Hello everyone. Thanks to those who have given me feedback. And thanks to rkn for betaing again.
It's nice to be righting about the summer. Do you know we got fluries today? Here comes winter! Actually, we usually get snow earlier than this up here. But I just wasn't expecting it today! Anyway, I digress.
Here's part 8
A Box of Swiss Chocolates
By the following Tuesday, Kiley was ready and eager to see Larry again. He really was a great guy, and she was sure she was overreacting. They would work everything out.
They had planned to meet at his house at 10:00AM his time. That meant she needed to leave at 4:00 Eastern Standard time. It was a little difficult, but she did want to spend the day with Larry. Besides, because of her painting schedule, she could really go to sleep and get up anytime she wanted. And she didn’t need as much sleep as an ordinary human, anyway.
So Kiley got up and put on some tan pants and nice pink shirt. She looked nice, but not too fancy. Perfect. She spun into her Superwoman outfit and headed for the sky. It was a beautiful day for flying. She spun around and did loops as she flew. Today was going to be a great day
A few minutes later, she landed near Larry’s house. Then she quickly spun into her regular clothes and walked the short distance to his house. She walked up to the front door and knocked, using the big brass door knocker.
Larry opened the door immediately. “Hi Kiley!” he exclaimed. “Will you come in for a minute? I’d like to show you something.”
Kiley nodded, wondering what he thought was so important to show her. She walked slowly into his living room.
“Look over here,” he steered her towards the middle of the room. There, just above the coach, Larry had hung “Swiss Alps Mystic.” It fit perfectly, like it was meant to be there. “Doesn’t it look great?” he asked her eagerly. “I love seeing it when I come downstairs every morning, and when I come home at night. It’s you, Kiley.”
“Thanks, Larry,” Kiley replied. He was so sweet. In fact…Kiley leaned over and kissed him softly.
“Well,” Larry commented when they had finished, “I was thinking you might like to visit the art gallery we have here. If you like to see other paintings, that is.”
“I’d love to.” They grinned. Larry took her hand and they walked out the door. “It’s on the other side of the city, though. We should probably take a taxi.” So they did. After a very long trip, due to traffic jams and angry drivers, they arrived at the art gallery.
They saw some beautiful paintings inside, including those by William van Aelst, Gerard David, Willem Corneliza Durster, Johann Rudolf Loutherburg and many others. Kiley enjoyed Emil Anner and Samuel August Aeyerter, who painted beautiful snow scenes. They both discussed Max Ernst modern/cubist painting extensively. “I love the fact that it’s so colorful.” Kiley commented, as she looked at it. “It makes it look cheerful. I like to use a lot of bright colors in my art.”
Larry examined the painting from several angles. “It certainly is colorful,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure if I can call it cheerful.” He squinted as he thought intently. “It’s too bizarre.”
“Well, it certainly is different,” Kiley agreed. “But not all art has to conform to a mold of what people expect. Sometimes the artist wants to break free of trying to please everyone.” Kiley thought about her “War’s Honor and Grief” painting. That certainly was a painting that most people had not expected her to do. But it had helped her to paint that, and she was glad she did.
“Well,” Larry shrugged as he looked Ernst’s painting again. “Maybe bizarre can be a good thing.”
“I remember doing cubism in college,” Kiley commented. “I ended up going a different route with my art, but it was nice to do something different. And one of the things I always liked about it was the colors involved.”
They moved on to look at another painting. Kiley was really enjoying sharing the art world with Larry. She also enjoyed looking at other artists’ paintings. Actually, she didn’t do it often enough at home, between her superhero business and working on her own art. But it was nice to see what others were doing. Sometimes she could get inspiration from another paining.
Next they discussed the work of Albert Landrer, who had a beautiful painting of men riding horses under a bridge in the winter. The most interesting discussion, however, was the painting of Johann Heinrick Ferdinard Oliver.
Larry stopped short when he saw this painting. It was a beautiful scene of a wooded area and a running brook coming down the front. Further back, there was an imposing structure in the center. It looked similar to a medieval castle in some ways, only it didn’t have a drawbridge or a fence. In the background, you could see the mountains.
Kiley looked at the painting intensely as well. It was a beautiful painting. In some ways, it reminded her of her “Swiss Alps Mystic”, although hers featured the mountains as more of the focus of the painting. “This is a really good one,” she commented.
Larry nodded slowly. “It looks kind of like where I grew up,” he said as he continued to stare at it. “Not exactly, but close enough. Especially the whole ‘away from the world’ image.”
Kiley nodded, confused. What did he mean by that?
