Chapter Nine
>>>Thursday, 6:14 PM
Clark awoke with a taste of well-used sweat socks and old buffalo tracks in his mouth and sunlight slanting through the living room window onto his face. He sat up, glanced at the mantle clock, and realized that he’d slept most of the day.
He almost dropped the picture in his lap, then he gently set it on the living room table. His fingers brushed the glass directly over the image of Lana’s face.
Then he stood. It was time to do some housecleaning and some laundry. His shirts were starting to smell a little funky.
He changed clothes, shaved, and brushed his teeth in seconds. The towering pile of dirty dishes was gone in six minutes. The furniture was dusted and the carpet vacuumed in another eight. He started a load of towels and socks in the washer, then he opened the refrigerator to see what he had for dinner.
As he leaned down, someone knocked on his front door. A neighbor? He’d only waved and said ‘hello’ to the few people living in the building, most of whom apparently preferred to keep to them themselves. His parents? No, surely they would have phoned first. He picked up his glasses from the dining room table and decided to be surprised.
He tugged the door open. He was surprised. “Hi, Clark! Come on, let’s go!”
“Lois?”
“Yep. Come on, there’s a party over at Rebecca’s and she asked me to bring a nice guy along and you’re the most innocuous guy I know so let’s go!”
“Wait! Who’s Rebecca?”
She grabbed his hand. “A friend of mine. She’s a receptionist at LexCorp and they’re having a party with some dangerous boys and good music and lots of interesting things to do.”
“Dangerous boys? I’m not sure – “
She pulled him into the hall. “Come on, don’t be a stick in the mud! They’re going to start without us if we don’t hurry!”
He looked down at his sweats. “I have to change first.”
“Well, go ahead! Wear black if you have some clean stuff. You can – “ and he whirled away, only to reappear two seconds later, wearing black slacks, black loafers, and a black long-sleeved dress shirt.
She looked him up and down and whistled. “Well, if that doesn’t impress them, nothing will.”
*****
“Lois, I’m still not sure – “
She threw him a fake frown that he saw through immediately. “We’re almost here! Stop whining!”
He put a nasal whine in his voice, trying to sound like every bad-tempered four-year-old he’d ever heard. “But I don’t wanna have fun!”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Yes, you do.”
“Are we there yet?”
“We’re almost there. Get ready to have fun.”
“I told you I didn’t want to have fun!”
She stopped in front of an apartment door and smiled. “Too late, we’re here.”
Rebecca answered almost as soon as Lois knocked. “Hi, Lois! You must be Clark! It’s good to meet you!”
The noise level in the hallway went up when the door opened, but not deafeningly so. And the music, surprisingly, was a mix of light pop and easy country, not the aggressive hard rock or blues Clark had expected to hear.
The redhead in the doorway smiled at them. “Come on in, you two! I want you to meet the gang.”
Lois pulled off the windbreaker she’d been wearing and asked, “Where can I put this, Becca?”
Rebecca took it. “I’ll take care of it.” She pointed to the kitchen area. “Drinks, snacks, sandwiches, salads, and chicken strips on the table. Glasses on the cabinet beside the sink, ice in the freezer, drinks in the fridge. Help yourself. Oh, down the hall and last door on the right is the bathroom.”
Lois looked around and nodded. “This – isn’t quite what I expected.”
Rebecca laughed. “Let me introduce you to the Dangerous Boys.”
Clark tilted his head. “You say that as if it were a title of some kind.”
“It’s kind of an unofficial club name. Now you two come with me and I’ll introduce you around.”
Rebecca led them into the living area and pointed to a long folding table set up against the far wall. “The tall fellow with the buzz cut is Gandalf. The short and rotund one with the funky Afro next to him is Harry Potter, and the lovely young lady on the end is Morgana. Hey, gang, this is Lois and Clark.”
The short, slender young black woman at the table looked around and spared them a curt nod. The two young men didn’t take their eyes from the computer monitors on the table.
Rebecca stepped between Clark and Lois and put one hand on each inside shoulder. “Don’t be offended. That’s about how they treat me unless they’ve found something. Oh, I almost forgot. Our other dangerous boy is in the bathroom right now. When he comes out you can say hello to Prince Edmund of Narnia. He isn’t quite as good a programmer as the rest of them, but he’s top-notch at gathering data that other people don’t want made public.”
