“Hi! You’re late,” Lucy called from the direction of the bedroom.
Lois deposited her purse and her briefcase on the kitchen counter and then tossed a fistful of unopened mail beside them. “Did we have plans?” she asked, really hoping they hadn’t.
Lucy appeared in the doorway, wearing Lois’s favorite bathrobe and toweling her hair. “Nope. Well, I had plans with Kyle, but he had to cancel. Something about his mother – and doesn’t that just set the warning bells ringing? I’m better off without him, don’t you think?”
“Huh?” Lois didn’t even try to figure out who Kyle was or what she was supposed to know about him.
“Kyle,” Lucy said, as if that should explain everything. “Do you listen to anything I tell you?”
“Luce…” Lois sighed.
“Never mind.” Lucy let the damp towel fall to the floor in the doorway and began finger-combing her long hair. “So what’s your problem tonight?”
“You mean besides my sister wearing my clothes and dropping wet towels all over my apartment?”
“Sheesh, Lois. How many days a month can one woman have PMS? I think you’re setting some sort of gynecological record.” Lucy flopped down on the sofa.
“It’s not PMS,” Lois snapped. “It’s just been a long, tiring day – something you wouldn’t know about since you don’t work for a living.”
She felt guilty when she saw the flash of hurt in Lucy’s eyes. Lucy had left her last job because her boss kept hitting on her, and Lois had been the one who had encouraged her to do it. She had also offered to let Lucy stay with her while she got back on her feet.
“I’m sorry, Luce,” she said, before Lucy even had the chance to respond. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I am looking, you know. I look every day.” In spite of the apology, Lucy sounded annoyed.
“I know. Something will turn up.”
“So seriously – what’s up with you tonight? What made your day so long and tiring?”
Lois let her head fall sideways onto her sister’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she said with a sigh.
She wished she could confide in her sister – wished they had that sort of relationship. However, Lois had long since cast herself as the responsible older sister and allowed Lucy to settle into her role as the free-spirited irresponsible one. Neither description was strictly accurate any more – if it ever had been - but somehow, the dynamic between them never changed. Confessing her recent behavior to Lucy and looking to her younger sister for advice would require both of them to step too far out of their roles. Even if Lois could bring herself to try, she couldn’t imagine that Lucy was up to the task. At least her sister was there – all warm skin and wet hair and fuzzy bathrobe – and Lois took some measure of comfort from her physical presence even if she couldn’t go to her for emotional support.
Lucy fidgeted a little so that Lois was settled more comfortably against her. “C’mon,” she cajoled. “Tell baby sister all about it. Is it work stuff or personal stuff?” She laughed. “What am I saying? Do you even have personal stuff?”
“Ha ha.” Lois took her head off of Lucy’s shoulder and scooted as far away as the uncomfortable sofa would allow. She knew Lucy was just being Lucy, but the jab had hit far too close to the mark for her to see any humor in it.
“Oh, don’t be that way. What’s up?”
Lois shrugged. “Just...like you said. Work stuff. Did you see the Messenger explosion on the news today?”
“Omigosh, yes!” Lucy exclaimed. “Wasn’t it awful?”
“Yeah. It was horrible. And I’m working on the story.” Even with Lucy, Lois wouldn’t divulge too many details.
“Oh, man,” Lucy said sympathetically. “I’ll bet that did make for a hard day.”
“Yeah.” But Lois knew that her investigation into the Messenger explosion had actually been the easiest part of her day. Even going with Jimmy to Samuel Platt’s condemned, rat-infested apartment building had been preferable to being in the newsroom and trying to work with Clark Kent nearby. Platt had given her more ‘notes’ to go through and told her of a report he’d submitted to EPRAD that had specifically warned of the very malfunction that had caused the explosion. If Platt was right, then someone at EPRAD had deliberately sabotaged the Messenger.
