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Pride, Prejudice, and Jimmy Choos
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[-12-]
“Tonight on Newsline, we take a look at the surprising career of the daughter of one of the most venerated singers of our time.”
The graphic on the television screen faded from the program’s logo to an image of two juxtaposed pictures; one a black and white shot of Ellen ‘Ella’ Lane at a piano, and the other, a black and white shot of Lois ‘Lola Dakota’ Lane standing in the middle of a stage with her head down in dejection. The starkness of the contrast in the picture and the shine of a lone spotlight left the pop princess looking like an angel.
The male voiceover continued while the mother-daughter pictures were shown. “The life of Lois Lane was always hidden from the public eye… at least that’s the story the world believed. That’s the story the world was *told* to believe.”
The image on the screen rotated and zoomed in so that the black-and-white of Lois filled the screen.
“Four weeks ago, the world was re-introduced to a young woman—a fallen princess of pop—who showed us all exactly what it means to say, the show must go on.”
In time with the reporter’s words, the title of the news piece was revealed across the screen: ‘The Show Must Go On’.
The white text dissolved just as the picture morphed from being in black-and-white to being colorized. Then a few seconds later, it became animated as Lois’s head lifted to face the crowd. The sounds of wind and quiet chatter coming from the video were completely out of place at a music concert.
“Well, looking out, it seems like everyone’s a little shell shocked right now,” the video version of Lois said, “so, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to do something a little different tonight.” The camera took a crazy zoom action to frame her face in the view. Even though she was smiling winningly, the close-up made it impossible not to see the tears that were building up in her eyes.
The video showed Lois dropping the blonde wig onto the ground and walking over to one of her guitarists. As she leaned over to say something in the man’s ear, the voiceover returned. “The Coachella audience sat in rapt and shocked attention as the newly revealed pop princess stood unmoving for two silent minutes after her assailant was removed from the stage. No one knew what was going to happen next, but what *did* take place was far beyond the expectations of anyone, present or watching from home.”
Finished talking to the guitarist, Lois returned to the center of the stage with the man’s electric acoustic guitar now hanging from a strap around her neck. The guitarist followed behind her with a stool and a microphone stand, situating them both near where she was standing. Nodding her thanks, Lois scooted the stool closer to the mic and lifted the guitar into place.
“This is, ah… This is a song that I wrote for my cousin to sing…” She paused and chuckled. “…But she told me that… she said that it was too good for me not to sing it myself.” Shooting a glance toward the unseen offstage area, Lois smiled again. “Maybe she’ll do me the favor of singing it with me.”
The reporter’s voice returned again as a petite blonde carrying a polka dot decorated guitar walked from the side of the stage that Lois had been looking at. “The appearance of Chloe Sullivan at her cousin’s request for a duet was a surprise that showed everyone just how little we knew about a musical phenom that we thought we had watched grow up.”
On the screen, Chloe was now seated on a stool with a second microphone stand. Lois started playing a song, and after a few bars, Chloe joined in. They both looked as if they were having the time of their lives, and anyone watching felt the privilege of being let in on a private family moment. After about a half of a minute of the harmonizing sounds of the two guitars being played, Lois turned to the crowd, welcoming them into the family for just a moment. “This song is called… Two is Better Than One. I hope you like it.”
The music continued in the background as the image on the screen changed to show images of Lois as a child. The first was the well know funeral image, then there were stills from Lola Dakota’s children’s television show when she was eight.
“The complexity of the life of this musician is one that can only be understood by combining what is known about two little girls. Even with her growing up on camera, the Lola Dakota that we all knew and loved revealed only one peek into the depths of talent that Lois Lane has kept hidden from the world.”
An animated image of an American Music Award twirling and glistening under a spotlight took over the right half of the screen.
“It is well known that Lola Dakota won eight Grammy awards over the span of her career. Lois Lane, on the other hand, won quite a few more than that. It was recently revealed that Lois had more than one secret identity. She also moonlighted as the never-seen six-time Grammy award winning songwriter, Wanda Detroit.”
Superimposed pictures started overlapping on the screen, chronicling the timeline of Lola’s career through album covers, magazine spreads, red carpet sightings, and early morning paparazzi shots.
