When Andy Met Kelly…  

It was his first day at Scranton.  He was pret-ty psyched about working in a new surrounding.  It was a new beginning for him, a new challenge.  And there wasn’t a challenge in the world that Andy couldn’t grab by the throat and totally kick the crap out of, because he was Andy Bernard, and that was something that nobody else was.  Ha, score!  Andy: one, World: a big fat zero.  See?  He was already ahead.  He’d be the new number two within six weeks, no problem.

When Andy entered the building, he ran into something (or really someone) on his way to the elevator.  “Ho!” he said as he tried to keep himself from falling so that he wouldn’t crush whatever (or whoever) he had run into.  He looked down and saw a head of silky black hair, and a pleasant mixture of strawberries and vanilla invaded his nose as he became aware of the warm body that was pressed against his own, her hands clutching his coat as she tried to regain her balance.  A slow smile crept across his face and he said, “Well hello, my good lady.”  The women loved it when he talked like that, worked like a charm every time… well, maybe more like a quarter of the time.  But this chick must have dug it because she looked up at him with a smile. And Andy forgot how to breathe for a minute when he caught sight of those chocolate eyes of hers.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!  I’m like, the biggest klutz ever today.  This morning I spilled tea all over my favorite pink blouse and I was totally so mad at myself because pink is the greatest color ever and it’s so heartbreaking to have this big brown blob in the middle of so much pink awesomeness, you know what I mean?”

Andy stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, a smile still plastered on his face, then he let out a breath and chuckled as he said, “Oh, totally… pink so doesn’t deserve to be besmirched by the torrid unhappiness that is a tea stain.”

The woman’s eyes lit up and a smile seemed to fill her entire face as she said, “Oh my god, you totally understand!”

“Completely,” Andy said.  His eyes probably lingered on her succulent lips a tad too long, but luckily she didn’t notice.  She let go of his coat and stepped away from him, and Andy instantly missed the feel of her against him.  God, he really needed to get laid, like, soon.  Andy cleared his throat and shook away his thoughts as he held out his hand to her.  “The name’s Andy Bernard, I’m the new Director in Charge of Sales for Dunder-Mifflin.”

“Oh yeah, you’re from Stamford, right?” she asked, shaking his hand.  “I’m Kelly Kapoor, customer service,” she continued with a smile that never seemed to leave her face.

She was perky… Andy liked that.  She would probably be good in the sack.  “Well, Miss Kapoor,” Andy said as she let go of his hand, “It was a fine day for running into such a fine lady.”

Kelly laughed, then she asked, “Do you always talk like that?”

“What?”  So not what he was expecting.

“Do you always talk like you’re stuck in the 1800s or something?”

“Not… not all the time, no.  Why, do you not like it?”

Her smile faltered the tiniest bit, then she said, “Oh no, it’s totally cool.”

“Right, well… I better be getting up to the office, don’t want to be late on my first day.”

“Oh yeah, definitely.  I still have to get my boyfriend’s extra tie from my car because, hello, klutzilla here totally dripped butter on the tie that he was wearing when I handed him his bagel.”

Andy felt his stomach lurch when she mentioned a boyfriend.  He must have eaten some bad bacon for breakfast.  “So… I’ll see you around?”

“Totally.”

“Now don’t forget our plans for tonight, Ryan,” Kelly said as she was packing her stuff up to leave.

Ryan paused in the process of putting on his jacket, then he said, “Plans?  What plans?”

Grr!!!  Ryan was always doing that!  She had been reminding him all day that they were supposed to go see Hairspray that night.  This just proved that he never listened to her.  “Oh my god, how could you forget?  I’ve been telling you for weeks that I want to see Hairspray and you promised me that we would.  I told you to pick a day, and you picked today.  I can’t believe you forgot!”

He sighed and did that stupid eye rolling thing that she used to think was totally cute but now she totally despised it.  “I’m sorry if Hairspray isn’t at the top of my list of priorities.”

“Well it should be!”  It so should be.  God, Amanda Bynes and Troy Bolton from High School Musical in the same movie?  How could that not be the most important thing in anybody’s life?

“Look, we’ll do it some other time, okay, Kel?  I’ve had a long day and I just want to go home, get in my sweats, grab a bag of cheetos, and watch the ballgame.”

Now it was Kelly’s turn to sigh and roll her eyes.  “That’s all you ever want to do.”

“And all you ever want to do is watch crappy movies.”

