“I’m not sure I can move,” Lois said. “That was more than I’m used to eating.”
Stepping out onto the lawn of the Grand Hotel, Lois was again struck by how beautiful it was. If anything, it was even more beautiful now than it had been in her own time.
“You barely touched your food,” Clark said. He sounded surprised.
“Not everybody has the metabolism of a farm hand. Some of us have to watch our figures.”
The man had eaten a startling amount of food for someone so trim. Of course, people these days did more physical labor, but he was an actor, not a stevedore. Maybe he helped move sets around.
“A walk after lunch does wonders for the constitution,” Clark said. He offered his arm again.
She nodded. It surprised her how comfortable she was with this man. He should have repelled her, like the other men she’d encountered here. They were primitive meatheads as far as she was concerned, but Clark would have easily fit into her own time.
He was more polite than the men of her time, more gallant, but somehow Lois was able to accept it from him. She’d have protested when men of her own time tried to pull out her chair for her or open the door; women had fought long and hard for equality.
Yet from what she could discern, Clark didn’t look down on women at all, at least not to the extent his compatriots did. Gallantry was a sign of respect, not of exerting power.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Pennies were worth a lot more in this time than in her own.
“It’s beautiful here,” Lois said. “Almost like a dream. Back home in Metropolis, it’s…busier.”
“Cities have their own unique fragrance,” Clark admitted. “I’ve been to New York, Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans. Horse manure, the smell of wood and coal fires, the smells of a thousand meals being prepared…it’s surprising that you city dwellers have any sense of smell left at all.”
“It smells good here,” Lois admitted. The fact that her own Metropolis wasn’t anything like that at all wasn’t something she could share with him.
They walked out onto the lawn. People were out enjoying the sun. Many of the women carried umbrellas despite their hats, another thing Lois had missed.
For some reason, she was having the strangest feeling of déjà vu.
To cover her sudden uneasiness, she asked “Have you had a lot of experience in cities?”
“The summer before my parents’ deaths I traveled extensively. I made friends in many places. I stayed with one fellow in New York. He lived in a tenement, with dark hallways and tiny, sweltering rooms. Like a lot of his neighbors he’d sleep on the roof when the weather got too warm. We watched a meteor shower.”
“I’d have thought there would be too much light to see the stars,” Lois said.
“It was late,” Clark said. “After most people had banked their fires.”
Frowning, Lois said, “What about the electric lights?”
Clark shrugged. “It’s not as though people leave them on all night. Most people have to work early, and my friend’s neighbors weren’t the kind who could afford electrical lighting.”
He glanced at her. “I suppose a reporter’s life is different.”
Shrugging uncomfortably, Lois said, “Most theater is done by night. If you are a reporter you have to adjust your schedule to that of the people you are reporting on.”
The fact that those two statements were not connected didn’t mean they weren’t individually true. Lois wasn’t sure why she felt reluctant to lie to Clark.
Maybe it was because it felt like lying to a condemned man.
Clark was a good man, and he didn’t deserve whatever was about to happen to him. For a moment Lois felt tempted to tell him. Maybe they could change things, have her jump through and have him remain here where he belonged.
The future couldn’t be immutable, could it?
She looked up at Clark and hesitated.
Clark glanced to the side and smiled slightly. By the time she was able to turn it was already too late. A man was standing with an old timey camera on a tripod, taking in the scene.
He’d only gotten her profile looking up at Clark, but the picture of Clark was undoubtedly visible.
Now she knew why she was having that strange feeling of having been here before. She’d seen these people, all of them in the photograph she’d seen when researching Clark and his life.
The mystery woman looking up at Clark with the same haircut Lois had and wearing the same dress…Lois hadn’t realized at the time that she was looking at herself.
Where did the dress come from? Lois found herself suddenly wondering. For some reason, if things played out the way they seemed destined to, she would leave her dress behind. It would eventually find its way to the shop where she’d bought it, only for her to bring it here.
Just how many time had the dress made that loop, and why wasn’t it just tattered rags?
There was so much she didn’t understand, and there wasn’t anyone who actually knew anything real about time travel.
As far as she knew, Lois was currently the only living person who had actually experienced time travel. That made her the expert, she supposed.
“I’ll be right back,” Clark said.
She looked up at him, confused.
It took her a moment to realize that she’d agreed to something without really listening to what she’d agreed to. Clark pulled away from her and she couldn’t help but feel a little bereft.
He was the only person she even remotely knew in this time period. Even her great grandparents wouldn’t be born for a few more years, and they’d died when she was young.
