Angela sighed loudly and reached for the Wite-Out to correct the fifth mistake she had found in Kevin’s work so far. How a professional Accountant who could not add the simplest figures was still employed at Dunder-Mifflin was beyond her comprehension.

Why was it so much to ask for competence from people? Why couldn’t other people put the same dedication and effort into their work that she did? Why couldn’t other people feel the same way about things that she did?….

She tried to push the last question out of her mind as she looked over at Dwight. It wasn’t appropriate to concentrate on something not work related while she was being paid to be the Head Accountant….but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop worrying about it.

What if she had done it again?

What if she had completely trusted and loved someone who was only going to break her heart?

It was the one thing, above all others, that she had sworn to herself that she’d never let happen again. She wasn’t going to be the victim. Someone left to cry and wonder how they were going to put their life back together while the other person just moved on like nothing had happened.

She tried to re-focus on her work, on the mistakes and the numbers in front of her, on the things that made sense and she could fix, but it didn’t work. It had been over ten years ago, and she still hadn’t completely shaken him or the hurt that he had left her with.

It had started after she had graduated college. For those four years she had lived by herself in a small apartment adjacent to campus, trying to broaden her horizons, and prove to herself that she could be independent and a success on her own. She put up prints of Velazquez, El Greco, and Manet. In her junior year she traveled to Madrid to the Museo del Prado, and then to the Church of Santó Tome in Toledo to see The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. She read Philip Roth, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, and tried to read Thomas Pynchon, but decided it was a lost cause.

She joined organizations, clubs, and helped to plan different events. After her trip to Spain, she found herself gravitating more and more towards Christian based ones, but didn’t stay exclusive to them. The one thing she really enjoyed was organizing events, because everyone said that she was the best person to do it. It was something she took pride in, and the camaraderie was welcome.

After graduating summa cum laude, and with Honors, she thought about maybe moving to New York City and working as an Accountant with some big firm. She could live like she had the past four years, and maybe save enough money to travel to Paris and see The Louvre. There were so many options, and her future looked bright. But then her mom had gotten worse.

Her mom had been sick for a long time. Really, ever since her dad had left the both of them. It probably wasn’t a coincidence. But this time was different, this time it was worse than it ever had been before. She didn’t have a choice, she moved back home to take care of her.

She worked nights while her mom slept, so that she could take care of her during the day. It was exhausting and she was tired constantly. The only time that she got out of the house was when they both went to Church every Sunday morning and various other times. It was there that she met him, Alex.

She was a little ashamed of it, considering the fact that she was 22, but she had never had a boyfriend before. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice men, or anything like that, it was that she was simply living her own life and didn’t have the time or the inclination. Her friends would ask her out on Friday nights to go to bars, or parties, or wherever it was there was alcohol and guys, but she always declined. She’d rather just curl up with a quilt and Dostoevsky. She wanted to be in love, not just underneath someone for the night. And anyway, she had more than enough to keep her occupied.

But, now she was so alone, and her life had grinded to a standstill. Even so, she hadn’t been looking for it, and certainly not in Church. But one day, he had sat down next to her, and they had to share a Bible. She tried not to notice how cute he was, and admonished herself for thinking such thoughts in the first place, but even more so considering the circumstances.

Time had blurred the finest details, but she still remembered him well. He was tall, with chestnut hair that got curly when it was humid out. He had a well-kept beard, piercing blue eyes, and a solid frame that filled out shirts in a broad way that made her palms sweat. The most striking thing about him was his smile. It wasn’t just that his teeth were so straight and white, but the fact that when he smiled he used his entire face. His cheeks rose up and made wrinkles around his eyes. Eyes, which held a wonderful warmth in them.

She had taken it upon herself to help the Church to organize various events throughout the year. It helped her feel like she was doing something important, and connected her back to college a little. She noticed for the first time that Alex helped as well, and as they were usually the two youngest people there, they typically fell into conversation with one another.

