On the dot of five-thirty on Thursday, a crisp knock sounded on Lois's door. She quickly cleared her counter of several folders of story notes, two used spoons, a scattering of toast crumbs, and an empty ice-cream tub. At the door, she looked through the peek-hole.
A man was there. Dark-haired. Young. Wearing glasses.
Leaving the chain hooked, Lois opened her door a few inches. "Yes?"
"Ms Lane?" He smiled tentatively. "My name is Clark Kent. Mrs Spangher has a migraine, so she asked me to come instead."
Part 2
Lois looked him up and down. Under each arm, he carried a cardboard box, overflowing with more food and equipment than could possibly be needed for a single meal. "Mr Kent?" she said, scoring her words with suspicion.
"Yes," he said, nodding earnestly. "Mrs Spangher told me your sister, Lucy, is in her cooking class and Lucy said -"
"Mrs Spangher has a headache?"
"A migraine."
"Do you have ID?"
"Ah … yes." He placed both boxes on the floor, pulled his billfold from his jeans pocket, and held out his driver's licence for her inspection.
"You're from Kansas?" Lois said, also noting that, despite his youthful looks, he was a year older than she was.
"Yes. I've only been in Metropolis a few months."
Her attention jumped from the photograph to his face, and from there, slithered down his body to the boxes at his feet. "You have knives," she said.
His gaze dropped, and he shuffled uncomfortably. "Mrs Spangher suggested I bring everything we need," he said. "I can leave them out here if you would prefer."
A second survey of the boxes' contents revealed a lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and onions, which seemed to support his case. "You can put your licence away."
He returned the card. "I can give you Mrs Spangher's number, and you can call her to substantiate my story."
"Why did she send you? Specifically?"
"I work for Mrs Spangher," he said, picking up the boxes again. "She received too many applicants for her winter class, so she advertised for someone to take a second group. My original plans in Metropolis didn't work out, so I applied and got the position."
"You're a cookery teacher?"
"I think my official title is a 'culinary instructor'," he said with a quick grin. "But, yes, I teach people to cook."
Realising that if she chose to slam the door in his face, she would be condemning herself to a desperate, last-minute quest for take-out, Lois released the chain. "Come in," she said, keeping her tone free from any trace of discernible welcome.
"Thank you."
Lois peered into the boxes as he walked past her. Some of the equipment was unfamiliar, and the number of little pots seemed patently excessive.
Mr Kent deposited the boxes on her counter and turned. "Mrs Spangher said you require guidance in preparing a special meal."
Guidance? Lois studied Mr Kent for a moment as an idea curled through her mind. He looked blandly nice. Innocent. Gullible. Lois made a sweeping gesture around her kitchen. "I'll leave you to it." She picked up the folders of story notes and headed for her bedroom.
With a quick movement, the cooking teacher stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
"What?" she barked.
"Mrs Spangher said I was to cook with you, not for you."
"I don't have the time," Lois said airily. "And really, kitchens and I don't mix at all. I'll probably ruin everything. You just -"
"No."
She gasped. "No?"
"Mrs Spangher was insistent that we are to prepare the meal together."
"But I have a date," Lois said. "He'll be here at seven-thirty."
"Then we should get started."
She gave him a long frost-covered stare and waited for him to crumble. He didn't. "You're actually going to make me help you?" she asked disdainfully.
"I thought I was here to help you."
It was cards-on-the-table time. "I know nothing about cooking," Lois said. "I have no interest in knowing anything. I simply want a delicious home-cooked meal for my guest."
Mr Kent's only response was a slight elevation to his left eyebrow, but his meaning was clear. If she wanted the meal cooked, she was going to have to get into the kitchen.
With a glare that had liquefied men with more credentials than a cooking teacher from Kansas, Lois stomped past him and into the kitchen. "What are we making?"
"Butter chicken with wild rice," Mr Kent replied mildly as he began lifting items out of the boxes and placing them in well-ordered groups on the counter.
"Butter chicken?" Lois questioned. "Does that have pasta in it?"
"No," he said. "It's an Indian recipe."
"Indian? I wanted something Italian."
Mr Kent paused from his task of unpacking the boxes. "Mrs Spangher didn't mention that you had a preference."
"Perhaps she was too busy giving orders about exactly who was to do the cooking," Lois grumbled.
"Would you like me to go and get the ingredients for chicken cannelloni?"
Lois checked the time. They still had almost two hours before Claude was due to arrive.
"It won't take me long to get everything we need," Mr Kent said. "I can be back in fifteen minutes."
Lois cast a glance over the assortment of foods on her counter. Assuming they were edible and Mr Kent from Kansas could actually cook, the result should be impressively exotic.
"Did Mrs Spangher suggest butter chicken?" she asked.
