Chloe Sullivan was very seldom surprised, having grown up in Smallville and
made powerful enemies at a very young age. However, she confessed to being
in danger of being quite close to the unusual emotion that frantic
Wednesday afternoon. She was just running the spellchecker on her piece for
the Metropolis Herald, when her phone rang. She picked it up fully
expecting to get an earful from her photographer for making him go on a
wild goose chase after the 'man in blue', Metropolis' latest urban legend,
but it was somebody entirely different.
She recognized the breathy intonation despite the sultry edge it had picked up, and the cacophony of the busy newspaper office with its clatter and hum and resident air of desperate urgency.
'L-lana!'
Lana had called her after reading Chloe's byline in the Herald, and wanted to meet up. Chloe was entirely too eager to catch up with the friend who had flown the fold in such dramatic fashion. From being the quiet girl at the local coffee shop (albeit with the world's biggest stalker syndrome) to being the high-flying girlfriend of a series of very rich men, Lana Lang would have many stories to tell.
Chloe fluffed up her hair, reapplied her lipstick, and after pressing 'send' on her email, was out the door in record time.
The wind ruffled Chloe's hair, (now streaked with red, to match her new HydroKa) as she sat at a table on the rooftop restaurant at the Metropolis Bullring, waiting for Lana to appear. The Bullring was tall, and she had a lovely view of the city to her right, with the noise and the urban dirt transformed into a beauteous panorama of silent speed and order. Chloe has often cogitated on this aspect of distance, and once even contributed a piece to the Sunday Herald on the subject.
Now, however her eyes are drawn inexorably to the imposing bulk of the Luthorcorp building that spears the sky in supreme phallic violence. It dominates her view, its blue-paned mass colouring her vision until she feels impelled to crane her neck to try to pierce the brilliance that crowns the summit as it is lit up by the afternoon sun. She can almost feel the panoptic gaze that emanates from on high, hidden by the dazzle. As if by subtle design, her eyes dip to the revolving globe that tops the Daily Planet, and her mind to days that were simpler and cleaner-- when her future was not clouded by dread antagonism and she could sense no limits to her ambition. The sun is still bright but suddenly all warmth is gone from its rays as she shivers in the breeze that had been so pleasant only a few moments ago.
However, managing a life lived in the shadow of powerful enmity has made her resilient, hardy and very hard to kill. She thinks of herself as a dandelion-- even when her world is disintegrating into wispy nothingness, she knows there will be another summer, another time and place of golden sun and grasping roots. Therefore, she becomes once again Chloe Sullivan, intrepid reporter, and changes her seat so that she now had her back to the Luthorcorp building.
This meant that she could no longer see the entrance to the restaurant, but she has told the headwaiter to direct Lana to her table. She perused the menu and ordered a BullsHit, an exhilarating mix of, amongst other things, lemon grass, vodka and coconut cream, which had been named the year's hottest drink by none other than Vogue. As the waiter turned from her table, she felt a lull in the murmur of conversation and turned to see Lana Lang enter the restaurant. From the reaction of the men around her, she could sense that whatever else may have happened in the intervening years, there certainly had been no decline in the Lana Lang Effect on the Male of the Human Species. Chloe smiled as the memory of the essay, written when she was sixteen, came back to her, as did the laughter she had shared with the essay's principle subject over an emoted reading of the piece in the coziness of the Talon. Chloe felt the years slip away as she embraced Lana with genuine gladness.
'You look lovely Lana.' she said as they sat down. And indeed, in her white halter-neck dress with turquoise accessories, Lana looked breathtaking. Her figure had lost the slim boyishness of her teens, and now she boasted both hips and a bosom that would certainly be responsible for giving the nice man at the adjoining table a crick in the neck.
' Have a BullsHit?' she asked her raven-haired friend.
Lana laughed. 'You do know how that sounded, right? But yes, I would love some BullsHit. I mean, we were both friends with Clark.'
Chloe giggled. ' It's an acquired taste, but we love it.'
