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Pride, Prejudice, and Jimmy Choos
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[-14-]
Setting an open box and an empty shoebox on his bed, Clark began packing up his desk. He had finally made it to the end of his first year of college. He was sure that by anyone’s standards, it had been a crazy one. Leaving the farm and going to college had been phase one of ‘launching’ his life and getting some of the experiences that ‘normal’ people had.
His experience had been anything but.
Just as he had feared, Paul’s discovery about Clark being *the* Clark Kent whose name was only know by the world when it was followed by ‘the young man who de-masked Lola Dakota’ had brought him back into the media’s crosshairs. For a full two months, the renewed interest in his life had caused his ‘star’—so to speak—to rise. The fact that Lois had resurfaced in the form of an internet video had only made the attention on him even stronger.
It all began with a fabricated article that got global attention. It all ended with Paul getting kicked out of school and Clark getting a new job at the Daily Planet. The in-between of those two bookends was whirlwind that even he, with his eidetic memory and first-hand experience with the extraordinary, had a hard time wrapping his head around.
He paused as he was pulling his CD collection off of the shelf over his desk. Ironically, the CD under his hand when he’d grabbed a random stack just happened to be Ella Lane’s collection of classic covers. Smiling to himself, he set the stack down, sliding the silver disc from the case and putting it into his CD player. Eddie teased him good-naturedly about still using a full-sized stereo when the world had moved onto portable digital file players, and even though he did have an iPod, he tended to like to listen to his music thoroughly, and that meant reading lyrics and looking at pictures. Also, with the number of sample discs and first-runs that he got, he didn’t want to put everything through a conversion process just to listen to it.
Pressing the Forward button until it reached his favorite song, Clark set the empty case down and returned to packing the others in the waiting shoebox.
The sound of clapping erupted from the speakers of the stereo, signaling that the music was from a live recording. “I’d like to, ah, dedicate this song to my baby girl,” a woman’s voice said, as a guitar arpeggio was played. “She’s in bed somewhere, but I’m wishing her have sweet dreams... Always.”
Another few guitar chords were played before the woman began singing in a soulful voice.
“I see trees that are green/ Red roses too… I watch them bloom/ For me and you/ And I think to myself… What a wonderful world/ I hear… babies cry, I watch them grow/ And they’ll learn much more… than I’ll ever know/ And I think to myself… Ohhh what a wonderful world…”
As he listened to the woman singing to her child about the beauty and promise of the world, he wondered just where in that world that child had gone.
He turned back to the desk and started pulling thumbtacks out of the world map on his wall. In the eight months since that first sighting, Lois had been seen at a number of different venues—all small clubs and never pre-announced—around the world. The first video author had been interviewed by Jiminez Olsen on his cable entertainment show.
According to the young man in question, he and his girlfriend had been enjoying live music at a small jab club in New York’s SoHo district when the band had stopped for a break. Instead of the silence they’d been expecting, a woman they didn’t recognize had taken the stage and started singing, backed up only by her guitar. A few murmurs, astonished looks, and stares had gone around the room until they’d finally realized exactly who was on the stage. Lois had sung two songs and then disappeared behind the stage. In the interview, the young man said that with Lois’s sudden and brief appearance the additional security presence that night had suddenly made sense—it also explained why he had only been able to get a short recording before they’d threatened to confiscate his phone.
The rest of the video authors had a similar story. They were at a club, not thinking anything about the additional security in the building, when all of a sudden Lois would appear, sing two songs and then leave. No one knew where she’d turn up next, but that didn’t stop people from trying to guess.
Countless online forums were dedicated to trying to unlock a pattern in her appearances. Large networks of people signed up to be sent text messages about the latest Lois sightings so that they could hurry to the venue if they were in the same city. Even with all of their preparation, no one could pin her down.
In the background to his thoughts, the musical strains from the current song ended and morphed into another. Following a brief intro with strains of acoustic guitar, Ella Lane started singing again. ”You with the sad eyes/ Don’t be discouraged, though I realize/ It’s hard to take courage/ In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it/ While in the darkness there inside you makes you feel so small/ But I see your true colors shining through…”
Pulling out another thumbtack, Clark acknowledged that for a fact. He didn’t see any pattern to Lois’s movements. One day she’d been at the House of Blues in Vegas, and then a week later at Etoile in Paris. Clark had taken to following her, listening for those beeps on his phone that told him if he had a new message, and then making up weak excuses to drop whatever he was doing to rush to wherever she was reported to be. He never found her though; never caught up to her on the trail. Ironically, the chase for Lois Lane was showing him more of the world than he’d ever expected to see—his matchbook collection could vouch for that.