It was six months of event planning, sitting in the same pew on Sunday, and brief conversation after the service before he had asked her out. She wasn’t sure at first what to say. Her mom was still sick and needed her to be around, to have her attention. But, also, and maybe more truthfully, she was scared. She didn’t know how to be a “date” or a “girlfriend” to anyone. Despite all that she had read and experienced, she had avoided the one thing that it seemed like everyone had learned. How to connect with someone else, and how to love someone else.

Their first date had been a lot of nerves, broken eye contact, and trying to get to know each other outside the confines of Church. They had gotten coffee, and just talked for almost two hours. It was so nice, just to be able to talk unfettered to someone her own age again, and someone who listened to her and found her interesting.

Soon afterwards they were officially a couple, even though she imagined their dates were extremely G rated when she compared them to stories she had heard in college and from scraps of conversation she overheard in the break room at work. But, she wanted it to be like that.

She told herself that the reason she didn’t want to go beyond kissing, and….touching, was that she wanted him to respect her. No man would respect any woman who just jumped into bed with them, and more than that, premarital sex wasn’t something that she wished to participate in. If he loved her, and truly wanted to be with her, than he would be patient and understand.

However, she knew that wasn’t the whole truth. The fact was that she was nervous about sex. She was 22 and had absolutely no experience with it, the whole thing was so embarrassing. Most women were probably experts by now, and knew how to do all of that.

He didn’t pressure her. They made out some, and occasionally it went a little beyond that, but it went no further. They kept getting to know each other, kept talking, and spending more and more time together.

He was her only friend, and the only person she got to see past her mother. Pretty soon, whenever they weren’t together she thought about him. When he was around it seemed like all the bad things, like the fact that she was going nowhere in life, and that her dreams had been at least delayed, if not destroyed, just didn’t matter. She just felt happy, warm inside, and couldn’t stop smiling most of the time.

It was a little before their first anniversary when she knew that she loved him, and that he was it. The man she had been waiting for, the man who she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Unlike most men, he hadn’t broken up with her over the fact that she wasn’t ready for sex, even though she was now 23.

It was then that she decided it was time. She knew that The Bible said premarital sex was a sin, and she was a good Christian. But, she loved him, and he loved her, and wasn’t that was what was really important? She knew that they were going to get married, that they were going to become man and wife, and spend their lives together. So, could God really find her in sin if she started a little early?

On their first anniversary she and Alex had sex for their first time, and her first time. Even though she was incredible nervous, she was still shocked by the intimacy of it. It wasn’t that it had felt all that great, in fact it hadn’t, but the fact they were so connected for those moments still caught her breath short. They had finally become one flesh.

For several months afterwards, she and Alex continued to be intimate, and she finally let herself go. As terrifying as it was, she trusted him completely, and gave herself to him completely. How could she not? He had been so patient and kind. He had waited for her.

To be connected with someone like she was, felt extraordinary, and she wanted to feel like that forever. All that remained was to wait patiently for the proposal, for them to make their connection right in the eyes of God.

She still remembered that it had been an unusually cool day when it happened because she had hung up her buttercup colored winter jacket on the rack when she entered his apartment. She had come over to tell him she had gotten an interview to be an Accountant at a local firm, and that her mom was starting to feel better. Her happiness almost physically propelled her down the hallway. It was a heady dizziness of the realization that her life was finally getting to be where she always dreamed it could be.

It was then that her life had changed irrevocably.

His car was in the parking lot, so she knew that he was at home, and his apartment wasn’t that big, so he had to be in the bedroom. But he wasn’t the only one. When she opened the door she saw a hot blur of skin and tangled sheets. It had taken several seconds for either one of them to notice her in the doorway, where she had stood motionless, taking the entire scene in.

However, after a couple seconds she had overcome her shock, and stumbled backwards, her back hitting the opposite wall, and her hand covering her mouth. Alex had tried to scramble over to her, offering some type of explanation, but she could only see his lips move, there was no noise.

She had walked dizzily out into the living room, desperately trying to just get away from the bedroom. The shock slowly draining from her, and in its place rushed in rage. She had trusted him, loved him, given herself to him both physically and spiritually, and this was what he did? He betrayed her with another woman? She loved him completely, had trusted him completely….

Her jacket was half on when she noticed the picture of the two of them on his coffee table. It had been taken when they went to the park several months ago, and she was kissing his cheek and smiling. It was actually her favorite picture of them, and she had made the frame and given it to him for Christmas.

