Bobbie and Clark stood in the middle of the kitchen for three or four minutes, silent, just holding each other, as one occasionally caressed the other’s hair or back or shoulders. Bobbie didn’t dare sit down with him – she knew if that happened she’d want to take another step with him, then another, and another, and pretty soon they’d be doing something she wasn’t sure she was emotionally ready to do.
But it was hard to let him go. He’d made no demands on her, offered no suggestions on what they should or should not do next, as if he himself weren’t certain what he really wanted. And Bobbie was sure that Clark was not into casual sex with anyone. If he were to sleep with a woman – any woman – she could be confident that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
He reminded her so much of Glen that it frightened her a little. She might even be projecting her memories of Glen onto Clark. They were different men, sure, but they were similar in many ways—
Nuts. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t compare them. It wasn’t fair to her or to Clark. Nor was it fair to Glen.
Or to Lois.
So, after careful deliberation and with great reluctance, she put her hands on his chest and softly moved away from him.
She was surprised when his hands slipped over her arms as she disengaged, as if he were as reluctant to separate as she, but not willing to force her into anything. And Bobbie knew it wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to encourage her to remain in his embrace. He was a genuinely good man. She’d been alone for so long, had missed the feel of strong and faithful arms around her, had cried herself to sleep alone in a bed made for two so many times, and she had to admit that waking up next to Clark Kent wouldn’t be a hardship for her.
It might also be a disaster of epic proportions. Clark would want – no, he’d almost demand – permanence as a basis for any romantic relationship. If she wanted to wake up next to him some morning in the future, she’d have to commit to waking up next to him every morning for a long, long time – at least as long as they both were alive.
Like, “married” committed. Forever if not longer.
Bobbie didn’t know her own heart on the “forever” question right at that moment. Maybe she’d be thrilled to marry him. She thought she would. But would Clark be thrilled? Was he looking forward to waking up next to her every morning, having breakfast and dinner with her nearly every day, washing the dishes, cleaning house, doing the laundry, going grocery shopping, sharing the cooking chores and the resultant meals and work problems and confidences and sources and credit for closing cases?
Waiting for her to come home as he hoped and prayed some crazy hadn’t blown her head off or knifed her and left her to bleed out?
He’d kept giving her occasional tips from that gourmet snitch he knew, but Bobbie still hadn’t met the guy. And she didn’t know if it was the snitch’s choice or Clark’s reluctance to share him with her. Maybe he wasn’t completely comfortable about letting her all the way into his life.
“Forever” would have to wait and see. There were too many unknowns.
She sighed quietly. At this point, there was no way to know any of that stuff. She could either play it safe and fold, or raise and kiss him again, or go all in and invite him to spend the night.
And going all in would be a terminally stupid bet. Not only would that course of action risk her heart, it would put his at risk also. If he accepted her invitation, it would be an incredible night – but it might lead to a horrible morning, with apologies and regrets and tears and damaged hearts on both sides and Bobbie wasn’t ready to dive into that nest of barbed wire. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to risk herself.
And she dared not risk him.
She took the safe route and said, “Clark, you’re a wonderful friend. Maybe – maybe we can be more than friends someday.”
*****
Clark wanted Bobbie to stay where she was. It felt good holding her in his arms. It was almost – not quite, but very nearly – as good as he’d ever felt while holding Lois.
He tried not to let his body betray his thoughts, but apparently his control wasn’t as strong as he’d thought. It seemed that she’d sensed a slight change in him and deduced that she’d reminded him of Lois.
Or, maybe, he’d reminded her of Glen. Either way, the result was the same.
She pushed back from him – but not out of his reach, letting his hands slide down her arms to her own hands – and paused as if considering her next words. Then she said, “Clark, you’re a wonderful friend. Maybe – maybe we can be more than friends someday.”
He smiled, because he’d been thinking something very similar. “You’re a pretty good friend, too, Bobbie.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then looked at her again and said, “It’s getting late. I think maybe we both need to get some sleep.”
She lifted one eyebrow at him and once again he wanted to punch himself.
“Aw, nuts,” he blurted. “I meant you sleep here and I sleep at my place. I didn’t mean that we—”
She smiled wide and put two fingers on his lips. “I understood exactly what you meant. I gave you the eyebrow because I was thinking pretty much the same thing.”
He exhaled and relaxed. “Then I guess we’re on the same wavelength.”
“For now, yes. So – so how about I walk you to the door and you hug me again before you go home?”
He looked in her eyes and saw fragility. He saw uncertainty. He saw confusion.
And he also saw some very positive signs. Wow, did she ever have expressive eyes.