Clark took the map down and folded it neatly. He was glad to be moving. Even though he was still planning to live with Eddie next year—the realities of rent and utilities made it hard to be fully independent—he would have his own room and own space… and a bathroom that wasn’t shared by fifteen other guys.
Hearing his cell phone beep, Clark pulled it from his hip (he’d never imagined that he would become a slave to the cellular life, yet here he was) and checked the text.
It was from a source. Something was going down at the Metro Club in Metropolis.
~\s/~
Tess Mercer walked out of her meeting with Toni Taylor feeling confident about the set that night. Some of these venues were hard to setup because club managers didn’t want to agree to all of the terms. First, the turnaround time was horrendous. There was no precedent for an artist to just show up the day of their show and demand stage time. Second, the venue could do no promotion. If even the slightest hint that word had gotten out about the appearance, their team would just hit another club. Third, additional security had to be hired and put in place in a relatively short amount of time.
None of these things were the normal way to do business… but Lois Lane wasn’t a normal musician.
First, Lois’s talent and popularity—whether she liked it or not—were unprecedented. Anything Lola or Lois related was golden, and people flocked in her wake as if her guitar were a flute and her identity a Piper. Second, just being able to say that Lois Lane had played at their venue was enough promotion to keep managers happy. After a Lois sighting, the name of whatever venue she was at was tweeted, blogged, reported, and texted a million times over. Third, Tess didn’t care that the extra security detail put a hardship on the management. She wasn’t about to have a repeat occurrence of Coachella on her hands. Ever.
All of the venues wanted Lois so there were rarely any times when the threats were needed. Tess was a great poker player and her poker face could have won her Vegas-worthy street cred if she hadn’t decided to use her skill in negotiations rather than casinos. Even though she played the ‘you need us more than we need you’ card when she laid out the standards of Lois’s show rider, Lois had no intention of playing anywhere but where she sent Tess to secure.
No one else would be able to figure it out, but there was a method to the zigzagging and world crossing selection of clubs that Lois unexpectedly popped up in. They were all places once visited by her mother, yet they weren’t in any preconceived order that Tess knew about. The locations didn’t correspond with the route Ella Lane had taken, or with a series of albums or songs, but somehow—with Perry’s help—Lois had a plan. This mini-tour, that wasn’t really a tour, was about Lois paying tribute to her mother in a way that no one else would be able to sensationalize and redefine, and Tess vowed to do whatever she could to make sure Lois did what she came to do.
That night at Coachella had changed everything. Tess had stood in the eaves of the stage and watched as everything she had worked so long and hard to keep under wraps became public domain.
Tess had known that one day the gig would be up. It was her job to read the people she worked with as if they were open books. Lois’s out of control behavior leading up to the Good Morning America fiasco had been signs that something would soon have to give. Her father’s threat to ‘have her fixed’ had been something of a shock in that Tess had never expected it to work. But it had.
Lois had returned to them a different person after her time away. Not a completely different identity, Tess amended her thoughts with a small smile, but one that was more natural. One that looked comfortable in her skin for the first time since Tess had begun working with S.T.A.R. Records. ‘Are you happy?’ Tess had asked Lois, but she’d never gotten her answer. Then, less than an hour later, the choice to answer had been taken from her.
In a time span that felt like the snap of fingers, the world had changed. After sending Lois off on an airplane in the care of Perry White, Tess had prepared her statement of resignation, and even though she had turned it in and essentially cut her ties with the Lane establishment, Tess had felt like it was a job left incomplete. In her mind, Lois deserved the last word. Not the nightly news reports, not the tabloids… but Lois Lane herself.
So when Lois had called her out of the blue requesting that she help her find an artist for a song she’d written, Tess had refused.
She’d refused and told her that—like at Coachella—it was time for her to sing for herself.
Reaching the end of the back hallway that separated the Metro Club’s offices from the main room, Tess froze as her worst nightmare manifested before her eyes. There, standing at the bar and speaking with the bartender was none other than Clark Kent.
Stepping back into the shadows so she could remain unnoticed, Tess watched as Clark shook hands with the bartender before crossing the room and sitting down at a booth near where she now stood. The club wasn’t open, so Tess knew exactly what he was up to—and the way he was gazing around the room assessing everything only made it even more clear.
Narrowing her eyes, Tess stepped from the hallway—still unseen by him, as his back was to her—and stalked over to the booth. Without a word she sat down, taking away his element of surprise by using it herself.
