It was a long and exhaustingly emotional day, full of twists and turns and rumours and speculation. At the end of it, well past midnight, the deal was done. Fitzroy, the proud Lions with over one hundred years of history, had been taken over by the Queensland-based newcomers, the Brisbane Bears to form the Brisbane Lions.
At the press conference to announce what Lois had already unearthed, written up, and sent to Browny, they called it a merger. But the words didn't change the facts.
The death warrant had been signed on another Victorian football club.
Part 14
It was nearly two in the morning when Clark followed Lois into her unit. She turned to him with a tired smile. "Thanks for all your help today, Clark," she said. "I really appreciate you sticking with me."
"I wish I could have done more," Clark said. As each long hour had stretched into the next, he had watched her energy seep away and had lamented his inability to ease her distress.
"Without you, I wouldn't have eaten a bite all day."
"You got the story," he said. He hoped she would discern the admiration in his voice. He had accompanied Mayson Drake more than once as she had pursued leads. In Clark's opinion, Lois was just as good as the venerated Daily Planet reporter. The difference was that Lois didn't leave her heart in the office when she went out to chase a story.
"Yeah," Lois said. "But it's a story that's going to devastate thousands."
"The Brisbane representatives seemed happy," Clark noted.
"Didn't they?" Lois said with more than a touch of resentment. Her fire died quickly though, doused by sheer exhaustion.
Clark wanted to hold her - yearned to step up to her and enfold her in his arms in an attempt to achieve with touch what he had failed to achieve with words and coffee and solicitude.
She turned suddenly and headed purposefully to her phone. "I have to ring Dan," she said.
"Is it going to upset you? Calling Dan?"
Lois tried to smile, but it crumbled. "I can't let him find out on the Internet," she said unsteadily. "He loves Fitzroy - this is going to destroy him."
"Lois," Clark said. "I ... would you like me to stay? To be here ... after?"
"No," she said. "But thanks."
"I can stay," he said. More than anything, he wanted to stay, wanted to be there for her.
"No," she said firmly. "It's late."
"Lo-is," Clark said. "Lois ... I thought we were friends."
"We are," she said tremulously. "But this is something I need to do alone." Her brown eyes met his, pleading for understanding.
"OK," he conceded.
Clark knew he should turn and walk out ... knew Lois had made it very clear that she wanted to be alone to make her call ... but he couldn't do it. He *couldn't* just walk away without some form of closure. He lifted his arms towards Lois ... and waited.
She hesitated, and his world stopped.
She took one step forward and his arms closed around her. She was small and warm and soft. Holding her brought crystal clear clarity to something he had already begun to realise - that his life to this point had been missing something vital ... something essential.
Her.
Lois.
She belonged right here.
In his arms.
And now that he knew, never again would he be able to endure the emptiness of a life without her.
His hand slid slowly up and down her back in response to the little quivers that trembled through her body. He breathed in her essence - an aroma that he guessed was partly her shampoo and partly her perfume ... and with a trace of something beautiful that was quintessentially Lois.
A minute passed. A minute that seemed fleeting, yet also seemed so expansive that it could encapsulate his whole life. Lois took a deep, steadying breath and eased out of his embrace. Her glance passed quickly over his face - when he longed to hold her gaze and communicate something of the depth of his feelings.
"Thank you," Lois whispered - so low no one else could have heard. She stepped away from him, and the spell was broken. "I need to ring Dan," she said doggedly.
Clark nodded, trying to absorb the lightning shift from intimacy to banishment. He walked to the door, opened it, turned back, and sent Lois a little smile of support. Then he left her.
Because she wanted to do this alone.
Alone with Dan.
Clark slumped against the outside wall, his hands deep in his pockets. He had no right to stay and listen. He wouldn't listen. He wouldn't. It was Lois's private conversation, and he had no right to intrude.
He heard the murmur of her voice and consciously blurred the stream of her words. But he had no powers to camouflage the despair in her tone.
After long minutes, Clark heard the sound of her phone being replaced. Then he heard another sound, and his hearing snapped to attention.
Lois was crying.
He could hear the muffled sound of her sobs. He could imagine her head low, perhaps sunken into her arms as she wept for what had been lost.
He yearned to hold her again. Hold her until her tears had dried and her spirit had buoyed.
But she had sent him away.
He walked down her driveway and turned for home. But he knew that nothing could dispel the sound of her tears from his mind.
||_||
The Herald Sun office was a sombre place the next morning. A gloom had settled upon it - a gloom that spoke tangibly of loss and turmoil and disbelief.
