Hearts and Flowers for shanalle. The Office (US) PG-ish, ~4500 words. Originally posted on 03/15/07 on LJ, reposted here because I like the sense of balance!
Valentine's Day at the office, 2007. (I know it's sort of hopelessly late for that, but I didn't realize how crazy writing a fic for a deadline in a TV fandom is---the new canon! It just keeps appearing. I had to just decide on a timeline point and go with it, so this takes place in between "Phyllis's Wedding" and "Business School.") I hope you like it. Much, much love goes out to Michelle for the beta-ing and talking-me-through-this-ing.
Pam saved up her first chat of the day with the camera guys the way she and Roy used to save up their vacation time.
Today, she lasted until 9:23 AM. Which was pretty impressive, she thought, since she'd come in a little early to help Angela hang up some streamers and a foil heart mobile thing over the fridge. She had Hershey's Kisses and conversation hearts in little dishes on her desk, and a new sweater (which was part angora and getting little wispy pale pink bunny hairs everywhere). She was totally ready for Valentine's Day. She was totally ready for this Valentine's Day to suck less than last year's.
"You guys missed it," she said, once the camera guy had given her a little go-ahead wave. "Michael made me call his phone because he changed his ringtone to something 'more romantic' for today." She paused, tried not to grin, and made them wait for it. "He picked 'Always Be My Baby' by Mariah Carey. I think the last time I heard that song was at my junior prom. And now it's going to be stuck in my head all day. Which is great."
____________
"That's a nice vase you've got there." Stanley raised his eyebrows at the vibrantly orange tiger lily on Karen's desk, which was displayed in an empty half-liter Coke bottle with the label ripped off.
"I guess that's what I get for saying I didn't want to make a big deal over Valentine's Day, huh?"
"What day?" The traces of amusement had dissolved totally from Stanley's voice.
"Uh, Valentine's Day," Karen said. She pointed up at the die-cut heart hanging over their desks.
"That's today?"
Karen just nodded.
"Just what I need," Stanley growled, and scrawled "FLOWERS" on his desk blotter.
____________
Dwight had tried to conceal his recorder in his sleeve, at first, but it fell out before he even got into the building, so he tried his pants pocket instead. Unfortunately, it was too big to actually fit in his pocket, and attracted Jim's attention.
"Whoa, Dwight, is that your recorder, or----"
"Yes, Jim, it's a recorder. And no, I am not happy to see you. Ever." He stormed off out of the office, leaving Jim shaking his head and trying not to laugh.
____________
Roy came up to the office around ten and presented Pam with a little stuffed bear holding a teeny box of chocolates. She vaguely remembered having seen a display of them in CVS last week, when she'd wandered down the Valentine aisle to buy herself some Reese's hearts. The bear was pretty cute, really, and so was Roy, who looked almost shy when he handed it to her over her desk.
"That's not all---I mean, I'm going to do things right this year---this time, Pam. Okay?"
"Okay," Pam said, because it was really the only possible response. "Thank you." She sat the bear down next to her tape dispenser and patted it on the head.
"So, seven, right? For dinner?"
Pam made an affirmative noise and held up a post-it that was on the edge of her monitor that read "Anna Maria's, 7." The post-it almost matched her sweater.
"I can pick you up," Roy said. "How's six-thirty? That should be plenty of time, right?"
"Yeah, definitely."
"Well...I'll see you then." Roy drummed his hands on the edge of the desk in what looked like a weird combination of impatience and nerves, and leaned over the desk until Pam got the point and stood up to kiss him.
"See you then," she said. Roy grabbed an orange conversation heart from the dish and handed Pam a green one.
"Hey," she called out to Roy when he was almost out the door. "Thanks, the green ones are my favorites."
"I know," he said.
____________
"I was Tiger Lily in Peter Pan in middle school," Karen said. "Probably just because they didn't have to buy me a wig. Anyway, Jim thinks that's hilarious, for some reason. He actually threatened to call my mom and ask her to send pictures of me in my little Indian Princess costume. So that's why he got me the flower, I guess."
