If Lana had accepted Clark as he was, had loved him even with his powers, what might have happened to Clark? Maybe something like this:
The Road Taken
rated PG
The night was young and bright on the cloudless Kansas plain late that May. Sunset was swiftly fading in the west, and stars that had been hiding all day were coming out to play in the inky sky. The two young people had left their raucous high school graduation party early, changed from their formal attire into sweatshirts and jeans and tennis shoes, and come to one of their favorite places, his parents’ front porch swing. They had often sat together in silence here, simply enjoying each other’s company.
Tonight, however, was different. She had known that high school graduation would mark a change in their lives, but it seemed to her that there was much more on his mind that night than simply the march of events in their lives. He was so tense he couldn’t sit still, and had been slowly pacing the porch for nearly fifteen minutes. He finally sat beside her in the swing and hesitantly called her name.
“Lana?”
“Yes, Clark?”
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Lana tilted her head to one side. “Clark, is something wrong?”
“No. No, nothing’s wrong.” He wrung his hands and took two aimless steps. “Hey, are you going back to your uncle’s ranch in Arizona for the summer?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Not this year. I figure five summers of being a cowgirl is enough for me. The money’s good and the experience is priceless, but it’s not really my thing. I’m going to stay home this summer and focus on earning some extra money before classes start this fall. What about you?”
“Me? Oh, I think I’ll hire on to Wayne Irig’s farm again. I can work there and with my dad and make enough for – for something.”
“I’ve seen you work. You move enough hay for any three grown men. They’re both lucky to have you around.”
“Thanks.” He fidgeted for a moment before speaking again. “Have you decided on a college yet?”
“I haven’t heard yet. I hope some of them let me know before too much longer. Late May is about as late as I want to wait.”
He grinned despite his obvious nervousness. “I know what you mean. Waiting for the admissions packet to come back is a little like sitting on barbed wire.”
“Ouch! I don’t know that I’d go quite that far. But you’re right, it’s tough to wait.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands up and down on his thighs. “Tough.”
She reached out and touched his wrist. “Clark? What’s on your mind?” He wriggled around some more. “Come on, Clark, you can tell me. Tell me what’s bothering you.” She made a kissing noise. “I bet I can chase it away.”
“Oh, yeah, well, maybe you could.” He leaned closer, wearing a smacked-with-a-fencepost expression, but pulled back at the last second and regained control of his face. “Wait. I think – we need to talk about something.”
Her soft, shoulder-length brown hair framed her lightly freckled face. “What is it?”
He hesitated. “I – I need to ask you a dumb – no, a personal question.”
She smiled and turned in the swing to face him. The soft Kansas moon reflected in her glistening hazel eyes. “Which is it, a dumb question or a personal one?”
He frowned in thought. “Both, I think.”
She giggled. “Is it a personally dumb question or a dumb personal question?”
“An important question. Really important.” He stood and shifted from one foot to the other. “I need to ask you how you feel about me.”
She stood before him. The top of her head was almost the height of his upper lip. She reached up to put her arms around his neck. “I’d rather show you than tell you.”
Clark almost forgot his question in her soft kiss, but gently pulled away, breathing deeply. “Um. This – what I’m about to tell you may change that.”
Lana frowned this time. “Clark, you aren’t making any sense. And you’re beginning to worry me a little.”
“Well, it’s that – I’m special.”
She kissed him again, lightly this time. “I know that. You’re very special to me.”
“No, I mean ‘special’ as in ‘different from everybody else’ special. There’s no one in the world like me, not as far as I know.”
She took a step back and put her hands on her hips. “Look, babe, I know you’re unique, just like everybody else in the world – “
He shook his head. “Not like this, Lana. This is different.”
“Different, like how?” Her frown turned to anxiety. “Wait!” She took his hands again. “Clark, are you – are you sick? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Because if it is, I don’t care! I love you no matter what might be wrong with you!”
He grimaced. “No, I’m not sick. Far from it.”
“You’re not sick?” He shook his head. “Then what is it? What are you talking about? What are you trying to tell me?”
He stepped back, holding her hands gently, until they were at arm’s length. “I guess – the best thing for me to do is to show you.”
She eyed him warily. “Show me what?”
“This.”
He released her hands and stepped back off the porch – but he didn’t step down onto the ground. He stood there, hanging in mid-air, standing on nothing, until he saw her eyes pop open and her jaw drop.
Lana forgot to breathe. She’d forgotten to breathe once or twice before, and it had been Clark’s fault then, too, but it had been mostly because she’d been distracted by having his lips on hers. Now, with him standing there in front of her on – nothing at all – she didn’t think, she didn’t breathe, she didn’t move, until she fell limply towards the porch.
The next thing she knew, Clark was holding her and touching her face. He sounded alarmed. “Lana! Lana, I’m sorry! Please be okay! Lana, please!”