But in a subsequent trip to EPRAD, Dr. Antoinette Baines had denied receiving the report and told them that Samuel Platt was an alcoholic and a drug user who had been let go from EPRAD after setting fire to one of the laboratories. If this were true, it made him far from reliable as a source. Unless Lois could make some sense of Platt’s notes and prove his ‘report’ existed, she was afraid that her investigation might be at a dead end. Dr. Baines had made it quite clear that she and Jimmy weren’t going to be allowed any more information on the explosion until EPRAD’s ‘official’ findings were released to the public.
“You get too involved in your stories, Lois. You need to learn to let this stuff go when you get home, or it’ll drive you crazy.”
“I never get involved with my stories!” Lois protested. “That’s one of my….”
“…three rules,” Lucy finished. “Yeah, right.”
“You’re not helping, you know.”
“What would help?”
The memory of being wrapped in Clark’s arms came back to her with startling and painful clarity.
Yes.
That was just what would make her feel better. His shoulders would be broad enough to bear the weight of all her mistakes. His warmth would ward off the cold that seemed to be seeping into her soul.
It had been years since she’d had anyone to lean on, and she’d thought she’d stopped caring. She had cared once, back when her father had left them and her mother had quit being a mother and become a full-time victim instead, but it hadn’t made any difference; she’d learned the hard way that the only person she could depend on was herself. Each year, the armor she wore to protect herself from the outside world became a little thicker, a little stronger – but a little heavier, too, until the weight was too much and she did something stupid, like casting it off completely and falling into bed with a total stranger.
It had felt so good, though, to let herself be free from all that responsibility for the few hours she’d spent in Clark’s arms. It should have been terrifying, letting herself be that vulnerable to another person, but somehow with Clark she hadn’t felt vulnerable. She’d felt safe. Protected. Even cherished, as trite as that sounded. It had only been later, when she’d seen him at the Daily Planet, that she’d let all the old doubts assail her and had felt vulnerable to him for the first time. Then she had panicked and thrown up every defense in her arsenal.
“Chocolate?” Lucy prodded, dragging Lois away from her thoughts. “C’mon. That always makes you feel better.”
“No, thanks. I’m just going to take a bath and then read over my notes from today. I have a long day tomorrow.” She could hardly stand to think about tomorrow – about seeing Clark in the newsroom again, about the investigation that wasn’t going anywhere, about Jimmy yipping at her heels like an exuberant puppy. A long day indeed.
“That’s right!” Lucy exclaimed. “You have Lex Luthor’s ball tomorrow. Have you decided what to wear?”
Oh, hell.
She’d completely forgotten the ball. Her long day was even longer now. “Um…I guess not. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“You haven’t thought about it!” Lucy sounded outraged. “Lois, you told me yourself this was the biggest social event of the year. And you’ll finally get to meet Lex Luthor.”
“The jerk who won’t return my phone calls,” she grumbled.
“The incredibly rich, handsome jerk who won’t return your phone calls,” Lucy corrected, giving Lois a nudge with her shoulder. “So make him want to call you! What about that red dress you bought on sale after Christmas last year? You’ve never even worn that.”
Lois shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “It’s too…red.”
“It’s hot. Lex Luthor will be falling at your feet and begging you to interview him.”
“I want to him to look at me and see a competent reporter, not a hooker. I need something classy.”
Lucy made an exasperated sound. “What about the blue dress you wore to last year’s Merriwethers? It’s classy.”
“Do you spend every minute I’m at work going through my closet?”
“How else will I know what’s available to borrow?” Lucy teased. “Come on – the blue dress is great.”
“Those sleeves make me look like a linebacker.”
Lucy laughed. “They do not.”
“All right fine. The blue dress.” Lois was tired of the conversation and really didn’t care what she wore anyway.
“And you’re going with Mitchell?”
Lois groaned. “I guess so. If he doesn’t have to cancel at the last minute because he cut himself shaving.”
“I thought you liked Mitchell.”
“Mitchell is a hypochondriac.”
“But a good-looking one.”