Clark had turned on the television that morning, and the news had been full of angry and confused Fitzroy fans whose depth of mourning was matched only by their anger at having been betrayed.
Some facts had come out - principally, the dire financial situation of Fitzroy and the resulting take-over from a creditor - but as Lois had predicted, it seemed that some details of what had happened would never become public.
Lois had been at her desk when Clark had entered the office. She still looked drained, and he thought he detected extra makeup around her eyes. He'd wanted so much to go to her and take her into his embrace and hold her until the despair lining her face had been soothed away. Instead, he'd taken her a cup of coffee and gently squeezed her shoulder when she'd looked up and thanked him.
Just after ten-thirty, Browny brought out the crate and clambered onto it. Everyone in the room left their desks and crowded around him. He stood there for a long moment, and Clark had the distinct impression that the burly editor was battling the choppy sea of his emotions.
"It's Friday," Browny began, and there was no hint of his usual joviality. "There's a big game at the 'G tonight and then a huge weekend of footy. Our job is to report on the games, and we're going to do it - the very best way we can."
He paused and took a breath. Silence settled over the newsroom.
"Today, I want you to finish the stories you've been assigned," Browny continued. "Some of you have follow-up stories on the events of yesterday; some of you have previews of the weekend games. Whatever you've been given, I want the stories done by mid-afternoon." He looked to the ceiling, and this time Clark was sure he was struggling to suppress the rise of his sadness.
"And then," Browny said, "And then, I want you to go to your club. Just go there - if you stumble over a story, great; if not, that's OK. Just go and be grateful that you still have a club to go to."
Without a further word, he stepped down from the crate and disappeared into his office.
The hushed atmosphere lingered for a few seconds, and then the crowd slowly dispersed.
Lois came over to Clark. "Guess we're headed out to Glenferrie," she said.
"Hawthorn's home?"
She nodded. "Do you want to go together?"
"Do you mind?" he asked.
"No."
"OK, thanks."
With a hollow smile, she returned to her desk.
||_||
It was after three when Lois approached Clark. "Ready?" she asked.
He nodded. He'd been ready for over half an hour. He'd filled the empty minutes by pretending to read the paper but in reality, he'd been looking through the paper and watching Lois. A smattering of colour had returned to her cheeks, but she still looked weary and downcast.
"We'll go by train," she told him. "Glenferrie Oval is only a few minutes from Glenferrie station."
They caught the train at Flinders St station and travelled east. "It's nice here," Clark said, gesturing out the window to the rolling green parks and abundance of deciduous trees.
"Yeah," Lois said with a sigh. "I haven't been out here for ages."
"Doesn't Browny send you to do Hawthorn training reports?"
"Never," Lois said. "He doesn't trust me. That's probably the real reason I'm still on the bottom rung of the ladder. It's not just that I'm a woman. It's not just that I've never played a game of footy in my life. It's that in my priorities, my job comes second."
"It's not easy having conflicting priorities."
Lois turned on him with defiance flashing in her eyes. "I don't expect you to understand," she said. "But I loved Hawthorn before I was a journo. I love my job, and I love the excitement of being a part of the footy circus that takes over this town every winter, and I work my backside off to get good stories and be the best reporter I can be, but my first loyalty has never shifted ... and it never will."
"You don't expose stories about your club?"
"Never," Lois proclaimed. "I won't write anything that could possibly hurt Hawthorn."
Clark had the feeling Lois had been forced to make this stand before. "Browny knows this?"
Lois nodded. "He's threatened to sack me more than once when he thinks I know something and I won't spill."
"Example?"
"If I know a certain player will or will not play the next weekend. If I know a player is injured and where. If I know a player broke a team rule. If I know there is animosity between the coach and one of the players. If I know a player is likely to be offered for trade at the end of the year. If I know the recruiters are very keen on a certain kid in the draft."
"That information sounds like it would make good copy," Clark noted.
"It would," Lois agreed. "But I will never do it. Not with Hawthorn." She glowered at him, daring him to confront her.
Clark said nothing.
"Say it," she goaded.
"Say what?"
"Say I will never be a reporter's shoelace while I have conflicting loyalties."
"I wasn't going to say that," Clark said quietly.
"Why not?" Lois snapped. "It's what everyone else thinks."
"I don't think that."
"Why not?"
"Because I understand what you mean."
Her eyes bored into his. "You do?"
"Yes."
Lois contemplated him. "You have something that means more to you than any story?"
