Chapter 2: Cat's Perspective
Cat Grant noticed Lois come into work that morning alone. As she observed the ace reporter reading over the Daily Planet, she rolled her eyes. She wondered what kind of an ego you would have to have to read your own article. After all, she never read over her own gossip column after she submitted it. Something about Lois just got on Cat’s nerves. Something about her just rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe she just honestly thought Lois was overrated. Cat really wasn’t sure.
After a few minutes went by, Cat sat down next to Jimmy. He was reading over that morning’s edition of the Daily Planet, too. Great. Just what she needed. He’d probably mention how wonderful Lois’ story was. That was the last thing Cat wanted to hear right now.
In order to avoid the inevitable “Isn’t Lois just amazing” conversation, Cat snatched the paper from Jimmy. She didn’t mean to be rude. It was just too early in the morning for her to hear about how awesome Lois is.
“Hey, I was reading that!” Jimmy protested.
“Relax, I’ll give it back in a minute,” Cat replied.
“I get it. You haven’t read Lois’ story yet,” said Jimmy. “It’s a real good one.”
Cat shook her head in disbelief at Jimmy’s praise of Lois’ story. Then, she scanned through the front page of the paper. As usual, the cover story was indeed written by Lois Lane. Of course it was a story written by Lois. It was always a story written by Lois that made the front page. The real question was whether or not anybody else made the front page.
“Why would I want to read a story written by Lois Lane,” she replied in disgust. “If you’ve read one of them, you’ve read them all. Don’t they all begin with Lois sticking her nose into some dangerous situation and end with Superman saving her?”
“I guess so,” Jimmy replied, frowning.
She looked up from the paper and noticed someone passing by the table. Frustrated, she jumped out of her seat, grabbed the man by the collar, and asked, “Guess who made the front page again? Come on, guess. I bet you can figure out who it is with just one guess.”
“Lois?” the man asked uncomfortably. Cat let go of his collar, and he scurried away as fast as he could, looking almost afraid of Cat.
“Yes, Lois,” Cat spat out, clearly disgusted.
“She made the front page for the past four days in a row,” Jimmy explained excitedly. “She shared two bylines with Clark and had two of her own. She sure is a really good reporter.”
“Don’t say that. She’s not that good,” Cat replied defensively. “She gets lucky most of the time. Anybody can wander into dangerous situations, wait for Superman to save them, and then write about it.”
“I guess you have a point,” Jimmy answered.
“I definitely have a point,” Cat replied. She was fuming at this point. “I bet I could do just as well as her if I worked on similar stories.”
“I wonder if she can make five front page stories in a row,” Jimmy thought out loud. “That would be like a record or something.”
“I just wish someone would knock her off her pedestal,” Cat answered. “I bet it would kill her if someone else brought in a bigger scoop than her.”
“I doubt anyone could,” Jimmy answered. “Maybe C.K. Just maybe.”
“I think I could do it,” said Cat.
“Come on. Quit joking around,” Jimmy said with a smile on his face.
“I could.”
“You’re a gossip columnist.”
“So what?” Cat replied, sounding a little offended. “A good reporter is a good reporter no matter what type of news they cover.”
“You wouldn’t last two minutes covering hard news,” Jimmy scoffed.
“I bet I could.”
“I bet you couldn’t”
“Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” asked Cat.
“Like a bet?” asked Jimmy.
“Yes, like a bet,” answered Cat. “If I can pull in a bigger scoop than Lois can, then you have to be my slave for a whole week.”
“Fine!” replied Jimmy. “But you have to go out on a date with me if Lois pulls in the bigger scoop, which she will.”
The two of them shook on it, and Cat was on her way to find a big scoop.
*****
After a while of trying to find a newsworthy story, Cat had to admit that being an investigative reporter was harder than it looked. She’d called up all her usual sources, and none of them had anything that would work outside of her regular gossip column. If she was going to beat Lois, she’d need something better than a story about a movie star breaking up with his girlfriend or a story about a politician’s affair. That meant that she wouldn’t be able to rely on her usual sources this time.
“Think,” Cat said to herself as she tapped her pen on her chin. “What types of stories make the front page?”
She thought about what Lois usually wrote about, and then, it finally hit her. There was one thing that appeared in almost every one of Lois’ stories.
“Superman!”