“With all of the attention and all of the weight of living dual and triple lives, is it any wonder that the Lola persona began a spiral into scandal and rash behavior?” the reporter asked as one of the last photos appeared. It showed a clearly inebriated Lola Dakota dancing in a club with gossip maven Jiminez Olsen looking on. The image split down the middle. “As much as we knew about Lola Dakota… we knew even less about Lois Lane… That is, until that fateful night in April, earlier this year.”
The cracked image split apart to reveal the Coachella video once again as the song Lois and Chloe were playing ended. The crowd remained quiet, and Lois stood from the stool. Shrugging sheepishly, she unstrapped the guitar and handed it to Chloe. She stepped to the microphone and smiled one last time. “Thank you.” Then, pausing only long enough to place a kiss on her cousin’s forehead, she ran off the stage.
“Still shocked by all they had witnessed this night, it took the Coachella audience a while to respond.” On screen, a low chant repeating Lois’s name was beginning to build. “But when they finally did, it was overwhelming.”
The video showed Chloe staring off in the direction Lois had run into, and like everyone else, she appeared to be waiting for her to return. The chants grew louder, accented with claps, and even the band members got in on the action—they were standing and clapping along with the entire audience.
“They clapped and called for her for an hour…” The image morphed into numerous shots of the cheering crowd, and then into a shot of the emcee trying to get them to calm down.
“Alas,” the reporter lamented, “the acceptance that Lois had seemed to want came too late. Lois Lane had left the building. And she hasn’t been seen since.”
The camera panned to the audience and featured a crying little girl for a few seconds before the scene faded to black.
The black image dissolved into a shot of the reporter—a fatherly looking, African-American male wearing wire-rimmed glasses (certain to appeal widely across demographics)—sitting at a desk in a studio. Off to the left side of screen, a large poster-like stand showed the ‘fallen angel’ picture from the concert along with new text: ‘Where in the World is Lois Lane?’.
The reporter made sincere eye-contact with the home audience and continued his report. “And maybe that’s the point… the true essence of America’s fascination with this young woman’s story. Where is Lois Lane? How is it possible that someone with that much fame and notoriety could pull the wool over the eyes of the whole world and over the eyes of a technologically advanced nation that counts on the ability to recognize persons of interest as part of its national security. If she could do it, who else could?”
A picture of Lola Dakota running away from a group of paparazzi dissolved onto the screen. Her face—as usual—was half covered by an intricate design, and her blonde hair flowed behind her in waves.
“Where is Lois Lane? Would we even recognize her if we saw her on the street? We are only now coming to understand the magnitude of the detail and planning that had to go into the creation of the public image of Lola Dakota. If she was ever seen without the face paint, it was only because an elaborate costume obscured her visage.” Now an image of Lola wearing a huge red crown appeared on the screen. Attached to the crown was a red veil that covered her face completely.
“Some are asking if we should now see the spectacle—which we once took for granted as personality—as deliberate manipulation and disguise…” Another image of Lola in a face-hiding outfit was shown. “…But those who take that position are few, far between, and in the minority.”
A video clip showed a group of screaming young girls in front of a record store. The audio cut in just in time to hear their joined voices say, “We love you, Lola! Please come back!” Another clip showed two college-aged young men in a coffee shop looking at a newspaper front page that showed an image from the failed concert. “She’s hot,” one of them said. “Very hot,” his friend chimed in. A third video clip showed an adult couple sitting on a park bench in New York’s Central Park. The camera man asked them what they thought about Lois Lane and the husband immediately smiled. “Such an amazing talent,” he answered. His wife nodded emphatically before adding, “And to think… we never even knew!” Another clip showed a late-twenties woman dressed in a business suit and holding an iPod. “Inspiring,” she said with a grin. “She just makes me know that anything is possible.”
The reporter was shown again. “Fans of all ages have come out in support of Lois Lane, and while the youngest seem to be the most forgiving—or perhaps, the most oblivious about the mixed identity—it’s the oldest who seem to be the most philosophical and understanding.”