He winced when he looked up and saw who had joined him. Good, she thought. He knew who she was and was scared.
“Uh… Ms Mercer,” he stammered. “Hello.”
Keeping her expression frozen, Tess merely blinked and leaned back against the cushioned seats, crossing her arms as moved.
Clark cleared his throat. “You’re probably, ah, wondering why I’m here.”
She wasn’t. Tess believed that the reason for Clark Kent’s existence was to make her life hell. She still didn’t reply.
“I wanted to apologize,” he offered awkwardly, seeming to be unnerved by her lack of response. “I know that what happened affected a lot of people… you included… and I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
Tess sharpened her glare and he dropped his gaze for a few moments.
“How is she?” he asked, venturing a glance at her again.
Tess rewarded him with a smirk. He had to know there was no way she was going to answer that.
Seeming to have read her thoughts, he nodded. “I wanted to… apologize to her too. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen.”
Tess scoffed, unable to let that go. “You don’t seem to be suffering from ‘any of it,’” she countered, sarcastically mimicking his words.
He nodded again, sheepish. “You saw the article…”
“’I Spent the Night With Lois Lane,’” Tess supplied for him. “*Everyone* saw the article.” She arched an eyebrow with the emphasis on ‘everyone’ so he could understand just who she was talking about.
He sighed heavily. “That wasn’t… I didn’t…” He sighed again. “My roommate wrote that and put my name on it. I tried to fix it,” he offered.
Tess knew the story. It was her *job* to know things, after all. An article had been printed in a university newspaper. Then, like wild fire, it had been picked up by syndicates across the world. By the time the smoke cleared, people still were more interested in the original article than the one paragraph retraction. Clark had pleaded his case through a reputable newspaper, but again… tucked away in the editorial section, it wasn’t as publicly seen as the first one.
The first one was the one that everyone wanted to read because the mystery surrounding Coachella was too strong to ignore. ‘Who was he? Who was he to her? How did it get that way to start?’
“And again, you don’t look to worse for the wear,” Tess retorted coldly. All her experience with Clark Kent had taught her was that he always left a mess.
The attention and popularity surrounding his name and circumstances had led to him getting a position with that same reputable newspaper. The Entertainment division gave him a bi-weekly column, banking on his sudden and prolonged rise to fame.
He lifted his hands almost pleadingly. “Do you really think that I *want* to be a music reporter?” he asked.
“But it’s a way in, right?” Tess countered smartly. He would get no sympathy from her, and she wanted him to be sure to know that.
Clark lowered his hands. “It was a way to get them to leave me alone.”
Tess had to give him that point. After Lois’s resurface and the debacle that was that article, Clark had become the media’s darling once again. Since he was away from the protection of his hometown, the cameras had been able to get a closer look. The paparazzi had followed him as if he was the American version of a British prince. Eventually, in order to get the media to move on, Clark had turned their tricks against them. He had started using his star power to get the popular stories they were missing out on because they were too busy lusting after him. In the end, his scoops had led to them wanting to beat him instead of shoot him.
He was smart and his strategy was to be admired, but that didn’t mean she liked him. Above all else, he was a still a threat.
With that thought, Tess arched an eyebrow and uncrossed her arms so she could tap a message into her phone. If she could have her way, they would leave Metropolis within the next hour, but she knew Lois wouldn’t leave the city without playing this club. Another option would be to play the next night instead, but Tess didn’t trust the secret to keep over night—that’s why they always arrived the day of the performance.
Finishing her text, Tess looked across the table. “Why are you here, Mr. Kent? Are you planning on going for round two? You going to tell the world that she’s playing here so you blow her cover again?”
“No, I…”
“Every member of our security team will know what face to look for. You *will not* get in tonight.” She leaned forward a little, relishing in her ability to intimidate when he unconsciously moved back. “Do us all a favor and don’t even try, okay?”
“I just want to talk to her,” Clark said meekly. “I need to explain…” He pulled a small notebook and a pen out of his jacket pocket and wrote something down. Tearing a small strip of paper off, he slid it across the table. “I don’t plan on telling anyone about this… I came for me.”
Tess took the paper and looked at the telephone number scrawled on it. This was more than just a job to Tess. The time crisscrossing the globe had changed their relationship so that Lois was now like a little sister. That fact, and their history with the man sitting on the other side of the table, made her extra protective.
“Can you tell her to call me?” Clark asked.
Tess folded the paper and set it into the unlit candle jar on the side of the table. Then taking the matchbox from the stack sitting near the holder, she lit one and set the paper on fire. “No.”
