Lois’ mouth was set in a firm line. Those who knew her well knew Lois was in her ‘Mad Dog Lane’ mode. No more weeping over broken hearts or caped men. Luthor had to be stopped.
“Alice, I need your help.”
************************
A light morning breeze sent ripples through the sea of corn, caressing his upturned face. Dressed in a worn pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt that fit his trim figure snugly, Clark hovered a foot of the ground in the middle of the corn field, letting the moving air gently sway him back and forth. However, neither the rocking of the wind or the re-energizing rays of the sun was providing any comfort.
His sensitive ears picked up the sounds of two people going about their morning routine. Training his eyes on his childhood home, he saw that his parents were up and getting ready for breakfast.
Lowering himself to the ground, Clark thrust his hands in his pockets and headed for the farmhouse.
Upon entering the cosy kitchen Clark accepted the hug Martha gave him and noted with surprise the extra place set at the table.
“Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you. Come and sit down while I give you two men some breakfast.” Martha said as she let go of Clark and began placing freshly made pancakes on the table.
“Thanks, Mom. How did you know I was going to be here?” Clark asked, enjoying the fresh aroma coming from the table. No-one knew how to cook pancakes like his mom.
“Call it a hunch. I take it your talk with Lois didn’t go so well.”
Grimacing, Clark paused in his syrup pouring to answer. “No, you could probably call it a disaster actually.”
“What happened, son?” Jonathan asked.
“Before or after she declared her undying love to me?”
“Oh, Clark, that’s wonderful!” Martha exclaimed.
“No, mom, it’s not.”
Puzzled, Jonathan asked “Why not, Son? Isn’t that what you were hoping for?”
Sighing, Clark pushed his plate away, his appetite gone. Collecting his thoughts, Clark began telling his parents what had happened the day before, beginning with his declaration of love for Lois, and ending with his accusations and abrupt exit as Superman from Lois’ apartment.
“So you see, Dad, she wasn’t declaring her love to me, Clark, but to Superman.”
“But Clark, you are Superman,” Jonathan pointed out, with Martha nodding her agreement.
“No, Superman’s what I can do, not who I am. He’s just a cardboard cut-out who swoops in to save the day then disappears. I want Lois to love me, for who I am, not for my powers.”
“But your powers are part of who you are, Clark.” Jonathan argued. “How can you ask Lois to love you when you don’t let her know who you are?”
“Dad, you’re the one who tells me no one should know.”
“You’re right, but this is different.”
Clark looked at the concerned faces of his two parents. How could he make them understand? All his life he wanted to be normal, to fit in, to belong. Now that desire was more focused, he wanted to be a part of Lois Lane’s life, to belong to her, as her life-partner, her soul-mate. It was an insecurity that had dogged him his whole life. He needed Lois to love the human side of him, not worship the super powers his alien heritage gave him
His mother’s voice caught his attention, “Clark, she does love you. Just because she’s only able to tell that to you when you’re in the suit doesn’t make her feelings any less real. She loves all of you, Clark, she just isn’t able to tell you that yet, the Clark you.” Martha threw her hands up into the air. “Now you’ve got me confused, trying to talk about you as if you were two separate people.”
Jonathan added his weight to Martha’s argument. “The poor girl must be so confused. You spend a year convincing her that you are two separate people, one a work colleague, the other a superhero and then you get upset when she tells you she’s in love with you because she tells the safe version of you.”
“Huh? Dad, what are you talking about?” Clark removed his glasses and rubbed the bridged of his nose. Trying to keep up with his parents’ references to him as Clark and Superman was confusing to say the least.
“What I mean is, telling a Superhero you love him is a lot different to telling a work colleague you love him”
“But how can she expect to have any relationship with Superman, Dad? She’d be a constant target for every criminal; the media wouldn’t leave her alone. It just isn’t feasible.”
“I think Lois’ realises that, and that’s why she can tell Superman she loves him, but not Clark.” Jonathan said gently.
Clark looked at his mother who was now sitting down next to Jonathan. She seemed to understand what his dad was on about. Pity he didn’t have a clue.
“Clark, what would happen if Lois told you she loved you?” Martha asked.
Clark blinked. That was obvious. Why was his mom asking him that? “Well, we’d probably start dating, see how things went and hopefully get married. Live happily ever after and all that.”
“Exactly.” Martha replied smugly, as though that answered all his problems.
“Huh?” Clark asked for the second time. Clearly he was missing something that was very obvious to his parents. That or he had just arrived too early. Maybe he should go and do some chores and come back in an hour. Maybe they would be making more sense by then. Yeah and maybe pigs fly.