*****
She officially had a plan. Now, it was time to set that plan in motion. In order to do that, she needed to use her assets in the best way possible. That meant she needed to wear something even more revealing than usual. She let Jimmy know she’d be out of the office on a story and headed to her apartment to change.
After going home and changing, she returned to the Daily Planet. She was now wearing a mini-skirt that she’d adjusted to make even shorter, a blouse that was clearly a couple sizes too small, in order to reveal her belly and bosom, and boots with six inch heels.
As she strutted past a few coworkers, she elicited a few whistles from the men. She made her way to Clark’s desk and sat right in his lap.
“Cat!” Clark shouted uncomfortably. “What are you doing?”
Cat didn’t answer. She just began kissing up his neck, eventually making her way to his cheeks, and finishing off with one big kiss on the lips.
“Cat, why are you attacking me like this?” Clark asked, pushing her off his lap. She’d always been aggressive, but this was worse than usual.
“I just want a little favor,” Cat replied sadly.
“Then all you have to do is ask,” Clark replied as he straightened out his tie. “You know that I would do anything for a friend.”
“Introduce me to Superman,” she asked.
“What?” Clark replied, taken back by that request.
“Everyone knows the two of you are close,” Cat explained. “Frankly, I think he likes you even more than he likes Lois.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Clark replied with a smile.
“I really need to talk to him,” said Cat.
“But why?” asked Clark. “Even if you think I can just summon Superman at my will, why is it so urgent that you talk to him?”
“I want to interview him,” Cat replied.
“Interview him?” Clark responded in shock. “He’s been interviewed plenty of times. Lois has interviewed him. I’ve interviewed him. Reporters at other papers have even interviewed him.”
“But I haven’t,” Cat replied, doing her best to give Clark her saddest look.
“He’s a busy guy,” Clark argued. “I can’t ask him to let you interview him just because you’re my friend. Besides, I think he’s already told the media everything about himself that he wants them to know.”
“I’m looking for a more personal interview than what you and Lois have done,” Cat replied, not being dissuaded by Clark.
“But Cat,” Clark continued. “That’s what I’m telling you. He doesn’t want anyone to interview him about his personal life.”
“I just want to ask him questions about his love life. Does he have a girlfriend? Has he ever been married? Has he ever experienced love? Is he compatible with earth women?”
“I can’t ask him to grant you an interview like that, and that’s final,” Clark replied as he stood up and walked away.
“If you won’t ask him for me, I’m going to have to ask him myself,” Cat said under her breath.
*****
She waited patiently by the radio after that. She knew that there would be some disaster in Metropolis that Superman would have to cover eventually. This was Metropolis, after all. Something bad happened here on a regular basis, and Superman was always there to save the day. Only this time, she was going to be on the scene when he saved the day.
That’s when it happened. The radio announcer interrupted right in the middle of a song to say that the police were chasing a couple of men down Durance Street after they’d robbed a gas station.
“Superman’s always stopping things like this!” Cat said to herself excitedly.
She glanced over at Clark’s desk, noticing that he was getting out of his seat and rushing towards the storage closet. He couldn’t have heard the radio announcement. It was playing too low. Even if he had heard it, what did he expect to gain by going into a storage closet? Suddenly, Clark’s actions were becoming more interesting to Cat than the police chase.
She had to make a quick decision. Should she go out in the middle of a dangerous police chase, or should she follow Clark into the closet?
She suddenly got a funny thought. What if the storage closet was some sort of meeting place for Superman and Clark. Maybe, Clark was going to tell Superman about the police chase. Or, perhaps Superman would meet Clark there after the police chase to give him the scoop. Maybe, just maybe, that was how Clark was able to pull in so many Superman scoops.
She was sure of what she wanted to do now. She stomped over to the storage closet, opened the door, and saw… nothing. No Clark. No Superman. The window was opened, so Cat went over to it and looked outside. There was no sign of Superman out there, either. Cat wondered if maybe Superman had met Clark in the storage closet and taken him to the police chase so he could get the story that way.
Then, she heard a crunch beneath her feet. She looked down and saw a pair of glasses. She bent down and examined them. Next to the glasses were a pair of pants, a shirt, and a tie. As she looked at the items, she realized that these were Clark’s clothes.
She still wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, but she knew one thing. She was going to wait in that storage closet until she got some answers.