Lois lifted an eyebrow. “These are the dangerous boys you warned me about?”
Rebecca laughed. “Don’t worry. The only danger they present is to outlaw computer networks and crackers.”
Lois lifted her other eyebrow. “What’s a cracker?”
“A cracker is a bad guy hacker, the kind that sneaks into private companies or government databases and sells whatever he learns to the highest bidder, or maybe just trashes files and ruins people’s weeks. This bunch isn’t a bit like that. All of them except Edmund are working on a master’s degree in computer science, and they’re so disgustingly law-abiding that they won’t even park downtown without feeding the meter. In fact, they helped the FBI break a ring of computer bank thieves about three months ago.”
“Really? I don’t remember hearing about it.”
Rebecca put her finger to her lips and lowered her voice. “That’s because neither the Dangerous Boys nor the banks want any publicity. The FBI arrested all those folks on other charges, so our part in the investigation isn’t public knowledge.” She patted Lois on the shoulder. “Anyway, they walk their own virtual glory road just because they can, not because they want to be famous.”
Clark turned to Lois. “Gandalf, Morgana, Edmund, and Harry. I think we’ve fallen into a collision of fantasy novels and legends.”
Rebecca laughed again. “It seems like that to me sometimes, too. Come get something to drink and – wait, here’s Edmund.”
They looked down the hallway to see Jimmy Olsen approaching. He barely glanced at them as he walked towards the table, then jerked to a stop and spun to face them. “CK! Lois! What are you two doing here?”
“Rebecca invited us.” Lois leaned closer and grinned. “Are you – surely you’re not Prince Edmund?”
Jimmy reddened and scuffed his toe. “Uh, yeah, I am. See, we all use these screen names when we’re online, and it’s just as easy for us to call each by those names when we’re physically together as it is to remember our real names.”
The tall, lean-to-the-point-of-emaciated youth who Rebecca had called Gandalf turned his head and growled, “My real name’s Raoul Futterman. Understand now?”
Clark shrugged. “Futterman’s not exactly a terrible name.”
“Maybe not, but it doesn’t have the sizzle that Gandalf does. Besides, I really am a wizard at this.”
Clark grinned back at him. “I’ll have to take your word for it. Can one of you tell me just what you’re being wizardly at tonight?”
Morgana spoke up. “We’re correlating migration data for a particular species of squid, one that lives in and around the Caribbean Sea. We’ve got about thirty months worth of numbers to crunch through to find a pattern, and so far we’re not having much luck. Either one of you two know anything about statistics?”
Clark shook his head in the negative, but Lois nodded. “I’ve done some work in it.”
Rebecca tilted her head to one side. “Since college?”
“I did the analysis for some of my father’s grant requests.”
Morgana frowned at her. “What field?”
“Medicine.”
“Be more specific.”
“Patient recovery from surgery, use and maintenance and replacement of prosthetic limbs.”
“Current stuff?”
“He got a grant from the Superman Foundation this past spring. Some of the work I did for him I also used in my master’s program.”
“You have the degree yet?”
Lois grinned. “It’s a work in progress. I expect to finish by the end of next summer.”
Morgana indicated the empty chair beside her. “Sounds like a winner to me. Set it down and put it to work, hon.”
As Lois cautiously took her seat, Jimmy wailed, “Hey, that’s my chair!”
Morgana shrugged. “You weren’t helping me that much. Go bother Harry for a while. Maybe you can crash his simulation instead.” She smiled an evil smile. “Or maybe he’ll go out with you if you promise him a seafood dinner.”
As the rest of the group howled in laughter, Jimmy frowned but obeyed. Rebecca tapped Clark on the shoulder and wiggled a finger for him to follow.
She stopped at the dining room table and turned to watch. “Are you enjoying yourself so far?”
Clark chuckled. “I like watching people enjoy themselves. I think you’ve got a collection of people having tons of fun.”
She poured a glass of ginger ale and sipped it. “Well, these four nerds are definitely in their element right now. I can’t imagine they’d enjoy anything else more.”
“Are you sure they’re not just banging their heads against a digital wall?”
She smiled. “No, I’m not, but they’re not ready to quit.” She lifted her glass again and leaned against the table. “For that matter, I’m not ready to quit either.”
“How much progress have you made so far?”
