Lois surveyed herself in the mirrored walls of the elevator. She looked ready to face the overly-warm conference rooms stuffed with bodies in the Miami heat in a simple white blouse with cap sleeves and a keyhole front paired with a light gray skirt that fell a few inches above the knee. Her expertly done makeup disguised the effects of her sleepless night.
The elevator stopped two floors later and picked up a gaggle of high school students, and she grinned at their eager faces.
After last night’s dinner and drinks, she had laid awake in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep.
As she laid there replaying their conversations over and over in her head, she had decided to sleep in, ordering room service and lounging in her room during the day, since she didn’t need to emerge for her official duties until dinner time.
Instead, she had been wide awake at seven, her body so used to being up early for work that it wouldn’t cooperate with her plans. She had tried to roll over and fall back to sleep, but eventually it became clear that her efforts were pointless.
So she had dragged herself out of bed, showered and dressed, and resolved to go grab breakfast at the hotel restaurant and then sit in on a couple of the morning speeches.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened in the lobby. She turned left and made her way to the sprawling seating area for the restaurant. She passed the sign instructing her to seat herself and paused.
There were plenty of tables available, and she was just about to claim a two-top in the corner when someone called, “Ms. Lane!”
She turned and saw the blonde from Clark’s group who had been in her class yesterday.
She looked over her shoulder and spotted Clark with the rest of the group, claiming two large tables in close proximity.
“Sarah,” she said, and the girl flushed with pleasure at being recognized. “Good morning.”
Clark lifted his head and met her gaze, surprise and then pleasure flitting across his face. He nodded a greeting at her, smiling broadly.
“Do you have breakfast plans?” Sarah asked. “Would you like to join us?”
Lois hesitated for only a second before nodding. “I’d love that.”
Sarah beamed and led the way over the group with Lois in tow.
Lois gravitated immediately to Clark’s side. He smiled at her, and all the heaviness of last night’s goodbye evaporated in the morning light.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she replied with a grin. “I’m not stalking you, I swear.”
He laughed. “Lois, you can stalk me anytime.”
She laughed too, sliding into the chair he pulled out for her.
A waitress appeared with a stack of menus and then retreated.
“Where’s Lana?” Lois asked, surveying the tables and finding her missing.
Clark snorted. “She’ll be here. Lana’s going to be late to her own funeral.”
Sure enough, just as the waitress returned to take their order, Lana came bustling in, sliding into the empty seat across from Clark.
She didn’t even bother to hide her delighted smile when she realized Lois was seated beside him.
“Lois, so glad you could join us again,” she said before shifting her gaze to Clark and raising her eyebrows.
Clark rolled his eyes and handed her a menu. “Nice of you to join us, Lana.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I made it in time to order.”
They all put in their orders, and then Clark and Lana chatted briefly about their agenda for the day, and who should accompany which set of students to which sessions, while Lois listened quietly.
The morning session consisted of six forty-five minute speeches by leaders in the field, running concurrently in two large conference rooms. There was a fifteen minute recess in between the speeches, allowing time for the attendees to switch between the rooms, picking and choosing the sessions they attended. Lois hadn’t planned on sitting in on any of them, so she was unfamiliar with the list of speakers and topics.
She turned to Sarah, who was seated on her other side. “What are you most excited about attending today?” she asked.
Sarah’s face brightened. “Actually, I’m most excited about one of the afternoon breakout sessions: Journalism and the Glass Ceiling. Did you know women make up more than half of all journalism majors in the country, but less than a third of the journalism workforce and less than ten percent of upper management. And did you know that of the top twenty-five papers in the country, only five of them have a female editor in chief or managing editor?”
Lois looked at Sarah appraisingly, impressed with her quick and passionate recall of those statistics and charmed by her sweet earnestness. “I didn’t know those exact numbers, but they don’t surprise me,” Lois said. “That’s in line with my personal experience in the field.”
“I’m going to major in journalism and business management at the University of Kansas next year, and this is sort of my favorite soap box issue. Mr. Kent says we need systemic changes within the industry to ensure that women are being given equitable opportunities not just for entry level positions but for career advancements.”
Lois smiled at the familiar “Mr. Kent says….” refrain, though this particular quote endeared him even more to her. She turned to look at him out of the corner of her eye and found him watching her, obviously having heard at least part of the conversation.
“Is that so?” she asked, a teasing lilt to her voice.
“I talk a lot about equity in my classes,” he said. “And about systemic change.”
She smiled at him, and turned her attention back to Sarah, asking her a few follow up questions about her college plans.