Kelly gasped and said, “Excuse me?  Hairspray is not crap!  It’s got John Travolta in drag!”

Ryan smiled smugly and said, “My point exactly.”

“Urgh!”  Kelly grabbed her purse and turned her back on Ryan.  He was being impossible!

“So does this mean you’re not sleeping over tonight?” he asked, and she tried to ignore the happiness in his tone.

She stayed silent.

“Great!  I’ll take a cab home, see you tomorrow.”  She heard his footsteps quickly walking away.  Jerk.  He wasn’t really supposed to leave.

Kelly let out a defeated sigh and turned around.  There was this little niggling hope that he would still be there, but he wasn’t.

“’Cause one day we’ll find it,” Kelly faintly heard a high voice sing, “the ainbowray onnectioncay…”  She followed the sound and found that Andy guy from Stamford serenading Pam.  “…the lovers, the dreamers, and me...”

A smile snuck onto Kelly’s lips, and she felt this weird pang of jealousy.  It was such a romantic gesture.  True, the song was totally dorky, and Andy looked like a total dweeb with that banjo, but she almost wished it was her being sung to instead of Pam.  And Pam was totally ignoring him.  She just kept looking over at Jim and smiling.

When Andy finished his song, he got this proud smile on his face and said, “Soooo… did you like it?”

Kelly could tell that Pam was trying not to giggle as she said, “Oh, yeah, that was… beautiful.”

Andy’s smile got bigger and he nodded like he was congratulating himself.  Then he sort of bit his lip and raised an eyebrow as he said, “So how about that date that I so skillfully propositioned to you earlier?”

This time Pam couldn’t hold in her laughter.  Then Jim cracked up.  Andy looked between the two of them, totally confused.  Kelly kind of felt bad for him, he was so clueless.  There was no way he had a chance with Pam, she was totally pining away for Jim.

When Pam’s laughter died down, she said, “I’m sorry, Andy, but it’ll never work.  I’m just not ready for a relationship right now.”

Andy’s smile faltered, then he quickly recovered and said, “Oh… well that’s cool.  I’m totally fine with just a physical thing.”  He leaned in closer and said, “You know, a friends with benefits type deal.”

Pam stifled another laugh and just got up and headed out the door, Jim followed behind her, struggling just as hard as Pam not to laugh.

Andy stared at the door and said, “Ooookay then!  I’ll take that as a maybe!”  His smile slowly disappeared and he looked down at his banjo, then rested his forehead on it and closed his eyes.  For all of this Andy guy’s seemingly unending enthusiasm, there was this air of tragedy about him.  She hadn’t noticed until that moment.

She quietly walked over to the couch and sat down.  When he didn’t look up, she said, “That was awesome.”

Andy’s eyes popped open and his head shot up.  “Oh!  Hey, I didn’t realize anyone else was still here.”  He laughed nervously.

“Your singing?  Totally awesome,” she told him again.

A small smile danced across his face and he bowed his head as he said, “Thank you muchly.”

“I so wish Ryan would do something romantic like that for me, but he won’t even sing when we go to karaoke bars.”

Andy’s eyes got wide and his mouth dropped open.  “Are you serious?  How could anyone not sing at a karaoke bar?  You’d have to be made of… steel… or something.”

“I know, exactly, right?”  Kelly couldn’t help but smile at him, and he smiled right back.  She suddenly noticed how much his eyes lit up whenever he smiled.  It was like staring into the light blue sky on breezy summer day.  Warm and comfortable.  “Do you like Hairspray?”

“Uh, yeah!  I’ve seen it three times already.  John Travolta as a woman?  Totally blows my mind.  Plus it’s got the uber talented Troy Bolton, so that makes it a must see right there.”

Kelly laughed.  Okay, Andy Bernard was a total genius.  Totally clueless, but still a genius.

Kelly waved goodbye to him and stood up, and as she was walking to the door she heard him say, “Hey, Kelly?”

She turned around and smiled as she said, “Yeah?”

Andy looked down for a minute, then he cleared his throat and connected eyes with Kelly again.  “You know,” he said, “A lady so fine… such as yourself, totally deserves to be serenaded… like, every day.”

Yep, total genius.

