The Speedster
It had been three long weeks since Kara had met that beautiful woman in the back of the limo. She hadn’t been doing pick-up duty every day, which she almost wishes she was just in the off chance that she could see Lena again. And even then, Louisa doesn’t always get picked up, she usually does, but not always, so there isn’t a guarantee of even the possibility of seeing Lena if Kara is on rotation for it.
After dropping her kids off at their respective buses, Kara heads to the prep room to print some copies and cut some different colored harder cardstock into various shapes to help the kids learn circle, square, rectangle, etc.
She’s staring out the window and watches as the buses drive by. Kara feels a sense of relief now that the kids are gone, she doesn’t have to be on alert for little ears listening or rushing to when she has to get her kids from recess or gym. Kara doesn’t actually realize how much time has passed until she hears a knock at the open door behind her.
“Ms. Danvers?”
Kara whips around to see Louisa standing in the doorway.
“Louisa, what are you still doing here?” Kara looks up at the clock and it’s almost 5 o’clock.
“I guess everyone’s busy. They can’t get a hold of anyone either.”
Kara frowned. “Where’d the teacher go that was supposed to be watching you?”
“She had to go use the bathroom, but I heard you singing, so I came to say hi.”
Kara didn’t even realize she had started singing, “oh, okay. Well let’s go check in.”
Kara walked up to Louisa and extended her hand for the girl to grab onto and they walked down the short hall to the office and where Louisa was probably left sitting.
A middle aged woman with short black hair and a dark complexion came around the corner and smiled at Kara, “hey, I asked you to sit and wait for me a minute.”
“Sorry, I just heard my teacher and wanted to say hi.”
Kara smiled up at the woman, “Ms. Danvers, second grade.”
“Ms. Fulton, fifth grade.”
“How’s it going tracking down someone for Louisa?”
The older woman nodded, “I’ve called all phone numbers we have in Louisa’s records and left messages, but no one has called back.”
Kara looked down at the little girl holding her hand, “okay, well I’ll take her back to my class, they know where that’s at and I’ll try again to get in touch with them.”
Fulton’s expression lifted, “really? That’d be great, I have my son’s basketball game to get to.”
“Go, I got this. Right, Louisa?”
Louisa smiled and bounced, “yep!”
“Thank you!” Fulton answered as she practically ran down the hallway away from them.
Kara laughed, “let’s go try your family again.”
She went through all 11 numbers that they had on file.
“Where do your parents work?”
Louisa looked up at her like she was an idiot. “My dad is CEO, grandma is on the board of something, and Aunt Lena is their best scientist.”
“Okay, but that doesn't tell me where they work at.”
Louisa looks just as confused as Kara, “are you new around here?”
“Yes, I just moved here for this job.”
“Oh, well that makes sense then, everyone knows my family.” Louisa looks away for a second to sigh, “LuthorCorp.”
Kara nods, and then realization sinks in, oh yeah, she passed that huge building last week on one of her walks around the city trying to learn the ropes.
“Let’s try a work number then.”
Kara goes to her computer and Googles the company, jots down office numbers for Lex, Lillian, and Lena. She then starts calling them in sequence, voicemails.
It’s not until she get to Lena’s voicemail that it’s different. “You’ve reached the voicemail for Lena Luthor, if this is an emergency, please press 1 or stay on the line to leave a message to be returned during business hours.”
Kara obviously presses 1. The phone rings.
“Good evening, you’ve reached Lena Luthor’s office, how can I help you?”
“Uhm, hi. My name is Kara Danvers, I’m trying to reach Lena.”
“Ms. Danvers, what is the nature of your call?”
“I’m trying to get in touch with someone authorized to pick up Louisa Luthor from school and you’re the first person I’ve been able to reach.”
“One moment please.”
Kara looks over at Louisa and smiles softly. Progress!
The line clicks on, it sounds like the call is 50 feet underground, “Hello, this is Lena.”
“Ms. Luthor, this is Kara Danvers, I’m Louisa’s teacher.”
“Oh, yes. Hello, what can I do for you?”
“Well we’ve been trying to reach someone to come pick up Louisa all afternoon, and you’re the first person I’ve been able to get a hold of.”
“What time is it?”
Kara looks over, “quarter to six.”
“Damnit, Lex!”
Kara hears the phone drop and muffled shuffling, she tries not to laugh.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes, tell Lou she gets to ride in the speedster.”
“Thank you, see you soon.” Kara hangs up and looks over at the girl. “Your aunt says you get to ride in the speedster.”
