Table of Contents Previously, on Part 18:
He dialed home. “Mom?”
“Clark? Is that you?” His mother hollered to be heard over the racket. “I can barely hear you! What is that? Jungle drums? What’s going on there?”
“I need to talk to Dad!”
“What?”
“I need to talk to Dad!”
“Dad’s not in right now. Can I help you with something?”
“No! No! I need Dad.”
“What’s going on? I hear giggling. Do you have a woman over there?”
“Yeah, but it’s not what you think. I need to talk to Dad.”
“Clark, if you haven’t got answers to the questions I think you’re asking about—Son, I think it’s a little late now.”
“No, Mom. It’s not like that. I just need to…”
“I know, talk to Dad. I’m not sure when he’ll be back. I don’t know who that lady is, but—BOY!—she sure sounds happy.”
Clark sighed. “That’s not a lady, Mom; that’s Lois. I mean… She’s not as happy as she sounds. You know?”
“Haven’t a clue. Whenever I sound like that, I’m pretty happy.”
“MO-O-OM!”
“Well, I guess you and Lois
have hit the naughty stage of your relationship. Huh?”
“Just have Dad call when he gets in. No. Never mind. I have a different idea.”
_________________
And now, Part 19:
Lois staggered from his bed into the living room.
Clark smiled weakly and mumbled, “Good morning.”
“What exactly is going on here? What
am I doing in your apartment?” She indignantly put her hands on her hips, only to jump as her hands hit mostly-naked flesh. “What am I doing in your apartment? Have I lost my mind?”
Clark’s smile lit up his face. “You’re back!” He let out a yell straight from some Kansas-style rodeo. “You’re back!” He ran to her and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re back!”
Suddenly, he became very aware of his fingers on her barely-clothed frame. He cleared his throat and stuffed his hands into his pockets, carefully taking a step away from her.
“Um… it’s good to see you’re feeling better.”
“I feel awful,” Lois moaned. She ducked away from him. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” he hastily told her. “Ah, Lois, this is Sister Colleen. Sister Colleen, this is Lois.”
Lois looked up in confusion and surprise. Oh heavens, no! There were witnesses. No wait, there were chaperones.
“I’m going to go make breakfast.” Clark scooted out the room, trying to give Lois as much privacy as he could.
Lois slumped back across Clark’s bed, hiding herself with a much-too-small pillow.
“How are you feeling?” Sister ‘Chaperone’ wondered.
“Mortified,” Lois muttered, “with a headache.”
“I wouldn’t be too embarrassed. Clark came and got me last night. He told me about how you’d been poisoned and suggested you might need a female to better care for you. So I came over. So, no matter how you’re dressed, you spent the night with me—not Clark.”
“I’m still humiliated,” Lois sulked. “But thank you.”
Sister Colleen smiled. “No problem.”
Lois frowned. She was feeling grumpy and wasn’t above taking it out on somebody. “Are you really a nun? You don’t look very nun-like.”
“Oh, really? What does a nun look like?” her eyes crinkled up as she spoke, and Lois just knew she was being teased.
“I don’t know. Penguins come to mind.”
Sister Colleen laughed good-naturedly. “Black and white left the abbey not long after the sound of music left the hills.”
Lois was still feeling awkward and surly. “So what’s a nice guy like Clark doing hanging out with a nun like you?”
“I maintain a friendship with Clark, since he’s much too shy to keep up with me.”
Lois snorted. “Clark? Shy? Clark’s not shy!” She slapped her knee as she laughed, serving to remind herself of her currently flimsy attire. “Not that the way I’m dressed, or in this case not dressed—well, not dressed very much—have anything to do with how shy Clark is. Because he’s not very shy with words, but only with words. He and I aren’t really doing anything though.” She swallowed nervously. “So how did you meet Clark?”
