Career Girl Blues - Chapter 07

Lois seems to be well known here. Well, why not? She's a fairly big shot journalist, especially in Metropolis. Lots of the other ladies are watching us, not being too concerned about hiding it. I'm getting a lot of stares, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have given in and at least worn a blouse instead of a man's style shirt.

When we were seated, the waitress brought two menus, handing the first to Lois. As I reached for mine, Lois put a hand on my arm. "Here, take this one." She then took the second menu. The waitress blushed.

"I'm sorry, Miss Lane. I thought..." she gestured at me.

"Yes, it's a little confusing, but interesting." Lois replied. Well, confusing, anyway. I had no idea what they were talking about, and was too hungry to wonder for long.

I studied the menu eagerly. As I'd thought, grandma food, if your grandma had a very picky, delicate digestion. Cream soups, watercress sandwiches, fruit salads...I figured I might get enough, if I ate half the stuff listed. But there was something peculiar about this thing. "Lois, my menu doesn't have any prices on it," I whisper.

"I know. Pick what you want. There isn't anything on the menu I can't afford."

"Yeah? Well, maybe I don't want you to think that I'm a cheap date." She gives me a real funny look. "Joke, joke. Okay, let me see. It's pretty hard to screw up a club sandwich, I guess. Does it come with fries?"

The waitress smiles at me. "It can. Nice to see you have a healthy appetite." Lois shoots her a semi nasty stare, for no discernable reason. After the waitress leaves with our order, I broach the subject of a haircut again.

Lois shakes her head. "Oh, c'mon, just a cheapy. I don't need styling, I just want to chop this off." I grab my fluffy ponytail and wag it. "I look like a demented Clydsdale here."

"I think you should keep it, at least for awhile. You won't be able to just change your mind if you lop it off, you know."

"It's hair," I argue. "It'll grow back."

She's adamnant. "No. I think you're just trying to reinvent yourself for your new environment. You need to take a little time to adjust before you go rocketing off with radical changes."

"Lois, this isn't all that radical," I complain. "It isn't far off how I dress at home. There, the guy clothes are more feminine, and the girl clothes are more masculine. This is the closest aproximation I can find to my ususal style." I rethink. "Alright, you can't really call it style. Style implies that there's some thought put into it. I generally just wear what's comfortable. That was the original purpose of clothing, anyway. Comfort and protection. Thee's nothing very protective about a dress. Leaves you open to the world from the groud up, at the mercy of a good breeze."

"I'm sure there's more to it than that."

"Oh, sure. If you want to get into the whole cultural thing. Clothing is also a way of attracting a mate, but I'm not really concerned with that." I laugh, tugging on my button down collar derisively. "Who'd want to mate with me?"

The little waitress is back with our food. She jumps for some reason, and knocks over my water glass. It's part empty, but a thin, cold dribble lands on my leg, and I jump up, yipping. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she babbles.

"S'okay." I try to keep my teeth from chattering.

"No, I am SO sorry! Here." She grabs my napkin and begins trying to dry the wet spot.

"Um, that's alright."

"This'll just take a second." She's gripping my waistband with one hand, the other stroking the napkin down my thigh.

"SHE SAID THAT'S ENOUGH." Lois doesn't yell, but when she says that...well, it's in all capitals, and her voice is colder than the water ever thought about being. The waitress mops up the spilled water and leaves,very pink. I watch her go, puzzled. Why on earth did I have a sudden mental flash of Superman just now?

"No haircut," Lois said firmly. "Not now."

I started munching my french fries, snapping at them sulkily. "Yes, mother."

"And don't pout."

"Huhn." I poured ketchup on my plate and drew patterns in it with a french fry before I nibbled the end off it.

"Scribe..."

I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms, and made my voice singsongy, "Whaaa-at?"

"You're a brat, you know that?"

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but labels just make me more tacky."

"Look, we'll go out tonight, okay? Will that make you happy?"

I considered. "Yeah." I perked up and began eating in earnest. I noticed a young woman at the next table smiling at me in what looked like a conspiratorial way. Her older companion was shaking her head with a rueful grin at Lois. The look she was giving her was sort of "Kids! What's the matter with kids today." I was beginning to realize that, no matter how closely it resembled my own world, there was a lot of subtlties I was probably missing. It was a good thing I had Lois around to keep me from doing anything that might land me in a rubber room or jail cell.

The next stop was the Daily Planet BIG thing. Must've been on the level of The New York Times, or the Washington Post, or one of those other big a... large urban newspapers. Lois took me right up to the managing editor's office. The name on the frosted glass door was Perry White.

He was a little more rugged than the comic books had led me to believe, sort of like Brian Denehey. I shook hands enthusiastically. I really respected anyone who could hold down a job like this. He gave my outfit a puzzled look, glancing at Lois for explination. She shrugged. "Superman has told me about your problem. I'm willing to give you a job under two conditions. One: you actually work. You can start out as office help, running errends till we find out where you fit in."

