Perry entered his office early on Monday morning knowing he had a tough day ahead of him and he wasn’t looking forward to it. It would be tough for him, for Clark, for Lois, and for most of the rest of the staff. Maybe Lois would back off and let Clark stay.
It hadn’t looked like she would when she’d left on Saturday. And if the worst happened—
He thought Clark would be sensitive to his coworkers’ confusion and disappointment. The office pool on when Clark and Lois would announce their engagement – the one Perry wasn’t supposed to know about but had quietly put two dollars on a date range anyway – would have to dissolve and someone would have to figure out what to do with the pot.
He hoped that the pool would remain a secret from the couple. If they did find out, Clark would probably apologize for busting up everyone’s fun. He’d be totally sincere, too. Might even offer to reimburse everybody who’d picked out a slot and lost money.
Lois would surely snarl at them for gambling on matters pertaining to her personal life and threaten to dismember whoever set the pool up in the first place.
Perry sighed. The upcoming confrontation with Lois would probably be pretty heated. He envisioned three possible outcomes, only one of which might lead to reconciliation.
One – Lois backs away from everything she said and everything she threatened to do. She asks Clark to forgive her and work with her to rebuild the trust between them. That would include not only Clark earning back her trust, but her earning Clark’s trust again, because she’d surely realize how badly she’d abused it. It was both the best-case scenario and the least likely one.
Two – Lois reluctantly backs down from her threat to run Clark out of town and admits she overreacted. Even then, she’d probably back away from Clark for a while – maybe a long while – before she started trusting him again on a personal level. This one was acceptable and would result in friction between them, at least for a while, but it would preserve the professional relationship. Perry thought this one would be the most likely outcome.
Three – Lois would be just as mad as she’d been Saturday morning. She’d insist Clark leave town or she’d let the whole city know who else he was. And no amount of reason or pleading or appeals to her already thin compassion would dissuade her. This was the worst-case outcome, the one that would break up the hottest team in town and cost the Planet in both receipts and in reputation.
He fervently hoped for the first outcome, but he wouldn’t bet one thin dime on it.
And if the worst-case scenario came to pass, at least he’d be able to use his off-the-cuff-but-otherwise-well-rehearsed speech to Clark.
*****
Lois walked off the elevator and checked Clark’s desk. Unoccupied. Good. Maybe he’d snuck out of town over the weekend. If he had, she wouldn’t have to defend her position again.
A position she was almost beginning to rethink as long as she kept her mind away from the subject of Superman.
Perry would talk to her about it. He wouldn’t want to lose a productive reporter, especially not one whose presence had slowly become the social glue of the newsroom.
She paused in mid-sit. Clark, the social glue of the newsroom? Where had
that thought originated?
She finished sitting and flipped on her computer as if by reflex, then sat and pondered that previous thought. It stung to admit the truth, but the newsroom was a happier place for everyone today compared to the days before his arrival. True, Cat Grant was gone and no longer meowing at him and trying to sink her claws into him on a regular basis, but that had become more of a game among Cat and Clark and Lois than a real come-on. It was as if Cat had been trying to get a rise out of Lois instead of actually trying to seduce Clark.
Usually worked, too. Then Clark would separate them and push Cat farther away and it felt good to be the one he stayed closer—
Best not to think about things like that.
It was one more thing she might miss. A little bit. A very, very little bit.
The conversation with Lucy still bothered her, too. Her little sister’s assertion that Lois was furthering Clark’s deception by not revealing it had knocked her for a loop. She didn’t want to admit that Lucy had a point – she hated even thinking it – but the point was real and it was valid. Lois mentally defended her position by remembering that knowing that Kent was also Superman was her leverage to shove him out of her life. It was a very neat little ethical dilemma, the kind Lois usually ignored.
This dilemma kept trying to impale her on its horns.
Yet Clark had betrayed her trust. If he’d cheated on her, she didn’t think it would hurt this much. Men were pigs, always had been and always would be, and every one of them was pretty much guaranteed to cheat somewhere along the line. If Clark had cheated on her with another woman, it would have damaged their relationship badly, but it might not have torn them apart like – like learning The Secret had.