“It’s fortunate for me that I did. Last January, I had a tire blow out. I lost control of the car and totally missed the bridge. I didn’t hit any guard rails and there was no one around to watch me go in, so when the doors wouldn’t open I was sure I was a goner. But then Clark showed up and broke the window. He saved my life, then tried sneaking off. Like I said, he’s pretty shy about his heroics. He doesn’t sit still for thank you’s.”
“Huh,” Lois stopped to think about it. “I didn’t know he had it in him.”
“Then you probably don’t know him very well.” Colleen left Lois to think it out. “If you’re all right, I better get going. I need to get ready for work.”
Lois shrugged. She continued to hide out in Clark’s bedroom for a long time after the nun had left. Finally, Clark came looking for her. He called into the bedroom area, but was careful to remain out of sight.
“Are you going to come out?”
“No.”
“Are you sick?”
“No,” she confessed. “Not really. But I’m still not coming out.”
“But I need you to come out. Come on, Lois. You know I’m not that good of a reporter. I need you to help me investigate this so we can find Miranda and find out what’s in that stuff and why she’s doing this. You know I can’t do this by myself.”
Lois finally came to the edge of the open area that Clark used for a bedroom. “Did I really do the dance of the seven veils?”
“Oh, yeah. You were way past seven by the time Sister Colleen got here.”
Lois groaned, hiding her face in her hands. “I made the biggest fool of myself.”
“That’s not true.” Clark reached for her, as if to pull her into a comforting embrace. Instead, he flopped his arms awkwardly to his sides, unsure how to touch her.
“You’re just trying to be nice, but…”
“Cat made a much bigger fool of herself than you did.”
Lois looked up, startled and confused. For a change, she was the one caught off-guard. Clark could tell the moment she remembered as the red flooded across her cheeks.
“That wasn’t my best moment, either,” she mumbled.
Clark flushed as well, in vivid recollection.
“I better head back and get cleaned up.” She adjusted her costume and quickly edged past him, darting toward the door.
“You’re going to the dorm dressed like that?” Clark wondered in a tone of voice reminiscent of the one her mother used circa Lois’s junior high years.
“To the Planet,” Lois corrected. “I changed there. Oh, that reminds me… I better return that coat. There’s no telling who it belongs to.”
“Don’t worry about it; it’s mine.” Clark shrugged. “I was in a hurry to leave yesterday.” Once again he thrust his hands in his pocket and shuffled his feet, looking suddenly more like a little kid than the grown man she had tried to seduce. “Hey, why don’t you look around in the closet and see if you can find something that comes close to fitting you?”
Lois glared. “If any of your clothes fit me, I’ll be mortified.”
Of course, that made sense. “Better yet, I bet I could power-walk to work and back by the time you finish soaking in my tub.” She looked like she was about to protest, so he continued quickly. “It’s probably not a bad idea to scrub off all that poison, anyway.”
She begrudgingly agreed.
Twenty-five minutes later, she wrinkled up her nose when she reappeared wearing the lacey white dress she had left dangling from a desk drawer. It just wasn’t her. She couldn’t imagine why she had ever bought it.
Her mood was much improved when she decided to skip class and nail the little witch who’d put a hex on her. She hiked at a tornado’s pace across town, ready to take on the powers that be.
“The way I see it, there are at least three ways we can go about this,” Lois informed Clark. She wasn’t even out of breath, although any other normal person would be. “I’m not sure which way to do it, yet, because I don’t know what your strengths are as a reporter, if you have any.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. First, we could shoot straight and go in as two reporters after a story, although I don’t think we’ll get anywhere since neither of us has a killer street reputation. Or you can pretend to still be under the drug’s influence while I case the joint. Don’t let past failures stop you; I’m sure there’s some woman out there you could seduce. Or I can pretend to be under the influence while you look for evidence.”
Clark’s jaw fell. “You what?”
Lois didn’t miss a beat. “You never know with these bohemian types. She just might be interested. But even so, it’s just to buy you enough time to get in and out. So what do you think? Do you have any strong suits?”
Clark let the jab pass once again. “I read fast and I can be quiet, but I’m not much of a liar. But you have to think of a better way in. I can’t just stand there and listen to that.”
