeks after – after he died. Bill Henderson came to the precinct and laid out my options – stay in patrol, leave the force and go back home to my mom, or join his team. He said he understood my – my situation and he wouldn’t push me into anything that made me uncomfortable until I got my feet under me. Said it was my call all the way. I went home, talked to my mom, came back and talked to Glen’s parents, cried for a couple of days, then called Bill and told him he had me if he still wanted me.”
He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “I’m sorry, Bobbie,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was a painful memory for you.”
She sniffed once and said, “You didn’t know. It isn’t that painful, not now, not really, just – it’s still kinda hard. You get it.”
He nodded, knowing she couldn’t see him. “Yes. I do.” Then he forced some cheer into his voice. “I hope you have cinnamon and brown sugar. That goes great with the sweet potatoes.”
He heard the forced lilt in her voice. “Sure. The spice rack is arranged alphabetically, so you should be able to find them, assuming you remember your A-B-Cs.”
He paused, then dropped the steaks on the grill and slid them over the burner. “That’s it. You’re getting yours well done, you skinny pest.”
“Skinny? Why you wide-bodied jumbo jet you! I oughta clobber you for that!”
“Nu-uh. You’ll never know how good this meal would have been if you do.”
“Sometimes one must make sacrifices in life,” she said darkly.
“You mess with me too much and Glen’s scorch marks will be gone because I’ll burn down the whole place.”
She was silent for a moment, then she chuckled. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you?”
“Hey, I’ve never agreed with the Klingons.”
“The Klingons?”
“That revenge is a dish best served cold.”
She laughed so hard she nearly spilled the salad on the floor.