“This is the fourth night this month we’ve tried to analyze this mound of data. Haven’t gotten anything satisfactory yet.”
Clark picked up a chicken finger and munched it. “Who collected the data?”
“One of my marine biology professors took the project over from another instructor who got tenure at the Chicago School of Engineering. My professor almost passed out when he saw how much work was left undone. There’s over thirty months of data and practically no analysis was ever done. He got together with the computer science dean and they came up with a graduate project to make sense of it all.”
“I see. What do you expect to find?”
“I hope to see a seasonal migratory pattern for the squid. I think they follow the migration of the fish they feed on, but I can’t prove it yet. I also think they break away from that pattern during mating season, but once again I can’t prove it.” She sipped at her ginger ale. “At least, not yet. And, if we can finish this monster sometime soon, not only would we have a high-class master’s project, we could get our names in some very prestigious peer review publications.”
Clark poured himself a glass of cola and lifted it in a toast. “To a successful analysis.”
Rebecca smiled and tapped his glass with hers. “Hear, hear.” She swallowed and shook her hair about. “Hey, I just realized we haven’t been properly introduced yet. I’m Rebecca Connors.”
Clark sketched a slight bow in return. “Pleased to meet you, Rebecca. I’m Clark Kent.”
“Hi, Clark. Are you Lois’s boyfriend? You don’t sound French.”
Clark almost spit out the sip of soda he’d just taken. He grabbed for a napkin and wiped his chin as he laughed. “No, no, I’m from Kansas! You must be thinking about Claude.”
“Oh, right, I remember now. You seem much nicer than Lois described Claude, too. So, how well do you know Lois?”
Clark pondered the question for a moment, long enough for Rebecca to look at him more closely. “We work together,” he finally said. “We’re both reporters for the Daily Planet.”
“Uh-huh. Not that I’m trying to pry, you understand, but might you two be something more than that?”
“Yes, we are more than that.” He faced her and spoke with confidence. “We’re friends.”
Rebecca nodded and smiled. “That’s good. I get the feeling that Lois needs all the friends she can find.”
He nodded in return. “I think that’s true for all of us.”
Just then, Harry lifted his arms above his head and shouted incoherently, his Asian features twisted with frustration. Gandalf slapped his forehead and groaned. Morgana shouted, “You two quit showing off! I think I’ve got something here.”
Rebecca almost leaped across the room. “What is it?”
Morgana pointed at the screen, which looked like a simple cluster of random numbers to Clark. “I think this is the mating season here. They break away from the food migration patterns and hole up here in shallower water for about two weeks, then start following the food again.”
Rebecca shook her head. “We’ve seen that pattern before, Morg. That’s not proof.”
Lois asked, “Do you have any data on the babies?”
Morgana scowled. “No, and that’s one of the problems. I think this is spawning behavior, but I can’t prove it unless I can show some babies here in about three months.”
Rebecca sighed dramatically. “Once again, unless you have some proof, all we have is a hypothesis.”
Morgana spun in her chair to face Rebecca. “Then let’s make that assumption and see if the data supports it.”
“We can’t report assumptions without hard data! The master’s committee would toss us out on our ears! Why not – “
Lois broke in. “Rebecca, wait. Why can’t you make the assumption and test it against the data?”
Gandalf blew a raspberry. “Our faculty sponsors won’t let us do stuff like that, Lois. They’d cream our submission if we reported a conclusion based on an assumption.”
“But what if you find predators there when the baby squids hatch?”
The rest of the group stared at her uncomprehendingly until Harry muttered, “Say that again, will you?”
Lois nodded. “You know about baby sea turtles, right? It’s just like that!”
The four computer geeks, plus Rebecca and Clark, all returned blank looks, so she continued, “This pattern is similar to the events accompanying the birth of sea turtles, when gulls and fish and other small game predators gather for the swarm of baby turtles rushing to the ocean. It’s a feast for everyone but the turtles.”
Harry slowly nodded. “So, if we find a concentration of predators – “
“You’ve probably found the breeding grounds, too.” Lois continued as Harry turned and began typing furiously. “Rabbit babies attract foxes and weasels and such. Why wouldn’t baby squids attract ocean predators, especially if their parents go back to the same spot year after year?”