When their food arrived, she found herself listening passively again as Clark fielded questions from his students about the various speeches and breakout sessions that day. She was so impressed with his firm but gentle leadership style; his quiet confidence.
“What are you going to attend?” he asked her quietly, once his students were settled and talking amongst themselves, and Lana had stepped over to the other table of their students to check in with them.
He held up the paper program with the list of morning speakers, and she leaned close to him, tilting her head to give it a look. She pretended to give the list careful consideration as she reveled in their closeness, inhaling his cool, clean scent.
“I didn’t come with any sort of agenda. I was just going to pop in and see if there was anything interesting going on.” She said as she looked over the list. Then she hesitated for a minute. The truth was, now that she was back in his presence, she just wanted to spend the morning with him. She leaned back and looked up at him. “Maybe I’ll just keep you company while you chaperone…if you don’t mind?”
His brow furrowed, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know…” he said. “There was this other Pulitzer winner who was supposed to drop by today. Also beautiful and charming. So, my assistant chaperone position is already filled. If you really want to though, I could see if-”
She bumped him with her shoulder, laughing, and he stopped teasing her.
“You’re so weird,” she teased and he laughed. “Works for you, though,” she conceded.
He winked at her, and her heart skipped a beat. She shifted her gaze back to her plate, her cheeks on fire. Her mind went back to last night, outside her hotel room door, to that moment where she was certain he was going to kiss her, and she desperately wanted him to despite the myriad of reasons it was a bad idea.
Lana reappeared then, glancing between them meaningfully, and Lois felt her cheeks heat again. Thankfully she was saved from having to explain by the waitress bringing checks and clearing plates.
Twenty minutes later, she was seated next to Clark near the back of Conference Room A, listening to the opening of a speech about covering political rallies and public speaking events. The speaker was one of her former college professors and she found herself transported back to her college days as his voice washed over her.
She was perched on the edge of her seat, legs crossed, leaned forward and listening intently. Beside her, Clark was sitting back in his chair, his arm resting casually along the back of her chair. She snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye, taking in his broad shoulders and the lock of hair that fell on his forehead.
She forced her mind back to the lecture just in time to hear the speaker begin impressing upon his students the importance of accuracy when quoting their subjects. She huffed out a soft laugh. Clark looked at her questioningly and she scooted back in her seat and leaned in toward him. “That’s rich coming from him,” she whispered, her lips inches from his ear. “Remind me to tell you his MLK story.”
She pulled back, and he looked at her with a raised eyebrow, clearly intrigued. She smiled and settled back in her seat. His arm still rested along the back of her chair, and in her new position, she could feel it pressed along her back. She was tense for a minute, expecting him to withdraw his arm. But instead, he curled his hand around her shoulder just the tiniest bit. Not enough to draw attention, but enough that she felt it. His thumb stroked her shoulder, and her heart clenched in her chest. It felt so right somehow, sitting with him like this, like they were a pair, a couple.
The rest of the session passed quickly, and as soon as people began to get up from their seats and shuffle to the exits, Clark turned his attention on her.
“Ok, give,” he said. “What happened with his coverage of Dr. King?”
She scooted forward in her seat, twisting to face him, her knees coming to rest against his thighs.
“In the sixties, he covered Dr. King extensively, traveling with him, covering all his speeches, lots of exclusives. That’s how he got famous,” she began, warming up to her subject. “So he’s with him for the March on Washington. And the day before the March, he’s given a copy of the speech for the next day, and he goes ahead and starts his article, just leaving room for crowd reaction.”
This was standard procedure, and she could see Clark nodding along, waiting for the twist.
“So he stays out late the night before, partying with a bunch of other reporters. And the next day he’s hungover and figures he doesn’t need to actually attend. He’s got his copy of the speech, and he’s seen Dr. King deliver variations of it a hundred times before.”
She saw the second he realized what was about to happen. He sat up straighter, a look of horror on his face. “But Dr. King stayed up until 4am the night before the March, rewriting his speech. The first draft didn’t contain anything about the dream.”
She nodded, smiling
“Oh my god, he really missed the “I have a dream” speech? He really submitted an article with the wrong speech?”
“They published it!” she said. “His editors had no way to know that he wasn’t really there or what was really said until after they saw everyone else’s coverage.”
“How did that not ruin his career?” Clark asked. “How is he standing up here today?”
Lois shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ve always wondered that myself. He used to tell this story as a cautionary tale about not getting lazy and relying on advance copies and press releases. But he always laughed when he told it, like it was some adorable, quirky tale. I remember clear as day sitting in his 102 class hearing this story and just being absolutely appalled while he laughed.”