She deliberately refocused and slapped the desktop. It didn’t matter. Kent was history. By Wednesday he’d be out of the Daily Planet newsroom, out of town, out of her life forever. And a new article was the best way she knew to demonstrate her new-found freedom. An article by Lois Lane. No partner. From now on, she was the hottest solo reporter in town. And she had the hottest headline she’d ever come across sitting in her head just waiting to be put to paper.
Time to get to work.
*****
At nine twenty-five, the timer on Perry’s desk started beeping. He’d told Clark not to come in before nine-thirty, and if he held true to form, he’d walk through the stairwell door at nine-twenty-nine and fifty-seven seconds. Not much time to defuse Lois, or maybe it was too much time, given how volatile she could be.
Perry shut off the alarm, then closed the file folder in front of him and walked to his office door. “Lois?” he called. “Need to see you a minute.”
He watched her glance at him and nod, then do the finger-magic on the keyboard needed to lock her workstation. She grabbed a pencil and a notepad, then stood and marched to his office.
Perry moved to allow her to enter, then closed the door. “Sit down, please.” As she sat, he moved to his desk chair and leaned his elbows on the simulated wood-grain multi-ply surface.
He’d use his desk’s construction method against Lois if nothing else worked. He could illustrate the need for people who had different gifts, differing styles, even opposing temperaments. He was determined to keep Clark Kent at the Daily Planet.
He sighed and looked up. “Lois, honey, I know you’re upset to learn that Clark is Superman. I know it seems to you like he’s been lying all this time, but you have to look at it from Clark’s point of view. You have to admit that you had it bad for Superman for a while after he saved the Messenger shuttle. And it took you months to admit that Clark had some good points in his personality. Not only that, but you almost married Lex Luthor. That crumb would’ve killed Superman – killed Clark – if he’d tried just a teeny bit harder.”
To Perry’s mild surprise, Lois’ voice remained level and steady, almost calm. “I know all of that, Perry, and I’ve thought about it a lot. I just keep circling back to one thing and one thing only. Clark betrayed my trust in him. He told me he loved me, then he tossed this thing at me like a grenade with the pin pulled and the fuse burning. It blew up in both of our faces.”
Uh-oh. Furious Lois he could handle, could cajole her into calming down and seeing the other side of her anger. Cold, calm, and calculating Lois was an entirely new creature, one with which he’d never dealt. And he had no idea if he could manage her at all, much less easily.
“Uh – okay. I think I can understand that. Can I get you to back off from any of your conditions for Clark?”
“No.”
He waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t. “I see. Are you willing to talk this over with Clark? We may be able to arrange some kind of compromise.”
“No.”
Perry pursed his lips and thought. She wasn’t yelling and screaming, she wasn’t out of control, she wasn’t interrupting him or cutting off his sentences. She was just hard and firm and seemed determined to follow through with her plan.
He had to dissuade her, maybe get an extension of the deadline, something to ease the pressure. “Lois, I don’t want to lose Clark. He’s a valuable asset to the Daily Planet, both professionally and personally. Can we at least move the deadline out a little farther? Maybe the end of the month?”
She didn’t break in, but her head was shaking before he finished. “No,” she repeated. “If Clark Kent is still in Metropolis on Wednesday morning, I will send you the story I’m working on right now.”
Perry leaned back and thought again, then asked, “Is that the story you said you’d submit on Saturday?”
“Yes. And if you won’t print it, I’ll shop it to every major outlet I can think of. I will put it out there, Perry. Don’t doubt it for one second.”
Perry took in a breath to say something, anything, when a knock on his door drew his attention. “Perry?” Clark said. “Is Lois in there? If she is, may I come in?”
Well. This might be a good thing, Perry thought. But it didn’t look like it to him.
*****
Clark heard his boss call out, “Come on in, Clark.” He opened the door and stepped in.