"Hunky dorey." I was glad to have a place to use my store of antique expressions. No one around here ever lifted an eyebrow. "What else?"

"You let us do a series of articles about you, and your life here. Miss Lane and Clark Kent can collaborate on it."

I frowned. "Oh, c'mon. Who's gonna be interested in reading about me?"

Perry looked at Lois, and she said, "She really believes that."

"Miss Mozelle, you're from another dimension."

"Well, there is that. But it's not like we have magic, or dragons, or space travel...Wait, we do have that. It's just that it's expensive, and it sucks. If you honestly think it won't bore you readers stiff, go for it. But it might be more exciting to have extra articles on, say , bake sales."

I was introduced around the staff room next. Look, I guess I shouldn't use too many pop culture references, for literature's sake, since they'll date. But what the hell? I don't expect this to be high school required reading forty years from now. Jimmy Olsen looked like a red headed Ewan McGregor. A HELL of a lot cuter than the comic books, and he didn't have nearly that squeaky clean of an aura. In fact, he looked like a cheeky devil.

Then there was Clark Kent, AKA Youknowwho. I was introduced by Lois, who gave no indication that she'd pinched his red and blue clad butt last night. He shook hands politely, like he'd never tried to stroke my tonsils with his tongue. I found it all a bit surreal I felt like saying, "For God's sake, people, it's a suit, glasses and combed back hair! It ain't like he's wearing foam latex appliances." But I went along with it. Maybe people in this universe glasses caused vision problems in everyone but the wearer. Outing his secret identiy could have real consequences for him, so I did the "I'm so proud to meet you" bit.

I had a quick typing test to see what I was capable of handling. Sitting down to the old upright was a blast of deja vu all it's own. I'd learned on an old Royal, and I'd always kind of missed the machine gun rattle. The hushed patter of fingers on a keyboard just wasn't the same. Of course there were drawbacks. No backspace erase, no delete. I was going to have to once again struggle with carbon copies and correction tape. They didn't even have White Out here. I thought, "Damn, if I just knew the formulat to THAT, I wouldn't have to work. I'd end up one of the richest bleeping women around." But I'm one of those people who know that things work, but I'll be blamed it I can tell you HOW. My results were acceptable, and typing up copy was added to my list of future duties.

I was excited about going out that evening. I never got out much at home. Mom didn't complain, but she'd always be sitting up when I got home, no matter how late. Guilt is a wonderful restraint.

That afternoon I almost managed to do something about my hair on my own, but Lois walked in and caught me before I could start sawing through the clump I had clenched in my hand. I guess I should have locked the bathroom door. "Scribe! Give me those immediately." I sighed and handed over the scissors. "What is wrong with you? You would have butchered yourself."

"But I need to do something with this mess," I whined. Did I whine? I never whined. But I did this time. I guess I was acting a little differently away from home.

She reached for the hairspray. "If you'll just let me..." I put a towel over my head. "Oh, alright. Let's get it wetted and see what we can do." I drenched my hair and allowed her to work all the tangles out of it, till it lay over my shoulders in a heavy, damp sheath. "Let's see...braids are more controlable. We could do one on each side, then coil them up here." She cupped a hand on either side of my face, looking at the effect in the mirror.

"Oh, no. Not the Princess Leia look. I always thought it looked like she had two coffee rolls strapped to her head. Uh uh."

"Well, we could just let them hang in back."

"Heidi. I'm a little old for that."

"Damn, you're hard to please..."

"But I'm worth it."

She cleared her throat. "Okay. One braid. Starts here." She touched my temples on either side, then moved them back. "Goes back here to one tight braid."

I considered, then nodded. "That'll work."

"Okay. Hold still." She worked patiently, scraping and combing and sorting and twisting. At last she was done. I turned my head back and forth, studying the effect. Curly strands were already escaping, but it was much more tamed than usual.

"It's okay, I guess. I'm never gonna win a beauty contest, but it's okay."

"Nonsense, Scribe. You're a pretty woman."

I looked at her sharply. "Nice is nice, Lois, but don't lie to me. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination pretty. It doesn't bother me." I examined myself again. "Actually, I'm not sure what I am. I'm not ugly, either. My face is too hard to be soft, and too soft to be hard. Well," I considered a bit more. "I've talked about pretty men before. I've heard the term 'a handsome woman'. Maybe I'll settle for that. What do you think?"

She got very busy, combing my long strands of hair out of the brush. Then she wound them into a little ball, fluffing it thoughtfully before depositing it almost gently in the wastepaper basket. "I think...that might be an appropritate term. Now go wait in the livingroom while I get ready."