____________
"You have to see this," Jim said as Pam wandered into the break room. He opened the door to the fridge and gestured inside dramatically. Et Voilà.
"Did you put something in Jell-o?" Pam walked toward the fridge and raised her eyebrows with exaggerated suspiciousness.
"First of all, it was never proven that that was me. Second, no, I didn't. Just look." Pam looked. There was a glass pan of brownies on the middle shelf, covered meticulously, the plastic wrap held above brownie-level with toothpicks. There was a little label on the front that read PROPERTY OF DWIGHT K. SCHRUTE, obviously made with Dwight's new battery-powered label maker, which looked like a giant calculator and made an annoying whirring noise when it printed.
"Notice that the brownies have been decorated with heart-shaped marshmallows painstakingly selected from a box of Lucky Charms. ...Who would expend that much effort for Dwight?"
"Maybe his cousin Mose," Pam said. Keeping Angela and Dwight's...whatever it was a secret was sort of stupid, but it was surprisingly easy to just keep on doing. "He just brought them in to make us all jealous."
"Well, it worked," Jim said. "And---not that I'm complaining---but Dwight has hardly been at his desk like, all day. Actually, I think I'm going to go now, before he gets back, and label everything on his desk for him." The foil heart mobile, which had been partially nestled into Jim's hair, rustled as he closed the fridge and moved toward the door.
"Remember to do the bobble-heads," Pam said, opening the fridge again, trying to remember what she'd actually come in here for in the first place.
"Good thinking," he said, nodded and gave her that twisty half-smile with his lips pushed tight together as he turned to leave.
Pam stared into the fridge with the weird, distinct feeling that she'd just come to the point in the horror movie where someone stops dead in their tracks and says I've seen this tree before! We've been going in circles! These moments kept sneaking up on her lately, reminders that however she'd tried to change things, and however much things had actually shifted, they'd shifted right back, like cogs fitting snugly together so that the gears will turn. Sometimes she forgot completely that Karen even worked here, or that Ryan sat at Jim's desk now. Sometimes she forgot that she wasn't living with Roy anymore. Eventually, the plastic storage bin with her Dunder-Mifflin fake Valentine's roses in it would overflow and take over her apartment.
She grabbed the bottle of Cran-Raspberry that she'd come in to get (she remembered now), and she tried to figure out this phrase that was dancing somewhere out of reach on the edge of her mind. Something she'd seen printed on a magnet, a quotation with a pithy little punchline about life being the same damn thing over and over.
____________
Ryan held up a glossy red jewelery ad to the cameras. "Kelly has been leaving these for me everywhere. On my desk, under the couch cushions in my apartment, in my glove compartment." The ad shrieked DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER in flowery white script. "I wonder what she wants for Valentine's Day."
____________
Toby ambled over (there was something about Toby that made the word "amble" seem just right) to borrow Pam's stapler and pick out most of the purple conversation hearts.
"Any plans for Valentine's Day?" Pam asked. She was trying to google the quote she was half-remembering, but apparently the phrase 'same damn thing over and over' was used a lot on the internet. Which was completely unsurprising, actually. Jim was hunched over his desk, and she could hear Dwight's label maker printing busily.
"I was going to go out with Michelle---I brought her to---"
"Phyllis's wedding, yeah. She seemed nice."
"She is. But then...my ex-wife has plans, and her sitter cancelled, so I've got Sasha."
"You should ask her to come watch Sasha with you. You know, curl up on the couch, eat popcorn, watch Sleeping Beauty. That would be kinda sweet, kinda romantic..."
"See, Michelle and Sasha haven't exactly...met, yet. I don't want to...spring anything on anyone, you know?"
"Oh. There's always this weekend though, right? Wednesday night's kind of a crappy date night anyway."
"Yeah, I guess. You probably have...plans, right?"
"Roy and I are going out to dinner, maybe a movie."