Without thinking about it, she walked over to it, picked it up, and threw it as hard as she could across the room. The glass shattered on the far wall in the kitchen, and she walked out of the apartment.

She had to pull over twice on her way back home because she was crying so hard. Suddenly, she didn’t know what to do with her life again. What had been the point of her life so far? All of this art that she loved, all of these authors that she read, what did it get her? There was no wisdom there, and no purpose. She was unloved, unwanted, and uncared for. The first thing that she did when she finally got home was take everything that reminded her of her past, of college, and happier times, and put it in a box and take it to the attic.

She resolutely decided that she was going to be a different person. She wasn’t going to be trusting of other people, and she wasn’t going to love so easily. She didn’t need to. Because, when you did that, what did you do but give people the power to hurt you deeply? It wasn’t worth it, and she shut down inside.

Luckily, he stopped coming to Church after that, and it became her sanctuary. It seemed simple to her in retrospect. She had strayed from the words of God, and so she was punished accordingly. Why had she ever rationalized her way into a sexual relationship with him? Here, in one book, were guidelines that would provide her with a life fulfilled and pure. Her reward was obviously not in this life, and was therefore in the next one. She just had to be patient and have faith in herself and in a higher power. She could….

“Angela? Um, are you okay?”

Angela blinked her eyes, which had become watery in remembrance and looked up at the source of the voice. It was Pam with a stack of papers for her. She glanced over quickly at Kevin, who was busy reading some pornographic magazine, and then to Oscar’s empty desk because he was out sick, before she looked up at her.

“No.” She didn’t trust Pam. She was flirtatious and the way that she had bounced from Roy to Jim, reminded her of the kind of woman that was probably in bed with Alex that day. But, she also was the only person in the office that knew about Dwight, and she had gotten Roy to propose to her once. So she must know how to get a man to do it. Maybe there was a trick, something that you had to do to get them to feel the same way about you as you do about them.

“Do you think we could talk in the restroom?” She spoke quietly. She would be mortified if Kevin overheard anything personal that she had to say.

“Oh. Um, okay sure Angela.” Pam smiled at her, and then turned and walked towards the restroom. She waited for her to get a few paces away from her before she stood up and followed.

If anyone could help her, it would be Pam.

 

As she entered the bathroom, she saw that Pam had already taken a seat on the sofa, and was waiting for her.

“Is anyone else here?” She said loudly as a warning to anyone snooping in the stalls.

“No, I already checked. Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

As Angela looked at the sympathy in Pam’s eyes, she hated herself. She hated that she was this desperate, and this weak again. After Alex, she swore that she’d never put herself in this type of situation ever again. And, yet, here she was….

“I’ve already told you Pam, I am not okay.”

“Right. Um….so what do you want to talk about?” Pam’s eyes shifted downwards, breaking their eye contact, and she put her hands in her lap.

“I wish to talk to you about men. You seem to know a great deal.” She hoped that her voice wasn’t betraying her. That it didn’t quiver with the emotion that felt like it was strangling her at this moment. She had to sit down.

“Oh, well, I don’t know about that Angela. I mean, I’ve….well, yeah….I don’t know about that.” Pam’s eyes were suddenly wide.

She looked back over her shoulder at the door. Why didn’t it have a lock? Anyone would be able to walk in. Kelly could walk in. She had to get to the point, and fast.

“Modesty, while a virtue Pam, does not impress me. If you are going to help me, then I require your honesty. Do you understand?” For a second she thought that perhaps her tone, and word choice was too much for Pam. Despite her recent whore-mation, most likely the result of her sexual liaisons with Jim, she seemed sensitive to the topic.

“Yeah….look, Angela. I’ve got some faxes to do, because I’m leaving early today.”

“Why are you leaving early?” Dwight hadn’t alerted her to the fact. He always sent her a daily e-mail outlining any and all changes within the office. Actually….he hadn’t even sent her an e-mail today….What did that mean? Was he trying to “let her down gently?” Isn’t that what men did to women they had sex with before they dumped them like spinsters?