She absently grabbed his hand. “I’m okay, Clark. Why are you – “
And then she remembered. She froze in place for a moment, then slowly reached out and touched his chest. “Clark? Did – did you – you really – “
“Float in mid-air? Yes.”
She clenched his shirt in her fist. “Really?”
“Yes, I did.”
“On purpose?”
He nodded. “Yes. I meant to do that.”
“Oh. Why?”
His face smoothed. “I needed to know – to know what you’d do if you knew.”
“I see. So, you really can float in mid-air?”
“I can. I can do it again if you want.”
She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “Maybe later. Right now I need to know for certain that I’m not dreaming.”
His mouth tight, he said, “It was not a dream. You’re completely awake.”
“Oh.” She took a deep breath. “Good.”
His eyebrows levitated. “Good?”
“Sure.” Her eyes twinkled at him. “It means we’re both going crazy, not just me alone.” She got her feet under her and stood up straight, then pulled him upright. “I always said we’d go places together.”
“But – aren’t you – don’t you – “
“Have questions? Of course I do, you moron! Like how did you do that? Or are you changing your major from journalism to prestidigitation before you take your first college class?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I still plan to be a journalist, thank you. And I can do a lot of other things besides just float.”
She braced herself and asked, “Like what?”
He shrugged. “I can fly, although – “
“What! You can fly?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding!”
He put his hands on his hips. “No, I am not kidding. Flying is just an extension of floating, and you’ve already seen me do that. Now are you going to listen to me or what?”
She waved her hands. “I’m sorry, sorry, no, I’ll listen. Please, go ahead.”
“Okay. Like I said, I can fly, but I’m not real comfortable with it yet, so I haven’t done a whole lot of it, but I have been practicing. I haven’t found anything that can hurt me, not since I was about twelve. I can hold my dad’s tractor over my head with one hand for as long as I want to and not get tired. I’m fast enough to run past people and they hear something whoosh by but they never see me. I can hear things from far away, and I can focus in on little noises no one else can hear. I can make things hot enough to burn just by looking at them the right way. I can see things that are far away, like I had built-in binoculars. I can see through things, too, like walls or the ground.”
“See through things?”
“Yes.”
She frowned slightly. “Any walls?”
“As long as they aren’t made of lead. I can’t see through lead.”
“You can see through any walls? Even the girl’s locker room walls?”
“What? No! Just that one time when I was fourteen and I didn’t mean it and it was an accident and you weren’t even in there!” He gaped at her as she laughed. “What’s so funny?”
She crossed her arms over her stomach. “I – I don’t know!” She stepped back and collapsed into the porch swing. “I guess – ha-ha – the way you – ho-ho-ho – reacted when you thought – ha-ha-ha – you thought I – “
And she dissolved into belly laughs. Clark stood in front of her, helpless, as she worked through them.
Lana finally calmed down. “Whew! I’m sorry, Clark, but you acted like a little boy caught with a girlie magazine in his hand. It was, like, totally hysterical!” She chuckled again.
He scowled and crossed his arms across his chest. “I see. Is there anything else about me you’d like to laugh at now?”
The wounded tone of his voice cut her to the heart and she jumped up to embrace him. “No! No, darling, no! I wasn’t laughing at you, Clark! I was laughing at the mental picture you made in my head. It – I don’t know, it kind of made me remember who you really are! You’re not some weird alien, or some kind of scary mutant, you’re Clark Kent and I love you!”
“Are you sure about that?”
She leaned back but didn’t let him go. “Clark, I love you if you can pick up a building or if you can’t lift a sack of apples. This is – it’s important, I guess, but it doesn’t change anything.” She leaned her head on his chest. “It’s just one more thing for me to know about you.”
He cautiously put his arms around her. “It’s a pretty big thing, though, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. But it’s not as if you’re already married to someone else or that you’re secretly a Mafia hit man or you’re really Santa Claus. You’re still Clark to me, no matter what kinds of incredible things you can do.” She tightened her grip. “I love you, Clark, and I don’t ever want to let you go.”
He returned the pressure. “I love you too, Lana. You’re the most wonderful girl in the whole state of Kansas.”
She rolled her mouth up to his and kissed him. “Yum. Just Kansas?”
He smiled. “Maybe Oklahoma too. Possibly even including Idaho.”
She laughed with him. “See? A girl likes a guy who can make her laugh.”
“I’m glad. You want to sit down now?”
“If you’ll tell me more about these marvelous abilities you have.”
He sighed. “If that’s what you want to talk about, okay.”
“Oh, yes! I definitely want to learn all I can about you.”
