***

Interesting. Lois chose “invisible.” Clark had been sure she would choose “fly,” if only because of a certain man in a red cape. While she asked the inevitable question in return, he surreptitiously super-looked around to make sure no one was observing. Would he ever get a better opening than the one she had given him just now?

“So, what about you?”

“What?”

“Invisible or fly?”

He approached her by the balcony’s edge and said, “Invisible, because I can fly already.” He proceeded to demonstrate by hovering a few inches above the balcony.

He could see her momentary disbelief transform into confusion, then her visage became inscrutable. He continued, “You hadn’t been angry that I didn’t share my tea preferences with you until a few minutes ago; please don’t be angry that I hadn’t shared some other things I do that to me are as matter-of-fact as drinking lapsang souchong.”

Lois’s eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth turned down. She waited a beat before saying, “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me what you can do. I am upset that you were lying about who you are. You made me think you were two different people.”

Before she could become more upset, he continued, “Lois, I know this is a lot to take in. I wanted to tell you since the day we met, but I needed to be sure I wouldn’t become your next Kerth.”

She laughed bitterly, “Kerth? More like a Pulitzer. But I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Yeah. I know that now. That’s why I am trusting you with a secret that could ruin not only my life, but also my parents’ – and yours, too, if it got out.”

She said nothing for a few moments, but as she was clearly contemplating his words, the hardness left her face. He again made sure that no one was watching them, and proceeded to spin-change into the suit his Mom had made.

He held out his hand to her, palm up. “Come fly along with me. The best is yet to be.”

She rested her hand in his. As they lifted off, she replied, “That’s not how the poem goes.”

As they took to the sky, he laughingly asked, “So has the game now shifted to ‘Fly or grow old’?”

And as they flew over the city he had so quickly come to love, he knew that his own answer to that question would be, “Both.”

THE END