Lois shrugged. “He’s all right.”
In truth, she had thought Mitchell Stephens handsome once, too, but now his looks seemed no better than average, and his conversation didn’t rate even that high. One night with Clark Kent, and suddenly every other man she knew had paled into insignificance. It was yet another repercussion of her outing as Wanda Detroit that she’d never anticipated. They seemed to be snowballing, piling on top of one another so fast that she couldn’t keep up. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. It was supposed to be one night – one memorable night, yes, but not one that changed her forever.
With a sigh, she heaved herself off the sofa and pulled her briefcase off the countertop. She would have a long night of it going through Platt’s notes, and she might as well get started.
“Lois, you just got home,” Lucy complained. “At least take time to eat. Want me to get Chinese?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said truthfully. She hadn’t eaten a bite since her confrontation with Clark that morning. She’d been plagued by a butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling that left her completely disinterested in food.
“Oh, come on.”
Lois shook her head. “Listen, Luce...not tonight, OK? Tonight I just need to....”
To what, exactly? She didn’t particularly want to be alone, but she didn’t want to be with Lucy either. She wanted to be with someone to whom she could tell everything, someone who would hug her and tell her it was all going to work out, even if no one could really know that for sure. She wanted to be with someone who could give her advice, advice she could trust, without condemning her in the process. She thought of Perry briefly, and then she put the idea aside. Perry’s professional advice was invaluable, but his personal advice tended to be wide of the mark and couched in so many Elvis analogies that she often had no idea what he was talking about anyway.
There was no one. And that wasn’t new, so there was no point in getting upset about it. She had her work – a lot of it, as it happened – and that would have to be enough.
Lucy must have seen something in her face because she backed off without even asking what it was Lois needed to do. “All right,” she said. “If you’re going to work, I’m going to go out for a while.”
Lois nodded. “Be careful, Luce,” she said, as she always did.
“Careful is boring,” Lucy replied with a laugh. Lois knew she was just teasing, but she couldn’t respond in kind.
She gave her sister a serious look. “Trust me, Luce: There’s a lot to be said for boring.”
_________________________________
Lois made a point of being early to work the next day, hoping that she could get a cup of coffee and be settled at her desk before Clark came in. Early wasn’t early enough, however: When she stepped off the elevator, she immediately saw Clark standing near the coffee pot talking with Perry.
“...know it’s not very exciting,” she heard Perry say, “but let’s see what you can do with it. You do well with these kinds of stories and some of the more exciting assignments will start to fall your way.”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. White,” Clark said.
“Good man,” Perry said, clapping Clark on the back. “And listen, Kent - enough of this ‘Mr. White’ stuff, okay? Folks around here call me ‘Perry’ or ‘Chief’. Well, that’s what they call me to my face, anyway.” He chuckled heartily. “Expect they call me some other names when they think I can’t hear ‘em.”
“I certainly have,” Lois muttered, as she reached her desk. She was annoyed at Perry, who suddenly wasn’t treating Clark like a ‘provisional’ employee at all. He was treating him like someone he expected to have around for a while, someone who was going to be growing into his job and playing in the monthly poker games. And that was just unthinkable.
She wished she’d had the foresight to stop and get coffee on her way in, but she hadn’t expected Clark to be there yet, and she’d been sure she could get some from the office pot before he arrived. But no, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Clark was settling into his desk, once again effectively blocking her from the coffee service. It shouldn’t have been a big deal; he wouldn’t expect her to talk to him anyway, and all she had to do was to walk by him and pour herself a cup of coffee. It was a normal, everyday activity that now seemed as daunting as scaling Mount Everest or swimming the English Channel or...or...some other very hard thing she had no intention of doing.
It was impossible to come up with decent similes without coffee, for goodness’ sake.