“Um, well Jim and I are going out….we’re going to pick pumpkins, and go on a hayride. It’s like a package thing. I don’t know….he picked it out.” She smiled as she said the words, her expression wistful.

With every God-given fiber in her being, Angela wanted to point out that leaving work early to go gallivanting with pumpkins and boyfriends was highly inappropriate…but she restrained herself. There were more important things to focus on now.

“Oh.” Her eyes leveled with Pam’s, and in that moment she decided she really had to trust her. She didn’t want to, didn’t know if she could, but more than anything she knew that if she didn’t….she could lose Dwight.

And she couldn’t handle that.

Her words came out in a rush, a single exhale of breath. “How do you do that?”

Pam looked confused. “Do what?”

“Get men…to escort you about town.”

“Uh, you and Dwight don’t go out at all?”

She shook her head. This wasn’t going well. Everything was tangled up inside of her. Words were out of order, and it was all jumbled up with her worries and fear.

She took a breath.

“No. That’s not what I meant.” She decided to just ask it, no matter how humiliating it was. “How long were you and Roy a couple before he proposed engagement?” Her eyes flitted away from Pam’s shamefully.

“Oh.” Pam paused for a second, as though in consideration if she should answer the question. “Well, I think it was, like, six years? Yeah, around that long.”

“Oh God.” It was unconscious; she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Pam seemed to understand almost instantly. “No, Angela, but…Roy and I…it was totally different, I mean. We met in high school, you know? So…..”

It didn’t soften the blow. Six years?! Was that how long men waited to ask women they loved? In six years, she’d be….41. How was she supposed to have multiple children at that age? How was she supposed to raise and grow a family?

“Look Angela. Are you worried about Dwight? I mean, how long have you been together?”

“Two years.”

Pam leaned back a little in reaction. “Okay, well…”

“And I don’t think he’s ever going to ask me.” There it was, she admitted it out loud, and to someone else. She had sunk as low as she could. She was depending on Pam.

“Whoa, Angela. I think, I mean….I know that Dwight cares about you. And—

Pam’s word choice confused her. She knew? Had Dwight said something to her? Did they talk about her when she wasn’t around? He wouldn’t do that would he? She had to know.

“How do you know?”

“Um, well. I mean, I know how worried he was about Valentine’s Day last year.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at Pam. How did she know about that.

Pam looked at her and continued. “….because he wanted to get you a gift that you would love…..because he asked my advice.”

“You told him to give me a key to Schrute Farm?!” It was too much. The best gift that any man had ever given her, and it was a lie. It was from Pam Beesly. She was going to have a panic-attack.

“No, no Angela! I just told him…um, that it should symbolize how he felt about the person…The, uh, key was his idea. I mean, I didn’t even know that’s what he gave you. But…that’s really sweet.” Pam half-smiled at her.

She relaxed a little. Maybe she had overreacted.

“But, Angela, have you two discussed marriage at all? Because, maybe he’s not sure whether or not you’re ready?”

“I’ve attempted to bring up the topic on several occasions. However, he always….” She caught herself, because she didn’t want to discuss that with Pam.

“He always what?”

“Uh, we just get distracted….and I forget.” Despite her embarrassment, her own words scared her. What if that fact that she had engaged in sex with Dwight was the reason that he hadn’t proposed? Maybe that’s all men cared about, and once they got it….

“Yeah….but I think that you should really try to talk to him about it.”

Angela shook her head. She shouldn’t have to bring the subject of marriage up. She was the woman. “No Pam. That would be….humiliating.”

Pam looked at her, her gaze so penetrating, that she actually had to fight herself to keep it. “Angela. Listen to me, what is better, embarrassing yourself a little and getting what you want? Or…..saying nothing and….watching someone you love possibly drift further away?”

She swallowed hard.

“If you love someone, and care for them…then you have to say something, Angela.”

Her plans for tonight instantly came to mind. “Well, I am going to dinner at the farm, tonight. Perhaps I will broach the subject then.”

“Alright, well, good. Okay?…”

Angela understood. She had wasted too much of her and Pam’s time on this. “Yes. Well. Thank you, Pam. I appreciate your time.”

