Chloe.
.
.
"It started with Chloe Sullivan, you know? She was the first of that little crew to start workin' here. This was back when Big Daddy Luthor was still runnin' LuthorCorp, before he took a swandive out that window. You know the rumours… they said it was ol' Lex himself who gave daddy that last push. Do I believe it? Sure, I do, and I'd tell him that to his face if I could… ain't much I'm scared of now. Not at my age.
Anyways, it was Lionel who got Chloe in here on an internship while she was in high school. She was very cagey about just why Lionel set it up for her. Only mentioned it to me the one time, personally. But she was here for a little while before he yanked it out from under her.
Devastated she was when that happened. I remember helpin' her carry her box of stuff to her car. She cried the whole way. I told her to buck up, she'd be back. She was too good – too much of a natural reporter to be kept out the door for long, and I was right. Coupla years later, she was back here, workin' as a cub reporter.
I liked Chloe. Full o' life, that kid was. Always smilin', always willin' to sit and just shoot the breeze with an old yaw-jacker like me. There was a brightness to her, you know? The stories about him don't really talk about Chloe much these days, and it's a bit of a shame. Chloe's the one who introduced me to him. They were best friends, and he was always round here when Chloe was on the job.
She loved the coffee from that place what used to be down the street… What was it again? Oh yeah! The Jumpin' Bean. Too fancy that coffee for my taste. They was always addin' stuff to it. Soy milk, and cinnamon, and banana this-or-that. It weren't coffee no more by the time they were done. But Chloe, she loved it! And everytime she bought herself a new flavour – every other week, far as I can recall – she'd buy me one too, then just stand there at my desk, fit to burst with laughter when I pulled a face and told her it tasted like ice-cream that cows forgot.
I guess that was sorta the start of the tradition – Chloe and her coffees. But not really. It really started when… hold on. I'll get to that. Lemme finish about Chloe first.
Black Thursday was the end of it for her, I think. You know about Black Thursday, don'tcha sonny? Sure you can bring up all the facts about it on that fancy little hand computer you got there. Well, what that computer won't tell you is how it smelled when the building caught fire. How scared people were when they jumped from windows to get away. How heavy that young Maggie Carter's body was when I dug it out of the rubble of the basement. No, it won't tell you none o' that. Course, he was right in the middle of it, and Chloe was too…
I remember her last day, couldn't have even been a year after Black Thursday. For the second time, I was helpin' her carry her stuff to the car. I asked her why she was leavin'. Lionel wasn't in charge no more – Lex was. Did he fire her? She told me he did, but she wasn't worried about it. I was surprised at that. Newspapers was in Chloe's veins as much as the red that carries life, that much I know. When I asked her what she meant, she told me something I'll never forget:
"Don't worry, Morrie," she says, "I'm not giving up the fight. I've just been sent to a different battleground."
That was Chloe Sullivan. A real fighter, and a sweet gal to boot.
.
.