"I figured. Well, have a good dinner, then."
"Thanks. You too. I mean, have a good night with Sasha. Tell her hi for me."
"I will," Toby said, and grabbed one last heart for the road.
____________
"Anyway," Kevin said through a mouthful of red, pink, and white Valentine's M&M's, "I wanted my band to play tonight at this Valentine's dinner at the VFW, but our drummer's wife wouldn't let him ditch their plans. So I think Stacy and I are going go to a comedy club. Or a karaoke bar. Or maybe just a regular bar. Or bowling. What about you, Angela? Any plans?"
"I have a meeting at church. The Ash Wednesday service isn't going to plan itself."
"What about you, Oscar?" Kevin had that edge of a giggle in his voice. There was practically a cartoon thought bubble over his head reading "heh, gay!"
"Nothing special," Oscar said.
"Really? Nothing?"
"Okay, you've got me, Kevin. We're going to dress up as the Village People and go to a disco."
Kevin laughed for a good minute and a half before he mustered the composure to ask "Really?"
Oscar rolled his eyes. "No, Kevin. Not really."
____________
"Yes, I have plans," Angela snapped at the camera, clipboard held tight to her chest. "I just don't think it's any of my co-workers' business. Or yours."
____________
Stanley wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck and scowled. "My plans for Valentine's Day? My plans for Valentine's Day are to spend my lunch hour trying to find some decent-looking flowers to give to my wife when I get home. Phyllis usually reminds me about Valentine's Day. Ahead of time."
____________
Pam had a story all ready for the cameras, because Michael had returned from lunch with a plastic bag that was probably full of fake roses and had this conversation with her:
"What are you doing for Valentine's Day?" the camera guy asked her, and she barely knew how to answer for a moment.
"Oh. Well, Roy and I are going to Anna Maria's, over in Dunmore. Which will be the first time we've eaten at a nice restaurant in...two years, I guess? So it'll be...nice."
____________
Michael ushered the camera guys into his office and shut the door. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat, wide and unhinged.
"I sent Jan three dozen roses for Valentine's Day," he said. "A dozen red for love, a dozen yellow for friendship---which is the foundation on which all love is built, and a dozen pink, which is for...I think breast cancer awareness. Because there's no better way to show someone you love them than to look out for their health. In fact, I should really call her. See if she got them." He got up to shoo the cameras back out the door, apologetically. "She always knows when you guys are in here. It's some kind of crazy woman's intuition or something. Spooky."
He put her on speaker phone anyway.
"Yes, Michael?"
"You knew it was me! See, I was just saying you have, like---"
"Caller ID?"
"Well, no. But anyway, did you get the flowers?"
"I did."
"...Well did you like them?"
"I thought we talked about this."
"About wha---"
"About the fact that since we haven't disclosed our relationship to HR yet, you can't send me the entire New York Botanical Garden at my office. I'm having a very hard time convincing everyone that these flowers are from my mother."
"I bet she loves you just as much as I do."
"Michael."
"Okay, well, how many roses did you get?"
"Three dozen."
"That's all of them, then. I promise."
"Thank you."
"So, I'll see you tonight."
"It's Wednesday."
"It's Valentine's Day, Jan---"
"Yes, I know. I'm aware. I'm swimming in roses. I have an early meeting tomorrow, I can't drive out to Scranton and..."
"Fine. I'll just sit around alone. On the one day a year when---"
"I'll see you on Friday, okay? I have to go."
"I'll call you at home tonight. I love you," Michael announced to the quiet clicks and static of the dead line.
____________
Jim skidded into the office and made a beeline for Karen's desk, braced his hand on the back of her chair so he could lean down and stage whisper a "hey" into her ear. Karen looked up briefly, to confirm that it was him and not, say, Creed, and went back to looking at her monitor as she talked.
"Where were you? Your phone rang like, three times----"
"Not important." Jim stood up straighter, spun Karen's chair so she was facing him. Her hands were still in typing position, hovering like she was using an imaginary keyboard in a bad improv sketch. "Dwight is in the stairwell playing 'Sweet Child O' Mine' on his recorder."