The screen moved to a video interview with a famous music producer named Bobby ‘Big Mouth’ Viscuso. His longevity in the business was well represented, not only in the salt and pepper coloring of his hair, but also by the silver and gold mounted records that decorated the wall behind his back. He fingers were tented under his chin as he contemplated what he wanted to say. “I worked with her mother, you know.” He leaned back in his seat and a fond smile broke out across his face. “Ella was a master. A master—and that’s not a word we use lightly in this business—but she had a greatness that wasn’t truly realized, wasn’t truly *appreciated* until after we’d already lost her. That was the true tragedy. And I remember… Lois was, she was just a tiny girl—you know, not really walking, just toddling around while we were working—but Ella was really protective. She loved that girl. She really did.” The music exec leaned forward again, nodding thoughtfully. “So, for me it makes sense. Something that big, something as pure as what would be between a mother and daughter… You’d want to keep that... Yeah, you’d want to keep that to yourself.”
The image changed to show lines inside of record stores as people made purchases. “Dakota franchise record sales have skyrocketed and reached record highs as old and new fans alike try to figure out the underlying mystery that is Lois Lane. And while millions are enjoying the rebirth of Lola Dakota’s all time hits, the real clamor has been for something new. All the major record labels have come out with public offers to sign Lois Lane to a deal, assuming conflict with her current label owner and father, Samuel Lane, to be the cause of her disappearance.”
A video clip showed Samuel Lane giving an impromptu press conference in front of his L. A. offices appeared on the screen. “No, I haven’t seen her since the concert but she did call to say that she was fine. As far as I know she has no impending plan on coming back any time soon. She said that she just wants to be left alone.”
The reporter’s voice became a voiceover again as the screen presented a video clip of a car driving down a desolate highway road that was lined by cornstalks. “That message, delivered by Sam Lane two weeks after Coachella did nothing to satisfy the public’s need for all things Lois Lane. Instead, attention shifted to the unassuming town of Smallville, Kansas, and to the discovery of the identity of the young man who crashed a live televised concert, and broke the story of the year.”
The camera stopped following the car down the highway to focus on a billboard sign that welcomed new visitors to the town of Smallville, Kansas, the creamed corn capital of the word; population forty-five thousand and one. “Smallville is a close-knit community, which for the most part remained quiet and protective over Clark Kent, the town’s newly famous resident, amidst an invasion of journalists and photographers from all over the world…”
A montage of different video clips showed townsfolk waving away cameras and refusing to comment.
“…Although eventually, it did come out that during the time Lola Dakota was supposed to be in a Hawaiian rehab facility, she was in fact, here, in Smallville, Kansas, staying on the Kent’s Farm.”
A clip showed a teenage boy leaning against the outside fence near a mailbox that read ‘Kent’. “Yeah, she was here,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the farm house in the distance. “You never even saw her!” another voice called out, causing the camera to pan to show another teenage boy standing nearby. “Yeah, well my brother did,” the first boy offered, sheepishly shrugging at the camera. The camera’s focus then changed as it zoomed in to reveal a man walking from the red barn carrying two silver pails. He was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots, but his face couldn’t clearly be seen because the bill of his cap was pulled low.
“Not much information has been found on young Mr. Kent,” the reporter voiced over a yearbook photo of the aforementioned person of interest. “And without his comment or those of his neighbors, we may never know what led up to the events that took place at Coachella. What we do know is that Lois Lane’s stay in Kansas instead of Hawaii is yet one more example of the misdirection and subterfuge that kept us all guessing—and nowhere close—to the real identity of Lola Dakota.”
The screen returned to the reporter in the studio. “And even with that unsatisfying end, we still can’t seem to get enough of this story. While Lois Lane’s Coachella performance only consisted merely of one unknown and unlabeled song, online downloads and viewings have reached the millions and billions respectively. There is no precedent for an unofficially recorded song to top the Billboard Charts for three weeks in a row, but this one has.”
The reporter stood from his seat and began walking toward the end of the desk, and while he did so, the camera angle changed to show his full body. “The success of ‘Two is Better Than One’, the song debuted by Lois Lane at what could have certainly been the death of career, reveals the significance of her talent—a talent that, I for one, think has been largely untapped. I may not be a maven in the music business like Bobby Big Mouth, but I’d like to go on record in saying that, like her mother before her, Lois Lane is a master artist in our midst. Whatever her name, however she looks… I hope she comes back.”
