He returns fairly quickly, more quickly than she thought he would, in fact - it's actually possible he did go to the bathroom. Not long after he left, they were ushered to their tables on the lawn, seated with the other J-school grads, and Clark is weaving through them, making his way back to her, tightening his tie as he sits down. Then he slips an arm over the back of her chair and slides easily into the conversation, as though he'd been there from the start, firing off other examples of journalists who single-handedly brought down world leaders.
Over dinner, Clark deftly handles the Mosquito, Jeanne and Lois' nickname for Thomas Howson IV, the slimy trust fund kid who majored in radio journalism because it was the easiest major at Met U. In their college days, he frequently and indiscriminately hit on the women of the J-school program and more than once showed up on her and Jeanne's doorstep drunk looking for a good time. Lois is far from surprised to find him unchanged and still single. Clark has no way of knowing how much she loathes this man, but he's always seemed to have a sensitive radar for pompous egomaniacs who desire her. She marvels at the deft way he politely plays him like a fiddle over dinner.
The Mosquito points to a nude statue in the center, which is fashioned as a vase at the top. "These centerpieces are a little much, huh? I'm not complainin', I mean, I always appreciate a naked lady, but feels a little risque for dinner, am I right?" he chuckled, taking a swig of his whisky.
"I actually overheard someone in the bar line say all the centerpieces were made by the ceramics studies classes. Each table has a different theme celebrating a Greek god or goddess. Ours appears to be Aphrodite, the goddess of love, which makes sense because she's often depicted nude in classical sculpture," Clark explains.
"Well like I said, I'm not complainin," Thomas grunts with a self-satisfied chuckle.
"Your mother would love this whole concept, Clark, with the art students creating their own centerpieces for a theme," she smiles at him.
Jeanne nudges Lois with her shoulder. "Loissss," she teases, "You've already met Clark's parents?"
"Oh no, I mean, yes - well, I met them very early on. Before we were dating. But I know them very well now. They are wonderful people, I love them."
"And they love you," Clark says quietly, and mostly to her. She blushes and gives his arm a squeeze, then surprises herself by snaking her other hand down to find his under the table. Their fingers lace together on his leg and she revels in the tingle, this thrillingly out of bounds feeling. Ruse or not, this is really nice, being here like this with him.
"Meeting the parents is a big step. Any plans to make this partnership permanent?" Linda asks, and Lois clocks how sincere she sounds. She wonders if marriage really does change some people; she wonders how marriage would change her.
"Oh, well, I –"
"Yeah, Kent, you gonna take the plunge with Mad Dog Lane?" the Mosquito quips.
"Oh, I'd marry her in a minute," Clark says without hesitation. "But...there's no rush. We've only been dating about four months. We're just enjoying this phase for now." Lois smiles in delighted agreement and leans into his shoulder, taking a moment to appreciate that he smells like Clark, and feels like home.
When the waiter appears over her shoulder offering chocolate souffle, she declines, still content in the crook of Clark's arm. Clark frowns down at her admonishingly, and she replies with a tiny shrug, wondering when they honed this unspoken language they speak with their eyes. Because she knows it bothers him that she doesn't order dessert, even when it's a bowl of airy molten chocolate - her favorite. And she knows he's lovingly urging her to live a little. The waiter places the bowl down in front of him. He spears the center and takes a bite, casting his eyes to the heavens.
"I'm sorry, Lois, I can't let you get away with it, you have to try this," he teases, spooning a bite for her.
"Clark, we just ate a steak dinner," she retorts. "Not everyone is a bottomless pit," she says. And, she thinks, not everyone can eat whatever they want and still look like they were chiseled to life by Michelangelo.
"That's a good man right there Lois, not letting you pass up this souffle," Jeanne says. "It''s their signature dessert. And it has your name written all over it."
His offered bite dangles in the air, his stern expression almost demanding she try it. The table chimes in with goading encouragement.