"...Wow." She blinked with theatrical, stunned slowness, dropped her hands into her lap.
"I know."
"Is he any good?"
"Hey, I recognized the song, didn't I? I think he's been sitting in there practicing all morning."
"Is he having a recital soon? Because we should go."
"Well, last year he was writing a poem or something for Valentine's Day, so..."
"Oh. Again, wow."
"Yeah. Exactly. Anyway, I was thinking I'd tip off the camera guys."
"They just left for lunch," Karen said, turning back around to face her desk. "And I have to make a call, but maybe after that I'll happen to wander into the stairwell."
"Good idea. Taking the stairs is better for your heart."
"Mmhmm," Karen hummed, picking up her phone, and Jim leaned down again to bump his chin gently against her head before he left for his desk.
____________
"Well, Ryan has class tonight, so we can't do anything," Kelly said. "Which, I mean, is totally ridiculous! Valentine's Day is like, a national holiday! You can't have class on a national holiday. And yesterday was our one-year anniversary, too, which was totally great. We went to the bar where we first hooked up and everything. Ryan gave me the new Shins CD, which I wanted because the song they keep playing on the radio is so romantic. And Ryan is always all 'Kelly, don't you hear that the lyrics don't make sense and are about like, Sunday ham?' And I'm like 'Shut up, the Shins are such a romantic band!' I mean, I know he's seen Garden State, because we watched it together. I think he fell asleep though. Anyway, what was the question again?"
____________
Roy shuffled in with Darryl in tow, and Pam's eyes were immediately drawn to the string of shiny red heart-shaped beads around his neck.
Darryl noticed and smiled at her, twisting the beads around his hand. "You like my necklace?"
"He had to flash his tits at the FedEx chick for it," Roy said, and chuckled, but he sobered up quickly. "Listen, uh, I don't know if I can pick you up tonight. I've gotta drop Darryl off because his car is at the shop, and then go back to my place and change, so unless you want to change our reservations or something..."
"We can't just change them," Pam snapped. "It's Valentine's Day, it's like the busiest night of the year for restaurant reservations."
"I thought that was Mother's Day," Darryl said.
Pam ignored him, made an effort to keep her voice soft and even. "I'll just meet you there, okay?"
Roy beamed like a little kid who'd just avoided getting in trouble. "Look, I won't be late or anything---I mean, I have plenty of time, it was just with the doubling back to your new---to your place, because it's kind of in the opposite direction..."
"No, I get it," Pam said. "It's fine, seriously. I'll see you there, at seven."
"Seven," Roy parroted back, and blew her a kiss on his way to the door.
"See," Darryl said, clapping him on the shoulder as they walked out into the hallway. "I told you should wouldn't be mad. Pam's cool like that."
Pam spun her chair back to face her computer, grabbed a pencil to finish a fax cover sheet, and ended up drawing the flower that Karen had on her desk instead. It was a quick sketch from far away, with the details drawn in mostly from memories of other flowers she'd drawn. She was expecting to just crumple it up and throw it out, but she ended up kind of liking it.
"Yeah, I wanted to go for the whole big gooey Valentine's Day thing, you know?" Jim shrugged. "But Karen didn't seem...exactly thrilled about that, so we're just going to get some Thai takeout, watch a movie...I think it's going to be nice. Very low-key. I don't have to wear my tie, which is awesome."
____________
It was almost five when Michael made his Valentine's Day rounds, presenting the women with packs of gum---the little five stick kind that cost 25¢ at the counter of any supermarket or drugstore.
"What, no roses?" Pam said, as Michael put a pack of Winterfresh on her desk with undue ceremony.
"Well, Pam, I didn't think it was appropriate this year, because I have a...a significant other in the picture." He turned and grinned his Cheshire cat grin directly into the camera again. "And frankly, I thought it would cheapen my gifts to her to give you all...gifts of a romantic nature, as well."
