Lois stood in front of her bedroom mirror in the fourth dress of the evening. The three discards lay strewn across her bed. This one should work, at last. If she’d been conducting an interview during normal business hours, she wouldn’t be having this problem . But, since Clark Kent’s daytime hours were booked up for the next several days, she was joining him for dinner. In his suite. Which made the wardrobe decision tricky. The first three dresses were appropriate for dinner at the Jade, but they were a little too…suggestive... for a business meeting. She knew Kent’s reputation as a ladies’ man, and she had no intention of giving him the wrong impression about her agenda for the evening. Lois Lane was all business, and he’d better believe it. The simple black cocktail dress she now wore was dressy enough for evening wear yet conservative enough to maintain her professional distance. Yes, it would do nicely.
Lois still wasn’t quite sure why she was the one about to interview the charming Mr. Kent. Despite Perry’s enthusiasm for the idea, this was really more Cat’s bailiwick. But she’d been in the right place at the right time, which, as Perry never tired of pointing out, was 50% of what a good reporter did. So, armed with a weekend of skimming Kent’s last four books and a notepad full of questions, Lois was determined to do her best to drum up a story worthy of the Lane byline. As she’d told the man on Friday, Lois Lane didn’t do puff pieces.
Thirty minutes later, Lois emerged onto the 53rd floor of the Vernon Tower and knocked on the door of the Presidential Suite. She couldn’t quite hide her surprised recognition upon seeing who opened it. The woman was dressed in a simple knee-length sheath in deep blue, and her straight, red hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, but there could be no mistake; this was definitely Clark Kent’s mystery date from the White Orchid Ball. Lois caught the suppressed amusement in the woman’s green eyes as she waved Lois into the suite.
“Ms. Lane, please come in. Mr. Kent is in the study, but he’ll be right out. I’m Lana Ross, Mr. Kent’s personal assistant.” Lois shook the woman’s hand and allowed herself to be led to the loveseat of the suite’s living room. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Just seltzer if you’ve got it,” Lois replied. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t like the idea of the striking red-head being such a close associate of Mr. Kent’s.
“Lime with that?” Ms. Ross called from the kitchen. What was she talking about? Oh, yes, the drink.
“Sure. Thanks.” Lois needed to stop wondering just how personal this woman’s assistance was and focus on the job at hand.
She was saved from her unfruitful pondering by the emergence of Clark Kent from the suite’s mahogany-paneled study. Through the study’s door, Lois glimpsed an open laptop computer and a small stack of notepads arranged in a much more orderly fashion than the larger pile which currently graced her own desk back at the Planet. ‘Remember that he’s a writer, too,’ she thought. She should be able to use that common ground in this interview.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Mr. Kent said by way of greeting. He was dressed in gray wool slacks and a black cashmere sweater. He looked good. But then, Clark Kent always looked good. It was part of his job.
“I see Lana has made you welcome,” he added, smiling at his assistant as she handed Lois her seltzer with lime. Lois nodded her thanks. Mr. Kent lowered himself smoothly into the armchair catty-corner to Lois, his body angled to face her.
“No problem, Mr. Kent. I just got here a minute ago. Thank you for making time for me.”
“Please, call me Clark.”
“Only if you’ll call me Lois.”
“Gladly.” Their eyes met, and there was a brief suspension of time before Clark suddenly said, “Anyway, it’s the least I can do after blowing your best-laid plan at the ball. Besides, we all have to eat anyway. We might as well have an interesting conversation while we dine.”
After a brief glance around the room, Clark turned an inquiring eye on Lana Ross, who was quietly puttering in the suite’s open kitchen . “Where’s Pete?” he called.
“He was at the radio studio getting set up for tomorrow’s interview, but he should be back any minute now,” she replied. At that moment the front door of the suite opened and Ms. Ross greeted the man who came through it with a cheerful “Speak of the devil!”
“Should my ears be burning?” the trim blond man asked, crossing the room in easy strides . Not waiting for an answer, he held his hand out to Lois and introduced himself. “Sorry I’m running late, Ms. Lane. I’m Pete Ross, Clark’s one-man security detail. You’d think by now that I’d remember to leave extra time for rush hour in the big city, but somehow I always underestimate it.” Lois doubted that Clark Kent’s security chief was as laid-back as he was trying to seem. More likely something had come up that he didn’t want to discuss in front of a stranger .
