By Christopher Leeson
.

The New Girl in Smallville

Part 5: Saturday Preparations

As Claire and Martha drove back to Smallville with their purchases, Claire’s mind kept circling back to one worrisome thought: what if the other dancers actually noticed her? What if Pete Ross took one look at her dolled up like a prom queen candidate and got ideas?

Martha glanced across at her daughter. "Penny for your thoughts," she said.

"I’m just wondering whether I've lost my mind," Claire replied. "Three weeks ago, I was Clark Kent, farm boy. Now here I am, buying party dresses and going to dances with boys."

Martha's smile was gentle but knowing. “Doing little things like this will protect your secret identity. The more you show people you’re different from Clark Kent, the safer it will be. Anyway, I wanted to ask whether shopping for a pretty dress was as awful as you expected?”

Claire grimaced thoughtfully. "I don’t know if it was better or worse, but it certainly differed from what I expected. That's the worst thing."

"How so?"

“I went into the shop thinking I'd hate every minute. But when I put that black dress on..." Claire trailed off, staring out the window at a red barn sliding past."Ma, is it normal for clothes to make a person change their mood? “

"What sort of change did you feel?"

"Can a change of clothes make you feel like you’ve become a different person?"

Martha reached over and patted Claire's knee. "Not usually, but it’s common for clothing to give you a different point of view. They can help you see yourself in a new way. I suppose it’s like an ordinary young man looking at himself in a smart uniform for the first time. I’d be more worried if you didn’t feel differently after seeing yourself in new clothing."

"But I’d prefer to feel mad or frustrated. I don’t want to feel good about what’s been forced upon me."

“Darling, for the time being, you don’t have any choice about how you look. Don’t exhaust yourself over things you can’t help. Just accept things as they happen. Happy people have clear minds.”

“Asking me to be happy is expecting a lot.”

Martha shook her head. “Instinct tells me that you won’t be a girl forever. You should look at this as a learning experience. After being a girl, you’ll understand women so much better.”

“If this is the price of understanding, I’d prefer to stay ignorant.”

“All I’m saying is that a positive feeling is a blessing, not a problem. You’ve heard what they say. If you have a lemon, make lemonade.”

“That shop made me very uncomfortable.”

"Why?"

“I was forced to act as though I was a person completely different from what I am. The more I give in to the situation and go with the flow, the more I worry that I’ll lose the person I used to be.”

Martha showed her serious mood with a sigh. "The best thing you can do is to let your girl-feelings and your boy feelings work things out on their own. Think about things you can do something about. It takes strength to avoid distractions, but you’re strong and can do it if you try, sweetheart.”

Claire shook her head. “I’ve never felt less strong than I do now.”

“Just don’t forget what you still have. That includes having folks who love their daughter as much as they ever loved their son.”

“Please, Mom, don’t call me your daughter. That's embarrassing.”

The dash radio crackled ended its musical program and joined in with the local news. Claire tensed as a voice spoke the name of her super alter-ego.

“...Still no word from Super-Sister. She’s ever said why she didn’t help with the warehouse fire on Route 54. Mayor Henderson expressed disappointment that Smallville's new protector has not been as responsive to emergencies as her predecessor.”

"Superboy never missed a crisis," came the interviewee’s response. "It makes you wonder how committed Super-Sister is to filling her brother’s shoes. I’m guessing that she’s a very different person from her brother. I can’t criticize a female for acting like a female, but some girls aren’t temperamentally suited to performing male-type jobs."

Claire's jaw tightened. They didn’t know what they were talking about! Why didn’t they use their own resources instead of waiting for rescue? Other towns, those without a super protector, protected their people without a superhero helping them.

Martha clicked off the radio. "Don't let that silly talk get to you."

"I won’t," Claire lied, crossing her arms.

#

On Saturday morning, Martha informed her daughter at the breakfast table that she had arranged for her to have a beauty appointment in Metropolis.

"Beauty appointments?" Claire repeated weakly from the other side of her oatmeal bowl. “Can’t I just wash my face and comb my hair?”

“You need to have your face and hair fixed, dear. My own skills aren’t good enough to prepare you for a dance as important as this one.”

Jonathan looked up from his newspaper, trying hard not to grin. "Sounds like your mother isn’t going to stop until you end up a raving beauty, princess."

"Don't call me that," Claire muttered weakly, too heartsick to shout. Shopping for dresses and trying them on was one thing. But hair and makeup? Going that extreme felt like crossing a line she might not return from.

But her mother seemed dead-set on improving her appearance, and she didn’t want to dampen the spirits of someone she loved so much.