*****************
Looking at her son rubbing the bridge of his nose again, Martha took a deep breath. How was she to make him understand? Her eyes wandered over the breakfast table where the now cold pancakes sat. Martha wasn’t fussed about Clark telling Lois to investigate Luthor; she hadn’t been able to work out why he hadn’t done so before as Superman.
Martha sat up straight. Luthor! Why had they forgotten about his involvement in all this? Suddenly trying to get Clark to realise Lois did love him didn’t seem as urgent. Given enough time, and a clunk on that hard head of his, Clark was sure to realise what she already knew. Lois did love Clark, but was afraid to say it. No, stopping Lois from marrying Luthor was the key priority.
Squaring her shoulders, Martha put on her best ‘I’m your mother and you better listen to me’ face.
“Clark, Lois loves you. Whether you can see that or not is beside the point at the moment. Right now, you need to stop her from marrying Luthor. I think telling her to investigate Luthor was a good thing. I can understand that you are hurt at the moment, and confused, but you need to put that aside and focus on helping Lois.”
“She’s right, Son.” Jonathan chimed in. “Luthor’s a monster, and you need to protect Lois from him.”
Martha watched with pride as the dejected man before her transformed. Clark’s eyes took a steely glint and he sat up straighter in his chair. “You’re right, Mom. I need to stop worrying about myself and start thinking of Lois.”
Martha placed her hands over Clark’s. “Honey, if anyone can stop Luthor, it’s the two of you.”
*********************
Alice White’s living room looked similar to the mess Lois Lane had woken up to that morning, except where Lois’ paper-strewn room had resulted from destruction, Alice’s living room was a hub of creativity.
Stacked haphazardly against the coffee table leg was a pile of yellow legal files, the table itself covered with notes, lists, computer print-offs and two coffee mugs, one half-filled with cold coffee. Unlike Lois’ designer settees, Alice’s couch was broad and comfy.
Alice and Lois sat on the tan cushions, their heads bent over a hand-drawn sketch, similar to a spider’s web, with names jotted down at various junctions.
“Johnson’s case can be linked to David O’Hara,” Alice said as she drew another line between two of the names on the ‘spider map’.
Leaning back in a satisfied manner, Lois stretched her arms above her head, stifling a yawn. A rumbling sound from her tummy advertising the passage of time.
The two women had worked tirelessly throughout the day only grabbing a quick sandwich for lunch and devouring cup after cup of coffee. At some stage, Alice had called her office to let them know she wasn’t coming in and to arrange for some files to be sent by courier to her house. Lois hadn’t even bothered calling LNN. Some instinct told her it would be better if no-one knew where she was spending her day.
When Alice and Lois had first come up with the names of several lawyers who appeared to be on the take, Lois had wanted to go after them there and then, follow up the leads, get outside and start digging. Only Alice’s persuasive argument to draw up the ‘spider map’, a tool Lois had never used before, had stopped her from rushing into the investigation.
Now looking at the result of their day’s work, Lois had to admit Alice had been right. Had she just chased after the first few names Alice had mentioned, Lois would have never noticed the overall pattern that had emerged. Alice’s planning had saved her a lot of time.
The spider map was simple, yet ingenious. First, Alice had written the name of a lawyer she knew to be on the take. Then, drawing radiating lines out from the circled name, Alice had connected each line to the name of a case, company or another lawyer somehow associated with the first lawyer. Red lines had been used to connect companies to the lawyers and green lines for court cases.
While there were over fifty cases written in green for cases, and a similar number of red companies, there were only half a dozen black circles encasing lawyer names. A few lines in purple led to two judges, and several blue lines ended with a circle encasing the words “police corruption?”
Looking at the spider map, Lois shook her head in amazement. How had she missed seeing Lex for what he was? The sheer number of companies and the broad range of businesses that they covered, from scientific firms, import, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and even charity-orientated businesses, showed that it wasn’t simply one or two opportunistic employees causing trouble. No, this had to be organized from the top.
Superman was right. Lex was a criminal. A stab of guilt made her think of Clark. He had known, and she had ignored him, assuming it was jealously. Why had she been so quick to pass off Clark’s warnings as jealously, and yet been so surprised when he had declared his love for her? Since when had her instincts gone so awry?
Always the career woman, never seeking or wanting the love of a man - that was Lois Lane. ‘Or had been,’ she reflected ruefully. Only yesterday, she had been considering marrying a man she didn’t love, had her best friend declare his undying love for her and had the only man she could ever love bite her head off. What was she to do?