Lana Ross, Pete Ross—Lois liked where that thought was leading. Her assumption was confirmed when Lana appeared at Mr. Ross’s side and said, “Pete, why don’t you help me with drinks for the two of us and Clark?”
“Sure, hon.” The blond man followed the redhead into the kitchen, one hand coming to rest gently at the small of her back. Lois didn’t understand why the sight gave her such a sense of relief.
While his employees were busy in the kitchen, Clark leaned toward Lois and said in a soft voice, “I hope you don’t mind the Rosses joining us for dinner. It’s partly for your own protection.”
“I beg your pardon?” What did he mean by that?
Clark appeared to realize how awkward his phrasing had been and hastened to clarify. “Half the staff of this hotel already knows that you are in my rooms after normal business hours. Once dinner arrives and the waiter sees the Rosses dining with us, it will be clear that the meeting is strictly professional. Especially if you can manage to have a notebook and pen in hand at the time.”
Lois was puzzled by his reasoning. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, Clark, but you already have quite a reputation as a ladies’ man. Surely one more assignation won’t ruin you in the eyes of your adoring public.”
“You mistake my meaning, Lois,” he smiled. “If I wanted another notch in that belt, I would have invited Catherine Grant rather than Lois Lane. As you say , one more rumor can’t hurt me any. But I imagine that being whispered to be Clark Kent’s latest conquest wouldn’t do much for your professional reputation .”
“And it would for Cat’s?” Clark merely raised one eyebrow in response. Lois gave a wry smile in acknowledgement of her own flawed reasoning. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”
Lois was spared further embarrassment by the arrival of the promised dinner. As the waiter arranged the items on the dining table, Lois made sure to remove her notepad and pen from her purse and ask in a clear voice which the waiter was sure to hear, “Mr. Kent, do you mind if we conduct our interview while we eat? I have an early start in the morning and I can’t stay late.”
“Not at all, Ms. Lane,” Clark replied just as clearly. “Please bring your notes to the table and we’ll get started as soon as everything’s ready.”
The waiter finished his preparations and rolled the cart out of the suite. As the door closed behind him and Lana Ross ladled lobster bisque into bone china bowls, Lois addressed her subject.
“Let’s start with some ground rules. As we discussed earlier, I don’t conduct the sort of soft-ball interviews you are accustomed to. I am well aware that you have never given an in-depth interview before, so I’m not going to assume that you know how this works. Stop me if I’m wrong . ” Barely pausing for Clark’s acquiescence, Lois continued, “First off, you need to understand that the fact of our interview does not guarantee that an article will actually be printed. I won’t know until we’re finished whether I have enough newsworthy material to make a publishable piece. If not, no harm, no foul. Agreed?”
“Agreed. What else?”
Lois swallowed the one bite of soup she’d been able to get in and went on. It was a shame to be distracted from food this good, but she had a job to do.
“Second, I get to ask whatever I want. If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to. The more you tell me, the better article I can write, but it’s your choice. If you do choose to answer, I’ll assume that it’s for the record unless you tell me otherwise. If you tell me something off the record, that’s how it will stay. I don’t betray my sources, but I do ask that you tell me the truth. Are we clear? Does that sound fair to you?”
“Yes. That sounds very fair.”
“You sound surprised, Mr. Kent. Were you expecting anything less?” Lois got another bite of soup in while she waited for Kent to answer.
“No, not at all. I know you’re a fair-minded reporter. I wouldn’t have invited you if you weren’t. I guess I just didn’t expect you to be so…up front. I picture you as more of the dig-out-what-they-don’t-want-to-tell-you type.”
“You’ve heard about Mad Dog Lane, then. Believe me, Mr. Kent, if you were a criminal under my investigation I would not be nearly this open with you. You wouldn’t even know I was looking into you until your name was plastered across the Planet’s front page. But this is an entirely different situation .”
“Fair enough.” He smiled that charming smile again. Glancing at Mr. and Ms. Ross in turn, Clark asked, “All set, then?”
“Almost,” interjected Ms. Ross. She turned a smile on Lois and calmly said, “We want to preview the article.” Lois nearly choked on her last bite of soup.
“I beg your pardon?” she managed without dribbling anything down her chin.
“We want to see a copy before you go to print. If we don’t approve, you can either make the changes we ask for or drop the story.”