As soon as he did, Lois sprang up from the couch and turned her back on him, then crossed her arms and walked to the window. She stared out as if looking for anything interesting because nothing in the office could hold her attention at the moment.
Clark sighed. He noted that Perry hadn’t stood, and in fact had leaned back in his chair as if to give Clark room. He had to talk to Lois, had to make her see reason, had to make her understand why he’d kept his dual identity from her.
He eased the office door shut and took two steps toward her. “Lois, please. I want to explain to you why I did what I did.” She didn’t respond in any way. “Okay, here it is. When I first came up with the idea of Superman – something you inspired, actually – it was because I wanted to use my special gifts to help people. When I was traveling the world, I’d do as much as I could without going public, but someone always saw something, enough to start wondering about me or asking questions about me, and I’d pack up and move on to minimize the risk of exposure.
“But I didn’t want to leave Metropolis. I like it here. I like my job, I like having friends, and I like having a place to call my own where I can go and be at home.
“I tried doing little things here, too, but there are more people around than in a lot of places and I had trouble staying unsee. When I helped that man in the sewer explosion the first week I was here, you told me you kept an extra set of clothes at the Planet in case you needed them.”
He risked another step. Maybe she was really listening. “You gave me the idea to put on a costume to use my powers openly. My mother put together a series of outfits for me, and the one I ended up choosing was the best.” He assayed a small chuckle. “You should have seen some of the ones I turned down. One of them made me look – never mind. Anyway, my unveiling at the shuttle launch wasn’t scheduled. I didn’t make my debut like I thought I would. I didn’t even have a name for Superman then. You gave it to him.”
Her head moved as if she were about to turn and speak, but then she froze in place again, so Clark kept talking. “We were watching the telecast when the announcer mentioned a problem and I thought I could help.” She still didn’t turn, didn’t make a noise. “I’m sure you remember that I was able to save everyone on the shuttle. Including you.”
He paused and waited for her to acknowledge him. Her only response was to shift her weight from one foot to the other.
At least she moved, he thought. He risked one more step. “I didn’t tell you then because I didn’t know you well enough. I wanted to – I really did. But by the time I decided I could trust you, Luthor was chasing you and it looked like he might catch you, and I couldn’t risk having him figure it out by putting together little things you might have said or done with things he’d learned by himself. He was smart enough to do detective work like that and I didn’t want to give him the chance.”
He stopped again and waited for her to do or say something, anything. She took a small step toward the window but didn’t speak.
He sighed again. “I’m sorry. I’m deeply sorry. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but I was scared of your reaction. I finally realized that if I didn’t tell you and you figured it out on your own it would probably be worse.” He shook his head as he raised his hands to the side, then dropped them. “I never anticipated that you’d react in this way. I never imagined that you’d believe that I’d betrayed your trust. I knew I’d have to give you time to adjust, time to realize and accept that you weren’t dealing with two people this whole time, just one man.” He sighed. “And I knew it would take time for you to learn to trust me again.”
He slipped even closer to her, close enough to touch, close enough to lean down and kiss the top of her shoulder. “I meant it when I said that I’d never shared the secret of what I can do with anyone. I never told any of my teammates in high school or college, never told any of the girls I dated in Smallville, and I certainly never told anyone I met on my travels. And I told you because I wanted you to know everything about me, Lois. I wanted you to love me, but I wanted you to love the whole me, not just Clark me and not just Superman me. I wanted you to love all of me.”
He stopped talking. His hands almost lifted to gently grip her shoulders, but her body might as well have been carved from a block of marble. She made no move to turn, said nothing to indicate how she was taking his heartfelt confession, did nothing to hint that she might be softening her attitude. Lois gave no indication that she even knew he was behind her.
He sighed yet again and turned away. “Keep talking,” she suddenly said.
Her voice startled him. “What?”
“I said, ‘Keep talking.’ I can use more material.”
“You – material? What are you – material for what?”