*********************
Alice flexed her shoulder muscles and caught herself wishing Perry was there to give one of his wonderful massages. The day’s work had been tiring, but worth it. For the first time in a long time, Alice had begun to hope that maybe Luthor could be stopped. The years of gathering what little scraps of evidence she could find, coupled with Lois’ amazing deductive abilities and information, had given them a starting point.
Looking over to where Lois sat, Alice noticed a frown crease Lois’ face. Alice had always liked Lois, but today they seemed to have clicked. Maybe it was their joint desire to stop Luthor, or the mutual respect they felt for each other, especially after witnessing Lois’ skill in linking what appeared to be unrelated events. Alice suspected, at least for her part, it was having another woman to talk to that made the difference.
“Want to talk about it?” Alice asked tentatively.
“Men!” responded Lois. “Ahhhh! They’re enough to drive you mad.”
Alice smiled as Lois threw her hands up in exasperation. Here was a topic she knew a lot about.
“Tell me about it. Married over thirty years and I still don’t have my man worked out,” laughed Alice. The day’s work had taken away the resentment she had felt earlier towards Perry. Their argument earlier on that week about going to Graceland for Perry’s early retirement trip no-longer hovered at the back of her mind.
“You know Alice, I just don’t get it. I’m the youngest ever reporter to win three Kerth awards and top investigative reporter at the Daily Planet, and yet I’ve misjudged the three most important men in my life. How can I be so blind?”
“Oh, Lois, that’s just the way love is. Our hearts don’t work like our minds. We can know all the facts, decide a course of action, set all sorts of rules, but when love comes a knocking… well, there’s nothing we can do about it. I know.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of Alice’s mouth as she thought back to her younger days when Perry was courting her. Memories she hadn’t visited for a long time.
“I refused to see Perry’s love for me, all the small acts of kindness, notes, helping me out, supporting me when I thought I would never make it as a lawyer. It took a year for me to realise what I was feeling was love, and another year for Perry to woo me around to accepting his proposal. I don’t know if it was the single red roses he would send to my office every day or the endless Elvis love songs that got me in the end.”
The look on Lois’ face told Alice that Elvis’ songs from Perry were common. The hesitation as Lois’ asked her next question made Alice realise she had hit upon a raw topic for the young reporter.
“How did you know Perry was the one?”
“Oh, darling, you just know. I couldn’t stop thinking about Perry, even when I was mad at him. I missed him when he wasn’t around, he made me laugh and he taught me everything there is to know about Elvis and Graceland, and I had thought I was a huge fan!”
Lois fidgeted in her seat, obviously unaware of the rhythmic tapping sound her fingers were making on the table top.
“Oh, honey, you’ve got it bad,” Alice drawled.
“What? Got what bad? I don’t have anything bad. In fact, I think we should do something about dinner, don’t you? I mean it’s awfully late, and we’ve been hard at it all day, and my legs are stiff, maybe we should walk down to the nearest take-out? Where is the nearest take-out? Do you like take-out or are you one of those cooking types? Alice, why are you looking at me like that?”
Amazed, Alice shook her head in disbelief. “I never knew someone could say so much in one breath”.
Lois’ cheeks reddened. “Oh, I’m babbling again, aren’t I? Clark’s always teasing me about that”.
“Clark? He’s that incredibly good looking man Perry teamed you up with?” Alice asked not-so innocently.
“No, I mean yes, I mean…no, he was my partner, but well, since the Planet’s demise we’ve kinda gone our own ways. Besides, he’s not that good looking,” stammered Lois.
“Not that good looking? I might be married Lois, but I’m not dead.” Pausing a moment in thought, Alice continued, “So, he’s the one you’ve got it bad for.”
“Clark! And me? No way, I mean, we’re good friends, and yeah, he’s O.K. looking, but no, I mean he did declare his love for me, but that’s just a misunderstanding…”
Alice cut in. “He declared his love for you? What did you tell him? What do you mean a misunderstanding?”
“Well, he can’t love me, not really, I mean I’m not that nice a person, and I’ve said such horrible things to him in the past, and I’ve never encouraged him in anyway, except maybe for that time I danced the dance of the seven veils, besides, I’m always telling him how much I love Superman…”
“The Dance of the Seven Veils! What on earth would make you do that if you didn’t have feelings for him?”
“Oh, it wasn’t me, it was the pheromone perfume. Anyhow, I hit on Clark for two days and he never once kissed me.”
“Two days! You sure he’s a girl-type of guy? Maybe he prefers a different sort of action.” Alice replied with a grin.