"Yes."
"Something you would protect even if it meant giving up the biggest story of your life?"
"Yes."
The belligerence slowly seeped from her eyes. "How does Perry take that?"
"He doesn't know."
"He doesn't ... That can't be easy."
"It's not."
Clark waited for her next question. She had given him details. What if she asked the same of him? Would he tell her? Not here, he decided. Not now.
But ...
The train clunked to a stop at Glenferrie station, and they alighted. "Clark?" Lois said when they'd left the platform.
"Yes?" he said, trying to sound unconcerned despite every nerve in his body having contorted in anticipation of what was coming.
"I'm sorry," Lois said.
"For what?" he breathed, too quickly.
"For getting snappy with you." She smiled apologetically. "I'm tired, and I'm gutted about Fitzroy, and I feel like I've been put through an emotional wringer these past few days ... but that's no excuse for taking it out on you."
Clark smiled and rested his hand on her back. "That's OK," he said.
Lois continued looking at him. Clark didn't know if she were responding to his touch or if she were thinking about his hinted-at admission. He removed his hand and put it in his pocket.
They walked in silence through a bustling streetscape of shops. Lois turned into a small arcade, and when they emerged from it, Clark could see the oval ahead, surrounded by a high wire fence.
"We played our home games at Glenferrie until 1974," Lois said. "But the ground is too small, and there is a railway line on one side and Linda Crescent on the other and nowhere to expand. We still train here. And this will always be our home."
They crossed a car park and strolled along the sidewalk next to the wire fence.
"The old-timers talk about how on game days, you could see the stream of brown and gold coming from the station," Lois said.
They reached the opening in the wire fence and entered the ground. To the right, a beautiful Art Deco style grandstand loomed high above them like an old and gentle giant watchfully guarding the oval. The playing field stretched out to their left. Three men slowly ran the circumference of the oval; each carried a football and bounced it as they jogged.
There was movement from under the grandstand, and a large man emerged. He saw them and his face spread to a wide grin of welcome. He hurried forward. "Lois," he said. "About time you paid us a visit."
Lois stepped forward and was swallowed in the bounty of his embrace. When he released her, she stood on her toes and reached up to drop a friendly kiss to his cheek. "Ron," she said, her voice imbued with pleasure. She gestured to Clark. "Clark, this is Ron. Ron, this is Clark. He's working at the Herald Sun on exchange."
Clark extended his hand, and it was firmly taken in Ron's larger one. "Pleased to meet you, Ron," Clark said.
The words were barely out of his mouth when Ron looked down at Lois with a mischievous wink. She grinned - clearly understanding whatever had passed between them.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?" Ron asked Lois.
"Browny got sentimental and sent us back to our grass roots."
Ron's cheeriness died. "Fair enough, too," he said. "It's an awful business."
The shared loss hung between them, draped in the silence.
"Are you going to hang around for training?" Ron asked. "The boys will start arriving soon."
"Are you gonna have a sausage sizzle?" Lois said, her face still serious.
"It's Friday." Ron smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling. "And you know perfectly well, Missy, that Thursday is sausage sizzle day."
She swatted his ample arm. "I know perfectly well that you can be persuaded to cook up snags whatever day it is, Ron."
Ron laughed. "You stay - I'll get the sausages. Deal?"
"Deal," Lois agreed. "But I get the first one."
That seemed to amuse Ron. He put his arm across her shoulders and hugged her. "Ah, Lois, love," he said. "It's so good to see you again."
"I've let time get away with me," Lois admitted.
"Ah, don't worry about it," Ron said. "It's a busy world out there, and you know we will always be here waiting for you."
Lois smiled. "Big game this weekend."
"Yeah," Ron said. "Last week was a beauty."
"It's always good to beat Geelong."
"I reckon. Our boys were hard and tough and simply refused to be beaten."
"That's how it should be," Lois declared. "You wear that jumper, you never give up."
"Did j'hear that Seb's home for a couple of days?"
Lois's face lit with excitement. "Really? He didn't tell me, the rotten bludger. When's he going back to Sydney?"
"Sunday arvo."
"Can I come around Sunday morning?"
"Since when did you ever need an invitation, love?" They smiled, and then Ron switched his attention to Clark. "Who'j'barrack for, son?" he asked.
Clark shot a look to Lois, who was trying to contain her smile. "Hawthorn," he replied.
Ron beamed at him. "Welcome, Clark," he said. "Good thing Lois brought you out here - it's never too early to get used to the Hawthorn way of doing things." He gestured back to the room behind him. "I gotta get the gear ready for training."