*****
Her good mood had evaporated. She stared at Clark in horror. “You mean that there are actually people out there who want to treat you like a lab specimen? There are people who want to dissect you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know it as a fact, like anybody’s actually tried to put me in a cage, but it’s a logical conclusion, don’t you think? Man shows off spectacular powers. Government of some country or even a private individual wants to find out how he does it, maybe to make their armies stronger or out of scientific curiosity or out of greed or out of fear. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to end up as a rat in a maze, or some eager med student’s dissertation theme.”
She dropped her gaze. “Oh, Clark, you mean you’ve carried this burden for the last six years? All through high school? And you never told anyone?”
“My folks know, of course. They’re probably bursting with curiosity right now.”
“What? What could they be curious about?”
“Wondering about your reaction.”
Lana’s jaw hit her chest for the second time that evening. “Oh, my stars and garters! Of course! No wonder they were so nice to me at dinner night before last!”
He smiled. “They were making bets with each other on how long it would take before you ran away screaming at the top of your lungs.”
She smiled back and shook her head. “Clark, I wouldn’t have run away if you’d told me you were sick and dying. I’m not running away because I’ve just learned something wonderfully fabulous about you. I promise you, I’m not going anywhere!” She stopped suddenly, then cautiously lifted his hand to her cheek. “Unless – unless you want me to go away.”
He reached out and enveloped her. His voice broke. “Please don’t go. Please stay with me forever.”
*****
Martha tucked the drape back in place and tiptoed away from the window. “Well, she’s still there.”
Jonathan nodded. “I knew that girl was a keeper.”
Martha gave him a ‘look.’ “Uh-huh. You were the one who bet three days worth of chores that she’d break up with him on the spot.”
He grinned back. “And I’ve never been so happy to lose a bet in my entire life.” He sighed. “I just hope they’re making the right decisions out there.”
“Who’s to know what the right decision is? Either of us could have married someone else and made a life with that other person.”
“True. But I wouldn’t trade a minute of our time together for a lifetime with anyone else. I love you, Martha.”
She smiled and leaned her head on his massive chest. “I love you too, you wonderfully romantic man. Come on,” she said as she pulled him away from the front of the house, “let’s let the kids be kids by themselves.” She turned back and winked at him. “We can be kids again, too, at least for a little while.”
Jonathan smiled a knowing smile and reached out to pat his wife on the bottom. She looked back again and giggled playfully.
*****
Clark and Lana sat on the swing together, talking through and adjusting to the new curve in their relationship. Then Lana asked the big question that had popped into her mind an hour before.
“Clark? What are you going to do with these abilities? I mean, on a long-term basis?”
He sat back, a surprised expression forming on his face. “I – don’t know.”
“You haven’t thought about it? Or you haven’t settled on a plan yet?”
He pulled a long face. “I guess – I haven’t thought about it much.”
She patted his hand. “Don’t worry. You’re young yet.”
He turned away. “Actually – I have done a few things already.”
She asked, in a matter-of-fact tone, “Such as?”
Clark shifted nervously. “Well, I got Wayne Irig out of his barn last fall when that windstorm collapsed the east wall. He had a concussion and a broken arm, but if I hadn’t pulled him out before the rest of the wall fell, he might have died.” He stood up. “Remember that flash flood just south of Wichita two years ago? I pulled three people out of the water. Two of them were just kids.” He put his hands in his pockets. “And – two weeks ago I pulled Brent and Charlene out of that car wreck just before the gas tank blew up.”
Lana nodded. “I see. You have been a busy boy, haven’t you?”
He turned to face her and was relieved to see that she was smiling. “I’m guessing you aren’t angry about those stunts.”
She reached out and softly touched his arm. “They weren’t stunts, Clark, they were acts of heroism. Just because you believe you can’t be hurt doesn’t mean your actions weren’t brave. You were risking exposure on every one of those occasions. How could I be angry that you put other people’s safety ahead of your own comfort? I think it was marvelous of you.” She tugged at his wrist until his hand escaped his pocket, then she captured it in both of hers. “And you know that Charlene is my very best girlfriend in the whole world. When I visited her in the hospital, she told me that someone had pulled her out of the car, but she didn’t recognize him, didn’t even know for certain that it was a man.” She kissed his hand. “I’m proud of you.”
He squeezed her hands gently. “Thank you.”
She popped up and pushed his shoulder until he turned to face the front door. “But if you’re going to keep on doing stuff like this, and I see no reason for you to stop now, you’re going to have to be invisible.”
“Invisible? Lana, what do – “
She headed for the front door. “Come on. I need to talk to your mom.”
“My mom? But we – “
Lana shoved the door open and flipped on the light in the front room. “Mrs. Kent? Mr. Kent? Where are you? We need to talk.”
There was no answer, so Lana began marching through the house, calling out loudly. “Mrs. Kent? We need to talk about something. Mrs. Kent? Where are you?”
The master bedroom door cracked open. “Lana? What are you yelling about?”
“We need to talk. Are you coming out or do I come in?”
