Clara (part 5)

"Oh, Clara!" the receptionist piped up when she saw Clara walk in the door.  She seemed relieved and then a little nervous.  "Do you know this guy?"

Clara briefly considering lying and saying no, but with a resigned sigh, she just said, "Yeah, I know him.  That's Chris.  He can have a visitor's pass, I suppose."

The receptionist, Amy, raised an eyebrow at that.  "Are you sure?" she asked.

Clara reconsidered and decided, "No, actually, I think Chris and I can just chat outside."  And with that she turned and walked back out the door, expecting Chris to follow.

He did.  She glanced back and saw him, walked over to the side of the building, and then turned on him to demand, "What are you doing here?"

He just grinned stupidly.  "For one, confirming that you really are the Ninja."

She appreciated him dropping the "Lady" part, but still she had to ask, "And how did you do that?"

He continued to beam.  "I never told you my name.  That was just the Ninja."

She started to open her mouth in protest, but damn it!  He was right.  She had slipped up.  She sighed.  "Okay fine, but you already agreed you weren't going to print my name anyway.  So again, what are you doing here?"

"I said I wouldn't print your name," Chris admitted.  "And I'm a man of my word.  But my readers still want to know more about you.  Who you really are.  What makes you tick."

"I can tell you want makes me tick like a bomb," Clara said, a bit of a stretch for a metaphor for her anger, but who really cares, "and that's people getting in my business."

Chris took a step back and held his hands up in a gesture of submission. "Hey, I wasn't trying to do any of that," he protested.  "I was just hoping to chat.  Maybe have a little interview of sorts."

"And you couldn't just call?"

"You never gave me your phone number."

"And I certainly didn't give you the address of my employer!" Clara exclaimed.

Chris took another step back at that.  His smile faded and he sighed.  "Yeah, I suppose you're right.  I just felt like coming here was less intrusive that finding your phone number and calling you?  I might have made a mistake."

"Yeah, we can agree on that at least," Clara told him.  She sighed and rubbed her forehead.  "What kind of reporter are you anyway?" she asked, eyes closed and downcast.

"Not a very good one, apparently," he said.

That caught her completely off guard.  Her eyes shot open, her head went up, and she just stared at him for a moment.  He had this sheepish half grin on his face, but his eyes were twinkling, saying something like yeah I'm not very good, but at least you're talking to me right now.  And without really understanding why, Clara just burst out laughing.

Soon Chris was laughing, too.  And when the laughing eventually died down, Clara just sighed and rolled her eyes.  "Okay fine," she said.  "I'll give you one 'interview.'  But then that's it.  You leave me alone.  The only time I ever see you again is if its a coincidence.  And you still don't print anything that could identify me.  Nothing that's not true of more than a couple hundred other people in the city at least."

Chris seemed like he wanted to protest, but eventually he sighed as well, held out his hand for her to shake and said, "Okay, deal."

She hesitated, but took his hand and shook it.  "Okay, fine," she said.  "Now come on, let's get this over with."

And she led him back into the office building, where she got a guest pass for him for real this time, and then took him up a side staircase to a side room where she hoped no one would see them as she had resigned herself to this "interview" after which she hoped to endure as few questions from her co-workers as possible.