Lois pointed at Ron, her grin wide. "Don't forget," she said. "I get the first sausage."
"Done." Ron started to walk towards the grandstand but then turned back. "We've missed you, Little Miss America," he said, and then he disappeared into the dim underbelly of the grandstand.
Lois turned to Clark. "Looks like we're staying for a bit. Is that OK with you?"
"Sure," Clark said. "What do you want to do?"
She looked up into the grandstand. "Soak it up," she said. "I need a dose of this place."
"Would you mind if I soaked it up with you?"
Lois grinned easily. "Of course not. You're one of us now. Come on." She crossed to the old concrete steps and skipped up them and into the empty grandstand. As she walked slowly along the aisle, her hand paused lovingly on each bench. About halfway to the top, she dusted off the dark green planks of the wooden bench and sat down.
Clark sat next to her and glanced sideways. Lois had lodged her feet on the seat in front - her arms rested lightly on her knees, her head was back, her eyes were closed, and a small smile played around her mouth. A mouth, Clark realised, that he really wanted to kiss.
He forced his eyes forward and pushed away that thought. It flooded back. He turned to Lois and allowed himself a moment to imagine what it would be like to kiss her. It would be incredible. He spun his head forward again.
"Where's home for you, Clark?" Lois asked.
From the edges of his vision, he could see that Lois had opened her eyes and was staring ahead. He kept his head forward too. "A small farmhouse in the middle of Kansas."
"Why is it home?"
"Because I grew up there."
"Any other reason?"
"Because of the people there - my folks. Because of the memories there. Because wherever I go, I can always return there, and know that I will find love and acceptance."
"Because when you go back there, somehow it reaches inside you and connects with something so fundamental, it cannot be touched by anything else?"
Clark thought for a moment, remembering holding her last night. *That* had felt like home. "Yes," he agreed. "That's why it is home."
"Do you miss it?" Lois asked. "Now you're half a world away, do you think about it sometimes and wish you could go there? Just for a few minutes?"
Clark hesitated. "I haven't been gone that long," he said.
Lois fell silent again, and Clark sensed the opportunity to gain a glimpse into her heart.
"Is this your home?" he asked gently. He kept staring ahead, not wanting to threaten her introspective mood.
She sighed - he wasn't sure if it was driven by happiness or sadness or something in between. "This place," Lois said. "This place affects me in a way nowhere else does."
"Why?"
"Because when I was alone, I found friends here. Because when I had nothing to do, I was swept into the bigger purpose here. Because when I felt awkwardly different, I was accepted here. Because when I had no family, they became my family. Because by myself I am one, here I am many."
"They sound like good reasons."
Lois straightened and looked at Clark with a gentle smile. "They are the best reasons."
"Why did Ron call you 'Little Miss America'?"
Lois chuckled, her grin flashing. "You don't know? You can't even guess?"
Clark shook his head. "I wondered if it could be a reference to me, but that doesn't make sense. And I got the impression he had called you that before."
"Many, many times before."
She didn't seem perturbed by his questions, so Clark pushed ahead. "Then why?"
"Because I was born in Detroit, Michigan."
That was a shock.
Lois laughed at his surprise. "You didn't detect anything in my accent?"
"Nothing," Clark said. He thought back to the day he'd met her - yes, he'd noticed she had the cutest Australian accent. But he had not detected any trace of home.
She giggled. "When I first came here, my accent set me apart, and I desperately wanted to fit in, so I consciously trained myself to speak like a dinki-di Aussie."
"Dinki-di?"
"True blue. Real. Genuine." Lois grinned happily. "If you couldn't tell, I must have done a good job."
"I'm not from Michigan," he hedged. "How old were you when you came here?"
"Ten," Lois said. "My dad is a doctor, and he was offered a position at the Royal Children's Hospital in Carlton. They were doing some research that really interested him. My whole family - Mom, Dad, my sister, Lucy - came here in January 1978. It was summer. My mother lasted a week. She wanted to take my sister and me home, but I had hated being cooped up in the plane for all those hours, so I had a major dummy-spit and got what I wanted."
"They let you stay?"
Lois grimaced, and Clark could see the pain in her eyes. "Mom and Dad made it a policy to never agree on anything," she said quietly. "Mom really hadn't wanted to come here, but Dad had insisted that a new start would be good for all of us. Mom wanted to take me home, but Dad let me stay. I still don't know if he actually wanted me or if he just liked getting one over Mom."