Just then, another person arrived at their table. Tess smirked when, once again, Clark winced. “Perry, you remember Mr. Kent,” she said, accepting Perry’s hand as he helped her get up.
Perry frowned at Clark, who stumbled a bit in his haste to stand. Perry had been checking the venue for security issues when she sent him her text. Tess could tell that he was just as *dis*pleased to see Clark Kent as she was.
“Um, Mr. White,” Clark offered in a weak greeting.
Smirking again, Tess began walking toward the door of the club, knowing that Perry and Clark would follow.
~\s/~
Clark watched the taxi leave with Tess Mercer inside. He didn’t doubt that the reason Perry White was standing next to him was to make sure he didn’t try to follow—which was exactly what he wanted to do.
“Mr. White,” he tried again. “I’m not trying to cause trouble…”
“Son, you don’t have to try.” Perry then gestured for Clark to leave… in the direction opposite the one Tess had taken.
Clark took the hint, but as soon as he could, he ducked behind a building and took to the sky. Once again, his secret weapon was that anyone looking for him would fail to look *up*.
As he trailed the yellow taxi to the Luxor Hotel, Clark told himself that none of this would have been necessary had Tess just agreed to give Lois his number. With that plan failing, he was desperate. And desperate people…
He entered the lobby of the hotel a few minutes after Tess did, hoping to remain inconspicuous by moving away from the front desk. As he was contemplating how to get Lois’s room number, he saw her walk out of an elevator car that had just arrived at the ground floor. Speaking on her phone, she didn’t notice him, but he noticed everything about her.
“I’m just going to get something to eat,” Lois was saying. “You can debrief me when I get back.”
When she laughed in response to something she heard, Clark’s heart hopped.
“Don’t worry. I will. See you later.”
She hung up the phone and Clark found himself trailing behind her as if his feet were thinking on their own. Realizing this, he slowed his pace, marveling at how Lois walked around as if she wasn’t the most sought after person in the world.
She stepped outside, and Clark followed at a distance until she ducked into a nearby diner. He realized with a sudden incredulity that she was hiding in plain sight. No one expected to see Lois Lane walking down the street wearing jeans and a tee-shirt—so that’s exactly what no one saw.
Borrowing Tess’s maneuver from earlier, Clark entered the diner and joined her at her booth in the rear of the restaurant.
Her eyes widened in shock, but to her credit, she refrained from doing anything that would call attention or make a scene.
They remained unspeaking for a full five minutes before a server arrived at the table with Lois’s water. “Can I you something to drink, sir?”
Still spellbound, Clark could only shake his head.
Apparently realizing something was up, the waitress cleared her throat. “Okay, well, I’ll just give you a few minutes to look over your menus.”
When she left, Clark found his voice. “Hi.”
He couldn’t read anything from Lois’s expression as she started back at him. Finally, she reached for her straw and tapped it on the table to unwrap it. “Hey.”
Having imagined this moment for so long, all of Clark’s prepared statements seemed to melt in his brain. “I uh… I, hi,” he repeated, smiling in what he knew had to be a goofy grin.
She rolled her eyes and waved for her server to come back over. Clark listened as she ordered chicken fingers—he didn’t know why that sounded so adorable—and hot water with lemon and honey. When the woman taking the orders looked at him expectantly, he stammered something about a water or something. He was too giddy about the fact that Lois’s ordering meant she wasn’t going to get up and walk away.
He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “I’m *so* sorry,” he whispered.
She pulled her hand away and wrapped it around her glass. Clark realized that this was going to be harder than he’d thought—because he was so tongue-tied and she was so… serene. Somehow, he’d been expecting fireworks but the only electricity was coming from the tingling of his hand where he had touched her skin.
“You’re not going to yell?” he asked.
“No,” Lois answered, leaning down to sip through her straw. She flicked her glance around the room as an additional answer to his question. She wasn’t going to draw unwanted attention. It was almost a challenge to see what he would do in return.
Given what he’d done last time they’d be together, he didn’t blame her mistrust.
“I was surprised to see you out in the open like this,” he said, nodding his head toward her.
She straightened and flicked her hair over her shoulders by moving her neck. “People see what they want to see,” she replied, both echoing his earlier thoughts and adding a new level to her challenge. Her eyes had narrowed ever so slightly, and he knew that she was talking about him in particular.
“There are so many things I wanted to say,” he started. “I… I’m sorry.”
She sighed as if bored. “You said that already.”
“I know, I just…”
“I forgive you,” she interrupted, saying it as simply as if she’d asked him to pass the salt.
“What?” Clark asked in surprise. “Just like that?”
