Obscura

"Wear the blue one."

"Lilly, I've been able to dress myself since I was two and a half."

"Wear the blue one."

"Why am I even going?"

"It'll be good for you."

"But I don't want to go."

"It'll be good for you."

"They hate me."

"It'll be good for you."

Pause. "It occurs to me I don't really need you around at all, I can just hire an extremely attractive assistant to walk around with a recording of your voice."

"Shut up."

"See what I mean?"

"No assistant could ever be as attractive as me."

"This is going to be brutal."

"Just go. It'll be fine. And don't wear that, you look—"

"Sinister?"

"Like a reject from the Metropolis Morticians Gay Pride Parade, I was going to say."

"Shut up."

"Now who needs an assistant with a tape recorder? You're just giving them a check."

"I feel like I should be giving them more than this."

"The lawyers said this was the fair amount, including what they've lost for this season and what it's going to take to rebuild the herd. It's not exactly generous, but you give them any more and Bo Duke is going to flip out and not take any money, period."

"Could you stop calling him that? Every time you do, I start thinking of the real Bo Duke driving around in that car."

"Mmm, me too."

"That's disgusting."

"My love knows no reason, Lex."

"I think that's your hormones."

"Don't forget to take the check."

"Have I mentioned that I don't want to go? Because I still don't."

"It'll be good for you. Say hi to Clark."

"Say hi yourself."

"Um, no. I'll stay here and have Enrique peel some grapes and polish some silverware."

"If I'm doing this, then you have to come with me."

"No way! I don't want to get my shoes dirty."

"You're wearing sneakers."

"Expensive sneakers."

"Old sneakers. They look like somebody threw up on them."

"Yeah, but that somebody was the hot guitarist from No Doubt, so it's got sentimental value."

"Those shoes have vomit on them?"

"Celebrity vomit."

"You've been in my car in those shoes."

"Yes."

"You've been walking all over my house in those shoes."

"Yes."

"And you're worried about stepping in cow crap?"

"Yes. Go, or you'll lose your nerve."

"Don't put your feet.. anywhere..  while I'm gone."

---

"Can I help you?"

"You must be Lilly. I've heard so much about you."

"Not as much as I've heard about you. Roger Nixon, isn't it? And it's Miss Luthor, if you don't mind. I'd ask you to sit down, but I don't really want you to stay. My brother's not here."

"What makes you think I've come to see your brother?"

"Because I don't have anything to say to you."

"Are you sure about that?"

"What do you want?"

"Just a chance to talk to Lex."

"Mr. Luthor. Show a little respect for your employer, Roge. As I said, he isn't at home, so run along—"

"Miss Luthor, I thought maybe you'd be a little mores sensible than your brother."

"No, I think you'll find vindictiveness and caprice run in the family. He should be in sometime this afternoon."

"I'll wait."

"I hear the driveway has some lovely gardenias, if you'd care to wait there. Good day, Roger."

---

"Hello?"

"Hey, not for nothing, but I just left Roger Nixon standing on your front stoop. He wants to talk to you."

"I'll bet he does."

"He's a lot uglier than I thought he would be."

"Reporting is hard on the complexion."

"You should force Clark to quit The Torch immediately."

"Speaking of Clark. I couldn't help but notice that he has a copy of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus."

"Does he indeed?"

"He does, indeed. And seems to be reading it with a great deal of diligence."

"My, that's industrious of him. I hope he's got a dictionary for the long words."

"Lilly."

"Hey, I'm the first to admit he's an eleven on the cute-o-meter, but he doesn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer."

"I wonder where he could have gotten his hands on such sophisticated reading material."

"It's a puzzle."

"And I couldn't help but notice the price sticker said 'DogEared Bookstore' on it."

"Really? Amazing that a ratty old store like that would have not one but two copies."

"So amazing it's almost unbelievable."

Pause. "Am I supposed to 'fess up now?"

"It'd be a good move."

"I met him in the Talon, and we got to talking. He's very.. "

"What?"

"Quaint. Seriously, I don't get what you're all het up about. We just talked."