She spun in place, her arms still crossed over her chest as if in imitation – or mockery – of the famous Superman pose. “Material for my article. I’d guessed some of that already, but it’s better to have it straight from the horse’s mouth.” She glared at him coldly. “Well? Anything else you’d like me to add to my story?”
Perry’s voice broke in before Clark could rein in his astonishment. “Lois, no! I’m sure Clark assumed all he told you was off the record!”
Still glaring at Clark, Lois said, “There is
no ‘off the record’ regarding Superman. We get something, we print it. That’s what you told us in the first staff meeting we had after Blue Boy went public. You threw the chum in the water and we went for it – all but this Hack from Nowheresville. He was the only one with the whole story and he sat on it.”
She finally moved toward Clark, fury radiating from her every pore, her eyes flashing into his. “I’ll have it ready this afternoon, Perry. I’ll send it to you first thing Wednesday morning if I even hear that anyone sees or talks to Clark. If he’s not gone by then I will tell every person I see. I will shout it from the rooftops. I will release it to the world. So he’d better make plans to leave now.”
She stomped past Clark without touching him. The office door didn’t slam, but she did shut it hard.
Clark looked at his boss, helpless. “Perry, I – I can’t let her publish it. There’s no knowing how bad the media frenzy would be, no predicting which criminals would take revenge on innocent people just because I’ve been seen talking with them.” He turned his gaze to the door. “And Clark Kent would be effectively dead, for real this time.”
“I understand, son. Why don’t you go home and call your folks, fill them in on what’s happened? See if they have any advice for you.” He stepped around his desk and put one hand on Clark’s shoulder. “But I don’t think you have a real choice here. You’re gonna have to leave Metropolis if you want to keep your secret.” Clark looked up at the man, who continued, “And I think this is a secret you need to keep. I promise you, the Daily Planet will not be the first to publish this information. Not this week, not this month, not ever.”
Clark nodded. “Thank you, Chief. I understand the sacrifice you’re making, and I appreciate it.”
“It’s not a sacrifice. What you do as Superman is important to all of us. If your secret got out, you’d be hamstrung. You’d have no privacy as Clark, you’d have no opportunity to make friends as Clark, you wouldn’t be able to buy groceries as Clark. Very few people would allow you to be Clark Kent. You’d pretty much have to be Superman all the time.” He dropped his hand from Clark’s shoulder and shook his head. “That’d drive you nuts. And I don’t want a super-powered nut flying around here or anywhere.”
Clark grinned a little. “Thanks again. I’d better go call my folks.”
“You do that. But please don’t contact Lois again before you leave. You push her buttons wrong and she might forget her deadline.”
Clark put his hand out. “Thanks, Perry. I’m going to miss working here.”
Perry took his hand and held it firmly. “You don’t have to. I’m sending you out on an assignment to the Midwest to write a series of articles about the flyover states. People in this city don’t understand the folks out there, and I want to remedy that. I want you to start in Kansas and work your way all around the middle of the country. I want stories from Kentucky and Tennessee, from Mississippi and Missouri, from Louisiana and Texas, Alabama and Florida, both Dakotas and Wyoming and Montana and the Southwest states. Show us the wide open spaces, the wildlife, the richness of nature, the beautiful places, the history, and especially the people. I want the residents of Metropolis to feel like they’ve taken an extended vacation west of the Appalachians and on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.”
Clark reclaimed his hand. “That’s pretty good for an extemporaneous speech.”
Perry grinned and shook his head. “Naw. Been working on it since Saturday. Had to be ready for any outcome.”
Clark felt his face fall. “Yeah. Thank you yet again. Will these be weekly columns?”
“Twice a week, I think, Sunday and Thursday in the travel section. We’ll talk them up on other days, maybe print some reader questions or comments and get your responses. And I want them to start a week from this coming Thursday. Give you some time to get settled wherever you end up.” Perry shook his index finger in Clark’s face and said, “Just don’t pad your travel expenses.”
Clark couldn’t help but laugh. A little, anyway.