“Of course, Angela.” She watched Pam get up slowly from the sofa, and walk past her and out of the bathroom.

She was alone.

She clenched her hands together and tried to calm herself down by regulating her breathing. Dwight had showed her how.

Dwight.

Pam was right. She loved Dwight, loved him more than she had ever loved anyone else. Even Alex….especially Alex, and she wasn’t going to let things go sour again.

Not this time.

She would calmly and rationally explain her feelings to Dwight over dinner tonight. It was that simple.

What could go wrong?

 

As Angela drove through the darkness, towards the lit farmhouse in the distance, her knuckles tightened at ten and two on the steering wheel.

Normally she would listen to the radio, WRGN 88.9, and its religiously themed programs, but tonight those ideas and thoughts only cruelly reminded her of the mistakes she had made in the past.

Alex

And now…..Dwight?

He was acting so strangely towards her lately, so unlike the man that she knew and had fallen in love with. Because that man was straightforward with his feelings, he was strong, and made sure she knew he wanted her. There was never uncertainty or lingering questions that twisted her stomach into sickening knots at night. Any questions she asked, he answered dutifully and honestly.

But now it felt like they were broken somehow, and she had no idea how or why it had happened. Whenever she brought up the subject of their future together, of them joining together in matrimony, he never answered her directly. He seemed to be pulling away from her slowly but perceptibly, masking his once honest emotions with averted glances, mumbled excuses, and physical seduction.

Today he hadn’t sent her the daily e-mail on the office infractions, malfeasances, and changes that he always did. It wasn’t the list of things she cared about, though they were disgusting, base, and usually involved Jim, but rather the little message that he always finished the e-mail with. Sometimes it was a poem; sometimes it was just a couple sentences on how much he loved her.

Didn’t he know how much she looked forward to that e-mail?

Didn’t he know how much those words meant to her?

Everyday she would print out the e-mail, delete it immediately from her computer, and then take it into the bathroom on her next break to read privately. Away from those horrible cameras, and her equally lecherous co-workers, she would smile widely at his thoughtfulness, and wonder at how she had found such a wonderful man in such an unlikely place…or really at all.

But him not sending her an e-mail today underscored that something was wrong between them. It made her desperate and hopeless at the same time, and so weak that she had had to talk to Pam about it.

Though Angela had to admit, despite the fact that she was picking pumpkins with her second boyfriend of the year, Pam’s advice resonated within her.

She had to talk to him. They had to be honest with one another, because she had questions, and she needed answers.

How did he feel about her?

Why didn’t he love her enough to want to talk about marriage?

Because if this was some game for him, just a set of lies to get sex, like it had been with Alex….if she had trusted again, physically and spiritually, only to be betrayed, than that was it.

She would never trust a man ever again.

Her knuckles tightened on the wheel, blanching them an even fairer shade of ivory, and shooting a pain throughout her hand that desperately tried to distract her mind from the whir of uncertainty and fear that spun through it.

If this was a game to him, if she had been fooled again, then it would be okay. She knew life alone wasn’t so bad anyway. She had lived most of her adult life alone, physically, and especially emotionally, so going back wouldn’t be terribly difficult. There was safety in being by yourself, it meant not having to constantly worry about what someone else was thinking, and how they were thinking about you. It would be completely okay.

Angela stopped the car in front of the farmhouse, but instead of going inside, she bowed her head so that it rested on the coolness of the middle of the steering wheel. Her desperate and half-hearted rationalizations did nothing to quell the worry in her, and the pain she felt. The collision of emotions pushed her mind back to the night before.

She had been lying alone in bed because he had called shortly before dinner and informed her that he wouldn’t be coming over, not for dinner or for dessert. The disappointment in her heart at his phone call made the words he had spoken to her hazy, but she remembered something about farm business with Mose that needed immediate attention.

Why that would take so long, or preclude him from at least spending the night in her bed, holding her and protecting her from the encroaching cold of the season, she didn’t know. His words had been curt and few, and her questions had remained inside of her and unanswered.

So she had gone to the place where she had always found them. Her well-worn copy of the Bible. But even there, on pages where the answers were supposed to be clear and simple, the words she read twisted and conjured themselves into manifestations of her fears and worry.