Morgana shrugged. “It might work. We’d have to be certain – “
Harry threw his arms up and howled. “Hoo, baby, that’s it! That’s got it!”
Morgana turned her scowl on him. “Look, if you can’t behave around guests – “
“The babies! I got the babies!”
Everyone leaned in as Harry began gesturing excitedly. “Look! Right here, about three months after Morgana found this static concentration, you’ve also got a gathering of predators, birds, small sharks, barracuda, and stuff like that in the same place, just like Lois said! They – “
“So what?” Morgana interrupted. “We’re looking for squid babies, not sea gulls and sharks!”
Harry’s brow darkened. “That’s what I’m telling you! They’re gathering to feed on baby squid!”
Everyone leaned forward to compare the numbers on the two screens. Lois was the first to speak. “I don’t know this data as well as you guys do, but I think Harry’s got something here.”
Rebecca straightened and took a deep breath. “You sure? This is master’s degree research. I’d hate for us to turn this in and get it back with red marks all over it.”
“Yeah,” muttered Gandalf, “like it bled to death.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime, but I know I’m right about this. Can anyone explain to these helium-brained micro-focused hydrocephalic ninnies what I’m talking about?”
Clark and Lois both paused, startled both by the insult and the time it took them to translate it. Rebecca saw their faces and laughed. “Hey, you two, it’s okay! These four insult each other like that a lot. It’s almost a contest to see who can come up with the most creative combinations.”
Clark lifted his eyebrows. “Helium-brained?”
Rebecca grinned at him. “You know, a light thinker?”
He grinned back. “Yes, I understand. Pretty good for something off the cuff.”
She cocked one eyebrow. “Harry’s not that quick with a quip. He was probably saving it for just such an occasion as this.”
Harry exhaled noisily. “Can we dissect my motivations later? I want to hear what this very smart lady has to say about my brilliant idea.”
“Your brilliant idea? What about Lois’s input?”
Lois frowned. “That wasn’t much, Becca. All I did was mention the reproductive cycle of sea turtles.”
“Shh!” hissed Gandalf and Morgana together,
No one moved for long moments, until Rebecca finally smiled. “That’s it.” Her face lit up. “That’s got to be it!” She grabbed Lois by the shoulders and shook her. “You’re right! You’re right! I knew you could help, Lois!”
Lois steadied herself and shook her head. “I didn’t actually do anything.”
“Sure you did! You asked the right question at the right time. That’s the mark of a good scientist.”
Jimmy nodded enthusiastically. “It’s the mark of a good reporter, too.”
Morgana’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “Reporter?”
“Yeah! Clark and Lois are reporters at the Daily Planet! Didn’t you see the big story in the afternoon edition today?”
“About what?”
“About the carjacking ring! They broke the story and helped the police get the bad guys.” Jimmy looked around at four puzzled faces and sighed. “Look, you guys want me to get into your world, fine, but you need to at least acknowledge that mine exists.”
Morgana nodded. “He’s right this time, guys. Tell us about it, Edmund.”
Rebecca raised her hand. “I have a copy of today’s paper in the bedroom. I’ll get it and let you three ostriches read it.” Then her eyes opened wide and she spoke as if her audience was made up of preschoolers. “Or, if you’re really, really nice, and keep your crayons inside the lines, I can read it to you. Very slowly. And I’ll explain all the big words.”
The four Dangerous Boys stared at her for a moment, then Gandalf muttered, “Swirly.”
Harry said, “Ah! Swirly!”
Rebecca’s face showed alarm. “No! No way! No swirly!”
All four of them began chanting, “Swirly! Swirly! Swirly!”
Rebecca backed up. “Wait a minute. Not me! No swirly! No way, not this time!”
The quartet stood and stalked Rebecca as she backed across the room, still chanting, “Swirly! Swirly!”
Lois and Clark stood and looked at each other, profoundly puzzled, then together they turned to watch the tableau unfolding before them. Still chanting “Swirly, swirly,” the four cornered the protesting Rebecca, then picked her up and carried her down the hall and into the bathroom. Clark took a step towards them, but Lois put her hand in front of him and said, “Wait a second. I don’t think they’re going to hurt her.”
After a few seconds, they heard a scream of outrage, followed almost immediately by the sound of a toilet being flushed. Clark pulled his glasses down on his nose and began chuckling.
“What do you see?”
