The next day, when Claudia’s lunch break finally arrived, she went down the elevator and made her way to the break room. As she passed by studio seven, she couldn’t help but peek in, to see if Josh was inside. To her disappointment, the room was empty.

    She entered the noisy break room and got herself a hot chocolate, then looked around for the morning paper, but didn’t find it on the usual rack.

    “Hey Debbie, how are you today?” Claudia greeted her red-headed co-worker.

    “I’m great, Claude.”

    “Have you seen the paper? I can’t seem to find it.”

    “No I don’t usually read the paper. But you could ask that man over there,” Debbie said, pointing to a man in the corner with a newspaper in front of his face. “He might know where you could find one.”

    “Thanks, I’ll talk to ya later.”

    Claudia made her way over to the small table where the man sat and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, do you know where I could find another copy of today’s paper?”

    The paper was lowered and a familiar pair of blue eyes, rimed with reading glasses, met hers. It was Josh. “I believe there’s one left on that table over by the pop machine,” he told her, with his eyes on the paper.

    Either he didn’t remember her, or he didn’t want to remember her. He showed no interest in continuing a conversation.

    “Josh, do you remember me? I met you yesterday in studio seven,” Claudia attempted.

    The paper was lowered once again and he studied her face. “Oh yes, I remember,” he said, not sounding too thrilled about it. “What was your name again?”

    “Claudia. Claudia Jenkins.”

    “It was nice to meet you Miss. Jenkins,” Josh said, raising the paper in front of his face once again.

    This was her cue to walk away. He clearly didn’t want to speak with her, or anyone else for that matter. But she was determined, and something inside of her urged her to keep trying to talk to him.

    “So um, how’s your song coming along?” she asked.

    He took a sip from his coffee cup and didn’t reply for a long moment. So long, Claudia began to wonder if he was even going to bother to answer her or not. “It’s coming along just fine,” he finally answered.

    Claudia nodded slowly, wondering what to say next. “Listen, about yesterday, I think I should apologize for interrupting you like that. I shouldn’t have automatically assumed that you would want my help. I mean, you don’t even know me. I can understand why you would be upset for me barging in like that.”

    He didn’t look up. “Apology accepted,” he said simply.

    Claudia held back her frustration; shouldn’t he be apologizing to me as well, for being so rude? She pushed it aside and pulled out the chair across from him, sitting in it quickly. “But I think you should consider my offer of assistance. I’d be glad to help you out. Music is my passion and one of my strengths is helping others get their ideas out onto paper. Since that’s what you’re having trouble with, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to give it a shot,” she prompted.

    It was a long shot, but maybe, some sort of vulnerable side would come out and ask her for her help. She crossed her fingers underneath the table.

    Josh peered at her over the corner of the paper, noticing that she had helped herself to a chair, then replied simply. “No thank you.”

    Claudia was becoming more frustrated at his simple and yet cold tone. He wasn’t raising his voice or getting upset like he did the last time they had spoken, but that almost angered her even more. He showed no sign of emotion or interest what so ever.

    “Maybe you could just let me hear what you’ve come up with so far and I’ll give you some suggestions. It couldn’t hurt, could it?” she pried.

    Josh set the paper on the tabletop and folded his hands on top of it, looking her straight in the eye. “I said no thank you. I would really prefer to do this on my own.” He folded up the paper and grabbed his coffee cup. “Now if you would excuse me, I need to get back to work.” With that, he stood from the table, drinking the last of his coffee.

    “If you change your mind my extension is 3289!” she called to him in a last futile attempt. Claudia couldn’t be sure if he’d heard her or not. He continued on his way, leaving the room.

    Not like he’d call anyway, even if he did hear me.

    Later that day, Claudia sat at her desk in her small office, reviewing some paper work. Four plain, white walls had been covered up in any way possible, in Claudia’s attempt to decorate the small, plain office. Paintings by Picasso and Claude Monet, family portraits and posters of artists signed with Jive took up most of the wall space. She looked up through the glass window in front of her, admiring the busy city below. Claudia wasn’t much of a big city girl, but she was adjusting.

    She had grown up in a small suburban town in New Jersey. But when she decided to be in the music business, she knew her best shot would be to move to New York, where there were lots of record companies and lots of opportunities; she knew she wouldn’t get very far in her small town. She worked as an intern with Arista Records and was transferred over to Jive where she had been working for almost two years now. Claudia loved her job, and felt so lucky that she could work with musicians everyday.

    She jumped when the phone rang beside her, startling her out of her thoughts.

    “Jive Records, Claudia Jenkins speaking,” she said professionally when she answered.

    “Hello sweetheart,“ Jacob’s voice came over the phone.

    “Hi Jacob, how are you?”

    “I just arrived back in town, I’m on my way to the office.”

    “How did everything go in Chicago?” she asked, twirling the phone cord absently around her finger.