“I know what a preview means, Ms. Ross. That’s a highly unusual request. It’s not Planet policy.”
“You have the first in-depth interview with the top fiction writer in the country. I’m sure you can bend the rules this one time.” Ms. Ross’s smile never wavered, but neither did her gaze. If Lois said “no,” she’d be going home with a full stomach and an empty notebook .
“Deal.” With every ounce of self-control she possessed, Lois swallowed her pride and turned her most disarming smile on her subject. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
*****
It wasn’t working. For the umpteenth time that night, Lois leaned back from her keyboard, stretched her tense shoulder muscles, let out a frustrated sigh, and asked the ceiling, “What am I missing?” For the third time, she got up from her sofa, stepped over the cord of her laptop computer, marched into her kitchen, opened her freezer, bemoaned the lack of chocolate ice cream, and shut it again with a bang.
Why wouldn’t this article come together? It had been a lovely dinner. She could still taste the chocolate torte . The four of them, but mostly Lois and Clark, had talked for almost two hours. She had pages full of notes. But, no matter how she tried to rearrange her thoughts and impressions, they just wouldn’t gel into a Lane-worthy article.
Closing the laptop so that she wouldn’t have to stare at the blinking cursor, Lois plopped into the corner of her sofa, tucked her feet under her, and set about reviewing her notes. Again.
There was her summary of Kent’s last four novels. She’d been forced to admit to herself that they were better than she’d given him credit for. She’d been up half one night finishing the one with the young girl who was a domestic slave in a diplomat’s home in suburban Maryland. She wasn’t the main character, and there was a lot of international intrigue and spies double-crossing other spies in the plot, but the plight of the child was what stayed in the reader’s mind after all the shooting was over.
There was her underlined scrawl of ‘Smallville off limits.” Clark had been adamant about protecting his parents and childhood neighbors from being besieged by an endless stream of curiosity seekers. “I realize that the entertainment beat is not your area of expertise, so I don’t expect you to know this, but you’ll forgive me for being blunt: If anyone even remotely connected with the Daily Planet turns up anywhere in Lowel County asking questions of anyone I know, and it gets back to me—which it would, believe me—this will be the last communication of any kind between myself, my staff, or my agents and the Daily Planet. That means no interviews, no press conferences, no questions, no releases, no advance copies of my books for review, nothing. Are we clear?” Oh, yes. Clear as glass.
There were the box office dollar figures for the movie versions of his books. A list of women he’d been seen with in the last year. Nothing there that Cat Grant couldn’t have dug up.
The more interesting stuff began when she’d asked him about his undercover work. “Clark, you are famous for the undercover investigations that provide the background material for your novels--so much so that your name is synonymous with a brilliant disguise. Aren’t you worried that your very fame will begin to undermine your ability to travel incognito? ”
“You’ve done undercover work yourself. You don’t seem worried about the same problem.”
“That’s because I won’t allow my picture to be published with my byline. People may know my name, but not my face. Your face is one of the most photographed in the world, recognizable to millions—how then are you able to go unnoticed in your undercover work?”
He’d smiled in reply and taken a slightly didactic tone, as if explaining to a young child that her teacher had a home and didn’t live at school. “Lois, take a good look at me. I have olive skin, brown eyes, and dark hair. That makes me the same general description as most of the people in the world. I also have a natural talent for languages. Those two facts mean that, with the right choice of clothing, I can pass for a native just about anywhere outside of sub-Saharan Africa or northern Europe. And even there I can pass for an immigrant. When you look at me tonight, you see Clark Kent, famous American writer; but put me in a tattered pair of shorts and a faded t-shirt, add a couple of day’s grime and some good, honest sweat, plus the ability to curse a blue streak in over a dozen languages, and I could be anyone—a Latino farm hand, a Pacific fisherman, a middle-eastern guest laborer. I’ve been mistaken for Japanese, Italian, Filipino, Native American, Spanish, Arab, Latino, and high-caste Indian . My dad says I missed my calling; the CIA would have loved me.”
“But if everyone knows that you could be anyone at any time, won’t they expect it? What’s to stop the bad guys from just assuming that every dock hand is actually you in disguise so you won’t get the true story on them?”