The camera zoomed in to position the reporter on the left side of the screen while scrolling credits on the right. “This is Jonathan Jonnz for LNN Newsline Reports. Good evening.”
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Clark clicked off the television with the remote. He’d been watching that tape almost daily since it had aired two months ago. The paparazzi attention in Smallville had since died out, but he still made it a point not to leave the farm. If he had been isolated before, he was even moreso now. The citizens of his small town may have put up a protective force against outsiders but that didn’t mean they were happy with him.
Everyone wanted to know why he’d done it, where she was, and what was to happen next… and he had none of those answers.
Why had he done it? The only answer he could come up with was unsatisfactory: he hadn’t meant to. He’d gotten caught up in the moment and in his anger… After he’d been frog-marched off the stage (he’d met Lois’s ‘Perry’ and found that he was nothing like the Teddy Bear she had described), he’d been held in a room guarded by security until the concert had ended. Threatening him with criminal trespassing charges, they had asked him the same questions. Why had he done it? His answers had been unsatisfactory then as well.
Eventually they had let him go—at Lois’s request, he later learned—but by the time he’d been released, everyone was gone.
He’d been prepared for Chloe to not return his phone calls. He didn’t have a number for Lois, but he knew she wouldn’t have returned his calls either. What he hadn’t been prepared for was the silent treatment he got from his mother once he got back home.
His mom had been sitting on the couch—in the very spot he was sitting at that moment—watching the repeated news reports when he’d walked through the door at two o’clock in the morning. She’d turned off the television, given him a look, and then gone upstairs to bed. The fact that she refused to cook for him might have been punishment enough, but the disappointment in her eyes every time she managed to look at him caused more pain than any physical punishment ever could.
When the paparazzi descended, camping on the road just outside their property line, it had felt like everything in his life had been taken from him. The farm, his place of sanctuary and solace, had been ripped apart by telephoto lenses and shotgun microphones. Ironically—or maybe not so much—the day that he’d been feeling the most pressure from having to put on the show of normality for the cameras was also the day that his mother had instigated a form of a truce. She was still upset with him, that much was clear, but at least—in opposition to the irrational fear of every child that has done something *really* wrong—she still loved him.
She had entered his room with a slice of pie and a glass of milk. Relieving in finally having her voluntarily in his presence, he’d almost cried. “Mom, I don’t know why I did it,” he’d offered, pleadingly.
She’d then reached out to cup his chin sadly and said, “Oh, Honey… Yes, you do.”
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Martha Kent walked into the den to see her son sitting on the couch, holding the television remote, and staring at a blank screen. Shaking her head, she crossed the room and perched gingerly on the coffee table in front of him, taking the remote away and setting it beside her. He’d been watching that tape again and there was only so much self-flagellation a mother could allow. Three months had to be a limit.
“Clark.”
He blinked, pulling from his thoughts, and focused on her. “Oh, right, the horses… I was just about to hea…”
“That’s not what I wanted to talk about,” she interrupted. He sighed and she started to think that maybe she should have confronted him about this earlier. She had wanted him to understand it for himself… but he could be so *thick-headed* sometimes. “Clark, why did you do it?”
“I told you, Mom. I know you don’t believe me, but I really don’t know…”
“Clark…” she interrupted again.
“I didn’t want her to leave!”
“And?” Martha knew that sometimes you got more with less.
“And…” He shook his head in exasperation. “I don’t... I made a mistake. Isn’t that what you want to hear? Isn’t that what everyone wants to hear?”
“Is that all?”
He stood from the couch and began pacing in front of the fireplace. Martha moved to the spot on the couch he had just vacated so she could comfortably watch him.
“I messed everything up, Mom. I know that, okay?” He put a hand on the back of his neck. “I mean look at the farm…”
They had to cut back on some of their production without Clark being able to freely do the number of chores he was accustomed to. They had hired some extra help, outsourcing some of the work on the furthest fields to local crews, but even that had put them in more debt than Martha preferred to carry.
“It just got out of control,” he confessed. “I wanted… I wanted…”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Martha contended, stepping in before he could get too far in his deliberation. “’You wanted. You wanted,’” she repeated. “Maybe it’s not about what *you* want.”