“Neither!” Martha’s alarmed face showed in the opening, but she hid her body behind the door.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Lana. Just give us a minute to get dressed.”
“Okay. I’ll wait in – “ and suddenly it clicked. Lana flushed bright red and gasped and laughed all at the same time. She turned around and galloped into the living room and thumped headfirst into Clark’s unyielding chest.
He grabbed her and held her still. “Lana! What’s wrong? Are my parents okay?”
She fanned her face with her hand. “Oh, yeah, they’re fine, they’re just fine.”
He held her away from him and stared. “What do you mean?” He started to move around her, but she stepped in front of him and blocked his path. He moved again and she blocked him a second time. “Lana! Cut it out!” He stepped back and reached for his glasses, but she grabbed his wrist and held it tight.
“Don’t you dare! You have to move your glasses to see through things, don’t you?”
He looked puzzled. “Yes, the lenses are leaded glass, and like I told you I can’t see through – “
“You look through that door right now and I’ll – I’ll – I’ll make you eat my cooking every day for a week!”
“What? What’s wrong with that? You cook great.”
“You’ve never had my fried gravel or my dirt soufflé and that’s what you’ll get if you cross me! Now come here!” She pulled him into the kitchen. “I need something to drink. Make me some lemonade or something. Anything at all.”
Baffled, Clark complied and poured Lana a glass of iced tea. After a few minutes, Martha walked into the kitchen in housedress and slippers. Lana glanced up at her and blushed furiously once again. Martha laughed lightly and hugged the girl around the shoulders.
Lana put her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry! Really! Please forgive me!”
Martha patted her shoulder. “Lana, honey, it’s okay. You didn’t know.”
Jonathan ambled in, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and a silly smile. “Clark, let’s go check out the tractor shed.”
“At this time of night? Dad, Lana wants to – “
Jonathan made a shushing motion. “Come with me, Clark. Let the ladies converse.”
Still completely befuddled, Clark followed his father outside. Lana looked up at Martha, and they shared a knowing smile. Martha sat down beside the girl and looked into her eyes.
“Clark will eventually figure it out, Lana, and then he’ll be so embarrassed that you were here and that you know that he knows that he’ll look sunburned until Sunday afternoon.”
Lana shook her head. “I can’t believe I reacted like that! I guess – it’s hard for me to admit that my parents once loved each other that much.” She leaned back and wiped her face with her hands. “After all, they made me, just like you two made Clark.”
Martha kept smiling at Lana and didn’t say anything. A moment later, Lana flushed again, then slapped herself on the forehead. “Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid! For a second I forgot Clark was adopted!” She stood up and began pacing the floor. “Mrs. Kent, why don’t you just shoot me and put me out of my misery?”
Martha caught her arm and led her back to her chair. “Lana, dear, just sit down. You’ve had something of a shock tonight, and I’m sure that’s a large part of your confusion. Now what was it you originally wanted to talk to me about?”
Lana stared at her blankly. “I forgot. Wait, it was about Clark, and his rescues, and – right! I remember now. He’s been going around doing good deeds, which I assume you already knew?”
Martha nodded. “Yes.”
“I also assume you approve of his motives if not always his methods?”
Martha grinned. “I see that you weren’t captain of the debate team because you can yodel. That would be a ‘yes’ also.”
“Then you know the law of averages is going to catch up to him and he’ll be either recognized or photographed and identified. Then the bovine excrement will firmly strike the operating rotary oscillator.”
Martha chortled. “Very colorful, Lana, but probably true. What do you suggest?”
Lana leaned in close and lowered her voice. “Clark has to be invisible.”
Martha whispered, “What do you mean, invisible?”
Lana whispered back, “People mustn’t see him.”
“How will they not see him?”
“Because they’ll be looking somewhere else.”
Martha asked, “Why are we whispering?”
Lana flushed again and straightened. “I don’t know! But Clark has to be someone or something else when he’s doing his helper thing.”
“Honey, I’m his mother, but he’s way too good-looking to go unnoticed, no matter what he’s wearing.”
“That’s true.” Lana grinned. “So we use the ‘Purloined Letter’ technique.”
Martha frowned slightly. “Refresh my memory on that one?”
“The Edgar Allan Poe story! Clark did a fabulous report on it in eighth grade. Where someone stole an important letter in a nineteenth-century hotel and hid it in plain sight in the mail slot right behind the desk clerk! We make Clark’s public persona so bright and splashy that people will automatically look at his body and not concentrate on his face! You’re an excellent seamstress, you can put something together that will knock everybody’s socks off!”
Martha sat back, thinking. Lana watched her expressions move from ‘no way’ to ‘that might actually work’ to ‘brilliant!’ in moments. Martha popped up from the chair and ran to the door. “Jonathan! Clark! Come in here! Lana has a fantastic idea!”