She paused, thinking about it. “No, not *just* like that. It took a while, but now it doesn’t matter.”
Clark frowned. “It doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “The past is past.”
“It is?” The whole conversation was going in a different direction than he could have planned for.
“I like to think that you did me a favor.”
“I did?”
She chuckled and nodded, thanking the server when she set a chicken fingers and fries basket in front of her. When the woman was gone, Lois continued, “You gave an out. I took it. No harm done.” She shifted the basket toward him. “Want some?”
Clark took a fry—not so much because he wanted it, but because he didn’t want to not accept something she offered. “No harm done?” he questioned, more surprised than ever with her nonchalance. “But that article…” he started.
“It was true wasn’t it?” she asked, pouring some honey into her mug of hot water and stirring. “We did ‘spend the night’ together.”
“Lo…” Clark trailed off before saying her full name as he glanced around for any potential listeners. “It wasn’t like *that*,” he countered.
She merely shrugged and continued to eat.
“I don’t understand,” he stammered.
“There’s nothing to understand. It doesn’t matter because it doesn’t hurt. I’m over it.”
“Over it… over…”
“You,” she supplied helpfully. She gave him a small smile and returned her attention to her food.
The moment she said it, Clark realized that up until that moment, he’d convinced himself of the same: he was over her. Just then, though, he wasn’t so sure… Otherwise, why would her words have stung so badly? “Oh.”
“I’m doing better than ever,” Lois added brightly. “My dad’s been great about everything. He just told me to take my time and do whatever I needed to do. I’m finally being true to myself,” she said.
Clark nodded, unsure of what else to say.
“You should come tonight,” she said out of the blue a few minutes later.
“Tonight?” Clark asked. He was still feeling stupefied and shell shocked.
“The Metro Club,” Lois clarified quietly. “I’ll be singing.”
Clark blinked out of his stupor. “Actually, I was there earlier. I bumped into Ms. Mercer… and Mr. White.” He smiled a little as Lois began chuckling. “Needless to say, I don’t think they would let me within twenty feet of the building.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell them to let you in.” When he looked at her questioningly, she shrugged again. “There are no hard feelings here,” she said. “In fact, there are no feelings here at all.” She waved a hand between the two of them. “You’ll just be another person in the crowd listening to me sing. Then we’ll go our separate ways. Move on,” she summarized.
“And that’ll be it,” Clark added hesitantly.
“And that’ll be it,” Lois repeated with finality.
Clark looked down at his hands as they lay clasped together on the table. “Listen, maybe that’s not what…”
“So, you look good,” she said before he could complete the thought. “Nice to see that the Media Machine didn’t eat you up and go to your head.”
He blinked at the sudden segue. “Uh, no… but there were times that I felt a little gnawed on, I guess. It can be pretty invasive.”
“No kidding,” Lois muttered, and for a minute, Clark thought he heard something different from the carefree persona she’d been giving him. But then she smiled and it was gone. “So, you’re in college now?”
He smiled. “Did you Google me?”
“I didn’t have to.”
He didn’t quite know if she meant that she had gotten the information from Chloe or if it was because his life had been plastered in the news, but he laughed anyway. “There was a point when it got a little crazy,” he admitted. “But I’m managing.”
“I’m glad.” He saw the sincerity in her eyes as she said it. “I hope that you can find a way to be true to yourself too.”
They got caught in a stare for a few minutes and Clark tried to read something—anything, really—in her eyes. “Do you think we can…”
Lois pulled her gaze from his and pulled out her purse—dropping an amount of money quite a bit over what had to be the total of the bill on the table and sliding toward the end of the bench. “I’ve really got to go,” she said, and like that the moment was lost.
Clark frowned as she stood up. “Come tonight,” she offered again. As she moved to go past him, she paused and put her hand on his shoulder. “We won’t get a chance to speak afterwards so… this is good-bye.”
She leaned down and pressed her lips softly against his cheek, causing Clark to inhale in surprise. As he tried to conjoin his thoughts with his words, he watched her walk out of the diner… and his life.
Lifting his fingers to press against his face where her lips had been, Clark realized that he hadn’t been true to himself.
Because, the truth was… he loved her.
And unlike last time, when he was a scared man-child experiencing it for the first time, he knew it wasn’t a crush. He knew it wasn’t about control but about freedom. He knew that what he was feeling was the kind of love that changed your life and tilted your world.
And he knew that if she wanted him to let her go, then he had to love her enough to do it.
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A/N: The songs referenced in this section are entitled “What a Wonderful World,” and “True Colors” as covered by Eva Cassidy.