She felt a little bad about the betrayed look he flashed her, but knew she had to go on. “What about what Lois wanted? Did you ask?”
When he opened his mouth to speak, she shook her head curtly. “Did you *listen*?” His mouth closed and she went on, “Did you stop to understand where *she* was coming from?” She tilted her head, taking on an analyzing pose. “Clark, you have an irrational need to control things—selfishly. I hate to say it, but I think your father and I helped to make you feel that way, with the way we kept you sheltered and… hidden.”
“No, you guys were protecting me,” he protested, moving to the couch to sit next to her.
Martha felt a small smile tug at her lips. He was a sweet boy, really… if not a little naive. “We didn’t mean for it to make you this…” She waved a hand towards him, trying to think of another word than the one that was at the tip of her tongue. In the end, she said it anyway, “…afraid.”
The word had the effect she’d been worried about. He tensed and frowned, obviously growing defensive. It was an old argument that had never been settled. “Mom…”
“Yes, Sweetie, afraid. Scared, terrified, and everything that goes with it,” Martha pressed. “Life is beautiful, Clark. It’s precious, dynamic, vulnerable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable.” She gazed at his face, wondering if he comprehended that ‘life’ wasn’t the only thing she was describing.
She felt hopeful when a glimmer of *something* made him tilt his head. “You can’t take everything by force,” she continued. “The meek inherit where the violent misstep.” She waited silently while he processed.
Finally, Clark raised his head to look her in the eyes. “So what do I do now?” he asked quietly. “I took a wrecking ball to a tea party.”
“You grow up,” Martha responded bluntly. “You accept that there are some things you can’t do… and for a man that can do many amazing things, I know that has to be hard, but that’s what makes it *that* much more important.”
Her son was a fixer. In the stable world she and Jonathan had created for him on the farm, Clark could fix the things he broke. If the fence was down, he could rebuild it. If the roof leaked, he could patch it. Jonathan’s death had been one taste of reality that Clark had experienced and it had caused him to back pedal like a professional cyclist. In her own grief, she had allowed it—for a time needed to cling to him as much as he clung to her—but now it was incapacitating him. Shunting his growth…
She stood up and walked toward the old fashioned roll-top desk in the corner of the room. “There are some things you can’t fix,” she said, lifting the front accordion cover back.
“You mean about Lois?” he asked. “You think I shouldn’t even try?”
Martha paused to glance over her shoulder at him. “You can’t glue tea cups back together,” she said, alluding to his earlier metaphor. “I think… that when you can’t go back, you should go forward.” She turned back to the desk and retrieved a red folder.
When she turned to walk back toward the couch, he was frowning and staring down at his hands. She contemplated saying more but knew that she could only push him so far… he had to get up and walk at some point on his own.
“How do I do that?” he asked, almost as if he had heard her thoughts.
“Maybe you should take a page out of Lois’s book,” she said, handing him the folder but not sitting back down.
“Page?” he questioned, not opening the folder yet. “What do you mean?”
“You know… when she came here,” Martha answered. At his confused look, she continued, “Try being someone else… maybe someone more like yourself.”
He frowned, still not comprehending, but Martha was okay with that. Some things were too poignant to make sense right away. She watched as he opened the folder. “Mom…? Is this…?”
She nodded. “I activated your deferred admission to Kansas A&M.”
He looked up at her. “But I didn’t… I’m not…”
“Ready?” she supplied. “I think you are. Besides, you can’t stay here. I don’t want you to.”
“But, I…” He took a closer look at the stack of papers. “Three weeks?! Classes begin in three weeks?”
Martha nodded grimly. “You should go pack.” She started walking toward the kitchen slowly, waiting for the next revelation to occur.
“Mom!”
There it was, she thought, smirking to herself and turning back to face him with an innocent expression.
He held up a paper that showed his class schedule. “These are for the Journalism program…” he said. “How did you…”
She smiled. “I’m a mother, Clark.” Then she winked as she turned once again to leave. “…And mothers know everything.”
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tbc...
A/N: The song referenced in this part is actually a song by Boys Like Girls, entitled, “Two is Better Than One.”