"No," Mr Kent replied. "She said you wanted assistance with a home-cooked meal. With today being Valentine's Day, I made some assumptions. I'm sorry if there has been a misunderstanding."
"What assumptions?"
"Ah … that you'd want something romantic."
Lois had never thought of chicken as being particularly romantic. But then again, her list of romantic foods started and ended with chocolate. "How is chicken romantic?" she demanded.
He looked a little taken aback by her question, and she was sure the tops of his ears deepened in colour. "Well," he said, "butter chicken is a perfect blend of smooth texture and spicy taste."
"Spicy?" she said, curling her upper lip.
A tiny chink appeared in Mr Kent's composure, and Lois felt a corresponding lift in her spirits. Perhaps this wasn't going to be such a drag, after all. "I'll go and get the ingredients for cannelloni," he said. "I'll only be a few -"
"No! We don't have time." She sighed … overdramatically. "It will have to be butter chicken."
Mr Kent regarded her solemnly for a moment. Then, his smile slowly unfolded, and to Lois's dismay, her annoyance dissolved with less resistance than butter in a furnace.
"We'll make the chicken together," he said, "and then I'll prepare the salad and cook the rice so you will have plenty of time to get ready."
He was offering a compromise, but Lois had recovered enough to lob a hand grenade at Mr Kent's feet. "You think I'm going to need a lot of time?"
Mr Kent didn't falter. "No," he said. "I think you look fine just the way you are. But you're not going to enjoy cooking if you're feeling stressed about time."
"I'm not going to enjoy cooking even if we have all week," she muttered.
That seemed to amuse him. "Do you have room in the fridge for a few things?"
Lois yanked open the door of the fridge, and he handed her chicken, butter, milk, cream, and yoghurt.
He removed the empty boxes from the counter, leaving the contents lined up like soldiers on parade. "We need all this just to make one dish?" Lois asked sceptically.
"If we’re going to make it properly. From real ingredients."
"In Metropolis, we have ready-made sauces," she said, hoping Lucy's information was accurate. "They come in jars and are available at grocery stores."
"But if you'd wanted that sort of meal, you wouldn't have asked for Mrs Spangher's assistance," Mr Kent said.
"I told you already. I know nothing. I wouldn't know how to use a jar of sauce. When I agreed to Mrs Spangher coming, I didn't realise you were going to make everything so complicated."
"I promise it won't be complicated," he said. "And it will taste so much better having been made from fresh ingredients."
"It's a huge waste of time," Lois declared. "It would be much easier to -"
"I thought you were Lois Lane - the reporter from the Daily Planet."
She regarded him blankly. "I am."
"Your reputation indicates that you rarely take the easy option."
"Really?" she snarled.
"Really." His smile hovered around his mouth, and his eyes held hers in a gentle grip.
Lois jerked her attention to the counter. "Let's get on with it," she said. "My guest will be here in less than two hours, and you have to be gone by then."
"Of course, Ms Lane." Mr Kent took off his jacket, hung it on the back of a chair, and walked over to the sink, rolling his shirt sleeves to his elbows.
Lois picked up a hand towel and followed him.
His hands were strong and masculine. And his forearms …
Lois gulped as she appraised the long strips of muscle, passing over the bunched-up sleeve to where the loose material couldn't conceal the bulge of his bicep. When he wasn't running a cooking class, Mr Kent must spend a lot of time working out.
"Ms Lane?"
She jumped and realised he had finished washing his hands and was waiting for her to give over the towel. She thrust it at him.
"Thanks," he said, flashing his smile again.
By the time her hands were clean and dry, Mr Kent had lined up two chopping boards and two knives. "We're going to cut up the vegetables first," he said. "Would you like to do the brown onion or the green onions?"
"Green?"
"You don't sound sure."
"Green," Lois said decisively, hoping he wouldn't realise that she'd never cut up a green onion before. However, the one time she'd cut up a brown onion, it had made her cry.
He handed her four onions. "Cut off the end," he said, pointing to where murky strands protruded from the end of the white bulb. "Then peel off a couple of the outer layers, starting from the top."
Taking a deep breath, Lois lopped one onion. "Like this?" she said, surprised at how easily the outer covering came away.
"Yep," he said. "When it's peeled, slice it widthways."
Lois made three cuts and paused where the white morphed into green.
"Keep going," Mr Kent said. "You'll get cute little green circles."
When she arrived at the end, she noticed the disparity in the size of her slices and groaned inwardly.
Mr Kent smiled. "Well done."
It wasn't well done, but his approval gave her the impetus to attack the remaining three green onions. Next to her, Mr Kent peeled and diced a brown onion, handling the knife with practiced ease.
"Great," he said when they had finished. He scraped his pile of perfectly regular squares onto a plate and added her mishmash of green onion pieces. "Now we need lemon juice, ginger, and garlic."