It had been completely innocent on her part. She had thought to re-read the Gospel of Matthew, at least in part, because of The Sermon on the Mount, which contained several of her favorite passages. However, it hadn’t been enough to soothe her, and so she had continued to read. It was then that she was struck more strongly than Paul on the road to Damascus.

“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven….”

She had read the words before, many times in fact, but this time, alone and yearning so desperately not to be, they struck her completely differently. All she could think of was Dwight, and how in the past two years he had been her rock. How whether she had initially wanted to or not, she had built herself upon him. He was her foundation, her constant source of strength in days when she needed him to be. Days when Michael simply became too much, or when she tried so hard to re-capture the happiness of her college years with the Party Planning Committee, only to be meet with incompetence and indifference.

It was why she had given him the keys to her kingdom, to her heart, and to her body. It was why she loved him completely, unwaveringly, and unquestioningly. It was why she wondered why suddenly business with Mose took precedent over being with her. It was why she was sitting in a parked car, in front of the farmhouse, wondering if confronting him on his behavior was the best thing to do.

As she exhaled sharply, Angela looked up at the house and she saw his silhouetted frame against the light that poured through the opened front door. There was no more time to think, only to act, and suddenly doubt in her actions disappeared under the heavy, dark waves of necessity to know. To know not only what he thought, but to know that he wasn’t Alex, and that the worst moment of her life wasn’t about to replay itself.

 

 

“I believe these are all your favorites, Monkey.”

Angela looked at the dinner table, and the spread that lay upon it. Two elegant place settings sat on opposite ends, and in the middle were two candles that cast a warm glow.

Duskily illuminated was a bowl of noodles with cauliflower, a plate with two baked potatoes on it, one small one for her, and a much larger one for him, a basket of fresh rolls, and a pitcher of milk.

The tension in her shoulders relaxed slightly at his obvious thoughtfulness, and attention to detail. This was his favorite meal, even though she had never told him so. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about; maybe she had simply been imagining the changes and differences in his behavior.

She blinked herself out of such thoughts, and dutifully complimented him on his work.

“Yes, thank you D. The place settings are very nice.”

He nodded sternly in the candlelight. “Yes, the china was my Grandpa’s. He acquired it during the war.”

She smiled weakly at his grandfather’s handiwork, but no words came from her mouth. It was difficult to know what to say, or how to begin to say what she was feeling to him.

“Would you like to sit?” He asked, as he gestured with his hand towards the table.

“Yes, please.” She walked the few paces over to her chair, and waited for him. As always, he pulled out the chair for her, and then gently pushed her in once she had sat down.

After waiting for him to sit down himself, and portion out the food, they began eating in a companionable silence. She liked to think that it was because of their familiarity with one another, and how comfortable they each were in the others’ presence that the need for conversation didn’t always exist. But she knew that while that might be true some nights, whether it was at the dinner table, or later, it wasn’t the case this time.

“Jim left over an hour early today. Pam too.” She looked up from her noodles to see his face contorted in a frown, his shoulders hunched. It was one of the many things that she loved about him, how dedicated he was to his work, and how seriously he took the rules of the office.

“Oh?” She replied, not wanting to betray the fact that she already knew about it from her conversation with Pam in the bathroom earlier.

“He said that he was going to Montage Mountain because there had been reports of unidentified flying objects in the area.” He paused for a moment, the delicate light of the candles reflecting in his glasses. “I’m eighty-four percent sure he’s lying.” He then dug self-assuredly into his butter and Bac-o Bits covered potato.

It occurred to her then, as she thought about Jim and Pam leaving early to go pumpkin picking, and how she had come to know of it, that maybe this could be a way to bring up the subject gently. She summoned her strength with a sharp intake of air and decided to try. It was too important not to.

“I wish I had known that, but I didn’t receive my e-mail from you today.”

She watched as his fork stopped, and his face froze in mid-chew for the briefest of moments before they both resumed as if nothing had happened. “Oh, yes, well, I was very focused today on sales. I’m sorry that I didn’t have the time.”