    “Oh, you know, just the usual business stuff,” he replied through slight static in the connection. “Anyway, I was calling to invite you out to dinner tonight.”

    Claudia smiled into the phone, excited that he was making up for their cancelled plans; something he rarely did. “I’d love to go out with you this evening. It’s been a while since we’ve been out, and we’ll get to make up for our anniversary.”

    “Well, it won’t exactly be making up for our anniversary.”

    Claudia was confused, but she waited for him to continue.

    “It’s a business dinner.”

    Suddenly it made sense to her. She should have known better than to think Jacob was actually inviting her out to a nice meal, simply out of courtesy.

    “Oh,” was all she said.

    “I know that this doesn’t come close to making up for our anniversary but I’ve already got reservations, so we might as well, right?”

    “Sure, I suppose that makes sense,” she agreed, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

    “Okay. I’ll talk to you later and fill you in on the details. Talk to you later honey, bye." He hung up before she could say anything else.

    With a sigh, she returned the phone to its cradle. Ugh, I hate business dinners. I have to be polite and stay quiet the entire time, unless I’m spoken to first.

    Claudia had really been looking forward to their anniversary. It would have been so nice to go out for a fancy evening, no business, no interruptions, just the two of them enjoying each others’ company. But it was just too good to be true. And thinking that Jacob would want to take her out to make up for it was an even more outrageous thought. It figures that he would invite her out to a business dinner. That was a complete Jacob thing to do… but at least he had offered.

    There was a light knock on the door behind her, and Claudia turned around to find Jack poking his head into her office.

    “Hey, Claude. You’re not busy are you?”

    “No, not at all. Come on in.”

    He wore a blue button-up shirt with a dark blue tie, khaki pants and shiny black shoes; trying to look professional, though he admitted he hated to dress up.

    He came into her office and sat on the corner of her desk. “So how did it go with Josh yesterday?” he wanted to know.

    “Not very well.”

    “I was afraid of that,” he muttered.

    “He didn’t even give me a chance,” she continued, “he jumped down my throat the moment I walked through the door.”

    “That sounds like Josh alright,” he said with a shake of his head.

    “I even tried talking to him this morning at lunch hour and he would barely even speak to me. He has no interest in having my help, whatsoever.”

    Jack nodded and chewed his bottom lip. “Well, there was a time when Josh was very open minded about letting others work with him. He was very friendly, and an all around nice guy.”

    “Well, he sure threw me off on that one.”

    They were both quiet for a moment, thinking to themselves.

    Claudia spoke up: “I think maybe he’s determined to create something by himself that he can call his own. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want any help.”

    “That sounds logical,” Jack agreed with a nod. “He’s been struggling for a while now. I can’t even remember the last time the man even so much as smiled.”

    “He can’t be completely cold-hearted,” she insisted. “I don’t think anyone could just turn themselves off from the world that way and have no interest at all in letting people and things that make him happy into his life. He seems to have built a barrier, blocking himself from the rest of civilization. And he doesn’t even want to try to let anyone inside his barrier, or at least break it down and open his eyes to what he’s missing out on by staying isolated like this.”

    Jack smiled at her, knowingly. “You’re not going to give up on this guy are you?”

    Claudia lowered her eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean?”

    He just shook his head and smiled. “You’ll get through to him, I can bet on it. You would never let yourself walk away from someone like Josh without trying to open his eyes.”

    “Getting through to that guy, would be an impossible task. I like to help people, I’ll admit, but I am no miracle worker.”

    “The fact that he seems impossible, gets to you. It’ll drive you crazy to know that he refuses your help and the challenge only makes you want to get through to him even more.”

    Claudia stared at him for a moment and turned back to face her desk. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, shaking her head.

    “Fifty bucks says that you’ll get through to this guy within, hmmm let’s say… four, five months?”

    “I’m not the gambling type, Jack,” she dismissed, shuffling through papers in front of her.

    “Alright,” he said, standing up from her desk. “I understand if you’re afraid of losing a little bit of cash, so I’ll back off.”

    She turned around in her chair to face him. “If I made that bet with you, which I won’t, I would win because I don’t need to help every hurting person I come across. My helping people is something I like to do out of the kindness of my heart, not an obsession.”

    “Yeah right. Prove it.” He stuck out his hand for her to shake. “Fifty bucks will be yours if you can keep yourself from helping this guy.”

    She looked down at his hand for a moment, contemplating what to do.

    “If in five months, you’ve left Josh alone and he’s still reclusive like he is now, you win. If you guys are all buddy-buddy, and he’s come out of his shell because of you, I win.”

    Claudia placed her hand in his and gave it a hard shake. “You’ve got yourself a deal buddy.”

    “I thought you weren’t the gambling type, Claudia?” He gave her a wink and let himself out.

---