#

In less than three hours, they were passing through the glass door of "Gilda's Beauty Salon" in downtown Metropolis. The place had an atmosphere like an alien planet—hairspray, lotion, nail polish, and powerful scents like a garden center. Every surface gleamed with chrome, and the air hummed with hair dryers and feminine chatter.

Claire stopped dead in the aisle. "Ma, this is too much for me."

"You’re better than that. This place isn’t nearly as bad as some outlaws you’ve dealt with," Martha said. "Think of it as... research."

"Research into what? Medieval torture techniques?"

“You’re exaggerating. You only have to be wary about is letting them trim your hair. If they break their scissors on your invulnerable locks, our goose is cooked.”

Claire nodded. “I’ll say that I’m letting my hair grow down to the middle of my back.”

A platinum blonde in her forties approached them, stepping quickly despite her very high stilettos. The stylist’s hair was teased so high it defied both gravity and good taste. "You must be Claire! I'm Gilda. Your mother told me you’re getting ready for your first formal dance. How exciting!"

Claire managed a weak smile. "Yeah. Exciting."

Gilda led them deeper into the salon, past women in various states of beautification. One was sitting under a hair dryer that looked like a space helmet, and another was receiving a paint job on her nails. A third sat back in a strange chair while a stylist fitted her with hair curlers the size of soup cans.

"Don't look so worried, honey," Gilda chirped as she steered Claire toward a piece of furniture that looked like it was designed for executions, not beauty treatments. “We won’t stop until we’ve made you look like a Hollywood starlet!”

"I’d be satisfied just looking ‘presentable,’" Claire said, settling gingerly into the chair. “I’m dating a schoolboy, not Rock Hudson."

Gilda laughed as loudly as wind chimes in a northwester. "You're naturally funny, sweetie! I can tell we're going to get along just fine."

Claire sat down, and Gilda draped a pink plastic cape around her shoulders. The mirror told the girl that she looked like an astronaut about to be shot into space.

Gilda combed through Claire’s thick black hair. "You must have quite a boyfriend to be this determined to impress him. Is he tall, dark, and handsome?"

Claire blinked. "Pete? He's... good to hang around with. He’s taller than me, but that’s a low bar. His hair is blond, and he has freckles."

“Sweet!” the stylist declared. “Those boys-next-door types make the best husbands. Don’t trust the slicked-down types with their expensive cars. They’ll praise you to the sky, but end up breaking your heart." Gilda began sectioning off Claire's hair with clips. "I'm thinking we should go with a soft bouffant, as your aunt’s note suggested. Nothing too high, since that might make you look too tall. Perhaps we should give you a little flip at the ends? I’m thinking of making you into Jackie Kennedy, only younger.”

"I don't know what any of that means," Claire admitted.

"It means you're going to end up looking like a million bucks, sugar."

Gilda started the torture session. She wielded brushes, combs, curlers, and sprays with the efficiency of a battlefield surgeon. She teased, smoothed, pinned, and sprayed, all while keeping up a running commentary loaded with fashion news and the latest Hollywood gossip.

"Hold still, doll. I'm going to do your back section now. If you don’t get a big, hard kiss tonight, it won’t be my fault."

Claire gripped the arms of the chair as Gilda used a miniature rake to attack her hair. The teen guessed that if she hadn’t been invulnerable, she thought the operation would hurt like hell. Before her hair appointment, Claire had no idea how unpleasant being a girl could be.

"If you feel like yelling in pain, don’t be ashamed to,” said Gilda. “Hair-pulling pain, like giving birth, opens the door to beauty.”

"From what I’ve seen, pain only opens the door to more pain," Claire muttered. "But don’t slow down. I want to get this hair job done as soon as possible."

“I‘ll try, but art takes time. Before you leave, I want to give you every ounce of beauty your aunt is paying for.”

Twenty minutes later, Gilda spun the chair around and looked at the work of art she had created."Ta-da! What do you think?"

The girl Claire saw in the mirror was practically a stranger. Her hair had been transformed into a rounded bouffant that made her more feminine and sophisticated-looking. The style was no towering beehive; it was just high enough to frame her features attractively.

"Wow," she whispered. "I look..."

"Like a movie star!" Gilda beamed. "After we send you to Dolores for makeup, you’ll be nominated for an Academy Award."

Claire winced. "Can’t we keep things simple? I don't want to look like a... I mean that I don’t want to look like I’m too hard. Most boys can tell at a glance when a girl looks phony."