She exhaled the breath she had taken in and stared down at her plate. “You always made the time before.” Her voice was quiet, small, and weak. She hated that it sounded like that.

“I said I was sorry, Monkey. It’s just, I’ve been distracted lately.”

His apology was pushed aside by the admission that something was bothering him. At that moment, sitting across from him at the table, silence pressing down upon them, she knew she couldn’t back down. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to.

“With what?” she asked, trying not to let her voice be changed by the tightness in her throat.

She looked up to see his reaction. Immediately, she wished that she hadn’t.

Looking back at her wasn’t the man she knew, but someone who looked scared, maybe even frightened. It was if, in a moment, everything she knew and had counted on to be true, had been flipped upside down.

Her D, distracted and scared?

He cleared his throat before he spoke, so loudly that it filled the room. “I’ve, uh, been tending to some farm business. Remember I told you last night? That’s why I was unable to come over.” After he spoke, he immediately reached for the rolls, averting his eyes from her.

“Yes I remember. Are the teenagers back?” She asked innocently, even though she knew that wasn’t it.

“No, the water gun with bleach worked on them. It was just, um, some things….” His voice trailed off, as he began to munch on a roll.

“Some things?” Her voice was more steely now, colored with the impatience that she usually reserved for work, and especially the Party Planning Committee.

“Yes.”

Silence filled the room between them once more, and he refused to look her in the eye. She felt herself growing more frustrated with his words, and a sick feeling crept into her stomach at the realization that she was having to cross-examine someone she loved just to try to get him to tell her the truth.

“Would you excuse me for a moment? I need to use the bathroom.” She quickly dabbed her mouth with the napkin from her lap, and walked purposefully out of the room, and down the hallway.

--

--

After closing the door of the bathroom behind her, a room that he had recently installed, and only allowed her to use, Angela took her cell phone out of her pocket.

It was her last resort. She had told her to speak to him, but she hadn’t said anything about what to do when he lied to her, or evaded her questions. It was horrible to have to rely on someone else again, to need someone again, but as she scrolled down her contacts list, she reminded herself that pride was one of the deadly sins……

Pamela Beesly-Cell

After three rings, she heard Pam’s voice, and what sounded like several others in the background.

“Hello?”

“Yes, Pam? It’s Angela, from Dunder-Mifflin.”

“Oh….oh! Hey, Angela….how’s, uh, dinner going?”

She decided to sit down on the lace toilet cover to brace herself for the humiliation of this conversation. “It is not going well, Pam. Your advice is not going well.”

“Oh? Well…look….” Angela heard Pam’s voice become distant suddenly, as if she was talking to someone else. “No it’s Angela…she’s having dinner with Dwight…”

“Who are you talking to?!” Her voice came out as a hiss, the words parting her lips in an un-interrupted exhale. Was someone else listening to this? Oh god not……

“Wha-? Nobody, Angela.” Pam’s voice sounded hesitant, as though she was lying.

Oh God.

“Is Jim there?!” Redness swum in her cheeks, as shame came crashing down upon her. Not him….anyone but him.

“Uh…well, he’s…kind of, yeah.”

The plastic casing of the phone creaked a little under the force of her newly renewed grip upon it.

What had she done to deserve this?

All she wanted was Dwight to be honest with her, to have a man in her life that respected her enough to share himself, and this is what she got? To have her innermost, private, and intimate problems paraded in front of others like it was Mardi Gras? In front of Jim Halpert of all people!

“I trusted you Pam!” Her voice squeaked slightly in indignation and anger.

“No, no, Angela. He’s not….here-here, um, he’s actually making uh, cider. So…yeah….which is like a ways away….’cause I needed to get reception, so I left him to do…..that.”

She wasn’t sure whether or not to believe Pam. It seemed very unlikely that Jim would be industrious enough to make his own cider. However, she also knew that the reception in rural areas around Scranton was spotty, her cell phone didn’t always work on the farm.

And….she knew that she needed the kind of advice about men that only a hussy like Pam could provide, as shameful as it was to admit.

“Fine.”

