Lois pulled into the empty car bay and shut off her engine. Despite being deserted, the self-service car wash was well lit, and she was a little reluctant to step outside and see exactly how much damage had been done to her car. What she’d seen in the darkness had been bad enough.
Clark reached out and put his hand on her forearm reassuringly. “It’ll be all right.”
Staring down at his hand on her arm, Lois nodded. Time was of the essence, but even so, Clark had insisted on stopping at a convenience store. He’d known his way around the neighborhood and had found one that was still open at almost eleven at night.
He grabbed the paper bag he’d gotten from the store and opened the passenger door.
Lois stared down at where his hand had rested, and she wondered why she seemed to respond better to him than she had the other boys. It wasn’t just saving her life. She’d already responded long before she’d started to realize that he was brave when her friends were cowards, bright where they were slow and kind.
Clark hadn’t even asked for money, and from what she’d seen, he was careful with his money. He didn’t spend money on frivolous things, even food for himself.
She sighed and pulled her keys from the ignition. She’d already washed her car once today; she wasn’t looking forward to doing it again, even if it was an unusually warm September night.
Stepping out of the car, she winced as she saw the damage. It was more extensive than she’d thought. Shoe polish didn’t come off, and they’d written all over the side of her car. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like the egg shells might have chipped her paint, and the graffiti on her windows had made driving a little difficult.
“We need to get the shoe polish off the paint first,” Clark said. “It’ll ruin your paint job faster than the eggs will. We’ll worry about the windows last.
He began pulling the supplies from his bag and setting them on the hood of her car. He leaned back in the car and pulled out the bucket he’d bought.
“They sell buckets?” Lois asked. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing a convenience store would sell.
“I know the owner. He was happy to lend it to me,” Clark said. He said, “The first thing we’ll try is a mix of alcohol and water. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”
*************
Lois worked carefully, rubbing a soft cloth over her car.
In the background, music came from her radio set on low. She hadn’t felt like trying to translate French in her head, so she’d left her Les Miserables cassette off. Instead, she could hear the sounds of Foreigner crooning about love, about hearts broken. It was soothing, which she needed badly.
“It’ll work better if you do it this way,” Clark said. “Let me show you.”
He was behind her and it surprised her. For a person of his size he was surprisingly quiet when he moved. He wasn’t at all like the football players, who made sure everyone knew when they entered a room.
Leaning forward, he gently put his hand over hers and moved her hand in a different direction. It was an easier stroke, and she was surprised to see that the polish came up just as well, with even less scratching than she’d seen before.
“Don’t scrub at any spots that won’t come off. We’ll use the clay on those.”
“Um,” Lois said. She found herself intensely aware of his presence beside her. He was close enough that she should have been able to smell the usual teenage boy smells; stale sweat, soap, overly heavy applications of cologne.
Instead, he smelled fresh and clean, like sunshine. It wasn’t a scent she could identify, but she found herself leaning closer to him.
“Anything you do to get the shoe polish off is going to take some abrasion. The trick is to do it without taking the paint off too.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I did some car detailing work before I was old enough to get a real job. This sort of thing happens more often than you’d think.”
He continued to move her hand gently, the cloth in her hand moving over the surface of the car.
It wasn’t hard to learn; Lois understood what she was supposed to do almost immediately, but for some reason she didn’t say anything. She just stared at the rhythmic motion their hands were making together.
The song changed, and the smooth voice of the night DJ came on the air.
This broke the spell. Clark pulled his hand away from hers as though he’d been scalded, and it was his turn to clear his throat uncomfortably. “That’s, uh…that’s how you do it.”
“Thanks,” Lois said.
He retreated to his side of the car and she couldn’t help but watch him.
************
It had taken almost an hour, but her car was finally clean. There were a few spots were her paint had been chipped, but those blended in with the other preexisting paint chips. It was much better than being forced to drive around with the word whore written in gray primer across the side of her car.
To her disappointment Clark hadn’t returned to her side of the car to show her what to do again, although he’d wielded the spray wand of the washer with a calm competence.
They’d had to use razor blades from his bag to scrape the words off her car windows.
It was painstaking, meticulous work, yet Clark didn’t complain even once. As late as it was getting, Lois felt herself beginning to lag; while she normally wouldn’t be so exhausted at midnight on a Friday, it had been an emotionally exhausting evening.
Clark didn’t look tired at all. It occurred to Lois that once they got home he’d have to ride his bicycle back to wherever it was that he lived.
As he slid into the seat beside her, she said, “I can’t thank you enough for tonight.”
He smiled slightly. “It was the weirdest not-date I’ve ever had.”
“Do you go on a lot of not-dates?”
“This is my first one,” he said. His lips quirked.
Did he mean he hadn’t gone to a lot of events just as friends but he had been on a lot of dates? Or did he mean that he hadn’t been on a lot of dates either?