The meeting over late lunch exceeded Lana's expectations. Having absconded from Chloe's life so suddenly, she had been uncertain of her reception. She knew how unresponsive and sullen Chloe could be from that horrible summer when Clark had run away from home and she herself had been so tragically in love. She certainly did not want to meet that creature of quiet avoidances and pregnant, brooding silences; the maker of silent trips to the kitchen engineered so that they would never meet on the stairs or in the hallway; two ghosts residing in the same house. However, the Chloe she met was of light, laughter and unlimited snark, the girl she had first made friends with. It was all too easy to talk of Clark after her first broaching of the subject; it was as if the floodgates of reticence had opened after the buildup of a decade. Clark was working at the Daily Planet, and his partner was Lois Lane, Chloe's cousin and now her bitter rival.
Lois's claim to fame was her face and the fact that she was Lex Luthor's girlfriend.
'You know how he likes them—buxom, beautiful and dark. An appraising glance and then 'In fact, I am surprised you did not join the ranks, Lana.'
Lana smiled-- if only Chloe knew how close she had been to being one number in that vast array.
'Anyway now Lois is hotshot stuff. She's done so many exposes on modern business practice that she is the bane of all corporations. All corporations that are not Lexcorp that is. I mean, why does nobody see that?' She muttered darkly. 'The expose I could do on her exposes!' She sighed dramatically.
'Why don't you?' asked Lana, her eyes wide-- she had become an expert at playing the ingénue.
Chloe stirred her drink violently. 'The Herald only does society stuff and harmless gossip, not even Inquisitor type vitriol. Just "we saw last night that Bruce Wayne was with Miss Knightly. Miss Knightly starred in blah blah" and "Lex Luthor was seen lunching with his grandmother". Ok, not that, but you get the drift. Moreover, we really do not have a business section, so my writing anything that did not have to do with 'society' would be criminal. Surely, somebody noticed that Lexcorp bought controlling shares in Signet as soon as Abramokov got in trouble over his relationship with Yukon. It was the same with Imex and with Orion Corp last year. Guess who found the dirt on them? Yes, our very own Pulitzer-prize- winning, Pucci-wearing, prettier than thou Lois Lane!'
As Chloe paused in her rant, Lana gently needled her. 'And to think you used to crash in her dorm all those years ago.'
'I was young, and innocent. Also, I think meteor rocks had fried my brain.'
They parted on excellent terms, with an arrangement to go shopping the next weekend. Lana was by now increasingly anxious about her next meeting. She felt nervous and tense as she waved Chloe off, but the years had made her a consummate actor, and her impersonation of a carefree young thing was impeccable. As Chloe's red HydroKa disappeared around the corner, she straightened her shoulders and crossed the square to her destination.
She recognized the breathy intonation despite the sultry edge it had picked up, and the cacophony of the busy newspaper office with its clatter and hum and resident air of desperate urgency.
'L-lana!'
Lana had called her after reading Chloe's byline in the Herald, and wanted to meet up. Chloe was entirely too eager to catch up with the friend who had flown the fold in such dramatic fashion. From being the quiet girl at the local coffee shop (albeit with the world's biggest stalker syndrome) to being the high-flying girlfriend of a series of very rich men, Lana Lang would have many stories to tell.
Chloe fluffed up her hair, reapplied her lipstick, and after pressing 'send' on her email, was out the door in record time.
The wind ruffled Chloe's hair, (now streaked with red, to match her new HydroKa) as she sat at a table on the rooftop restaurant at the Metropolis Bullring, waiting for Lana to appear. The Bullring was tall, and she had a lovely view of the city to her right, with the noise and the urban dirt transformed into a beauteous panorama of silent speed and order. Chloe has often cogitated on this aspect of distance, and once even contributed a piece to the Sunday Herald on the subject.
Now, however her eyes are drawn inexorably to the imposing bulk of the Luthorcorp building that spears the sky in supreme phallic violence. It dominates her view, its blue-paned mass colouring her vision until she feels impelled to crane her neck to try to pierce the brilliance that crowns the summit as it is lit up by the afternoon sun. She can almost feel the panoptic gaze that emanates from on high, hidden by the dazzle. As if by subtle design, her eyes dip to the revolving globe that tops the Daily Planet, and her mind to days that were simpler and cleaner-- when her future was not clouded by dread antagonism and she could sense no limits to her ambition. The sun is still bright but suddenly all warmth is gone from its rays as she shivers in the breeze that had been so pleasant only a few moments ago.