She eyes the spoon, then him, biting her lip. "It does look good," she says, rewarding his efforts with a small, flirty smile. She turns, accepting the bite, and he spoons it into her mouth, so gently hesitant, so lovingly. She moans as she slips her lips off the spoon; her eyes slide closed for a moment of bliss, and when she opens them, his eyes are on her, entranced, as warm and sweet and molten as the dark chocolate tingling her tongue.
And as their eyes meet, her heart stutters, feeling itself wander aimlessly, headlong through the danger zone, past all her carefully erected barriers, over the cliff, and now tumbling into a free fall, right into the dark abyss of those molten eyes that are telling her this very moment that she doesn't have to be afraid of falling, that he will always catch her. That her heart will always be safe with him.
Across the table, Angela – a brassy local TV reporter now based out of Chicago – fans herself with breathless awe, "Geez…I'll have what she's having."
The spell is broken, the entire table roars with laughter, and Lois feels her cheeks bloom to a dark crimson, only now absorbing all pairs of eyes transfixed by their exchange.
Her mind is then struck with the realization that they hadn't even been pretending.
"No kidding. That nearly didn't feel legal for prime time," Jeanne quips, nudging Lois with her elbow.
Clark laughs gamely at their expense and wraps an arm around her, pulling her in close and dropping a kiss into her hair to assuage her embarrassment and underscore their ruse of a couple who is deeply, comfortably in love. Lois blushes furiously. He pushes the souffle toward her and murmurs in her ear, "you better finish this, or it seems I'm going to get arrested trying to feed you the rest."
She obeys, burying her embarrassment in her souffle. The band starts up with a bit of fanfare, it's a classic Motown tune up first, and a few people get up from the table to mingle and dance. He keeps his arm slung on the back of her chair as she eats, trading midwestern war stories with Angela about the bitterly frigid winters, and that time he was eight when he got lost in a blizzard coming in from the barn. She forgets sometimes these days, how he's also just a simple, homegrown farmboy from Kansas. What was once a quality she found disqualifying, she now finds refreshingly endearing.
The band kicks up with a new song. Fly Me to the Moon, let me play…among the stars. She's jerked to a place that feels far away, to the night Superman became her consolation prize, floating her around her living room as she wished she was dancing on the ground, finishing what she started that evening with Clark. Even so, with the wrong man in the wrong suit, it was one of the most romantic moments of her life.
Now sated, she sets down her spoon with a contented sigh and pushes the bowl away. Clark takes this as a cue and tosses his napkin on the table, rising from his chair with an air of definitive resolve. She feels his warm hands cup her shoulders and his lips brush her hair and a shiver runs through her body. "Dance with me," he murmurs, his breath tickling her ear, and she knows it's pretend, but she wonders if he's pretending.
Without a thought, her face melts into a smile, and she puts a hand up to his cheek, lovingly holding his face to hers. He pulls her palm to his lips and kisses it. This is definitely pretend. But oh, it feels so right to pretend it isn't. Her mind swirls with the possibility of this as her reality, and it feels like glorious warm sunshine bursting through a million cracks in the wall she's built around her heart.
She stands, turning to take his offered hand again and let her lead him to the dance floor. When he pulls her body to his, she knows. She knows the way his eyes lock into hers with a confidence she's never seen from him, not even the night she could have sworn he kissed her in front of her lopsided, newly adorned Charlie Brown Christmas tree, admiring his gift to her – a star from the sky. She knows that for the last two years, he's been pretending. This is him not pretending.
And she meets him there, lets him take the lead, and it feels so good to let him lead, to let him in – the pad of his thumb whispering loving strokes against her shoulder, the feel of his hand in hers so firm, so assertive, yet reassuring and familiar and warm. There's a cool breeze, and the Ruins are lit up, and she realizes she imagined this moment when she asked him to come. When he insisted on coming. It's the most effortless, enchanted dance of her life.
His head is tilted down toward hers, his eyes on her. She almost can't meet them, too afraid of the moment where they can't magically turn this back into what they had before. "Thank you for being here, Clark," she says, and it feels wholly inadequate and lame. "You gave up your weekend to support me. I really appreciate it."