She’d have heard if he was dating anyone at school, but Clark seemed like the type who’d be fine dating someone from out in the community. He was good at keeping secrets.
“When we get back to the house, would you like me to drop you off at your house?” Lois asked as she pulled out on the street. “It’s getting pretty late to be riding on a bicycle in the dark.”
“I ride in the dark every morning,” Clark said dryly. “I doubt I could fit my bike in your trunk anyway.”
“I keep a bike rack in my trunk in case I have to pick up my little sister,” Lois said. “I don’t keep it out all the time so that people don’t make fun of me.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who worries a lot about what people think.” Clark said.
“This?” Lois said, gesturing at her car. “This is different.”
“You’ve never even told me what this is about,” Clark said. “Although I can make a few guesses from what I’ve heard.”
“It’s not right what some people get away with,” Lois said. “It’s one thing to worry about what people think if it’s over something silly, like fashion. That’s just part of high school life.”
“That’s why it’s ok for them to call you Lo-Lo,” Clark said.
“Not after tonight,” Lois said stubbornly. “It was easier just to go along with it, but sometimes you have to put your foot down and make a stand.”
Clark nodded, but looked down at his hands.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?” Lois asked. “It wouldn’t be any trouble at all, especially after everything tonight.”
“I’ll be fine,” Clark said firmly.
“You aren’t working tomorrow morning, are you?” Lois asked. It was already late, but at least she’d be able to sleep in.
He shrugged but didn’t say anything. The paper ran every day rain or shine.
“I’m sorry I kept you out this late,” Lois said. “You should have said something.”
Clark shook his head. “Leaving you with all that to clean up? My mother would have been ashamed.”
“Would have been?” Lois asked.
“My parents…” Clark said. He was silent for a long moment. “I don’t talk about them a lot.”
“You don’t talk about anything a lot,” Lois said.
“There was a car accident when I was ten. Neither one of them made it.” Clark stared at his hands.
“Oh…” Lois said, temporarily at a loss for what to say. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” Clark said. He looked out the window. “I try not to think about it.”
He said he tried not to think about it. That meant he still did. As much as Lois struggled with her own mother and father and her complicated family, she couldn’t imagine losing them.
His body language was tense and stiff, as though he regretted telling her. It occurred to Lois that this wasn’t the sort of thing that he’d share with just anyone. In a way she felt touched that he’d felt open enough to share it with her, even if he’d closed off almost immediately.
His tone of voice suggested that the discussion was closed, and so Lois struggled to find something else to talk about. For some reason, her mind kept drawing a blank.
She didn’t want to talk about her story, and her strange physical reactions toward him were likewise off limits. She wasn’t even sure what it meant, why she was reacting to him in ways that were different than she’d experienced with other boys.
This wasn’t a date; she’d been clear about that from the beginning. So why did it feel like one, and why did Lois find herself wishing it might be?
“Maybe a little more Les Miserables,” she said, pushing the button to her cassette tape.
Eponine began singing about her unrequited love for Marius, and Lois couldn’t help but keep glancing at Clark.
He didn’t look back at her, simply staring out the window.
****************
Lois closed the door and locked it behind her, sagging with relief. She was exhausted after the evening she’d had, and if she continued to move forward with the story and the internship, it was only going to get worse.
Clark was going to be a complication. She had to stay focused on her goal; of all the things her father had taught her, this was the one that she’d actually accepted. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by a nice set of eyes.
If she wanted to date someone with muscles, she could have accepted Joe Malloy at any time. After tonight she was happy that she hadn’t, of course. He was a stupid ape.
She couldn’t imagine him staying up late to help her painstakingly clean her car; he hadn’t even defended her from his own friends. He wasn’t smart or brave, and he certainly wasn’t kind.
He didn’t make her skin tingle when he touched her either.
Damn.
From what she’d seen, Clark was just as single minded as she was, if not more so. He kept a grueling schedule that would have worn her to a frazzle, and he’d pared his life down to just what he needed to go to college and have a good life.
She didn’t know what his home circumstances were like, whether he was living with relatives or was stuck in foster care, but he didn’t talk about it. Usually people talked about things that were good. That was why she herself didn’t talk about her family life with anyone.
Lois knew about keeping family secrets just as well as anyone.
She had no way of knowing if he would even be interested, although his reaction to her suggested that he might.
Yet even if he accepted, their time together would take time away from his dream as well as her own.
Could she do that to him?
The thought that he might reject her was the final nail in the coffin. It would be better to remain friends instead of risking it all on something that wouldn’t serve either one of them well anyway.
Lois fell into bed without even taking her clothes off.
***********
The telephone by her bed rang, and for a moment Lois was disoriented.
“Wha…?” she asked, picking up the receiver. A glance at the clock showed that she’d been asleep for less than thirty minutes.
She could hear the sounds of sniffling on the other end of the line.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Lucy?”
“Mom didn’t come home,” Lucy said, sniffling. “I’m scared.”