“He’s definitely a girl-type of guy, Alice. I mean, that time I kissed him just before we were thrown out of the aeroplane, well, it made my body tingle.”
Something about the pheromone spray niggled at Alice’s memory. “Rahalia! You mean that spray affected you as well, Lois? I thought Perry had made that up as an excuse. Best excuse I ever heard of, mind you. I thought Perry had started to go astray and gotten some of the boys to print off a fake copy of the Daily Planet when he realised he couldn’t get away with it. It was only Perry’s amazing grovelling skills that had stopped me from filing for divorce. Despite all our ups and downs, until then, Perry had never done anything to lead me to doubt his love for me, or his faithfulness.”
The hurt that Alice had felt when she had found out Perry was looking at another woman lessened as she listened to Lois give her account of the pheromone spray.
“So you see, Alice, the spray lowered people’s inhibitions. Like you mentioned before, you’re married, not dead. Perry must have felt some attraction to Rahalia; yet, despite working in the same building for over a year, it was only after he was sprayed that Perry made any advancement towards Rahalia and as soon as it wore off, he was devastated by what he had done.”
‘Poor Perry, I’ve been as bad as he has,’ thought Alice. ‘I should have believed what he told me, no matter how far-fetched it sounded.’ Relieved at finding out her husband had not betrayed her softened Alice’s heart and the hard shell she had built over it began to crack. Maybe it wasn’t over between them, despite what Perry had told her. ‘Was it only a week ago that Perry left for Graceland?’ Somehow, it seemed so much longer to Alice.
Abruptly Alice got up from the couch. “You’re right, Lois. We need food. I can cook, but tonight I think I could do with a nice three-course meal, my treat. What do you say to Indian?”
****************************
The sounds of the city’s night-life greeted the two women as they began their three block trek to the Taj Agra Indian restaurant. The smell of Thai, Chinese, pizza, Mexican and other aromas enticed Alice and Lois as they rounded the corner onto Central Avenue, a well known area for eating, where you could get just about any type of food you could imagine. Lois had occasionally come here to get food for Bobby Big Mouth and knew of the quality available. However, tonight, her mind was on other things, in particular Clark and how he made her feel.
Lois’ mind went back to her first take-out with Clark – Chinese in bamboo containers. ‘Where *did* he get that from? Why didn’t he listen to my warning not to fall for me?’
Clark’s reaction when she showed him some leg and the way he had refused to take advantage of her while she was under the influence of the Pheromone spray.
Their ‘honeymoon’ while they were on stake-out for Congressman Harrington.
The way her heart had lurched when Clark had quit during the heat-wave. ‘I don’t know who I would have missed more, Superman or Clark’. Even as she asked herself that question, the answer came: ‘Clark’ her heart told her. ‘He’s the one who’s really there for you, who listens to you when you doubt yourself, who cheers you up, who teases you, who…loves you’.
Alice’s journey was also full of reflection. Recounting Perry’s courting to Lois had opened a floodgate of happy memories she had left buried in her heart. Memories that, until then, had seemed bitter-sweet, a mockery of her current love-life. Even the ache in her heart, caused by Perry’s refusal to believe her about Luthor, had dimmed, The chance to prove herself right had finally arrived.
As Alice thought back on happier times, a more recent memory surfaced. Perry standing in the apartment’s foyer, his bags packed with a scowl on his face. It had been one of their biggest fights.
Alice had told Perry that it seemed a bit strange that a world renowned paper, which regularly scooped every other paper - had such financial problems that Lex Luthor had to purchase it to save it from going under. Not to mention, the unlikelihood that a reformed street kid would blow up his chance to hold down a job and provide a future for his kid brother.
Typically, Perry had exploded at her mention of Luthor. Feeling once again, that Perry wouldn’t listen to her, she had told him that if he didn’t consider her opinion worth anything, then he could go to Graceland without her – a trip they had both been planning and looking forward to since the boys had left home.
Perry’s face had turned red, but instead of yelling at her, he had taken a deep breath, picked up his battered suitcases, put on his fishing hat and opened the front door. Pausing before he walked out, Perry had said the five worst words Alice had ever heard.
“I guess it’s over then.”
And with that, he had gone.
Alice’s thoughts were interrupted as she realised they were standing outside the Taj Agra, it’s spicy smells wafting out though the open doors of the restaurant.
Waving aside her sombre mood, Alice linked her arm in Lois’ and together they entered the restaurant. Tonight she would let her hair down and enjoy the chance to get to know Lois better, gossip about men and generally relax. Something she hadn’t done in a long time.