“Uncle Lex had this fortress in the Alps that he used as one of his ‘get away from the city’ retreats. Actually, it didn’t even have any windows in it. When I was born, he told my mother we should live there so she could have all the support she needed to care for a child. Since she didn’t have much money, she ended up there even though she really didn’t want to be supported by her brother and all his paid servants. Uncle Lex would show up every so often when he needed a ‘retreat’ and to visit the child he considered his ‘protégé – me.”
Kiley nodded, beginning to understand more of his childhood. “So your childhood was pretty sheltered, huh?” She looked at the painting with new eyes. It was still beautiful, but she could see how it was secluded from everything as well.
Larry nodded. “Yeah. I had tutors instead of going to school. Nothing but the best for Larry Luthor, you know.” He said that last sentence sarcastically, in a fake snobbish voice. “So since Uncle Lex only appeared sporadically, and there weren’t any other children for me to play with, I kind of grew up befriending the servants. Uncle Lex tried to discourage me from doing that when he visited, but I always ended up spending time with them after he left. That’s how I learned to cook.”
Kiley nodded. It was good to hear he was able to hold his own against Lex Luthor sometimes.
“But since Mom could only get the support from her brother to raise me if she stayed at the fortress, she became dependent on him. Even after he died, we still lived there because she didn’t think we had anywhere else to go. And even though she’s really smart, today she only works as a waitress.” Larry had a bitter tone in his voice as he said this.
Kiley nodded. There was another example of Lex Luthor making his women dependent on him. It did seem to fit with the character of him that she had read about. But fortunately, Larry really didn’t agree with Lex’s methods towards women. That was good. Actually it was really sweet how angry he seemed to be about his uncle on his mother’s behalf. Larry really was a sweet guy.
He held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s see what other paintings are here.” She took his hand and they moved on to the next painting.
Two hours later, they decided to take a break for lunch. Although there was a small snack bar in the art gallery, Larry decided to take her somewhere more fancy. He knew a nice place around the corner that he wanted to show her. They walked into the crowded restaurant. It was one of those places where you needed to put your name down and wait until they called your name.
When it was their turn, Larry stepped up and said quickly, “Two for Luthor.”
The hostess raised her eyebrows. “Luthor, huh?” she asked with surprise and a small sneer in her voice. It kind of reminded Kiley of the way Arnold talked to her.
Larry took a deep breath, trying to appear confident. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Well,” the woman looked at her list of names. “I guess we can fit you in.” She wrote the name down. Kiley noticed the sneer was still there in the undertones of her voice. Larry and Kiley nodded and decided to walk around the block while they waited.
“What was with her attitude?” Kiley asked, upset that anyone would be treating such a sweet guy like that. She sighed. To a certain extent, she understood. After all, when she first found out Larry’s last name was Luthor, she had been nervous and bothered by it. And by then, she already knew that he was a pretty nice person. Still she was from Metropolis. Surely people around here wouldn’t pay as much attention to “the evils of Luthor”?
Larry sighed. “Sometimes I run into that. Uncle Lex may not have run Zurich like he ran Metropolis, but he was still an international criminal. People remember that. And he did have something of a reputation here, too, with his fortress.”
“I’m sorry you have to deal with that,” Kiley replied, trying her best to soothe him.
He shrugged. “It’s part of life. Actually I’m lucky I run such a successful business with The Choco Bean. It gives me a more positive image.”
Kiley nodded. “I’m glad I can help you with that business!” she grinned at the thought of his chocolates.
He grinned as well, temporarily easing the tension of the situation.
“But I guess it does kind of bother me,” he continued, going back to the other topic. “That’s why I don’t like to give out my last name unless I can help it. I never know when I’m going to meet someone that has a reaction like that. Darn it!” he said as he kicked a rock on the sidewalk. “I know Uncle Lex gave Luthor a bad name and then some! But I’m not my uncle. Why can’t people see that? Sometimes it seems like I’m always going to be in his shadow!
Kiley sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. What could she say to help him with this situation? “I don’t know if you know both my parents are reporters for the Daily Planet?” she asked.
Larry thought for a minute, with a confused look on his face. “Maybe I heard it once or twice, but about the only thing Uncle Lex ever said about your mother was that she was beautiful and she would be his someday. There’s another example of Uncle Lex’s bad name,” he grumbled.