So she would do this. She would just pick up her cup...that’s what she would do. Then she would march right over to the coffee pot, which was as much hers as it was anyone’s and a damn sight more hers than it was Clark Kent’s, who was only supposed to be provisional anyway. She would calmly pour herself some coffee and would even take the time to add the artificial sweetener and creamer she always used. She might even take a sip right there, right next to him, so that he could see that his being there didn’t bother her – not one little bit.
Yep, she would do this. She grasped her lipstick-smudged grey cup as if it were the Holy Grail (and there she went with the similes again...) and calmly stood up. She turned in the direction of the coffee pot, but her eyes seemed to want to go everywhere else in the room, flitting from one thing to another and so obviously not looking in the direction of Clark Kent that she suddenly felt ridiculous. How would she normally look while going to get a cup of coffee? Did she just head straight over there, head held high, or did she look at the ground, or did she glance around the newsroom to see who had arrived? She felt herself begin to panic as she realized that she had no idea. How could she look normal when she couldn’t remember what normal was?
She paused and looked down at her dirty coffee cup while her mind raced through the possibilities. She should probably look in the direction she was going, she decided. She didn’t have any memories of crashing into people on the way to the coffee pot, and she had no intention of starting today, with Clark there as a witness.
She raised her head, determined to just do it, and she was immediately arrested by a pair of soulful brown eyes. He was staring at her, with something in his face that made her breath hitch and her heart start to pound. He was hurting. She knew this from one glance, though she couldn’t have said how, and just like the day before when they’d watched the Messenger explode, she had an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to him, to offer what comfort she could. Odd, that, since the night before she’d been desperately wanting his comfort and been so sure that he was strong enough to handle anything.
He held her gaze, not pretending that he wasn’t watching her. He had promised not to speak to her, she remembered dizzily, but he’d never promised he wouldn’t look, and what was the point of not speaking if every feeling he’d ever had was allowed to blaze forth from his eyes?
Coffee. She’d meant to get coffee, not to stand in the middle of the newsroom exchanging tortured glances with Clark. She bit her lip and shook her head slightly, almost in apology. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t get that close to him – not now.
She turned back to her desk. Put her coffee cup back in it’s spot on the corner. Opened her briefcase and dragged out Platt’s notes. And all the while, she felt the weight of that look – that look that had seemed to beg for some kind of help, some kind of relief that she instinctively knew was in her power to give.
She booted up her computer and began to type up her notes from the night before, even as her mind worked on formulating a plan for the next part of the investigation. It was her usual routine, and it calmed her slightly. She would not think about Clark. She would think about work and nothing else. She was squinting at her notes, trying to make out her own handwriting, when she felt his presence beside her.
It startled her so much that she gasped, loud enough for him to hear. She stared at him, wide-eyed and speechless, stunned that he had approached her. She was so focused on his face that she hardly noticed when he set down a steaming Styrofoam cup and then reached into his pocket to pull out an assortment of little packets – sweeteners and creamers – and a plastic stirrer.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked in your coffee.” He sounded almost apologetic, as if he’d somehow been remiss, but she was still at least two steps behind.
“What?” she asked, because what he had said was so far removed from anything she’d expected to hear from him – not that she’d expected to hear anything at all.
“You shouldn’t have to give up coffee because of me,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t....” She began her denial and then gave it up just as quickly. They’d both know she was lying. She looked down at the cup on her desk, at the pile of little packets. “Thank you.”
A smile touched his lips, there and gone much too fast. “You’re welcome.”
And without another word, he walked away, back to his desk and whatever mundane story Perry had assigned him. Lois, her heart still pounding from his nearness, from the fact that they’d exchanged a few simple words, reached for packets of artificial sweetener and powdered whitener and ripped them open, dumping them into the coffee and feeling at once even more guilty than she had before, but also relieved.
Maybe they could actually do this. Maybe they could even – one day – be friends. Maybe he didn’t hate her as much as she deserved to be hated. Maybe when he’d said he wasn’t like most men, he’d actually been telling the truth.
As she sipped carefully at the coffee he’d brought her, she felt something that had been clenched tight inside her begin to relax, just a little.