"Uh huh." Pam tried not to laugh. "Thank you for the gum, Michael."
"You're very welcome," he said, and head back toward his office, stopping on the way to slide a pack of Big Red onto Ryan's desk. "I got you a little something, too," he said, just above a whisper. Ryan kept his eyes on his monitor.
"Please take that," he said to Jim as soon as Michael was out of earshot.
____________
Michael sat down at his desk and shook his head sadly at the camera lens. "The gas station where I used to buy those roses? Doesn't have them anymore! And I asked the guy why they didn't have them anymore, and he said he didn't know, he guessed nobody bought them. I bought them! Every Valentine's Day since I've been the manager here! I can't believe---I mean, that was a big tradition in this office. I can't help feeling like I'm letting the ladies down. And I was going to put the extra roses in a vase next to my bed, you know, for the next time Jan comes to stay with me. And now I can't do that."
____________
"You know what?" Jim said, tossing the wrapper from his piece of Big Red into Dwight's pencil cup. "This is ridiculous. I'm all for people creatively avoiding their work, but Dwight has been away from his desk for hours today, and Michael hasn't said anything. I need to fix that."
"Was any of that supposed to make sense to me?" Ryan muttered, but he was already talking to Jim's empty chair.
Jim knocked on Michael's half-open office door. "Hey, uh, do you know where Dwight is? Because I need to ask him about something, and---"
"He's not at his desk?"
"No. I'm worried that he may have, I don't know, fallen down the stairs or something."
"Oh, don't even say that," Michael said, getting up from his chair. "I am not spending Valentine's Day in the hospital with Dwight. Ugh. Come on, let's go find him."
Jim gave the cameras a thumbs-up as they left.
____________
Karen popped a yellow conversation heart into her mouth and held up her gum. "Classy, right?"
"Totally," Pam said. "I'll trade you my Winterfresh for your Juicy Fruit."
"No way!" Karen grinned. "Juicy Fruit is the best. But I will trade you one stick of Juicy Fruit for one stick of Winterfresh, and then we'll go back to my house, do our bio homework while watching The Real World: London, and paint our nails."
"...I think that was the last time I had Juicy Fruit, too." They both pulled the little tabs to open their packs of gum, traded sticks wordlessly.
"Hey," Karen said, pointing at Pam's pad of post-its. "You drew my tiger lily."
"Yeah, sorry," Pam said, fighting the reflex to put her hand over the sketch. "It was just so bright and not-pink, you know? It caught my eye."
"No, I think it's good. I like it."
"Thanks. And thanks for the gum, too."
"Sure," Karen said. "I should probably..." she motioned to her desk.
"Me too. I mean, I have to get some stuff together for Michael to sign, so..."
Once Karen was back in her chair, Pam dated the corner of the post-it, unstuck it from the pad, and put it under her keyboard.
____________
Michael was doing his half-yelling thing as he herded Dwight back into the office. "I'm not paying you to sit in the stairwell playing---what was that? 'Joy to the World'?"
"It was 'Amazing Grace,'" Dwight yelped. "I'm sorry, Michael. And Jim was lying! I haven't been there all day."
"Look, it doesn't matter. I don't care. The point is....the point is, that it's Valentine's Day, and you're moping in a stairwell playing 'Greensleeves'---"
"'Amazing Grace.'"
"Whatever. On your sad, sad...flute-thing."
"Recor---"
"Come on, Dwight. No wonder you're sitting on the stairs and moping. You'll never get a girlfriend at this rate. Learn a real instrument. " Michael made a disgusted noise and stomped off to his office.
"I have a girlfriend," Dwight mumbled.