"I'm sure he was pleased you wanted to stay with him."
"He was working eighteen hours a day," Lois said flatly. "Most of the time I think he forgot I was here."
So that's why she'd been lonely. "That would have been hard," Clark said. "Leaving all your friends at home and being here with only a working father."
"Let me show you something." Lois stood and walked down the aisle to the front of the grandstand. Clark followed her. At the railing, she pointed across the road. "See the white house, nestled amongst the trees?"
Clark nodded, taking the opportunity to move closer to her so he could follow where she'd pointed.
"See the little window upstairs?" Lois asked.
"Yes."
"That was my bedroom."
"So when you looked out of your window, you could see the oval?"
Lois nodded. "I was bored. And alone. And when the players were training, I was fascinated. I'd never really been interested in sport at home, but this ... this was magic." Her eyes shone. "And that was just the training."
"You came over here?"
Lois started walking down the concrete steps. "My dad hired a seventeen-year-old girl to look after me anytime I wasn't at school. Problem was she had nothing in her head beyond the Ted Mulry Gang - that was a pop band - and her boyfriend who supposedly looked like Les Hall, the guitarist in TMG."
"So you were left to entertain yourself?"
Lois reached the bottom of the steps and grinned up at him. "Better than that. The boyfriend paid me twenty cents to leave them alone. He told me to go to Glenferrie Road and buy myself an icy pole. I put the money in my pocket and came here." She gestured to the gate they'd entered. "I wandered in and leant against the fence and just watched. Then a big man came over, and I thought he was going to tell me to get out."
"Ron?" Clark guessed.
"Yep," Lois said. "He smiled at me and told me they were going to cook sausages soon, and if I was hungry, I could come over and get one. When I did, he gave me a sausage wrapped in bread and covered in tomato sauce and asked me who I barracked for. I had no idea what he was even talking about, so he told me I barracked for Hawthorn. He went into the rooms and when he came out, he had a beanie which he gave to me. 'There you go, Little Miss America,' he said. 'Now you're a part of the Hawthorn family.'"
"And you've been a part of it ever since?"
Lois nodded and brushed her fingers across her cheek, although Clark couldn't tell if she was brushing at tears. "Yes," she said. "And I wore it - despite January weather being totally unsuited to a brown-and-gold woollen hat - I wore it like a badge of honour."
Clark smiled, imagining a little American girl wearing the colours of her new Australian club.
"The boyfriend kept paying me twenty cents to make myself scarce, and I kept coming here, and by the time the season started in late March, I had enough money to buy my own footy. Ron gave me a membership. That was one of the best moments of my life when I first held my membership ticket. It got me entry into all Hawthorn games, but it was so much more than that - I belonged. I belonged somewhere. I belonged here."
"I figure that was pretty important for a little girl whose mom was in another country and whose dad was busy at work," Clark said softly.
"It was," Lois said. "I shamelessly nagged my dad into paying the babysitter to take me to the games and she did - for the first couple of years. After that, she didn't want to, and I knew how to get around Melbourne and find all the grounds, so I didn't need her anymore. I loved being here for training - but games ... they were the absolute highlight of my week. I lived for them. In 1978, we made the Grand Final and won the premiership, and I ... I have never, ever felt so happy. I sang our song so loud and so often, I couldn't speak for three days."
Her eyes sparkled, and the enthusiasm radiated from her face. Clark couldn't look away. When Lois Lane loved, she loved passionately.
He quashed the wayward direction of those thoughts. "Tell me what you love about this club," he said, desperate for her continue.
"I love the spirit that was born in the years without success. We came into the VFL in 1925 with North and Footscray. They had had good results in a lesser competition, but we had nothing to recommend us as being worthy to be elevated. The VFL threw us in - probably because they wanted an even number of teams. It took thirty-two years before we even made the finals, and in that time we won ten wooden spoons."
"Wooden spoons?"
"Last. Stone motherless last."
"You *win* them?"
Lois smiled. "In a manner of speaking. They were hard times. There were no financial handouts, no assistance with facilities, no early draft picks for finishing low on the ladder. We didn't win a game from Round 16, 1927 to Round 6, 1929. And for many years, losing by less than ten goals was cause for celebration."
Lois scanned the breadth of the oval. "But we did it - we built our club from nothing. We called our official history 'The Hard Way', and we did it the hard way and looking back now, we wouldn't have it any other way."
"Why?"