So he did the only thing he could do. He gathered her in his arms again and stroked her hair with one hand. “Good night, Bobbie. I’m very glad I came tonight.”
She slipped her arms around his neck and squeezed. Her whisper found his ear and said, “I’m glad too, Clark. We’ll have to do this again sometime soon.”
He chuckled softly. “My place next time. You cook and I’ll pick the after-dinner entertainment.”
She slipped back, almost reluctantly. “It’s a date. We’ll talk later to firm it up.”
He caught her hands and held them for a long moment, then let her fingers slide through his. “I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon, okay?”
“More than okay.” He turned and opened the door. “Good night.”
*****
Bobbie locked the door, then leaned her forehead against it.
What had she been thinking?
What had she started?
The kiss part of the bet had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. She hadn’t planned it.
Had she?
Maybe. Possibly. Even probably. No, she was almost sure she hadn’t planned it. Objection from the prosecution! Teaching him Texas Hold-Em might have been more than just a little leading of the witness, your honor – Hold-Em could very easily imply Hold-Me. And she’d told him she’d spent significant time in Texas. Texas Hold-Me? Subtle, but very suggestive.
At least she hadn’t suggested strip poker.
She stifled the almost-frantic laugh that came up at that thought. Surely Clark wouldn’t have gone for it. He was far too straight-laced for something that dangerous, at least with a woman who wasn’t already his wife.
Then another thought hit her, a repeat visitor with a croquet mallet.
Clark was too good a man, too good a friend, too much a Boy Scout to sleep with a woman unless they had a long-term permanent relationship going. He’d never given her any hint that he’d welcome her attempt to “ease his troubled mind,” as so many blues songs put it. Clark was as solid and dependable as any man, even Glen. The term “casual sex” didn’t exist in his vocabulary. She doubted – no, she was certain that he’d never slept with Lois. It just wasn’t in him to take advantage of a woman like that.
So what if that was sexist thinking! She could always sue herself for discrimination!
The clock in the hallway said it was late. She was tired, dog-tired, both physically and emotionally, as evidenced by her stupid consideration about suing herself for a random thought. It was time to sleep – perchance to dream.
Perchance to dream of Clark.
Or to dream of being tied up with barbed wire and beaten with angry porcupines.
*****
Clark’s steps took him home, just not quite straight home. He kept a listening ear out for any cries for super-help, but none came. He was left with his own thoughts.
And a fine mess of thoughts they were, too, he thought, then mentally apologized to Oliver Hardy for almost plagiarizing his catchphrase.
He tried not to think of Bobbie, her soft hair, her tender smile, her deft hands, her gentle lips—
Whoa, big fella. Keep your feet on the sidewalk and think of sitting naked on an iceberg and leaving a butt-shaped melted depression on the surface. Or about Perry’s reaction to a missed deadline.
Oh, yeah, that helped a whole lot, like not at all. He wished he’d memorized the value of Pi to the millionth decimal value so he could redirect his mind by repeating it aloud.
Clark wondered for a moment if the card game – Texas Hold-Em – had been a subliminal message from Bobbie to induce him to get a little closer to her. On reflection, though, he didn’t think so. She’d never before hinted that she wanted anything more than a friendship with him, not explicitly. He was fairly sure that the few things she’d said that might be construed as flirting by one with a cynical bent were probably just slips of the tongue and not slips of the Freud. She wasn’t trying to seduce him tonight.
A stupid joke he’d heard years ago flashed into his mind.
If Sigmund Freud were alive today and wrote another psychology book and went on the talk show circuit to promote it, would that be a Freudian schlep?
Yeah, that was a stupid joke.
He thought about Bobbie some more. She was certainly attractive, more so than many women Clark had known – just not Lois-level beautiful. And Lois’ angry face had been forceful and more than a little intimidating, but Bobbie’s was just downright scary. Bobbie didn’t have the emotional control that Lois had had, but then Bobbie was still recovering from losing Glen. Maybe she was starting to move past all that pain and loss. Maybe she really liked him – like more-than-a-friend liked him.
And maybe he should send her a hand-drawn Valentine in two crayon colors like a third-grader.
He stopped and glared at the lamppost on the corner as if it were responsible for his mental state. This was nuts! he insisted to himself. He was moving away from obsessing about Lois to obsessing about Bobbie! Lois hadn’t been gone for two years yet! It was too soon!
Wasn’t it?
Maybe. Maybe not.
He tried to imagine what Lois might say to him. He tried to envision her walking beside him, chiding him, teasing him, advising him about whether or not to move forward with Bobbie.
Nothing. Lois refused to manifest in his mind. And he didn’t know what her silence meant to him.