“Well – let’s just say it’s a good thing Rebecca isn’t wearing a dress.”
Lois’s eyebrows rose. “You mean she’s – “
“Head down and just about vertical. Whoops, she’s back on her feet and flipping wet hair around in all directions. Ha!”
“What? What ha?”
“Jimmy just got slapped in the face with Rebecca’s hair!”
As they shared a laugh, Jimmy led the quartet out of the bathroom at a gallop, followed by a very damp redhead with a towel folded for snapping at her oppressor’s hinder body parts. And she wielded it expertly, as attested to by several enthusiastic yelps of pain.
Morgana ran across the room and ducked down behind Clark. “Mercy!” she screamed.
Rebecca leaned around Clark and expertly popped Morgana on the seat of her pants. “No mercy for the givers of the swirly! Hah!”
Everyone laughed, including Morgana, who was rubbing her injured spot, and Rebecca’s retaliatory romp ended as she wrapped the towel around her hair. Jimmy stumbled and would have fallen if Lois hadn’t grabbed his arm. “Thanks. Whew! Haven’t had this much fun since my high school science club made a panty raid on the girl’s dorm at summer camp.”
Lois gave him a lopsided grin. “And the girls let you live?”
Jimmy laughed again. “We didn’t know it at the time, but the girls were on a boxer raid in our dorm. Everybody in camp went commando the next day.”
Lois patted his arm and stepped away. “Thanks, Edmund, but that’s actually way more information than I needed.”
Rebecca flipped the wrapped towel over her shoulder. “All right, you computer geniuses! Do you think you can write a program to print all that data for display and analysis?”
“Oh, yeah!” they chorused back.
“Then get started on it while I dry my hair. Harry, pick out some music to write code by.” She turned to her other guests. “Lois, will you and Clark be okay for a little while?”
Lois chuckled. “It hasn’t exactly been dull so far.”
Rebecca grinned. “Good. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”
“Don’t you want to wash that water out of your hair now?”
“Naw. I’ll just make them smell it if they get out of line again.”
Lois laughed as a Mary Chapin Carpenter disc began playing. Gandalf, Harry, and Morgana plopped themselves down in their chairs and each began typing furiously. Jimmy sat beside Morgana and nodded or made an occasional correction when she turned and motioned towards the screen with her hand or her head. The closed bedroom door muffled the roar of Rebecca’s hair dryer.
For several minutes, the only voices Lois and Clark heard were each other’s as they discussed work and the weather and how quickly Lois might be able to dry her hair – which was much shorter than Rebecca’s – should she suffer a catastrophic swirly. The relative silence, punctuated by the varied tapping of four pairs of hands on three keyboards, finally got to Lois. “You think they’d notice if you floated a couple of feet above the carpet?” she whispered to Clark.
He frowned at her. “I’m glad you respect my secret so highly.”
She grinned and lifted her glass to her lips, then spoke at a level only Clark could detect. “I don’t think they’d acknowledge us if you spun into costume right here and now.”
He crossed his arms and surveyed the scene before him, then shrugged. “Maybe you’re right,” he whispered back. “They do seem pretty focused. Even Jimmy.”
“You are referring to His Highness Prince Edmund, are you not?”
Just then, Rebecca came out of her bedroom. Her previously free-ranging hair was confined by a rubber band, and she’d changed her shirt. Lois glanced at Clark and saw him looking at Rebecca with a spark of interest, so she swallowed the comment she’d had on her tongue and tapped Rebecca on the shoulder as she passed by.
“Hey, Lois!” She lowered her voice as a chorus of hisses and waving hands greeted her from the computer side of the room. “Thanks for your help, girlfriend.”
Lois smiled and waved dismissively. “I didn’t do much, really.”
“On the contrary, you kick-started our collective brains. That data was right in front of us and we couldn’t see it. You deserve some of the credit.”
Before Lois could respond, Gandalf lifted his arms and shouted, “Yes! Done!” Then he pressed a key and leaned back as far as the chair would allow.
Harry slowly reached down and put his hand under Gandalf’s front chair leg, then yanked it up. But Clark was there to catch him before his shoulders and head hit the floor.
Harry hit several more keys, then spun around in his chair and crossed his arms. “I’m done too. And I bet my simulation will have a higher correlation factor than yours will.”
