“Let me get this straight.”
Kara always snickers when Alex uses that expression. She’d feel bad about it, except she knows full well that her sister does it deliberately.
“You met Alison ‘freakin’ Mcbeal yesterday -”
“You know that’s not her real middle name, right?”
“Wouldn’t know it growing up in our house,” Alex observes. She’d already been at college when Kara’s interest in Ms McBeal (Or ‘raging powerful older woman crush’ in Alex’s words) had first spiked, but Kara may have gushed a time or two when they’d spoken on the phone or Alex had been home for the holidays.
“So, you met Alison McBeal. In Cat Grant’s office. Because she and Cat Grant are related. And look enough alike that even you couldn’t tell them apart at first,” she continues gleefully. Alex isn’t even trying to hide how hilarious she thinks all this is.
“I think you’re enjoying this a bit too much,” Kara complains over the phone as she continues to root through her wardrobe, looking for an outfit that she purchased a few months back and then had second thoughts about wearing.
“I’d say I’m enjoying this an entirely appropriate amount,” Alex shoots back gleefully.
“It’s killing you that there’s no-one around you can gossip about this with, isn’t it?”
“I talk to Vasquez sometimes. I’m definitely telling her about this.”
“Oh great – hah! Found it!”
Pushed somewhat to the back of her wardrobe, mostly because whenever Kara looks at it she’s reminded of what she was thinking when she bought it, is the outfit she’s tentatively considering for today. She studies herself in the mirror with the outfit held up against her.
It’s a two piece number, similar to one she wore when the red kryptonite was influencing her, although that’s not the reason it makes her slightly nervous to look at. It fits a little closer than what she’d usually wear to the office (pants don’t count, everyone knows that, no matter what Alex says) and if she twists or bends a fine line of skin briefly materialises between skirt and top.
The rich crimson is several shades darker than her cape, although Kara’s found that blue is the colour people associate most strongly with her alter ego, and even then only if she wears a particular shade of royal blue, or mixes red and blue in one outfit. Despite Alex’s scoffing, Kara knows better than that. Teamed with a pair of black suede pumps and subtle accessories the effect is professional but a little flashier than what Kara usually wears, straddling the line between important meeting office wear and sexy nice date outfit.
She pictures herself walking into CatCo dressed like this, Cat’s eyes widening as she sees what Kara is wearing, Cat's heated gaze lingering on Kara as she crosses the room, and the rush of it is irresistible.
Cat’s not going to know what hit her.
“Why not just sleep with her? Unless she’s ugly. Is she ugly? I doubt Grant would have an assistant who was ugly.”
“Trust me, she’s not ugly.”
“How do you know?” Ling asks, idly curious.
“I’m looking at the CatCo facebook page right now. She is adorable. And built. Seriously built. In a good way. If you won’t use your connections to wrangle an introduction to Supergirl this girl’s a close second. And she’s got a crush on you? Go Ally!”
So far as Ally knows Elaine is very, very straight, but she embraced Ally’s own low key coming out with a fervency equal parts disturbing and endearing. It’s the attitude that has always marked her over-investment in the things she cares about, which includes Ally’s love life. Ally would like to say she finds this inexplicable. The truth is she knows exactly why Elaine is so concerned with her romantic ups and downs.
It’s for the entertainment value.
Ally’s not totally sure how she ended up on a conference call with Ling and Elaine, or how one idle comment about flirting with the ex-assistant Cat has a crush on led to Elaine cyber-stalking the poor girl while Ling strategises the optimum course of action for irritating Cat to the greatest degree possible.
Okay, that’s a lie. With the benefit of short term hindsight Ally can see that asking Elaine for advice about any of this was a mistake. Superficially, Elaine would seem to be just the person to talk to if you’re planning to get your cousin to finally act on her unrequited feelings by flirting with the very cute object of her affections, thereby making her jealous enough to finally do something.
Except involving Elaine in anything is like inviting a pyromaniac to help you set up a fireworks display. In this case she got Ling on the line the moment cat’s name was mentioned. And of course Ling was going to suggest massive escalation if an opportunity to mess with Cat presents itself, even by proxy. It’s the first law of Elaine: Any action that generates drama is correct (corollary: unless there’s a different action that would have generated greater drama).