"Honey, your bone structure is what’s doing all the hard work. I’ll give you just a little enhancement to bring out those gorgeous eyes and cheekbones you have. You ought to think about going into professional modelling."

Dolores, the cosmetologist, came by to fetch her for the makeup chair. Claire found herself face-to-face with an arsenal of brushes, sponges, compacts, and tubes. They looked as if they belonged in a chemistry lab.

"Now, don't you worry," said Dolores. Her own face was so perfectly painted that she looked like a department store mannequin. "You exude so much natural beauty that we only have to even out your complexion, define those eyes, and add a little color to your cheeks and lips. Nothing dramatic."

“Claire grimaced nervously. "I thought my eyes were pretty well-defined already.”

"Oh, honey, you wouldn’t believe how much a little mascara and liner is going to do for them."

Claire now endured the longest thirty minutes of her life. She sat rigid as Dolores dabbed foundation on her face and brushed powder across her cheeks. After all that, she approached the girl with an eyeliner that looked suspiciously like a weapon. “What is all this for?” she wondered. She was going to a simple school dance, not a Riviera nightclub.

Next came the mascara wand. "Look up," Dolores instructed. "Don't blink."

Claire wasn’t afraid of losing an eye. She was invulnerable. What hurt her most was the mortification of undergoing this prolonged ordeal.

Claire closed her eyes and tried to think calming thoughts, mostly scenes of beauty observed in places where few mortals had ever gone. But one nagging thought held on to her: What am I doing? This isn't me. This isn't who I am.

But, finally, when Dolores spun her chair around to face the mirror, Claire's grumbling thoughts faded away. The girl she saw looking back at her was still recognizably Claire Kent, but she had been well disguised. Her blinking eyes looked larger, more luminous. Her cheekbones seemed more defined. Clair’s lips, perfected by pink gloss, were really something.

"Good gracious," breathed Martha, now standing behind her chair. "Claire, you're beautiful."

The girl could see what her mother was calling “beautiful.” Claire touched her cheek tentatively, half-expecting the makeup to smudge like war paint. “Whoever that is, it’s not me,” she whispered.

"It's the woman inside you looking out," Dolores said while cleaning her brushes. "You're seeing yourself at your best. It’s your inner Miss Hyde, the part of you who goes to dances and dates any boy she likes. If someone put together like you is not married by the age of twenty-five, I’m a monkey’s aunt!”

“We don’t want to look too far ahead,” Martha admonished gently.

The necessary work completed, mother and daughter went home. Once there, Claire retreated to her room, her mind in a whirl from all that had happened. The first thing she did was to take another look at herself in the mirror. Even away from the salon lights, her face still had an intense femininity that made her stomach flip. Having been a boy herself, Claire realized that when she met boys, she’d be a red cape flapping in front of a herd of Kansas bulls.

Then Martha knocked on her door.

"Claire? Pete just called. He'll be here at seven-thirty."

Seven-thirty. Claire glanced at her alarm clock. It was already six-fifteen. Time to get dressed.

She slipped out of her town clothes, changed her underthings, and stepped into the dress. The fabric slid over her skin as smoothly as water, and when she zipped up, the dress reinforced the magic created by her hair and makeup. All the beautification taken together made her look curvier and more grown-up. But the elegant transformation came with an emotional wallop. She appeared to have changed into a totally different person. Worse than that, she felt differently, too.

That inner feeling was what worried her the most.

She, who had been Superboy, the world-famous being who had fought creatures from outer space, was suddenly afraid that she wouldn’t know how to look normal in public, dressed like this, or how to say the correct things to people. Without fully understanding it, she realized that there was more to being a woman than merely the science of basic anatomy.

She donned the black pumps next. Thanks to her super-balance, Claire could walk in heels as easily as sneakers, but the extra height they lent her made her taller. More elegant. More... female. This female thing suddenly felt so powerful that she dearly wished that she could escape back into simple, austere boyhood right this minute.

After collecting herself, a last check in the mirror reconfirmed the degree to which she looked stunning. The dress hugged her figure without being too tight; the heels made her legs look longer, and her professionally styled hair and makeup completed the transformation from a small-town girl to a sophisticate. This was the last body in the world that she wanted to take out before the eyes of the public.

A crazy string of events had forced her into a role she didn’t want, a role she didn’t know how to play!

"Claire!" Jonathan called from downstairs. "Your young man's here!"

Her young man! The implications of that phrase made Claire's stomach flutter. This whole situation was too strange to be real! She grabbed the small black purse Martha had bought to match the dress and equipped it at super speed. Then the teen girl took a deep breath and stepped lightly on her high heels to the stairs.