____________
"If I were planning something special for someone this Valentine's Day," Dwight said, recorder still in his hand. "I would make her a home-cooked meal. Beet soup---also called borscht---, beet salad, cake colored red wth beet juice. Beets have have been considered an aphrodisiac since the ancient Roman Empire. We would eat in the barn, looking up at the stars. Because there's a hole in the barn roof. Mose and I are going to fix it, but we don't have enough shingles yet, since we can only buy as many at a time as we can fit in my car. And I would serenade her, because everyone knows women can't resist musicians. Any musicians. No matter what Michael says."
____________
Creed made sure no one was watching before he fished the ribbon he'd liberated from one of the Valentine's Day decorations out of a desk drawer and tied it in a bow around the stapler that had been weighing down his right pocket all day. He walked over to Meredith's desk and plunked it down in front of her.
"Here, Melody. I didn't want you think I'd forgotten about that crazy night we had together, so I got you something. Happy Valentine's."
"I---but you---we never---did we?" Meredith stammered, looking at the stapler, at Creed, at the liter bottle of flavored Poland Spring (and raspberry vodka) on her desk, back at the stapler, with its bow on like a puppy someone was getting for their birthday in a children's book. "Thank you so much," she said. "That's really sweet of you." Her voice trembled a little.
"You're welcome, sweetheart," Creed said, and leaned down to press a weird, fatherly kiss to the top of her head.
"Labeling Dwight's crap took forever," Jim said, leaning his elbows onto Pam's desk and resting his chin in his hand. "It took me until now to get my actual work done."
It was about five-fifteen, and everyone had mostly headed home. Jim took the last green conversation heart out of the dish.
"Those are the best. The green ones," Pam said.
"You know it," Jim said. "Did you want this one? It's the last one."
"No, go ahead. I've been eating them all day."
"Thanks."
He flipped the heart over in his palm to read it, and had it halfway to his mouth before Pam stopped him. "Wait," she said. "What does it say?"
"'Web site'," Jim read, and held it out to show her. "Keeping up with the information age, very cool."
Pam nodded along, mock-serious. "Oh, definitely."
Jim stuffed a couple Hershey's Kisses in his pocket and tucked one end of his scarf over his shoulder. "Have a good Valentine's Day, Pam."
"Yeah, you too." She stood up and made a pointless trip to the fax machine to avoid watching him leave.
____________
Angela politely declined Pam's offer to stay late and help her take down the Valentine's Day decorations, waited until she was sure Pam had actually left, and went to knock on the door of the men's room.
"All clear?" Dwight said, pulling the door open a little and looking at her with one eye.
"All clear," she said.
Dwight stepped forward slowly, looking around carefully before he decided it was safe to reach out and cradle Angela's forearms in his hands. "Thank you for the brownies. I know you don't usually approve of cereal with marshmallows."
"You like marshmallows," Angela said, "Thank you for learning a hymn for me on your recorder."
"It was supposed to be a surprise."
"I was surprised." And she was surprised again when Dwight leaned down to kiss her. He never kissed her in the office, in case there were security cameras installed that he hadn't found last time he did a sweep of the ceiling.
"I'll meet you at the farm," he whispered. "Go, and I'll be ten minutes behind you."
"Okay," she whispered back, and stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "Happy Valentine's Day, Dwight."
Angela left a note on the door asking the janitorial staff to please take down the decorations. Dwight watched her get into her car and pull out of the parking lot, then went to his desk to peel the individual labels off of his writing implements and wait.
____________
notes
1) You can hear Michael's new ringtone here. It's beyond hideous. Picking the right polyphonic-lovesong-ringtone for him was actually the first thing I did when I started this fic.
2) I hate to title things in (sloppy) haste, but it was a necessity in this case! :))
3) The quotation Pam is looking for is this one by Edna St. Vincent Millay: It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over. I also wanted, briefly, to title this with an excerpt from something else of hers (The Terrible Trials of Incessant Proximity) but that wasn't the right title for this, obviously. It's still a good title for some Office fic, somewhere.
4) The Shins single Kelly loves is "Phantom Limb."
5) Without Wikipedia, this fic would not have been possible.
6) They really do make conversation hearts that read "Web Site." See also: "Book Club." Bizarre.