Ally’s not entirely sure what the deal is with Cat and Ling. They’ve never met, so far as she knows they’ve never even spoken to each other, but there’s some weird, vaguely competitive aspirational thing going on between them, with Ally acting as involuntary intermediary. Ling seems torn between admiration and burning envy where Cat is concerned and Ally suspects Cat harbours the odd daydream of sitting on the bench herself. It’s probably a good thing they haven’t met. They’d either kill each other or conquer the planet.
“Hmm. Stealing Grant’s crush from right under her nose could be amusing.”
Ally groans. You’d think she’d be used to this by now.
“I’m not sleeping with anyone!”
Dead silence for a second.
Half her life they’ve been friends and she still walks into traps like that.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Why are you so opposed to the idea? It’s not like you’ve never been with a younger woman.”
“Because Cat would never forgive me? Also, I’d have to avoid the West Coast for the rest of my life, which would be slightly inconvenient.”
“She’s not really going to take a hit out on you. Is she?” Elaine asks, as though she honestly thinks that’s a thing that could happen. Normally Ally would think she was trolling, but she understands how Cat can give that impression to people who only know her by reputation. Elaine’s been intrigued by the idea of Cat ever since Ally let slip that they were related. This had been back in the talkshow days and Elaine had derived a certain amount of pleasure from being able to claim a connection, however tenuous, with someone who appeared on afternoon television five days a week.
“Grant probably knows an assassin or two. A woman as powerful as her would have to.”
For a moment Ally is overtaken by a vision of Cat leaning back in a leather office chair, white Persian held in her lap, as she gives orders to a group of exotically garbed thugs. Cat commands them to assassinate Roger Ailes, Perry White and Donald Trump, while Ally watches helplessly from her position suspended over a pool filled with hundreds of mantis shrimp, because Cat would never use anything as cliché and predictable as sharks or piranha. Her orders for world domination given, Cat rises from her throne and stalks toward Ally.
“Tell me, Ms McBeal, what made you think you could take what is mine and not suffer the . . . consequences.”
Ally gasps helplessly around the gag in her mouth as Cat reaches towards a conveniently placed lever that she’s sure wasn’t there a minute ago. Her screams are muffled by the gag in her mouth as Cat pulls the lever and Ally begins to fall . . .
With an effort of will she shoves the vision aside. She’s got to stop picturing Cat as a bond villain. It’s not healthy.
“You have some very strange ideas about my cousin’s business practices.”
“Is it really that serious? I mean, you’re making it sound like Cat would be heartbroken if you actually took this girl on a date.”
Ally thinks about the way Cat’s gaze had tracked Kara across the office, and the intensity with which she’d attempted to shut down Ally’s flicker of interest. It’s been a long time since she’s seen Cat this invested in anything – even her stint as the press secretary was treated as more of a diversion and a nice garnish to her CV. Kara, though, has always been an exception in Cat’s life, perhaps even more than Cat realises.
Ally remembers the first time she heard Cat mention Kara’s name. The level of attention she lavished on listing the girl’s faults had stood out because normally Cat fired people before they irritated her this much. Kara, for some reason, seemed to be sticking around.
‘So why haven’t you fired her yet?’ Ally had asked at the time, only to be greeted by unexpected silence. She swears she could feel Cat’s shock radiating down the line (or over the telecommunications network, whatever). That had been the first clue – the idea of firing Kara was complete anathema to Cat.
She’d spluttered some sort of justification, the flimsiness of which was clue number two, before quickly changing the subject. After that Ally had kept an ear out for further mentions of this mysterious new assistant, who seemingly possessed magical powers that allowed her to flow with Cat’s steel edged whims and meet every demand. A couple of years ago something had changed. Cat spoke of Kara more often, with a new and uncharacteristic warmth. Apparently National City had two residents with superpowers - and Ally considers Kara’s ability to charm Cat Grant more impressive than anything Supergirl can do.
“You know,” she says thoughtfully, “I really think it is.”
Yesterday’s teasing had been just that. Now Ally’s beginning to think Cat really does need a push.
Well, she has a lunch date with Cat today. If a certain pretty blonde crosses her path she’ll turn on the charm and see what transpires.
2087
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