She saw him step down to the dock, where he spoke to a man who stood beside a group of rowboats.
He wasn’t expecting her to get out onto the water, was he?
*************
It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. He’d helped her into the boat, lifting her as though she weighed nothing and setting her gently inside.
Most of the men she knew would have strained to lift her up like that, at an awkward angle. It wasn’t that she was heavy or that they were particularly weak. It was just that the men of her era didn’t do the kind of physical labor Clark apparently did.
It was peaceful, actually, gliding over the water which was as still as glass.
“Are you happy?” Lois couldn’t help but ask. Maybe having his life disrupted would actually be doing him a favor. Robinson seemed like a controlling ass.
“Here? Now?” Clark asked. He smiled suddenly. “I can’t remember being this happy in a long time.”
It took Lois a moment to realize that her cheeks felt warm. That wasn’t what she’d meant at all, but she was suddenly aware that there was something in the way he was looking at her. It wasn’t the look of a man who was being interviewed.
“I mean with what you do,” Lois said. “You said you wanted to be a writer.”
Clark leaned forward to lift the oars out of the water before pulling back. He’d done this before, apparently. His movements were efficient. He’d taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves and she was suddenly very aware of his arms.
It was ridiculous, being attracted by a man’s forearms. Was this what it was like for men of this era, everything so covered up that even the sight of an ankle was scandalous?
He stopped and the boat continued to glide silently through the still waters.
“I’m liked,” he said. “And I have prospects. With luck, if the troupe does well I may get a chance to write my own plays. I’m content with my life.”
That was more than Lois had ever been able to say about her own life. Nothing had ever been enough; she’d always been after the next big story, the next Kerth, the elusive Pulitzer. Content had never even been in her vocabulary.
Before today, she’d have thought the idea of rowing silently across a lake to be boring. She’d have been checking her telephone repeatedly for updates, looking for the latest news, or worrying about her next story.
Just sitting in contented silence would have been inconceivable. Yet somehow she was able to simply sit and watch Clark row and she found herself fascinated.
Most of the men she knew would have been uncomfortable in the silence as well. They’d have felt pressured to say something inane.
Clark, though, looked as though he was perfectly comfortable to sit and row and let her carry the conversation or not.
The first clue she had that things were about to change was a feeling of wetness on her nose. The smooth tranquility of the water around them was broken, first by one drop and then by another.
Maybe the women carrying umbrellas weren’t just slaves to fashion after all.
Instead of looking dismayed, Clark simply grinned at her and rowed faster. It was only a moment before it felt like they were flying across the water.
The lighthouse that she’d seen before loomed in the distance.
**************
Running with a sort of reckless abandon, Lois felt a strange sort of joy. Clark was holding her hand and her feet splashed through the water as they ran.
It was exhilarating to be in the rain and not be cursing and fighting for a taxi.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d simply held hands with a man. It was a simple pleasure, but it almost made her feel like a child again.
There was no one here to look over her shoulder or to criticize. She wasn’t competing with anyone.
Only the raindrops, the puddles and the hand of a man she was becoming increasingly comfortable with existed in this moment.
Looking up at Clark, she searched for any censure, any suggestion that she was being childish. She’d learned early in life not to argue that since she was in fact a child being childish was perfectly normal.
Her father had expected a little adult, and her mother had needed one.
Her childhood had been all too short, and there hadn’t been very many moments of simply splashing through puddles without worrying about her shoes or clothes.
Clark was grinning at her as he ran, her hand in one hand and his jacket thrown over his right shoulder. Lois couldn’t help but laugh. Unfortunately, looking at Clark instead of where she was going wasn’t particularly smart.
Her foot somehow found an exposed root, and she found herself falling forward.
Somehow Clark was there before she even realized he’d moved. He scooped her up and a moment later he was carrying her as he rushed toward the lighthouse.
This felt even more like flying.
He carried her effortlessly, as though she didn’t weigh anything.
Before she could say anything they reached the lighthouse. With the sky overcast above them, Clark slid into the open door of the red and white square brick lighthouse.
The interior seemed to be filled with boilers and equipment. At least it was warm.
For a moment longer than she would have expected, he held her. He looked down at her for a moment, the smile gone from his face.
He carefully set her down, and now it was Lois’s turn to hold on to him a little longer than was appropriate. She leaned against him, and then found herself shivering.
His clothes were plastered against him, but they couldn’t have been as revealing as Lois’s dress. She didn’t dare look down at herself.
Clark’s eyes never left her face as he pulled his jacket gently over her shoulders.
Against all expectations, it was warm.