However, managing a life lived in the shadow of powerful enmity has made her resilient, hardy and very hard to kill. She thinks of herself as a dandelion-- even when her world is disintegrating into wispy nothingness, she knows there will be another summer, another time and place of golden sun and grasping roots. Therefore, she becomes once again Chloe Sullivan, intrepid reporter, and changes her seat so that she now had her back to the Luthorcorp building.
This meant that she could no longer see the entrance to the restaurant, but she has told the headwaiter to direct Lana to her table. She perused the menu and ordered a BullsHit, an exhilarating mix of, amongst other things, lemon grass, vodka and coconut cream, which had been named the year's hottest drink by none other than Vogue. As the waiter turned from her table, she felt a lull in the murmur of conversation and turned to see Lana Lang enter the restaurant. From the reaction of the men around her, she could sense that whatever else may have happened in the intervening years, there certainly had been no decline in the Lana Lang Effect on the Male of the Human Species. Chloe smiled as the memory of the essay, written when she was sixteen, came back to her, as did the laughter she had shared with the essay's principle subject over an emoted reading of the piece in the coziness of the Talon. Chloe felt the years slip away as she embraced Lana with genuine gladness.
'You look lovely Lana.' she said as they sat down. And indeed, in her white halter-neck dress with turquoise accessories, Lana looked breathtaking. Her figure had lost the slim boyishness of her teens, and now she boasted both hips and a bosom that would certainly be responsible for giving the nice man at the adjoining table a crick in the neck.
' Have a BullsHit?' she asked her raven-haired friend.
Lana laughed. 'You do know how that sounded, right? But yes, I would love some BullsHit. I mean, we were both friends with Clark.'
Chloe giggled. ' It's an acquired taste, but we love it.'
The meeting over late lunch exceeded Lana's expectations. Having absconded from Chloe's life so suddenly, she had been uncertain of her reception. She knew how unresponsive and sullen Chloe could be from that horrible summer when Clark had run away from home and she herself had been so tragically in love. She certainly did not want to meet that creature of quiet avoidances and pregnant, brooding silences; the maker of silent trips to the kitchen engineered so that they would never meet on the stairs or in the hallway; two ghosts residing in the same house. However, the Chloe she met was of light, laughter and unlimited snark, the girl she had first made friends with. It was all too easy to talk of Clark after her first broaching of the subject; it was as if the floodgates of reticence had opened after the buildup of a decade. Clark was working at the Daily Planet, and his partner was Lois Lane, Chloe's cousin and now her bitter rival.
Lois's claim to fame was her face and the fact that she was Lex Luthor's girlfriend.
'You know how he likes them—buxom, beautiful and dark. An appraising glance and then 'In fact, I am surprised you did not join the ranks, Lana.'
Lana smiled-- if only Chloe knew how close she had been to being one number in that vast array.
'Anyway now Lois is hotshot stuff. She's done so many exposes on modern business practice that she is the bane of all corporations. All corporations that are not Lexcorp that is. I mean, why does nobody see that?' She muttered darkly. 'The expose I could do on her exposes!' She sighed dramatically.
'Why don't you?' asked Lana, her eyes wide-- she had become an expert at playing the ingénue.
Chloe stirred her drink violently. 'The Herald only does society stuff and harmless gossip, not even Inquisitor type vitriol. Just "we saw last night that Bruce Wayne was with Miss Knightly. Miss Knightly starred in blah blah" and "Lex Luthor was seen lunching with his grandmother". Ok, not that, but you get the drift. Moreover, we really do not have a business section, so my writing anything that did not have to do with 'society' would be criminal. Surely, somebody noticed that Lexcorp bought controlling shares in Signet as soon as Abramokov got in trouble over his relationship with Yukon. It was the same with Imex and with Orion Corp last year. Guess who found the dirt on them? Yes, our very own Pulitzer-prize- winning, Pucci-wearing, prettier than thou Lois Lane!'
As Chloe paused in her rant, Lana gently needled her. 'And to think you used to crash in her dorm all those years ago.'
'I was young, and innocent. Also, I think meteor rocks had fried my brain.'
They parted on excellent terms, with an arrangement to go shopping the next weekend. Lana was by now increasingly anxious about her next meeting. She felt nervous and tense as she waved Chloe off, but the years had made her a consummate actor, and her impersonation of a carefree young thing was impeccable. As Chloe's red HydroKa disappeared around the corner, she straightened her shoulders and crossed the square to her destination.