Kiley ran her fingers through her hair again. This wasn’t starting out very well, but she had a point she was trying to make. “We’ll they are. And I don’t mean just reporters. I mean ‘star reporters’, ‘everyone in Metropolis knows them as the best reporters in the city,’ and all that jazz. For years when I was a kid, my teachers, some of their colleagues, and almost half the city told me I needed to follow in their footsteps and become a reporter, too. It took me a long time before I found painting as my own voice. I know what it’s like to be always in someone else’s shadow, believe me.”
“But at least your parents have good names to follow,” Larry commented.
“That’s true,” Kiley acknowledged. “I love my parents and I’m proud of the articles they’ve written. But that doesn’t mean it’s still not hard to have a lot of people shoving you in a direction you don’t want to go in. I was still in their shadow, no matter where I looked.”
Larry nodded, finally understanding where she was going with this. “I understand what you’re saying. But you’ve got painting now.”
Kiley brightened, as she always did when she talked about painting. “Yes, and I love that. But sometimes I can still be sensitive when people tell me I should write more often than I do, or that they’re better than me because they can write and I can’t.”
Larry’s face was beginning to look up as Kiley continued to speak. “And Larry, you have your chocolate shop, like you said earlier. You’ve got your own voice, too.”
Larry nodded happily. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Just then their name was called and the couple went inside again. They were shown a table near the window. Kiley and Larry sat down happily and looked at their menus. Larry quickly decided on the alplermagronä, which consisted of elbow macaroni and fried onions with mountain cheese, as well as applesauce. Kiley decided to try the gschnätzlets, which was veal with cream sauce. She added milk to complete the meal, which earned her a strange look from Larry. But drinking milk brought back fond memories for her, even when she was in a restaurant in Switzerland. They ordered their meals in Swiss German, and then went back to talking in English.
The rest of the day was spent at the park and at Larry’s house. The talked, laughed, and enjoyed kisses as well. By the end of the day, Kiley felt a lot closer to Larry. She understood his relationship with his uncle better than she had before. And their common experience of “livng under others’ shadows” had bonded them, even though the circumstances of those experiences were vastly different.
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A few days later, Kiley arrived at Hyperion Avenue for another family dinner. Clark was finishing up with the chicken, and Alice was setting the table when her mother answered the door.
“Hi, Kiley,” Mom said cheerfully. “Come on in.”
She smiled as she walked into the kitchen. It was nice to see her family again. She hadn’t seen them as much as she used to because she had spent so much of her free time with Larry. But they always had the family dinners to reconnect.
“Dad’s making a new chicken and rice casserole. It sounds really good,” Alice commented excitedly.
Kiley nodded. “Is there anything you guys need me to do?” she asked
“No, that’s okay, you can sit down. We’re still waiting for Thomas.”
So Kiley sat down in the chair she had always used when she lived with her parents.
After Alice finished setting the table, she sat down as well. “Do you like this shirt” Alice asked Kiley, gesturing to a blue t – shirt she was wearing. It had some lace and button work on it. “I just bought it yesterday.”
Kiley looked at Alice’s shirt closely. It was a nice shirt, although Alice usually wore less decorative clothing. “Yes, I like it, but I thought you like…um…” Kiley’s voice trailed off. How could she put this delicately? “Well, less frilly clothing,” she finally commented.
Alice looked a little confused. “I have two other shirts like this, one in green and one in pink.”
“Alice has decided she wants to wear more enhancing clothing,” Mom commented. “She’s completely reinventing her wardrobe.”
Kiley nodded. “I see. It does look good on you, Alice.” Kiley felt a little out of place. Apparently this was another one of Alice’s phases where she tried to “find herself.” She didn’t see them as often as she used to because she didn’t live at home. Still, Kiley used to be able to keep up with her family a little more.
Thomas knocked on the door. “Sorry about that. There was a robbery at the convenience store in Smallville. Whirlwind helped catch the guy, but it took a while. I just didn’t want to know he was out there with Grandma and Grandpa around, you know?”
Everyone nodded. Smallville was a really small town, so it didn’t have much action. Still, every town had problems occasionally. Everyone agreed Thomas was right to help with that case. With Grandma and Grandpa alone in Smallville, who knew what might happen if the robber hadn’t been caught.
After Mom poured the milk, everyone dug into the dinner. The new casserole was great. “So what have you been up to lately, Kiley?” her Dad asked her suddenly.
Kiley stopped for a second. What was she supposed to say to that? She wasn’t ready to tell him about Larry yet. “Oh, just working on my paintings, you know.” She shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant.
“Did you get the one done with the Swiss Alps scene you were telling me about a couple of weeks ago?” he asked innocently.