"About his woman troubles?"

"We discussed his love life, I'll put it that way. And no, your name didn't come up."

"Why don't you tell him you're my sister?"

"Why don't you tell him?"

"I asked you first."

"I like being mysterious."

"So if Roger Nixon is standing on my front stoop, how am I supposed to get in the house?"

"Come around back, I'll have Enrique keep an eye on him."

"Why was he let in at all? They know not to admit him anymore."

"I wanted to meet him."

"And now?"

"I want him on the front stoop. He makes me nervous."

"Really."

"Really. He's got..  I don't like the way he looks, like he's hungry all the time."

"That's a reporter look for you."

"Clark doesn't look like that."

"Clark's not much of a reporter."

"No argument. Speaking of which—"

"I'm not ready to talk about it."

"The Kents took it that badly?"

"Just the opposite. Mr. Kent actually shook my hand."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"Like touching the Shroud of Turin."

"Yeah."

"It's not gonna last, though."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he's going to wait until you do something that he disapproves of, for whatever reason, like kissing his son in a public place or something, and he'll use that as an excuse to give back the money."

"You're awfully pessimistic."

"Hey, at least my scenario gives you a chance at kissing Clark, which is a good thing, right?"

"Shut up."

"I've gotta go back to Metropolis for..  some stuff. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon sometime, okay?"

"I won't miss you."

"Liar."

"Take your vomit shoes with you."

---

"Lilly? Are you here?"

"In here!"

"Where?"

"Here!"

"That's not helpful!"

"Follow the smell of burnt popcorn!"

"What—oh. What are you watching?"

"'The Lord of the Rings.' I got it off the internet this morning."

"The quality's kind of..  crappy. And I don't remember this movie having a laugh track."

"Yeah, that's because somebody snuck a camcorder into the theater and recorded it."

"Wouldn't it be easier to bribe someone at the theater to give you a reel? Isn't it out on DVD yet?"

"No, it's not. And bribing people is your hobby, not mine. What the hell were you doing tooling around town with Roger Nixon all day? And be careful, the popcorn's not up to your usual standards."

"How did you know?"

"Because your microwave is retarded."

"I meant about the other thing."

"Lex, please. You're about as stealthy as a rhinoceros. What were you guys doing?"

"He's got a source for that story he wants to publish, about a ship being mixed up with all the meteors that—why are you rolling your eyes?"

"The meteor shower. Again. Still. Some more. Why can't you just let it go? Think, 'Oh, that really sucked, it really affected my life in a profound way, and now I can move on'? Because you keep obsessing, and between that and your little temple in that back room with the pitiful code key 'security measures,' you're starting to scare me."

"I really need to not let you loose in this house."

"There's no way to keep me out, Bumps. So please don't tell me you bought the story with the alien spaceship. I mean, did the guy say it was out in a corn field, secretly sending out microwaves to poison the minds of human children?"

"No, he said—he said he saw it land, but when he went to the spot, the ship had disappeared."

"Really."

"Stranger things have happened."

"In this very town, even. So what are you saying, some local farmer stole the spaceship from the field and is hiding it in their storm shelter? That's..  really, really stupid."

"It's not stupid, it's just—it's stupid, yes. But the field where the man saw it land is near the Kents' farm."

"So now you think the Kents are actually an alien family, trying to fit in with the plaid and the gingham? Although I grant you, they are a suspiciously good-looking family."

"You know, the longer I talk to you about this, the dumber I feel."

"Have some popcorn."

"It's completely carbonized."

"Okay, so you like your marshmallows en flamb but you get picky about popcorn?"

"Well—yes. I do."

"Shut up and watch the movie."

"Hey, would you like to—"

"No."

"You don't even know what I'm going to—"

"No. No, no, no. No, I will not see if this guy, whoever he is—"

"Edward Cole Jr., previously licensed pilot—"

"Whoever he is, I'm not doing squat about it. I'm tired, and it's almost time for my finals to start, and I don't have to deal with this. I came here, specifically at your request, I might add, this weekend, in order to get away from all the pressure of my academic—"

"Hey, isn't your prom coming up?"