Was he ready to move on? Was he just riding an emotional high from Bobbie’s kisses? Did he actually love her or was he trying to replace Lois with Bobbie?
Were two years of grief enough? He didn’t know.
And Glen hadn’t been gone as long as Lois had.
Maybe it was too soon for Bobbie too.
He needed to get home and sleep on it.
*****
Bobbie changed into sleepwear, made sure the ringer on her bedside phone was turned on, and shut off the lights. As she slipped under the covers, she thought about the night she’d spent with Glen.
This time the memories made her smile sadly instead of pushing her to weep and wail and pound her pillows into shredded foam rubber.
It had been sudden, unexpected, a complete surprise to both of them – at least that’s what Glen had told her – and it was a memory she’d keep and cherish as long as her memory was intact. He’d been kind, gentle, attentive to her desires, more patient than Bobbie had thought any man would be—
Clark would be just as tender and patient. She was sure of it. He’d—
No! She absolutely did not need to think about sex with Clark just before going to sleep! He’d already invaded her life, eluded her defenses, and gotten closer than anyone had since Glen. She didn’t need him looming in her dreams. It was too soon. She’d let him get too close to her.
Then Bobbie remembered Lois.
It hadn’t quite been two years for Clark. From what little she knew of men and women who fell in love with another person after their first loves had died, most men seemed to establish romantic relationships quicker and remarry – or just marry – than most women. Statistically speaking, she’d flipped their roles and taken the initiative quicker than he had.
But it wasn’t as if she’d tackled him and pulled him down on top of her. And he hadn’t exactly objected to the kiss – no, the kisses. He’d given her the impression that he’d enjoyed them as much as she had. That second one had been – whew.
But—
He could have been humoring her, letting her get the physical contact out of the way so they could go back to being platonic friends. Maybe he really was angling for a one-nighter with her, or a passionate weekend he could brag about to his buddies. Or maybe now that he knew she’d spent a night with Glen he figured he could talk her into spending one with him.
He didn’t come across to her that way, but—
Maybe she’d scared him off by being so brazen, so forward. Maybe she’d squashed any possibility that he’d be open to a permanent relationship with her. That would solve the problem, at least.
Or maybe it would hurt her even more deeply.
She snapped over onto her back and let out a low growl. Go to sleep! she told herself. You’re not accomplishing anything! You’re just keeping yourself awake!
She rolled to her side and ordered herself to go to sleep.
*****
Clark paused when he finally arrived at his apartment door and extended his hearing. It was pretty late – nearly two in the morning – and any hope for a Superman emergency to distract him was met with dead silence. Apparently the recent resurgence in Superman’s activity had dissuaded many of the lowlifes and street scum from pursuing their trade in this part of the city.
He did, however, pick up the sounds of the couple upstairs who were engaged in passionate activities. He shut off his hearing as soon as he realized it was Rick and Teresa Wright, the young couple who’d recently moved into the building. At least he no longer blushed bright red – or worse, became furious with envy at their love for each other – on the rare occasions when he accidentally overheard them.
A chuckle bubbled up as he unlocked his door. The Wrights had rented the apartment three floors up from his about three months before, and they often embraced and kissed so enthusiastically – in front of anybody and everybody – that the newlyweds often forgot where they were and that they were in plain sight of anyone in the hall. Clark had recently started whistling the final answer theme from Jeopardy whenever they locked lips in front of him. It always brought them back to reality wearing mutually loving and slightly embarrassed smiles.
Rick and Teresa were young, deeply in love, and smiled a lot, both at their neighbors and at each other. Clark wondered for a moment if he’d have been able to smile when thinking about them a year ago.
He was pretty sure the answer would have been no.
And he was equally sure that Bobbie was a big part of the reason he could smile about them today.
That was it. He needed to get some sleep and get Bobbie out of his mind for the night.
*****
Bobbie walked through a foggy meadow wearing a light blue knee-length nightgown. She couldn’t see very far, but the grass was soft and tickled her feet. All she could hear was the sound of her passage through the foliage.
Someone walked beside her, silent as winter snow.
She turned to look, but all she could see was a vague outline. Whoever it was seemed to nod at her in either recognition or acknowledgment, then stepped a little closer.
She couldn’t see the figure’s face, but it seemed to be a woman, someone shorter and more petite than she. Bobbie took a step toward the woman, but it didn’t close the gap between them. The woman lifted what looked like her near hand and reached out.
Bobbie reached for the woman’s hand. Their fingers brushed and the woman drew closer. Her hand was surprisingly warm. The woman seemed to smile at Bobbie.
“Hi,” Bobbie said. “Who are you?”
The woman’s voice seemed muffled by the thickening fog. “You know who I am.”