Clark shook his head, obviously as baffled and horrified as she still was after all these years.
“My parents were there,” he said.
“At the March on Washington?” she said, sitting up straighter. He nodded, and she waited for him to say more, curious how a couple young farmers from rural Kansas wound up watching Dr. King deliver his I Have a Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
“They were freedom riders. They marched in dozens of marches, did sit-ins at lunch counters, got sprayed with fire hoses. My dad still has a scar on his leg from a police dog.”
“Clark, that’s incredible,” she said softly. “How…”
“You would love my mom,” he said with a fond smile. “She graduated from high school in ‘58. My dad is a couple years older than she is, and by that time he was already mostly running the farm. His dad was older and not in great health. They had been dating for a few years, and he wanted to get married and start having kids. But she wasn’t having it. She wanted to go to college and live life a little.”
Lois smiled, a picture of his mother forming in her mind.
“She started taking classes at UK-Wichita, just one or two a semester. And in one of her classes her second year, she met a friend who was active in the Kansas civil rights movement. They started attending rallies together and eventually meetings with local organizers. Eventually my dad started attending as well, and then that winter, when things at the farm were quiet, they started traveling the region doing sit-ins and protests. They got married in ‘62 and did a couple of freedom ride trips that winter. The March on Washington was the next August, and they rode out on a bus with a bunch of their friends.”
“Can you imagine?” she said quietly, wishing she had been alive then to be a part of that historic time. She thought then of her own parents, who were roughly the same age as his and would never have dreamed of inconveniencing themselves – let alone endangering themselves – to protect someone else’s rights and freedoms. “Your parents must be incredible people.”
“They are,” he said immediately.
As they talked, the room around them had filled with students arriving for the next speech, and out of the corner of her eye, Lois could see the next speaker approaching the lectern. She felt a pang of resentment, wanting more than fifteen minutes to talk to him.
“This is the origin of your focus on equity and systemic change?” she asked, referring back to their brief conversation at breakfast.
He nodded and smiled. “Equity and justice and personal responsibility were the cornerstones of my childhood education. They taught me that we have an imperative to protect those who can’t protect themselves; that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one are threatened.”
She recognized the Kennedy quote, and realized it had been spoken that same summer that his parents had traveled to Washington. It was no wonder it had become a part of the foundation of their family philosophy. She was beginning to realize at least part of why he was so different from so many of the men in her life.
The speaker cleared his throat, and the room fell silent. She gave Clark an apologetic look, and then twisted back to face the front of the room, scooting back and leaning into his embrace. His fingers stroked her shoulder again, and she wished he would move them down a few inches so she could feel his touch against her skin. She tried to push that thought from her mind, telling herself yet again that there was no future for them. That the more she let herself feel now, the harder it was going to be to forget him.
The next two speeches came and went, and they made their way out of the conference room and into the hallway, gathering Clark’s students on the way. A minute later, they were met with Lana and her crew, and they walked together to retrieve the catered lunch boxes that were provided for conference attendees. Her presence with their group had become so routine that no one seemed to be surprised to see her joining them for lunch as well.
They clustered around a set of tables to eat, and she and Clark sat side by side, eating quietly as the kids bantered back and forth, discussing the morning sessions. She felt their time together winding to an end, and tried to soak up every moment, but time seemed to have sped up, and she could feel them hurtling toward the end of the lunch hour.
“Are you going to come with us to dinner tonight, Ms. Lane?” one of the underclassmen asked eagerly.
She smiled wistfully. “I wish I could,” she said honestly. “But I’m having dinner with the conference organizers and the other presenters before the ceremony tonight.”
“You should come to the Glass Ceiling breakout session,” Sarah said eagerly.
Lois hesitated. “I really need to go back to my room and prepare. I need to finish tweaking my speech and pack. I’m leaving right after the ceremony.”
“Ms. Lane has been more than generous with her time,” Clark said.
Lois cringed, hating the way he said that, as if spending time with him had been an act of charity. She turned and caught his eye, and saw her own complicated emotions reflected in them.
“We appreciate you spending so much time with us yesterday and today,” he said quietly.
“It was my pleasure,” she said, holding his gaze for a moment before dragging her eyes back to the students at their table.
Slowly, they began to gather up their trash and clear the table. A quick glance at her watch showed fifteen minutes until the breakout sessions began.
“I should go,” she said softly. “Let you get ready for the afternoon,”
“Let me walk you to your room?” he said quietly, and she nodded without hesitation this time.
He turned to face his students. “I’m going to walk Ms. Lane up to her room. I’ll be back before the breakout sessions start. If you haven’t made a final decision about which sessions to attend, use this time to do that.”