“Grow up!” Lois ordered. “Hey, isn’t this the place?” She flounced her hair, straightened her dress, pinched redness to her cheeks and adjusted her bra. “You ready? I’m going in.”
Lois flitted about the shop looking at this and that. She chatted for as long as she could with the shopkeeper they had seen in Clark’s magazine. Of course, she was almost instantly recognized—it had only been two days since the woman had visited the Daily Planet. But Lois was smooth enough to use that to her advantage.
“I must have a bottle of whatever it was I sampled the other day. My boyfriend simply loved it.” She giggled suggestively. “He’s just outside. I was hoping to surprise him.”
“That particular scent is not for sale, as of yet. I’m not quite finished with the customization on that aroma. You understand.”
“But I have to have it,” Lois insisted. “Normally my boyfriend doesn’t care what I wear, but this time he noticed.”
Lois frowned as Clark entered the store. He couldn’t possibly have found anything in the few minutes he’d spent. Did he even have time to break in? This was why she hated to work with amateurs.
When Miranda turned her back to greet him, Lois tried in vain to communicate with gestures. She jerked her neck, trying to point to the back room with her head.
Clark just pasted on a thin, wide smile. “I’m sure the fragrances in here are way out of our price range, sweetheart.”
She tried to appear loving in spite of her clenched teeth. “But dear, you liked it so much the other day.”
Clark seemed to switch gears. He asked Miranda, “Oh, it was you who made that perfume we tried the other day? It had an interesting aroma. Was it animal-based?”
Miranda slid her arm along Clark’s. “You have a remarkable olfactory sense.”
“He’s amazing!” Lois gushed.
“Yes, that particular perfume is quite rare, although the ingredients are a proprietary secret. It’s named ‘Revenge’. But as I was saying, it’s not available for purchase, yet.” Miranda floated to the other side of the room. “Although I do have this blend I call ‘Jungle Passion.’ Pure white petals from a flower grown only in Micronesia. Interested? Yes?”
Clark wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “As I said, your fragrances are out of our price range.”
Lois waited until they were on the street and out of sight before shoving Clark. “I can’t believe you messed that one up!”
“What? I didn’t mess up anything.”
“You didn’t have time to do a proper search. What were you doing? Popping over to check up on me? I didn’t come on to her, if that’s what you were worried about.”
“I got her research files, Lois. I took pictures of each page on my digital camera. I also took this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar-looking bottle of perfume. “Let’s head back to The Planet. I’m betting that Jimmy can help us out. He has some friends in scientific research.”
Lois’s eyebrows shot up. “You got all of that? In that little bit of time?”
Clark grinned and shrugged, enjoying her eyes as she assessed him in a new light.
~*~
“Jimmy!” Lois cried out as soon as the elevator doors began to creep open. “I need some research on a story.”
Jimmy hurried over, a frown played across his features. “So research it.”
“I don’t have your resources,” she impatiently told him, her tone-of-voice perfect for a spat among five-year-olds on the playground.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Jimmy puffed up his chest and grinned. “What do you need?”
“Clark, show him,” Lois ordered as she hastened to her desk. She stopped short as she saw the arrangement there. “What’s this?”
Clark whistled as he approached.
Lois checked out a bouquet of flowers the size of which she had never seen outside a funeral parlor. She looked at Clark, confusion washing over her face. “Did you send me this while you were under the influence?”
“It wasn’t me. I was never under the influence,” he reminded her.
“You’re right. Why was that exactly?”
Clark brought her back to the original topic. “So who are they from?”
Lois hunted around the buds and blooms until she found an embossed card, oblivious to the crowd that gathered around her desk. “I have been cordially invited to dinner and an interview with Lex Luthor this evening at seven pm.”
She shrugged, picking up the bouquet and searching around for a more convenient location to store it. She had work to do and no romantic-wannabe was going to distract her from the story. “Whatever. Whoever the guy is, he’s going to be disappointed.”