They were closer, but Bobbie still couldn’t see the woman’s face. “I do?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Bobbie resumed her original course, still touching the other woman’s hand. “How do I know you?”
“You just do.”
Could you get frustrated in a dream? “But I don’t.”
A male voice in front of her said, “Yes you do.”
Bobbie stopped and looked at the man who’d suddenly appeared before her. Was that – could it be – was it possible – was it Glen?
She wanted to leap at him and tackle him and knock him to the ground and yank his clothes off and have her way with him and never let him go but her feet were frozen to the ground and all of a sudden she couldn’t move—
Glen was standing right in front of her. Right there! Right in front of her in a full-length powder blue robe of some kind and she tried to tell him she loved him but the words wouldn’t pass her lips. She wanted to show him how much she loved him but her body wouldn’t obey her mind.
“Glen – I – I can’t – I want to but—”
“It’s okay,” he said with a smile.
“What? What’s okay?”
“You know that too.”
“No I don’t! I don’t know who she is and I don’t know what’s okay and I don’t—”
*****
Bobbie lurched up in bed and yelled, “—know what you’re talking about!”
That panicked moment when one snaps out of an intense dream to sudden wakefulness seemed to her to last several minutes. Slowly, very slowly, her breathing eased. She put her hands to her face and found sweat. Then she felt her arms and found more.
The covers were thrown back with deliberate intent as she all but leaped up and nearly fell. She grabbed her dresser and steadied herself, then when the panic had completely faded she stumbled to the bathroom.
Her nightie was soaked in sweat. The old Victorian caution that “Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow” flashed across her mind. She grabbed the hand towel beside the sink and wiped a layer of “glow” from her arms.
Bobbie leaned on the counter and thought about her dream.
She’d often dreamed of Glen since that terrible day. She’d relived the shotgun blast that had taken his life dozens of times. She’d dreamed that she’d bent over his broken, bloody body and screamed at him to get up and marry her. She’d dreamed that the gunman had shot Glen, then had aimed at her and fired again and hit her in the middle of the body and she’d known she was dead and she’d lurched up in bed screaming and crying. She’d dreamed that she’d pulled her weapon and shot the man with the shotgun only to see Glen struck down by a second gunman in the car.
That one might have been the worst.
But this dream was nothing like any of those. Who was that woman? What was the woman trying to tell Bobbie? What had Glen been trying to tell her? What was she supposed to know?
What did he mean by telling her it was okay? What was okay? What was her subconscious trying to tell her?
Maybe – maybe Glen was trying to tell her not to forget him. Maybe the woman was trying to say the same thing. Maybe she needed a shower before she went back to bed.
She definitely needed a fresh nightgown.
A glance at the bedside clock put the kibosh on the sleep idea. It was already a quarter past five. She had time for a leisurely shower and shampoo, a session with Ms. Hairdryer, a relaxed breakfast, and an early arrival at the office. There were cases she could work, leads she could pursue, crimes to solve, work to do.
She’d let the conundrum of her dream work itself out, assuming that it was possible.
*****
Clark lay in bed trying to keep his eyes closed. Nothing helped. He’d counted nearly four thousand sheep. He’d ordered every joint and muscle in his body to relax. He’d meditated to clear his mind. He’d taken a long, hot bath. Nothing.
It was worse than the dream he’d once had a few years ago, just after he’d taken up the red cape, where he’d tried to vacuum his living room while wearing the Superman suit and when he turned around there was more dirt and the bag was full and he kept running the vacuum over the carpet and changing the bag but nothing helped and the dirt kept coming and coming—
He’d awakened cold and shivering. He’d never quite figured out where that dream had originated or exactly what it had signified. He’d just been thankful that it had never returned.
He hadn’t thought much about it since that week.
The problem he was facing now wasn’t a mystery, though. He knew why he couldn’t go to sleep.
It was Detective Roberta Tracey – with an ‘e’ – Bobbie to her friends. And now, apparently, his girlfriend.
Was she really his girlfriend? Neither of them had said those scary words. Neither one had spoken the terrifying L-word, either. How did he really feel about her? How did she really feel about him?
That kiss, though – that had been some kiss. And the holding afterward? That had been – well, wonderful. She’d surrounded him freely, asked for nothing but a good-night hug, had slipped back from him after that first really long and gentle embrace, her head against his shoulder, her hair tickling his nose while his head was upright – she was pretty tall.
Taller than Lois.
That thought jarred him. He was trying very hard not to compare Bobbie with Lois. It wasn’t fair to either woman, and it wasn’t fair to him, either. Adults didn’t compare their friends with their other friends to decide which one was better. Comparing Bobbie to Lois was stupid. And dangerous.