*****
Martha hung up the phone and shook her head. Poor Janey Harris. Her husband was still unconscious, condition unchanged, although the doctors had told her that he hadn’t lost any ground. That, at least, was good news. And Rachel was still on the job, putting in full days and long nights at the hospital. If that girl wasn’t careful, she’d run herself to a complete frazzle.
She’d barely lowered the handset on the hook before the phone rang again. Clark was probably calling back. He’d left a message on the answering machine, saying that he’d try again in the early afternoon.
She lifted the handset again. “Kent residence.”
“Mom, it’s me. I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. Do you need to come out here or will the phone do?”
He sighed. “Phone is fine.” She heard him take a breath before beginning. “Lois will not give an inch. I have until Wednesday morning to be out of the city or she’ll reveal my secret through any and every media outlet she can get to.”
Martha gasped. “What – are you sure that’s what she meant? I mean, that’s what you told us Saturday afternoon, but I was certain she’d back away from that by now.”
“I’m sure that’s what she meant. And I’m sure she means it. Perry is, too. I think I need to move back with you guys for a little bit. Do you mind terribly?”
“No – no, of course we don’t mind. When will you arrive?”
“Late Wednesday, I think. I plan to pull out Tuesday evening, drive all night, and get there before dark.”
“Are you bringing your furniture?”
“No. That’s going into storage, along with my appliances and some of my other stuff. All I’m bringing is my clothing and a few trifles I want to keep close.”
“Are you renting a truck?”
“I bought a late-model used Dodge half-ton pickup with a rear seat this morning. I’ll need something to drive when I get there, and the truck will blend in around Smallville. I’ve already packed most of my stuff in boxes, and I’m going to put a lot of that in storage. That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow. The truck’s in pretty good shape, only has about thirty thousand miles on it, and I have the maintenance log. The previous owner kept the service up to date. He told me he sold it because he no longer needs a truck, that his new wife likes sporty cars.”
Martha laughed. “Good for her. Get him trained from the very start.”
“Yeah. I wish – never mind. Mom, I’m sorry to dump all this on you guys so abruptly. I promise I’ll find a place to move to as soon as I can.”
“Oh, Clark, you’re no burden! Besides, the house will be spic-and-span while you’re here.”
“You’re going to make me do housework for my room and board?”
“In lieu of charging you rent, of course.”
He laughed, which was her goal. She added, “Just give us a call when you’re close so we’ll know whether or not to hold dinner for you.”
“Will do, Mom. Oh, I almost forgot to ask you about Mark Harris. How’s he doing?”
“About as well as can be expected. Janey’s been there almost around the clock. The nurses even set up a cot for her in the room. And Rachel’s been there or at the office almost as often. When you get here, maybe you can talk her into taking a night off. None of us have been able to.”
“You know I’ll do what I can. At least I won’t have to hunt for a job.”
“You won’t?”
“It’s one of the two good things about this situation. The first is that I get to see you and Dad more often. The other one is that Perry gave me an assignment to write about Middle America for the Planet. He said the people in Metropolis don’t know enough about what he called the ‘flyover states,’ and he wants me to correct their shameful lack of knowledge.”
“Ah.” That was news. Good news, apparently, although she’d wait for Clark to arrive before asking about anything else. “So you’ll still have a paycheck coming in, then?”
“Every other week, just like before.”
“In that case, maybe I’ll rethink the no-rent policy.”
They shared this laugh. “Thanks for the encouragement, Mom. I really have to go. I still have some packing to do.”
“I’m really sorry about all this, Clark. Maybe she’ll come around before too much time goes by.”
“We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath, and you know how long I can do that.”
“Well, don’t forget to inhale sometime. Bye, sweetie. We’ll see you when you get here.”
She broke the connection so Clark could continue packing. She’d have plenty of time to offer what comfort she could when he arrived. And Jonathan would be happy to have him home for an extended period of time. But the cost – Clark’s broken heart – was far too high.
The whole thing was a crying shame. She had really liked Lois, too.
Comment thread here