"What?"

"Your prom. Senior prom, it's something that public schools—"

"I'm not at a public school—"

"—do, and I was wondering when yours was."

"What do you know?"

"Let's just say I was interested to see where you were using your credit cards yesterday. No less than seventeen boutiques, and eighteen separate purchases."

"I was distracted by something shiny in Armani's."

"So. Your prom is coming up."

"Why, you want to be one of the chaperones?"

"Is that allowed?"

"You look so excited, maybe you should go to my prom instead of me. Yes, it's in a couple of weeks. No, you can't chaperone. Yes, I have a date. No, I'm not telling you who it is."

"Oh, give me a little credit. I already know who it is."

"You do not!"

"It's Bruce."

"It..  might not be Bruce. He's a college graduate, he can't possibly be interested in going to some high school senior prom."

"Tell him to wear a normal tux, and not some sort of ruffled monstrosity."

"I think he knows. And I haven't said it's him."

"Uh-huh. You may think he knows, but whenever Alfred isn't around he gets a little crazy with his wardrobe. I'm just warning you."

"Oh, like you should talk. And it might not be Bruce."

"Whatever."

---

Beep. "Okay, so it turns out his license wasn't revoked because he was talking about the space ship. Apparently your Mr. Cole has a kind of nosy parker attitude, and while he's dusting he flies close to the houses. I don't know how, but he claims he saw two fairly prominent citizens of Smallville in flagrante delecto, which sounds a lot dirtier than what it really means, but what I mean is that they were having sexual relations, so maybe it's just as dirty as what it means. Anyway, he saw that a few weeks before the meteor shower, and he told the respective partners of the delecto-ing people, and then he lost his license because they were people you don't want to piss off, I guess. Didn't have anything to do with the space ship, which means—and I realize that I am being an enabler by saying this—that maybe he was telling the truth about seeing something. Maybe. Anyway. That's all the research I'm doing, nothing more. And you were right, I had to tell..  the guy who's taking me on this prom thing, not necessarily Bruce—anyway, he showed me his tux today and I almost cried. So Alfred's taking over. I mean, maybe it's not Alfred—this guy might not even have a butler! Crap. I'm getting as bad as you about being stealthy. Bye."

---

"Hello?"

"He gave back the money."

"Did you at least Clark in public?"

"No."

"Damn."

"I was just doing some soil testing on a potential real estate purchase, and—"

"It was the land where Edgar Allen Coe said the spaceship landed."

Silence.

"I think all my time in Smallville is turning me into a psychic."

"Are you sure that's the right word?"

"Shut up. So he didn't want you to test the soil on a piece of land that he doesn't own and doesn't have anything to do with him, and he freaked out and gave you back the check?"

"Yes."

"Well, at least he didn't rip it up in front of you while singing 'Can't Buy Me Love' or something."

"I think you just gave me a mental image that will actually cause brain damage."

"So what did you find out?"

"What do you mean?"

"About the soil samples. What did you find out?"

"Oh. I'm having some people look at it."

"I see."

"What?"

"What what?"

"You have a suspicious tone in your voice."

"Oh, for God's—"

"What is it?"

"I just think, you know, that maybe—just maybe—you ought to think about just, you know..  talking to Clark, about all of this. I mean, you keep doing these really weird things. Did you ever think that maybe if you just said, 'Look, I know something's going on, and I feel like every time you lie to my I die a little on the inside because I'm madly in love with you—'"

"Well, I'm not going to say that."

"Okay, some variation of that. Just talk to him and quit having all of these roundabout metaphoric conversations that never go anywhere."

"I'll think about it."

"Please. Because I am too young to be a supporting actor in your little soap opera."

"Understood. I've got to go."

"All right. Tell me when you get the results."

"I thought you wanted me to stop this obsessive little thing I have."

"Yeah, but just in case Clark really is the son of alien parents or the Second Coming..  hee, second coming—"

"Lilly—"

"I want to know about it."

"Fine. Bye."

"Bye."