Wow, that was way too close! All of her emotions and comments that had to do with that painting had to do with Larry. It was his homeland that inspired it, and every time she had worked on it, she had thought of him. Plus, she had given it to him! It now hung in the center of his living room. “Um, yeah…I finished it.” Kiley answered slowly. “So, how’s your investigation of the city council going?” she asked her parents, hoping to change the subject.
Dad gave her a strange look, but replied, “Not too bad. We’ve got some more evidence that supports our theory. We just still can’t nail down what they’re doing with the tax money instead of spending it on city expenses.”
“We’ve got some more stuff to look through on Monday, Clark,” Mom added. “We’ll get it.”
“How’s the farm going, Thomas?” Kiley asked, still eager for the family’s attention not to be on her.
“Good,” he replied nodding. “It looks like we’re going to have a really good crop this year. Grandpa and I have really helped each other. He says all this new technology is giving him the best crop he’s seen in years, and I told him I would never have gotten it as good as it is if I didn’t have his intimate knowledge of the land.”
They finished the rest of the meal but Kiley was glad when she could go home. It didn’t used to be like this. She used to love spending time with her family, especially the family dinners. She still enjoyed spending time with her family, but it was harder now. She was hiding a part of her life, and that part was growing more important to her everyday. But she wasn’t ready to tell her family about Larry. She just didn’t think they’d understand why she was dating Lex Luthor’s nephew.
With all the things Lex had done to Metropolis, from what she had read in the papers, he had a personal vendetta towards her family. Furthermore, she only read what her parents had been willing to print. She knew from experience that there were things that they didn’t make public, especially when it had to do with Superman. What else may have happened with Lex Luthor that they hadn’t been willing to print? How much less objective would it make her parents toward Larry?
She remembered their discussion a few days ago, about how upset it sometimes made him that he was still living under Lex Luthor’s shadow. Would her parents make that even worse for him? She wanted to protect him from that. Besides, she still wasn’t 100% sure it would work out with Larry. She remembered his comment about how people shouldn’t fly without airplanes. What had he meant? Was it innocent or did he believe her family was doing something wrong? Until she knew, she was going to keep quiet.
Unfortunately, it seemed keeping quiet about Larry meant keeping distance from her family. Kiley wished she wasn’t in this situation, but right now, there was nothing she could do. Well, maybe she could have some Swiss chocolate. She brightened. That always made her feel better. She reached into the box without using X – ray vision, because then she couldn’t see what kind of chocolate she had taken. “You never know what you’re going to get,” she said to herself. That was how her life felt right now. Who knew what would happen next?
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Clark ran his fingers through his hair that night as he got into bed. What had happened to Kiley? It seemed she was putting up a wall between her and her family. It reminded him of the walls Lois used to have when he first knew her. Why was Kiley doing that now? He had been uneasy about it all night. He and Kiley had always been so close. How was he supposed to fix whatever her problem was when she wouldn’t even talk to him?
Lois climbed into bed beside him. She had a worried look on her face. “Are you worried about Kiley?” she asked, gently.
Clark nodded as he ran his fingers through his hair again. “She didn’t even want to talk about painting tonight, Lois. Did you notice how fast she changed the subject after I asked her about it?”
Lois nodded. “I know. Kiley loves to talk about painting. Why wouldn’t she want to talk about painting? Something must be really bothering her. I just don’t understand why she won’t tell us what it is.” Lois sighed in frustration as her babble ran out of steam.
Clark smiled through his frustration with the situation. Almost thirty years since he had met her, and Lois was still the best babbler he knew. “Maybe you can give me some insight, honey. It seems to me that she’s putting walls up around us, like you did when I first you. Do you know what I mean?”
Lois thought for a minute. “Yeah, I guess I do. She is afraid of us for some reason. Why is that? Why would Kiley ever be afraid of her family?”
Clark sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t get it. I’ve never seen her freeze up like this before.”
“Kiley’s always been so much like you, Clark. Quiet strength, patience, and always so open with us.”
Clark nodded. That was what was really bothering him. His Kiley wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He and Lois fell into a troubled sleep, all cuddled up together, like they could shield each other from the pain.
Btw, the pictures that Kiley and Larry looked at in this part come from the following website
Kiley and Larry\'s Paintings The artists are listed alapbetically. So you just look for the name of the artist mentioned, and click on their name,nand you should be able to see the picture they're talking about.or Unfortunately, since the site is in Swiss German, I can talk about them, but I can't say the names of the paintings! (If you think it would improve the story, maybe you could give me the names, Michael. I bet you could read the site!) Oh and, this is the first time I've given a link. Let me know if it doesn't work.