There were no bottles among Mr Kent's provisions. "I only have orange juice," Lois said dubiously.
He picked up the yellow fruit. "We have lemon juice," he said. "We just need to get it out of the lemon."
"Oh," Lois said, feeling her cheeks warm. "Of course."
Mr Kent placed the lemon on her board. "Could you cut it in half, please?"
"OK." Lois picked up her knife and hesitated. Did she cut it lengthways or widthways?
Mr Kent leant closer to her, his shoulder brushing against hers. "Here," he said, running his finger along its girth.
"I ..." Lois felt her cheeks heat. Annoyed at herself, she stated coldly, "I don't cook."
"That's why I'm here to help," he said, sliding a smile sideways.
She drove the knife through the lemon.
Mr Kent produced a little jug with a corrugated cone top. He took one half of the lemon, and with a pushing and twisting action, extracted the juice. "Your turn," he said, handing her the other half.
Lois pressed down, copying his actions. To her satisfaction, more juice dripped into the jug.
He collected up the onion scraps and lemon halves and put them in a container. "My mom composts," he said.
"Did she teach you how to cook?"
"She's the one who started my interest in cooking." He picked up an oddly shaped beige nub and a vaguely spherical white globe that was splashed with purple blotches. "I've travelled around a bit, learning new recipes from every country I've visited."
Lois had travelled, too. She hadn't learned one single recipe from anyone.
"Would you like to do the garlic or the ginger?" he asked.
"What has to be done to them?"
"They both need peeling. After that, the garlic has to be crushed and the ginger grated."
The crushing sounded less hazardous to her nails than grating. "Garlic," Lois decided.
Mr Kent pulled apart the white sphere and handed her four segments. "Cut off the top and bottom and peel away the papery wrapper," he said.
When she pulled away the thin layer of coating, it stuck to her fingers. Lois flicked her hand, but it didn't dislodge. Mr Kent chuckled as he reached over and plucked off the offending sliver.
"Thanks," Lois said, allowing herself a small smile.
"You're doing great." He picked up an odd looking instrument. "This is a garlic crusher," he said. Opening its jaws, he placed one of the segments inside. He took her hands and positioned them around the levers, guided her to a position above a small container, and said, "Squeeze."
Lois squeezed. Juicy flecks dribbled out of the crusher. She leaned forward to get a closer view, and stinging fumes stabbed at her eyes. She dropped the implement and -
"No, no." Strong hands took firm but gentle possession of her wrists. "You can't rub your eyes. You have garlic and onion on your fingers."
Lois relaxed in his hold. The burning slowly subsided, but she could feel moisture leaking from her tightly closed lids.
"Any better?" he asked.
"A bit."
"Open your eyes and blink a few times."
She obeyed. Mr Kent came into view, a little bit blurry and just a few inches away.
"Are you OK?" he asked.
"I … I think so."
He put both of her hands in one of his and reached behind her for a tissue. Still holding her hands, he patted around her eyes with meticulous care. Her nostrils caught an unfamiliar aroma as his hand hovered near her face.
"Better?" he asked when her eyes were dry.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry," he said, releasing her hands. "Garlic can do that, but you didn't have any problems with the green onions, so I thought you'd be all right."
"Thank you." Lois pushed out a wobbly smile, trying to calm a heart that was beating wildly in response to his touch, his words, his close proximity.
Needing a distraction, she sniffed her fingers. The aroma of onion and garlic was strong. "I don't even want to think about how much it would have hurt if I'd rubbed this into my eyes," she said. "I didn't know garlic could be so ferocious."
"You were crushing it," he said with a smile. "Consider it a protest."
"I guess I would protest, too," she conceded.
"Hang on. You're leaking again." He took another tissue and tenderly brushed it along her lower eye lid.
As he finished dabbing under her eyes, she caught his hand. "Is that ginger I can smell?"
"Y…" He cleared his throat. "Yes."
She lifted his fingers to her nose and inhaled. "Wow."
"Haven't you eaten gingerbread before?"
"Yes, but that is a lot stronger."
"Fresh ginger always is."
She sniffed again - partly to cover her embarrassment at having taken possession of his hand with such familiarity - and then quickly withdrew.
His smile flickered into the moment of awkwardness. "Shall we … shall we continue cooking, Ms Lane?"
"I think you should call me 'Lois' now that you've rescued me from the vindictive garlic."
His smile caused mini-explosions through her heart. "I'm 'Clark'," he said. "And I'm happy to rescue you any time you need it."
Lois wasn't in the habit of needing rescuing. Well, not that she admitted, anyway. But the retort she would have fired at just about every other man was lost in the magnificence of his smile. "Thanks ... Clark."
"You're welcome … Lois."