“Thank you for welcoming me into your group,” Lois added. “I’ll see you all at the ceremony tonight.”
They made their way to the elevators, and she was struck by how similar the journey to her room felt today, despite the fact that the hotel corridors were clogged with conference goers, the overly-loud voices of teenagers echoing around them a stark contrast to the quiet intimacy of the wee hours of the night.
She felt like she should say something, but there was so much she still wanted to learn about him, so much she still wanted to discuss, that it seemed pointless to try to cram anything into a two minute elevator ride. So they traveled in silence.
When they reached her door, the silence between them grew thick.
Finally Clark broke it. “I really appreciate-”
“Don’t do that,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t pretend- I’m not crazy, right. This is…”
She stumbled over her words, uncharacteristically tongue tied.
“You’re not crazy,” he said softly. “I know Kansas is a long way from Metropolis, but-”
“Clark,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. But he heard her intention loud and clear.
He nodded sadly. “I know. You’re right.”
“I’m leaving right after the ceremony,” she said. “I probably won’t get another chance to talk to your kids. Will you thank them again for me? I really was nervous about this whole thing, and they were wonderful.”
He nodded.
“And tell them I said congratulations about the Pacemaker? They have so much to be proud of. You all do.”
He nodded again, and she felt a lump form in her throat. She opened her mouth to speak again, but no words came this time.
He reached out and cupped her cheek the way he had last night, and his touch was her undoing. She felt the tears pricking her eyes.
And then he bent his head to hers and kissed her. It was over almost before it had begun, as brief and chaste as a kiss could be. But she felt more in that fleeting moment than she had ever felt during a moment of passion. He pulled back and looked at her, his thumb stroking her cheek gently, and she felt a tremendous sense of loss for something she’d never even had.
“Goodbye, Lois,” he said softly. Then he turned, and walked away.
She swallowed her tears and slid her keycard into the slot and waited for the beep.
Inside the room, she retrieved her speech notes from her shoulder bag and sat at the desk to study it. After a few minutes, she picked up her pen and began slashing through whole paragraphs and rewriting.
When she was satisfied with her changes, she packed her suitcase and then found herself at a loss for what to do next. She still had three hours before she needed to get ready to meet her group in the hotel restaurant for dinner. She considered – and quickly rejected – checking out the hotel pool and just as quickly rejected the idea of browsing the exhibit hall. She knew the only reason she was even considering that option was in hopes of running into Clark, and she reminded herself that they had already said their goodbyes.
She finally decided just to go for a walk near the hotel and do some window shopping. She bought herself a new blouse and a birthday gift for Lucy and tried valiantly not to wonder what Clark was doing while she shopped.
Dinner with the conference organizers helped to keep her mind busy, and she found herself slipping back into work mode. She barely thought of him during dinner, but once she was seated at the front of the conference room with the other presenters, she couldn’t stop herself from examining each group of students as they filtered in, looking for familiar faces.
She saw them out of the corner of her eye when they arrived, and suddenly she felt nervous about her speech. She could see the irony there – she had arrived at the conference confident in her ability to deliver her speech but nervous about interacting with the students in her class. And now here she was, wishing she could forfeit her seat at the front of the room to sit with Clark and his kids and chat with them about the sessions they had attended that afternoon.
The room filled, and quieted. The other presenters made their remarks. And then it was her turn.
She approached the lectern and looked out over the sea of young faces.
“When I was asked to give this speech tonight, I knew exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. I wrote a speech weeks ago about the responsibility you have as the next generation of journalists. I wanted to tell you that this world needs reporters who will shine their lights into the darkest corners; reporters who will uncover the truths those in power don’t want us to see. It’s an exhausting job, and frequently a thankless one. But without those lights, the darkness encroaches on all of us.
“I wanted to tell you how important those lights are – how much the world is counting on you.”
She paused for a moment, her eyes sweeping the sea of young faces.
“But now that I’ve met you – now that I’ve spent time talking to some of you, and getting to know you – I’ve realized that we need to talk about something else first. I’ve realized that before you can shine your light, you have to find your light. You can’t change the world if you haven’t experienced the world.
“Right now, this time in your life, it’s a time for taking chances. Taking risks. Following your dreams. Finding your adventure.
“You are so full of potential. And whether your adventure takes you across town or across the world, I want you to be open to change. To new ideas and new dreams.
“Your life right now is an abundance of opportunities. Whatever you’ve assumed your life will look like as an adult, now is the time to let go of that assumption and build a new vision of your future. Try new things. Dream new dreams. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
“And know that you can always come home. But in order to come home…first you have to leave.”