*****
About a half hour later, Superman swooped into the storage closet from the window.
“Cat!” he yelled, jumping back.
“ You are so busted!” Cat said as she drew nearer to him.
“Cat, I don’t know what you think you busted me doing, but this is all a misunderstanding,” Superman replied nervously.
As Cat drew nearer, Superman could see a pair of broken glasses in her hands. Once she was directly in front of him, she put them on his face.
“I knew it!” she blurted out.
Superman just bent his head down. He was flabbergasted by all of this.
“As I waited here for the last half hour, I just kept thinking there was no reason Clark would take all of his clothes off and leave,” Cat explained. “Unless of course he was wearing something underneath. Clark Kent is Superman!”
“Shhhhh!” he said, trying to quiet her down. “I don’t need the whole newspaper hearing my secret identity.”
“The first thing I need to know is does Lois know?” asked Cat. “That’s how she gets so many scoops about Superman, isn’t it!”
“No,” he replied. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“Huh,” Cat replied, kind of enjoying the fact that she’d figured out the secret before Lois.
“Nobody else can know, either,” Superman added.
“They won’t know,” Cat started. “As long as you let me have the scoop on that police chase.”
“Fine,” he replied.
“And!” she continued. “Let me interview you about Superman’s personal life.”
“Cat, you know there’s a good reason I can’t give you that interview.”
“Perry!” Cat called.
“OK; OK; OK,” Clark replied as he put his hand over Cat’s mouth. “I’ll let you have your interview.”
“Thank you,” Cat mumbled through his hand.
“But please, you have to promise that you will never tell anyone.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“And, you need to go get my spare pair of glasses. They’re in my apartment in the drawer by my bed,” Clark explained.
“Sure thing,” Cat said as she patted him on the cheek.
*****
It didn’t take her too long. The glasses were right where Clark told her they would be. When she got back to the office and gave Clark his glasses, he spun back into his Clark clothes. Then, they went to work on both the police chase story and her personal interview with Superman.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “My work as a superhero would probably make me a pretty bad husband. I stay out at all hours of the night. I disappear throughout the day. It would be unfair to my wife. Not to mention that if anybody ever found out my secret identity, it would be pretty hard on her. She might be used as a way of getting to me.”
“What about a girlfriend?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend for the same reason I don’t have a wife.”
“But you’ve been in love, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“When I arrived in Metropolis, I met this woman.”
“Is she human?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me a little bit about her.”
“She’s very intelligent. She’s brave. She’s strong. She can be a little pushy sometimes, but she’s a wonderful person inside.”
It was Lois. Cat knew it had to be Lois. The way Clark always looked at her was one clue, but if that wasn’t enough, that description fit Lois perfectly.
She continued to ask him a few more questions. After wrapping up the interview, she thanked him, shook his hand, and headed into Perry’s office with her two stories.
*****
After Perry read through the first story about the police chase, he smiled and said, “Good work Cat.”
“Good enough for the front page?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he replied. “It depends on what other reporters bring me today. It’s a really good job for your first time writing something like this, though.”
“What about this story,” she asked as she handed him her interview with Superman.
“You scored an interview with Superman?” he asked. “Great shades of Elvis! How’d you pull that off?”
“I’m good,” Cat replied.
He quickly scanned through the interview, a smile forming on his face.
“You like it?” she asked.
“This is good,” he replied. “Really good. Everyone wants to know more about Superman. He’s the hottest story out there right now, and you managed to get him to admit he’s in love. Even without a name, this is amazing!”
“Front page amazing?” she asked.
“Yes, front page amazing,” Perry replied as he patted her on the back. “I can see the front cover now. ‘Superman in Love.’”
*****
As Cat left Perry’s office, she saw Clark standing at her desk dressed as Superman. He was holding a box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses.
“What is that for?” she asked.
“Remember when I told you I was in love?” he asked.
“Yeah. With Lois, right? Did you decide you want to finally tell her how you feel?” she asked.
“No, I’m not in love with Lois,” he replied.
“Then, who?” asked Cat.
“I’m in love with you,” he replied as he grabbed her and held her close to himself. A crowd was beginning to gather. “Now that you know my secret anyways, I can’t bear to keep my feelings a secret any longer.”
With that, he kissed her.
To be continued...