Things had been going pretty good with Michael Scott.  Michael had even brought back a t-shirt from Jamaica specifically for Andy.  He was pretty sure that the picture on the shirt was not Milli Vanilli, but if Michael said it was, then that’s who it was.  And he’d wear that shirt proudly.  He wasn’t really a t-shirt man, but he’d sacrifice.  He’d do anything to gain Michael’s trust and become the new number two... or three.  That Schrute idiot was proving hard to get around, but Andy would deal with him when the time was right.

Normally, doing inventory for the evening would’ve made for a boring night, but the genius that is Michael Scott decided that if they all were going stay late, he’d throw them a totally sweet luau.  And “luau” meant “party” in Hawaii, so… if there was one thing that Andrew Bernard never missed, it was a parrrrrtaaay!  He tried to liven things up a bit by playing Michael’s drum from Jamaica, but Big Tuna had swiped the drum sticks from him right when he was about to play “Hot! Hot! Hot!” for a fifth encore.  So uncool, Tuna.

Michael was being a total downer too, but that, Andy could understand.  He glanced over at the blown up picture of Michael and a half naked Jan that was hanging on the warehouse wall and he chuckled.  Jan was totally babelicious, but he was like, 91 percent sure that she was high maintenance.  Total spitfire.  Wouldn’t want to be in Michael’s shoes.  No sir.  Only LMs for Mr. Bernard, thank you.

“Here,” Dwight said, stepping in front of Andy and handing him a clipboard with a checklist on it.  “Go count the scissors on that shelf.  And try not to screw it up, Bernard.”

“Pfsh, like I could.  It’s not like I’m you or anything,” Andy replied.

Dwight’s nostrils flared and he stood taller as he said, “I could count those scissors backwards.  You wish you were me.”

“What?  I so do not wish I was you.  You wish you were as awesome as me.”

“You wish you were as smart as me!”

“Well you wish—“

“Hey, guys,” said Big Tuna, walking over to them.  “You know what I wish?  I wish you two would stop wishing and do the inventory so that we can all go home.”

“Pfft, whatever, Tuna.  I’m going to go count how many scissors we have in stock.”

“Good, you do that.”

Andy glared at Dwight one last time, then he went to masterfully perform the duty that had been thrust upon his hands.  He was counting the hell out of those scissors when he heard a voice behind him sing, “Pens and staplers, pens and staplers, I’m counting pens and staplers…”  He glanced over his shoulder and saw Kelly by a fake palm tree smiling and dancing as she counted… pens and staplers.

Andy grinned, then he looked back at the scissors and started to sing in a low voice, “Scissors, scissors, scissors… scissors, scissors, scissors…”  He looked back at Kelly saw that she was smiling at him.  She continued her song, and Andy went into his usual baritone to sing, “28 pairs of scissors only need 32 mo-o-o-ore.”

Kelly threw down the stapler she was holding and she clapped her hands.  “Yay!  We are so awesome.”

“Indeed we are,” Andy said.

“Singing just makes everything more fun, doesn’t it?”

“My thoughts exactly.”  The sounds around Andy became muffled as he stared at her bright smile.  There was just something about it that made him feel all warm and… comfortable.  He was pretty sure he could stare at her smile all night and never get bored… ever.

“Earth to Andy!”

Andy jumped at the voice and looked around.  He saw Michael with his hands cupped around his mouth as a makeshift megaphone.

“Earth to Andy!  Kkkksh, Houston, Andy has a problem.”

“Michael, hey, sorry, I didn’t hear you.  I guess I was just too focused on my task.  I am really good at counting these scissors.”

“Good!  When you’re done with that go help Jim and Dwight stack the receipt roll boxes.”

“Sure thing, boss!”

Michael nodded, then turned and went to search for Darryl.

Andy’s eyes shifted back to Kelly and he gave her a bow as he said, “Well, milady, it was a pleasure harmonizing with you.  We make one great duo.”

“Indeed,” she replied, giving him a curtsy.

Andy laughed, and as he drank in her smile for one last moment, Tuna’s voice echoed in his head.  She’s high maintenance.  Mr. Bernard was definitely an LM kind of a guy, but he had a feeling that if he had the chance, he would make an exception for one certain HM.  It would be a challenge, right?  And Andy never ran away from a challenge.  Especially one that smiled at him like that.

“Oh my god, Ryan!” she shouted.  She ran over to Big Turkey and grabbed his arm.  “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, check this out.  I totally made up this awesome song…”

Andy smiled awkwardly and turned back to his shelf of scissors.  Eh, HMs were too much work anyway.  Andy sighed and started counting scissors again while he hummed softly to himself.