"Because that struggle birthed something ... something strong, something lasting, something unique. It shaped us. We cling to what others consider old-fashioned values - loyalty, integrity. For years, we didn't have contracts - a handshake between mates was enough to guarantee commitment. We're called the 'Hawthorn Football Club', but the 'Hawthorn Family' is much more descriptive. Anyone who has worn our jumper - either in battle or in support - is a part of that family. And we share an affinity - a unity that draws us into a common purpose that is played out on the footy field, but in reality is so much more than that.
"Ron has told me about when we won our first flag in 1961. There were people - people who had sat for years through the rain and cold and watched their team being thrashed. People for whom playing in the finals in September was something they only dreamed about - something that happened to the other clubs, not us. When we won in 1961, many of them just sat there, not quite able to believe what had happened as their tears flowed freely."
Lois glanced into his eyes, and Clark saw the blossoming of colour across her cheeks.
"Sorry," she said. "I get carried away. I'm sure that to you it just seems like an insignificant club tucked away in a small city on the other side of the world."
"No, it doesn't."
Lois eyed him as if trying to gauge his sincerity. She took a deep breath and shrugged off her reminiscent mood. "Training won't be for at least an hour," she said. "Do you feel like a coffee?"
"Sure," Clark said.
"Come on," Lois said. "Let's go to the Social Club."
They left the ground, crossed the road, and entered a building. Again, Lois was welcomed like a long-lost daughter by the man working there - Bantam. They sat at a small table, surrounded by walls that were covered in pictures of men in the heat of battle, all wearing the brown-and-gold jumper that Clark privately thought was a little gaudy - not that he ever intended to say that to Lois. A few minutes later, Bantam brought them coffee and refused to allow Clark to pay.
"What do you miss most about home?" Lois asked as she stirred her coffee.
"The people," Clark said.
"Your parents?" she asked. "Are you close to them?"
"Very close."
"They must miss you," Lois said.
"They do, but they know I'll always come home to see them."
"Do you have brothers? Sisters?"
"Neither. I'm an only child."
"Oh."
"I'm adopted." Never before had Clark volunteered that information. He hadn't planned to now, but it felt so right to share everything with Lois.
"Oh," Lois said. If she were surprised by his disclosure, she didn't show it. "Is that hard? Do you know anything about your birth parents?"
"Not much. I know they're dead."
"Oh, Clark," she said. "That's so sad. I'm sorry."
"I never knew them," Clark said. "My adoptive parents, Martha and Jonathan Kent, are all I've ever known. And they filled my world with love. I was very lucky."
"Yes," Lois said wistfully. "Is there anything else you miss from home?"
Clark sipped his coffee, stifled his grimace, and then grinned. "Actually, the coffee," he said.
"Is ours different?"
"Yes. It seems ..." He faltered.
"Is seems what?"
"Honestly?"
"Of course."
"It seems weak and well ... insipid."
Lois stood abruptly from her chair and went to the kitchen. A minute later, she returned with a cup. "Try this," she said as she placed it in front of him.
Clark drank from it, and the smooth, strong fluid slid easily down his throat. He put down the cup and smiled at Lois. "Thank you," he said.
"Good?"
"The best coffee I've had since arriving in Australia. How did you get it?"
"Bantam can get just about anything," she said. "I simply asked him for strong American coffee, and that's what he gave me."
"It's great," Clark said. "We'll have to come back here."
She nodded. Behind Lois, Clark saw two men walk into the room, stop abruptly, and immediately turn and scuttle away. Without thinking too much, he turned on his super-hearing.
"That's Lois Lane," one of the men hissed.
"Why is she here? Do you think she knows something?"
"All she needs to know is that the merger will strengthen our position."
"Clark?"
Lois's voice screeched through his supersensitive eardrums. Clark pulled his attention from the men and back to Lois. "Uhmm, sorry, what did you say?"
She smiled at him. "Where were you?" she asked.
"Ah ..."
"You were thinking about home, weren't you?"
He half smiled, hoping she would take it as agreement. "Lois, would you mind if I asked you something?"
She hesitated, and he knew she had detected the significance in his tone. "I guess not," she said cautiously.
Clark took a deep breath. He wanted to know. He had to know. But in knowing, he risked his hopes being ground into the dirt. "Is there anything between you and Dan Scardino?"
||_||
Glossary
Dummy-spit - tantrum. Dummy - pacifier.
Icy pole - popsicle
Sausage sizzle - bbq with only sausages.
Note - the Thursday night sausage sizzles at Glenferrie Oval are a part of Hawthorn history.