And maybe she was lying in bed comparing him to Glen, a contest he was sure to lose.
The thought made him want to call her, but he ruthlessly quashed that impulse right away. He had no right, and certainly not the privilege, to call her at such an inconvenient hour. He didn’t even know if she was a perky morning person or a wake-up-grumpy night person. And this was not the time to find out.
Nor was it the time for him to dump his emotional baggage onto her.
*****
Bobbie thought about her dream and about Clark the whole time she was in the shower. She wondered if he was really ready for a new romance. She wondered if she was ready for one. She thought about the kiss again and all but cursed at herself for trapping him into locking lips with her. She thought about that last embrace, how gentle his arms had been, how safe she’d known she was, how loved she’d felt—
No!
She couldn’t project her needs, her desires, her expectations onto Clark. She couldn’t expect him to be in love with her unless he actually said the words and backed them up with action. She couldn’t even count herself as his girlfriend without a verbal commitment of some kind between them.
She was moving too fast, pushing him too much, pushing herself too far.
It was time to put on the brakes and shift into a lower gear. Whether or not she was ready to move on, whether or not she was starting to fall in love with Clark, she liked him a lot and thought very highly of him. He was a good friend, one she didn’t want to lose. She was a private person, not necessarily hostile to others but not very social either and a bit prickly at times, and Clark was probably her best friend. And she was trying to be a good friend to Clark.
Huh. A detective whose best friend was a reporter. How’s that for a potential conflict of interest? It hadn’t happened yet, but she could envision a case she was investigating and Clark was reporting and he wanted to print something she didn’t want made public and they’d argue about it and it would go past a professional disagreement and right into a personal fight and they’d damage their friendship and deeply damage anything romantic between them and he’d storm off furious and then she’d look for a brick wall to head-butt for an hour or two.
Bobbie wouldn’t let that happen.
The water started turning cool and she realized her tiny water heater was empty, so she rinsed off the last of the soap and got out to dry herself. The hairdryer would make enough noise to drown out her thoughts for a little while.
The realization that she wouldn’t cook Clark that dinner at his apartment any time soon saddened her.
*****
The green numbers glowing on Clark’s clock radio taunted him. Five-twenty-nine, idiot, and you haven’t slept a wink. Good thing you’re Superman. You can fake being awake and alert for most of the day.
He got up to shower and dress for work and try not to think too much about Bobbie and what he was going to do about her.
Did he care for her? Yes, absolutely. How much? Harder question. He liked her a lot, as a friend, and if they went further down that road toward a romantic relationship it wouldn’t be a hardship for him. Of course, she might not want to travel that road. Glen had only been gone a little more than a year and a half, and Clark knew enough about him to know that Bobbie would never forget him.
Just as he’d never forget Lois.
They were moving too fast. They had to slow down. They had to give each other space to think, to breathe, to—
To grieve.
Maybe Bobbie had processed her grief over losing Glen, but he wasn’t sure she’d processed her grief over the violent end of her relationship with him. Nor was he confident that he was finished grieving over losing Lois’ love and friendship.
Something Dr. Friskin had told him floated to the surface of his mind.
“Clark, you need to understand that you’re not only grieving over losing Lois – which is natural and right and proper – but you’re also grieving over the loss of that relationship with her, the one you both envisioned but the one neither of you ever got to experience. Grief isn’t just losing the person you love, it’s losing the relationship, the future that you wanted together, a future which can never be. You’ll grieve both for Lois herself and for the loss of that future relationship, and you’ll grieve for them both together and for each one separately. You might think of something Lois once said that made you laugh and you’ll smile, then you’ll want to cry because she’ll never again make you laugh. Those two griefs will always be intertwined, but they’re not inseparable. Just remember that neither of them will crush you forever.”
Stupid eidetic memory.
Dr. Friskin had been right. And as he considered Bobbie and Glen and their relationship, he could see that Bobbie might still be grieving the loss of a future with Glen. He couldn’t replace Glen if he tried. Not even Superman could do that.
He couldn’t get in the way of her recovery. She deserved to take all the time she needed to process her loss. Clark couldn’t help her speed up her grief. Those five stages weren’t necessarily sequential, nor were they exclusive. And moving on to stage four or five didn’t mean you never hit stage one or two again.
He wouldn’t take that away from her. It would be wrong, so wrong, on so many levels. They had to ease off the throttle, to slow down, to give each other space to recover. He cared for her too much to rob her of her recovery. There would be no rebound romance between Clark Kent and Bobbie Tracey.
The realization that she wouldn’t cook him dinner at his place any time soon saddened him.