Pete Ross was looking up at her from the Kent living room. His rented suit was a size too large and he looked uncomfortable wearing it. His fair hair had been slicked back with pomade, and he was clutching a corsage box more like an explosive device than a gift.

With his mouth falling open, he breathed. "Holy cow."

Claire felt her cheeks flush warm under her face powder. "Hi, Pete."

"You... wow. You look..." He said no more, having forgotten how to utter coherent speech.

"Different?" Claire suggested, descending the stairs with careful grace. “Phony?”

"Beautiful," Pete managed. "I mean, you always looked nice, but tonight you look... Gosh, Claire, you look like you belong in a magazine."

Jonathan cleared his throat meaningfully, and Pete jumped to attention. "Oh! I brought you a corsage." He fumbled with the box, finally extracting a small arrangement of white orchids. "I wasn't sure what color your dress would be, so I went with white. I hope that's okay."

Claire took it from his nervous hands. "It's perfect," she said. She wasn’t sure how to put it on correctly, but fortunately, Martha stepped in to help pin it to her dress.

"You two make a lovely couple," Mrs. Kent said, stepping back to admire Claire she would a bird of paradise. "Jonathan, get the camera!" she called out.

"Ma, no pictures!" Claire said quickly, but it was too late. Jonathan was already pointing his Kodak Instamatic her way.

"Just one or two," he promised. "For posterity."

The next few minutes were a flurry of posed photographs with Claire and Pete standing awkwardly by the fireplace, with Pete pretending to pin the corsage on Claire’s shoulder, and both of them smiling with the forced brightness of people who knew they were being immortalized on film.

Finally, blessedly, it was time to go.

"Have her home by midnight," Jonathan told Pete sternly, sounding every bit like a protective father with a daughter.

"Yes, sir," Pete replied, as gravely as a man facing a firing squad.

"And drive carefully. The streets can be tricky at night."

"I will, Mr. Kent."

Claire rescued her date by fast walking before her father could issue additional stern warnings. "We should go,” she said. “We don't want to be late."

Pete offered his arm. Then he blinked, as if his gesture had been a mistake. When Claire took his hand, their touch sent a tremble running through her. She gritted her teeth. Some superhero she was!

"You kids have fun," Martha called after them.

As the young people walked toward Pete's family’s Buick, Claire caught sight of their reflection in the car's window—a young couple dressed for an elegant evening. This was so crazy! The girl wondered whether anyone else saw that as clearly as she did.

"You really look incredible tonight," Pete said as he opened the passenger door. “I’m flabbergasted. But in a good way.” He clammed up suddenly, as if realizing that he had said more than he had intended to.

Claire slid into the seat, careful not to wrinkle her dress. "Thanks. You look pretty sharp yourself."

It was true. His bow tie was straight, and he smelled faintly of Old Spice aftershave.

As Pete walked around to the driver's side, Claire took a moment to collect her thoughts. How had this impossible situation come about? In a few minutes, she knew, they'd be at the school together, a boy and girl couple. Theyed be surrounded by classmates they knew. How was she supposed to impersonate a boy’s dance date and not embarrass not only herself, but Pete as well? Though Clark had already read books on countless subjects, at blurring speed, she’d never read anything specific about teen dating etiquette.

Pete took his seat and drew the keys from his pocket. "Nervous?" he asked as he started the engine.

"A little," Claire admitted. "You?"

"Terrified," he said with a grin. "But I enjoy being terrified this way. It’s like being at the top of an exciting roller coaster."

Claire smiled. Her own feelings ran along those same lines.

During the drive toward Smallville High, the girl watched the familiar intersections roll past. Everything looked unchanged, but Claire felt like a spacefarer on an entirely new world. She was still Clark Kent, but tonight, for better or worse, she was also Claire Kent. She was living as the new girl in Smallville, a person who had incomprehensibly gotten roped into a date with a boy.

In a minute, the gymnasium lights came into view. They saw that student cars had nearly filled the school parking lot. Using x-ray vision, she saw couples moving to music, the girls arrayed in colorful dresses, and the boys mostly wearing dark suits.

"Ready?" Pete asked while turning into a parking space.

Claire took a deep breath and checked her reflection one last time in the side-view mirror. The serious-faced girl blinking back at her was poised, pretty, and—hopefully—ready for anything. Inside, she felt like she was going into battle.

"I’m ready," she said, her tone so grave that she hoped her dance date hadn’t noticed.

Whatever happened that night, it would be an unforgettable experience.

Of that, she was sure.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 6