Gandalf stood and snarled, “That was completely unnecessary! If it hadn’t been for Samwise I might have been hurt!”
Harry pointed at Clark. “He’s Samwise Gamgee? Then who’s the brunette with him?”
Rebecca swept between them and spoke imperiously. “Hear me! I am the Lady Galadriel and I require that both of you obey me without question! Cease this senseless bickering at once!” She glared at each of them in turn and stepped out of character. “Now let’s get back to the real world, okay? It doesn’t matter who did what part of the project as long as the whole team succeeds. You think any of you could do by yourself what the whole team does? I doubt it. None of you know it all. You’re far stronger together than you are apart.”
She stared up into Gandalf’s nose. “You can look for personal glory another time and another place. Right now you work as a good team member. Got it?”
“Hey, who died and made you – “
She suddenly appeared deep inside his personal space. “I asked you a question, wizard! Are you Gandalf the White or just a pretender?”
The tall youth took two steps back and ran into Clark. He might as well have backed into a marble statue. He glanced behind him, then at the redheaded spitfire in front of him, and decided that he’d rather live to code another day.
“I’m – I’m a good team member.”
Rebecca nodded microscopically, then spun to face Harry. “You! Are you a good team member too?”
Harry’s sullen expression faded under the redhead’s laser stare. Grudgingly, he relaxed and nodded. “Team member.”
“Good one?”
“Yes. A very good one.”
She stepped back. “Okay, guys, either shake hands and be friends or shake hands and come out fighting.”
The two hackers stared at each other for a long moment, then Harry put his hand out. “Sorry about the chair thing. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Gandalf took his hand. “No, you shouldn’t have.” He held the grip for a moment longer. “But I guess I crowed too loud, too. I’m sorry.”
Harry grinned. “Done and done. Now,” he released the other’s hand and turned to the rest of the group, “how about getting this party started?”
A ragged cheer went up. Morgana stood and grinned. “I’m done, too. I think we’ll have three fantastic sets of results when we’re done.”
Rebecca cried out, “That’s great! How long do we have to wait?”
Harry looked at Gandalf, who nodded in deference to his fellow wizard and dangerous boy. “Forty minutes to an hour to get the preliminary figures, another couple of hours to crunch those numbers and get final results.”
Morgana added, “That assumes we don’t get wild variances between the simulations.”
“True,” nodded Gandalf. “But I don’t think that will happen.”
Rebecca clapped her hands. “Then what’s stopping us from having some fun in the meantime?” They group chorused general approval of f un. “Then let’s go visit the Twist and Shout!”
Jimmy stepped towards the CD player as that very song began playing. He turned up the volume and grinned at Morgana. “Shall we, my lady Morgana?”
Morgana wiggled an eyebrow at him. “We shall, my lord Prince Edmund.”
Gandalf reached out a hand for Lois, who momentarily glared a warning at him as she stepped closer. Gandalf nodded and said, “My lady, I am your servant.”
Lois grinned. “Then, assuming you can behave yourself, you may dance with me, oh White Wizard.”
Harry smiled, rubbed his left knee, and moved against the wall.
That left Rebecca and Clark. She smiled up at him and said, “You don’t have a bad knee too, do you?”
He grinned back. “Nope. I just hope I can keep up with the rest of you.”
She took his hands. “You don’t have to worry about keeping up with the rest of them, Clark. Just keep up with me.”
*****
Rebecca looked around at the mess, glanced at the clock, and decided that she needed to record the evening for posterity more than she needed to neaten up the place. She pushed stuff aside until she’d cleared sufficient space at the dining room table, then pulled her journal out of its safe place and began writing.
~~~
Hey, J! We had a breakthrough tonight! Harry found a concentration of predators and Morgana’s simulation showed a plus-90 correlation between the predators and the squids’ breeding cycle. We’re almost certain we’ve solved the biggest of the problems. Now all we have to do is put it all in a readable form for the review committee.
And it might not have happened if Lois hadn’t been here. She was the one who thought of checking on the predators, and the rest of them took the ball and ran with it. She’s pretty smart.