“You don’t know who he is?” Jimmy’s mouth practically gaped.
“I didn’t keep up with local news while I was traveling.”
“Local news? Are you crazy?” Cat practically spat the words. “I would
kill for an interview with him. Lex Luthor is only one of
the most eligible bachelors in Metropolis, one of
the most powerful men in America, one of the
richest men in the world. And he hasn’t given an interview in over a decade. If you don’t go tonight, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought you were.”
Lois was uncharacteristically caught without words. She looked to Clark for confirmation. He disappointedly nodded. It was obvious Cat was telling the truth.
Just then Perry thundered out of his office. “What in the Sam Hill… I just took a call from Lex Luthor’s personal assistant, wondering why my best reporter hasn’t responded yet to Mr. Luthor’s personal invitation. Lois, exactly what is this all about?”
“It’s the story of the century, Boss. Relax,” Lois soothed, “you know I’m on it.” Clark suspected that this was Lois Lane in her true element. “Did anyone get a number to confirm? Never mind. I’ll get it.”
Lois picked up her phone and then glanced around in annoyance. “Doesn’t anyone else have any work to do?”
Perry frowned and swung his hands around in a gesture that was easily translated as ‘git.’ At his insistence the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
Lois glanced again at the invitation, but there was no phone number listed for an RSVP. Perhaps this rich, powerful bachelor just assumed she would drop everything for an evening with him. Men!
She grabbed a notepad with her other hand and stuffed a pen in her mouth. Keeping her telephone at the ready, she rifled quickly through the phone book. Obviously a man in Luthor’s position wouldn’t list any of his private lines, but if she could hop off a phone tree and find just the right secretary…
“Uh, Lois,” Perry called for her attention, “I need to speak with you for just a second.”
“Yeah, sure,” she quickly agreed, shuffling all her tools back to their appropriate places.
“In my office,” Perry clarified.
He waited until they were both in the room, with the door closed and both of them comfortably seated, before speaking his mind.
“I appreciate what a story you’ve stumbled across, but I also know that Glen has a full evening’s work planned for you.”
“He can give it to someone else, Jimmy or Jerry or whoever cares. You can’t possibly expect me to pass this up.”
“I’m considering sending a reporter with more experience at The Planet.”
Lois snorted. At his reprimanding glare, she covered by putting her hand over her mouth and mumbling, “Excuse me.”
“This is no dog show, Lois. I know from your portfolio that you can write, but I’ve never personally seen you perform under fire. We’re only going to get one shot at this. I need to send someone with experience.”
“Did you see the flowers, Chief? Luthor’s obviously not inviting me for my experience, if you know what I mean. You’ve been around long enough to understand that if you send anyone but me, they’ll be sent home with their hat in their hands.”
Just then a secretary knocked softly on the glass and, at Perry’s welcoming gesture, peeked her head in the door.
“Lois, Lex Luthor’s personal assistant is on the line to make final arrangements. Can you take the call?”
Lois cockily quirked her eyebrows up. “Well? Did you hire me for my research, or were you really hoping for something more from me?”
Perry sighed and made the decision. “Go ahead. But
*bring* *me* *that* *story*.”
Lois picked up the appropriate line and made the arrangements.
“Mr. Luthor will send a car to pick you up. Where do you live?”
Lois thought quickly. If Luthor sent a limo to the dorm it would invite chaos. As much as she loathed shallow men who wanted a pretty face to interview them, she needed to make a good impression until the interview was in the bag.
“He can find me at The Daily Planet,” she decided.
_______________
Author's Notes:
I hope that long-time FOLCs recognize and appreciate my nod to Debbie Stark's Dawning series.
>>>>>>“If any of your clothes fit me, I’ll be mortified.”
Also, in case anyone was wondering or worried, I tend to set all my elseworlds in current time. I figure, since I'm messing with everything else, why not? I can never remember when cell-phones and digital cameras and the internet and all of that came along, so I just throw it all in.