“I wish they would. If every boss in the world treated their employees as if they might be Clark Kent in disguise, I would never need to write another book. I’m like the cop with the radar gun. He doesn’t really want to give out speeding tickets; he just wants everyone to slow down. I do my undercover work and write my novels because I want the American public to be aware of the way most of the world lives, of the problems they face on a daily basis. My hope is that at least some of my readers will be moved enough that they will be supportive the next time a policy change is put forward in Congress or a non-profit development agency is raising funds. Maybe some of them will even become leaders in those fields themselves. That’s not my gift. My gift is writing. I’m just trying to do a little good with it in the process. I’m sure you can relate.” He seemed to realize that his passion had run away with him, and he set down the fork he had been waving as he spoke and carefully rearranged the napkin on his lap. “In any case,” he said in a calmer voice, “the bottom line in undercover work is the same for everyone: People see what they expect to see.”
It was at that point that Lana Ross had jumped in and turned the conversation to the delights and pitfalls of international travel. Why? Why had the redheaded personal assistant been so eager to change the subject? What had Clark Kent said that impelled his assistant to interrupt him so abruptly?
“That’s it! That’s what she didn’t want me to see!” Lois threw her notebook down next to her laptop and clapped her hands. She addressed her empty living room with her revelation. “That’s why it won’t gel. ‘People see what they expect to see,’ and Clark Kent the Writer is just another role. He’s not real!”
The sense of triumph was short-lived. Lois’s initial instinct had been to write up the article using this new epiphany as the core of the piece. Clark Kent was not really in the writing game for the entertainment value. He was a crusader who masqueraded as an entertainer. And, now that she thought about it, she doubted that his ‘best-selling pop culture adventure writer’ role was among his favorites. He didn’t seem very comfortable in it, and over the course of the dinner the mask had been in constant danger of slipping, as it had when he’d given his passionate little speech with the waving fork.
But, for some reason she wasn’t quite sure of, Clark Kent valued that mask. He seemed to believe—and perhaps he would know more about this than she would, she reluctantly admitted to herself—that playing that role somehow made his books and movies more attractive to the general public than they would be if he were more open and straightforward about his motives. Maybe it was as simple as the idea that people didn’t like to be lectured. Clark Kent might be on a mission to expose the injustices in the world, but Joe Regular was just looking for a good movie on a Friday night.
Of course, her strongest impulse was to write the ‘gotcha!’ article. Oh, how she wished she hadn’t agreed to that preview! She could break her promise and write the article anyway. What did she care if Lana Ross was mad at her? But Clark Kent had connections everywhere, and Lois couldn’t afford to get a reputation for going back on her word. No source would ever trust her again. Argh! This was exactly why the puff pieces should be left to the Cat Grants of the world. Lois was never cornered into a preview agreement with the bad guys. Everything was much simpler with them .
Well, that just plain stank. Now she was going to have to either break her promise and blow Clark Kent’s cover, massage what she had into something printable but not really true, or quash the story. It was late. She’d sleep on it and make a decision in the morning .
But sleeping on it didn't make the decision any easier. By morning Lois was really starting to wonder about this double life that Clark Kent was apparently leading. He had the makings of a terrific investigator. That subplot about the servant girl could have sparked an entire investigative series in a paper like the Planet. It still would if Lois had anything to say about it. And he obviously cared. That little speech that Lana Ross had cut him off from proved that.
Ah, the lovely Ms. Ross. Lois wondered if she was the source of the trouble. She was the PR part of the Kent publicity machine. Maybe she was also the force behind Clark's apparent compulsion to hide his investigative lamp under a bushel of Entertainment Tonight fluff. She might not even be doing it for nefarious reasons. Maybe she honestly believed that Kent's novels wouldn't sell as well without all the window-dressing, that being too serious would lose him readers. Maybe it even would--what did Lois know about literary marketing? Still, Clark Kent was too good a talent to waste on MoviePlex blockbusters. If he really wanted to change the world he should go about it more directly.
There had to be a way to get through to him. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to happen with this artilce. Lois had already agreed to a preview--a mistake she never intended to repeat--and she was up to her ears in the Messenger investigation. She'd asked Perry for a task force, but there hadn't been anyone else available to help.
No, there wasn't much she could do this week, but she'd get back to Mr. Kent. Let Lana Ross think that Lois had written Kent off for now. After a while, things at work would calm down and Lois would have time to worry about how to get Clark Kent to herself for a couple of hours without Lana Ross there to change the subject.