And her friend Clark was here, too. He’s very cute, even handsome, but I also found out that he’s even smarter than Lois told me he was, even if he isn’t as knowledgeable about computers as the rest of the guys are. There’s something else there in his eyes, too, some deep sadness that makes him cautious. We were all dancing – except Harry, who still claims he has a bum knee, but I just think he can’t dance – and I gave Clark several openings to get closer to me, and he didn’t take any of them! He didn’t exactly reject them, he just didn’t step through the door when I opened it. I thought at first that it was because Lois was here, but now I don’t think that’s the reason. Still haven’t figured it out, but I will.
Clark’s eyes are a deep, lively brown. I never thought brown eyes were particularly interesting before, but I do now. His eyes are intelligent, searching, always looking and seeing, never missing anything (except my openings, of course), and they smile a lot, even when his mouth doesn’t. He thinks things are funny, and he’s always got something positive to say. When Gandalf and Harry got into it – again! – Harry tipped Gandalf’s chair over, but Clark caught Gandalf before he hit the floor headfirst. He’s really quick, and he seems to be pretty strong. He’s got great shoulders. I wonder if he works out?
Anyway, I didn’t mean to go on and on about Clark, although I could, but I wanted to write about the project. I think we’re almost ready to print the first draft and go back to Professor Hamilton with it. I bet he’d help us, especially after he sees what we’ve done with all this stuff. I can already taste that master’s degree! Look out, world of marine biology, here comes Doctor Rebecca Connors!
Maybe I’d better write the theses first.
The only thing that would have been better if those bozos hadn’t given me another fiddle-winkin’ swirly. If they don’t stop doing that, I’m going to have to get my hair cut short like Lois’s, and I don’t think it would look all that good on me. Even with my wet hair all pulled back in a scrunchie, he seemed to like dancing with me.
Hey, J, I need to go to sleep now. I’m really tired. I hope I dream about Clark. Woo-hoo!
And about getting that doctorate. Woo-hoo twice!
I hope I have good dreams tonight. Until I go to sleep, I’m going to think about my doctorate. And about Clark. He’s so yummy!
*****
Lois pulled her Jeep to a stop in front of Clark’s apartment. “Well, here we are. I guess I’ll see you in the office in the morning.”
Clark glanced at his watch and smiled. “It’s almost two now. Can you get enough sleep?”
She waved dismissively. “Sure I can! I’m young, I’m energetic and determined, and I slept most of the day after I left the office. How about you?”
He shrugged. “I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow – uh, make that later this morning.”
“Okay.” As he opened the car door, she put her hand on his wrist. “Clark?”
“Yes?”
She ducked her head for a moment, then looked up, anxious. “You had fun tonight, didn’t you?”
He tilted his head as if giving the question serious consideration, then smiled and nodded. “I did have fun. I didn’t think I would when you materialized at my door, demanding that I come with you, but yes, I had fun. Why do you ask?”
“Well – I have a confession to make.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Rebecca invited just me, but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for me to go alone. So I asked her if I could bring a friend, she said ‘yes,’ and I knew I’d be safe with you. I hope it was okay.”
“It was fine, Lois. I really did have a good time tonight.”
“I’m glad. You need to have some fun every once in a while.”
“That’s good advice. You be sure and listen to yourself, okay?”
She grinned at him. “Will do. Goodnight, Clark.”
“Goodnight, Lois.”
He shut the passenger door and waited as she drove away. The night had been fun, despite his reservations and his early protestations to Lois. Rebecca was a nice person, and he’d learned a lot about Jimmy and his hacker – don’t call them ‘crackers’ – friends. And being with Lois had been easy.
Easy? He thought about that as he unlocked the door. Yes, being around Lois was easy, and fun, and relaxing, and actually uplifting. He felt better at that moment than he had for some time. He thought about it, and decided his current mood was a combination of having gotten some good sleep, attending the party, being around fun people who didn’t expect him to be super, dancing with Rebecca – who was a very good dancer – riding with Lois and conversing easily with her, and his conversation with Lana the previous day.
He stopped and listened for Lana’s voice. He didn’t hear it, of course, but he didn’t think she’d mind it if he enjoyed life a little. His heart was still hers, but he could tell that the bonds of pain and loneliness had loosened a bit. Even if he stayed single for the rest of his life – which was certainly a viable option, maybe even a probability – he wouldn’t feel guilty if a pretty girl, or even an attractive woman, smiled at him occasionally.
He might even enjoy it. And, when the moment warranted it, he might consider smiling back at her.