Clark casts her that easy, unassuming smile. "It's not exactly a burden, Lois, spending the weekend with you. I'm having a great time. Besides, with you here, what else would I be doing?" he teased.
She smiles back at him. They had been spending a lot of their time off together lately. "I don't know…home maintenance projects? Taking Mayson out to dinner?"
He shakes his head at her, in a slow, tantalizing way that says there is nowhere he would rather be. His eyes dart around the tent after a moment, breaking the spell, easing up a bit on the intensity of whatever is happening between them here on this dancefloor. "Your college friends are really nice. Linda seems pretty tame now that she's married. She really has a lot of respect for you, Lois, if you'd give her a chance. Jeanne is smart as a whip. By the way, I thought you said they were all bringing dates. Jeanne's here alone."
"Her husband is on call tonight, he's coming in the morning." she explains. "I think she attends a lot of events alone. Just part of being married to a surgeon I suppose."
"Ah. Well I look forward to meeting him. You two seem really close, but I haven't heard you talk about her."
"Actually, she helped me a lot after everything with, well, Lex. She's the best. But we're the same – total workaholics. No time for personal relationships," she says.
"You just said she's married," he chides, spinning her in a different direction.
"They started dating our senior year in college," she said. "It's hardly the same thing, it's not like she met him out in the wild. And they're both so busy they hardly see each other except on the weekends."
"Ah," he smiles up into the stars, visibly humoring her.
"Anyway, we always pick up right where we left off. But both of us are buried in our careers right now. She's already a managing director."
"Impressive. I guess you two made quite the team back in the day."
"I only partner with the best," she replies with a broad, adoring grin.
He smiles back at her, his eyes twinkling. Their locked gaze is interrupted by a wave from the Mosquito passing by them. "That guy, Thomas? He's a piece of work," Clark says in a low voice, still focused on her.
"Tell me about it. We went on one date, early in my freshman year and he chased me around all of college. Jeanne and I nicknamed him the Mosquito, because he's always showing up and ruining the party. He gets worse after he gets a few drinks in him," she laments. "But I've always been able to hold my own. One night I woke up and he was next to me in my bed!"
Clark looks at her with alarm. "What?!"
"I guess he showed up on our doorstep one night, totally plastered. Jeannie let him sleep it off on the sofa. He crept into my bed but my cat started hissing at him and I woke up and gave him an earful. Fortunately he was so drunk he couldn't really be too much of a threat. I shooed him out and locked the door."
He pulls her in a bit closer. "Well, hopefully you won't have to worry much about him this weekend. He seems pretty convinced we're together. They all do."
"I guess we're pretty good at pretending," she says a little shyly. Is it pretend?
His hand slips down to her waist, and pulls her in a little tighter. "We've had a lot of practice," he replies, in a way that is both suggestive of a deeper meaning and safely ambiguous.
"Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for, all I worship and adore,"
She settles into his chest for a moment, relishing whatever this feeling is, their ruse giving her every right to be snug and secure against him. But she knows it's not a ruse, for either of them. And it's as close to bliss as she can ever remember feeling.
He pulls back to look at her, his head tilted, his eyes alive and fiery. She plays with the hair at the nape of his neck, hoping he can't hear her heart pounding wildly, hoping he can see how deeply she is secretly longing for him to lead them all the way there. All the way…home.
And then, he freezes. His eyes dart away from hers, his composure grows stiff.
"Clark, no. Stay with me," she pleads. She doesn't know where she's asking him not to go. She doesn't know why he would leave, why he would leave her now. But she knows without a doubt he's about to make another lame excuse. And she wants him to know he doesn't have to run away from this.
He remains paralyzed for a second, as if he's seriously considering it. "Lois, I'm so sorry. I'll be back in just a minute. I just really, really need to…use the restroom."
His expression is pained as he pulls away from her, like it's agony, like he's possibly choosing to shut the door on the rest of his life. She wonders if he might be right. But he makes a beeline for the door anyway, and she's standing there in the middle of a sea of couples dancing, dumbfounded and hurt and alone.
"In other words…please be true
In other words…"