A wide grin appeared on Louisa’s face. It kind of scared Kara a bit at how happy the girl was now.
“I’ve always wanted to ride in Aunt Lena’s fast car.”
“Oh yeah?”
Louisa nods, “dad got it for her graduation when I was in kindergarten.”
“Well that was very nice of him, why don’t we go wait out front so we can see her pull in.”
Louisa jumps up and they head out into the hallway towards the front of the school. Kara smiled at the young girl, she was quickly becoming Kara’s favorite, especially with Louisa not having a melt down when no parent arrived, she’d already gone through enough of that in her three weeks already.
Ironically the worst kid was a sixth grader and he wouldn’t stop crying. Turned out his mom was pulled over just around the corner for expired tags and she was red as a tomato when she pulled up 15 minutes late apologizing for not answering the phone since she was with the officer.
Louisa was jumping on the hopscotch chalked out on the entry to the school when Kara knew Lena was pulling up. They could actually hear her a block away, but it didn’t dawn on Kara until the volume of the extremely loud engine kept increasing.
The sleek midnight purple, almost black, sports car pulled into the parking lot right up to them. It sounded like a beast but was small and Kara could tell it was just built for the wind to sweep past it.
The driver’s side door swung open and all Kara could see was black. Black hair. Black sunglasses. Black leather. Black pants. Black boots.
Kara’s pretty sure her jaw was on the floor, the woman in front of her had to be a supermodel. The way she moved around her car was just too elegant for a normal person.
“Hey sweetie!” Lena opens her arms up and Louisa jumps in them.
Kara was still trying to compose herself, but managed a smile when Lena pushed her sunglasses up into her hair.
“I’m so sorry about this Ms. Danvers. I was in my lab and it has no cell reception, so I’m glad you thought to try the work number.”
“No worries, Ms. Luthor.”
“Lena please. I look for my mother when you say that.”
Kara couldn’t help but giggle at that. She has the same thoughts daily when her students call out for her, but she felt the alternative, Miss Kara, was a little too juvenile. She was trying to make an impression, even if they are a bunch of second graders.
She watched as Lena awkwardly set Louisa up in the backseat with her car seat. Kara was spacing out watching when she realizes that Lena’s turned back around and facing her.
“Sorry, I was just thinking this is a crazy car to have a car seat in.”
Lena chuckled, “well since my brother likes to spring me driving Louisa around, not that I mind, but it made me adopt the rule to have a car seat in the trunk of each of my vehicles so that I wouldn’t have to scrounge one up just to take my favorite niece…” Lena turns back and winks at Louisa, “out for ice cream.”
Louisa pumps a fist into the air. “Yay!!”
Kara can’t help but laugh. “I’m jealous.”
Lena quirked her head and raised one of her eyebrows.
“Of the ice cream!” Kara practically yelled in Lena’s face. She fidgeted with her glasses, “sorry, I have a huge sweet tooth.”
Lena smiles softly, then turns back to look at Louisa, who nods frantically. When Lena turns around, she purposely clears her throat, “well, Ms. Danvers, it’s been thoroughly discussed and we’ve decided that you should join us for an afternoon drive to the local ice cream parlor.”
Kara was already smiling ear to ear. “I’d love to.” She turns around and faces the school, “just let me run in and grab my purse and lock my room up. I’ll just need 5 minutes.”
Lena nodded, “no rush. Louisa and I will just do some donuts in the parking lot.”
Louisa yipped again, Kara’s face going slack before looking at Lena who winked at her to be obvious she was just joking.
Kara shook her head and turned around and walked into the building to collect her things. The smile was stuck on her face. The thought crossed her mind for a millisecond that this was potentially a bad idea. But bad ideas never came from something as wonderful as ice cream! Kara quickly packed her things and locked her door.
When she arrived back out to where she left the two Luthor women, Lena was leaning against the car typing something onto her phone. Lena heard Kara coming back, slid her phone back into her jacket pocket and smiled at Kara before opening the passenger door for Kara.
“Thank you,” Kara smiled as she sat down and felt a warm blush creep up her neck.
Lena closed the door and walked in front of the car around to her door. She slid in gracefully, buckled her seat belt, flipped her sunglasses down from the top of her head and grinned. She shifted into first and pulled away from the curb.
Kara didn’t know if it was the vibrations from the engine of the car or the cemented smirk on Lena’s face that made Kara’s blush continue to grow, but she knew somehow she wasn’t going to easily forget this adventure.