Her gaze, which she had steadfastly pointed everywhere in the room except for the table from Smallville High, drifted there at last, and she found him, surrounded by his students, watching her intensely. She paused for a moment, her eyes on his, and felt her mouth quirk into a tiny, fleeting half smile. His smile in return was slower, softer, full of gratitude. He nodded to her, almost imperceptibly, and she took a breath and turned her gaze back to the students, first at his table, and then beyond, preparing to return to her original topic.
“Your job over the next few years is to find the thing that excites you, that drives you, and follow it fearlessly. And I hope, at least for some of you, that thing is journalism. Because we need you. We need the generation that follows behind us to take up the fight, to shine those lights.”
*****
Lois approached the front desk to check out and saw that the clerk was occupied with a middle aged couple obviously registering some sort of complaint. She stood back and checked her watch automatically.
Her mind spun with contradictory thoughts, half impatient to get checked out so she could grab a cab to the airport and get back to her real life and half screaming at her past self for booking a Friday night flight rather than extending her trip through the weekend or at least booking a Saturday morning flight. At the time, she had been sure two nights of being in a hotel crawling with teenagers would be more than enough and she would be ready to ditch the loud halls and crowded elevators and disturbed slumber for her peaceful apartment.
But now two days seemed like a pittance. If only she could have at least one more night.
The thought had crossed her mind to change her ticket, but the truth was that if she did, she would be right back here in another day or two. She didn’t want just one more night. One more dinner. One more evening chatting over drinks. One more day watching him with his students. She wanted…more. And more just wasn’t possible.
He lived half a country away. Long distance relationships were difficult enough for established relationships. They had only just met.
She checked her watch again and rolled her eyes at the disgruntled couple in front of her.
“Ms. Lane!” Lois looked up and saw Clark’s female students entering the lobby from the long corridor that led to the conference room and realized they must be on their way back to their room.
“Hi,” she said. “Congratulations!”
They grinned with pride, and she smiled. She had been so skeptical of this entire experience, sure that she would be unable to relate to or connect with the students, and she was surprised to find that she had become genuinely fond of Clark’s students.
“I loved your speech,” Sarah said. “It made me so excited to start school at UK next fall. It’s going to be an adventure.”
“I’m so happy to hear that,” she replied. “You’re going to do great. I’ll be keeping an eye out for you.”
The girl’s grin was so wide, Lois felt an uncharacteristic impulse to reach out and hug her. Instead, her gaze shifted over Sarah’s shoulder, and she scanned the group of students and chaperones trickling into the lobby. He wasn’t among them, and the pain of his absence was a sharp knife in her chest.
“Is Mr. Kent still in the conference room?” she asked suddenly, the words out of her mouth without planning or consideration.
They nodded, shooting each other small smiles and knowing glances. She didn’t care. She needed to see him again.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m just going-”
“Do you want us to go get him for you?” asked Elise, the youngest of Clark’s students in attendance, a perky Freshman with a ponytail and braces. “So you don’t lose your spot in line?”
She glanced around and realized a line had formed behind her. She was torn between abandoning her spot and running down the hall herself and telling the girl to forget she had said anything and carrying on as planned.
“Please,” she said, settling for a compromise, and the girls smiled and took off down the hall.
At just that moment, the aggrieved couple in front of her seemed to reach an acceptable resolution and moved aside. She stepped up to the counter, handed over her key card, and began the checkout process.
A couple minutes later, checkout completed, she took a few steps toward the lobby doors and set her shoulder bag on top of her suitcase. She opened it and bent her head to look inside, rummaging for a business card and a pen.
His voice, when it came, was unexpected but gentle and intimate, and it sent sparks through her body. “I heard you were looking for me.”
“All my life,” she whispered to herself, too quiet for him to hear.
She looked up and met his eye, her heart leaping at the sight of him. She looked back down, jotting down a number on the back of her card. “I was… I know what I said, about you living a million miles away. It’s true. But… This has been so nice. Talking to you. And I just thought… Maybe… If you wanted…we could keep talking.” She took a step closer to him and placed the card in his outstretched hand, her eyes averted, unable to meet his. “That’s my home number, on the back. If you wanted… I mean… you know.”
She looked up and saw Clark's face lit up with a mixture of joy and relief. "Lois, that would be ... I would love that. Thank you."
She smiled at him for a minute, unsure what else to say as the the time for her flight ticked closer and closer. Finally she tilted her head toward the door. “I should get a cab. And you need to get back to your kids.”
He nodded. “I’ll call you,” he said.
“Good.” She smiled at him one more time, letting out a little laugh. Because she really hoped he would.