“Okay, good. So, Angela, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“No Pam. As I already said, everything is not okay. I asked Dwight why he didn’t send me an e-mail today, and he said he was distracted. And then he….” She stopped herself, not wanting to share the look she had seen on his face.

“And then he what?”

“He just looked strange, Pam. It wasn’t like him. He didn’t look like himself. I don’t know what to do….” her voice trailed off into a sigh and she brought her hand to her forehead in frustration.

“Did you ask him about him about marriage?”

“Pam, he can’t even be honest about why he’s scared! How can he be enough of a man to talk to me about matrimony?!” Anger coursed through her as she spoke. The frustration of tonight, of yesterday, of last week, and fear that tomorrow might be the same, wove into her words.

“Okay, okay….look, alright.” Pam paused on the other end of the line, and Angela watched as he right leg began to shake slightly nervously at her own betrayal of Dwight’s emotions to her. “I know, like, really know, how difficult it can be to get a guy to tell you how he’s feeling…but you’ve just gotta, you know, make sure that he knows that you love him…and I mean…..the reason guys don’t usually tell you stuff…is because they don’t want to look weak and be embarrassed. So just…be understanding.”

“I’m very understanding!” She replied defensively, shocked that Pam would think she’d be insensitive.

“Angela…..” Pam said, almost as a question.

“Fine. Understanding. What else?”

“Uh, well….don’t judge….well, maybe not that one. Okay, I think, just be understanding, make sure he knows you love him, and um, just listen, you know? I know people always give that advice to men and everything, but really, it works both ways, I know it does.” Pam’s voice became softer as she spoke, until the last words sounded wistful to Angela’s ears.

“Okay, I will use those……

“Angela?” Pam interrupted.

“What?”

“Um, where are you?”

“I’m in the bathroom. Not using, just….I needed someplace private.”

“The farm has a bathroom?” Pam asked, her voice even and calm, but Angela thought she heard something in the background.

“Yes, Dwight installed it for me when we started our courtship.” As if that wasn’t obvious. How else would it get there?

“Angela….I think….I think that says how Dwight feels about you. Now, remember what I said, because you can do this, alright?”

“Yes, Pam. I will not contact you further in this matter, enjoy your haunted hay ride.” She tried to sound genuine, but the tastelessness of such an activity and her opinion of it couldn’t be completely concealed.

“I will Angela, good luck.” With that, Pam hung up, and Angela was all-alone again.

With a steadying breath, she stood up and looked in the mirror over the sink. Looking back at her was thirty-five years of weariness, mistrust, and hard work that had only left her even more isolated and alone. It was sketched in the deep grooves of her forehead, apparent in the darkness that pooled under her eyes, and the small lines that framed her mouth.

Thirty-five years.

It seemed like only yesterday that she had been a freshman in college, with the world in front of her, and her dreams limitless. Her travels to Spain were only going to be the beginning of the adventure that was to take her everywhere, to see everything.

It was unbelievable that it had been seventeen years ago, almost exactly half of her life, when those thoughts had been hers. When the future had seemed so bright and brilliant in its possibilities.

She ran a hand through her hair, trying to put back the few stray strands that had gotten out of place. She knew it was time to get those dreams, hopefulness, and possibilities back.

It was time to get her happiness back.

It was time to get her Dwight back.

 

 

Angela walked resolutely back into the dining room, the wooden floorboards creaking under her quick steps.

She cast a quick glance over at Dwight and noticed that he hadn’t touched his food since she had left. Indeed, he looked exactly as he had when she excused herself….scared, and completely unlike himself.

“Is everything okay?” His voice broke the silence between them, its tone seemingly unsure of itself, a fact that made her even more determined to figure out what was wrong with him.

She sat back down in her chair, draped the napkin across her lap, and laced her fingers together as her intertwined hands came to rest on the table.

“No, Dwight, everything is not alright.” Her words were crisp, curt, and rode a razor’s edge of sharpness, but it was the only way she knew to show that she was strong. And it was obvious that he needed someone’s strength right now, to prop him up to the man that he truly was.

She gave hers willingly to him, as she had with everything else.

“Oh? Are you?” he hesitated for a second and looked at her knowingly, as if he was trying to convey something without words. It took her a moment longer then usual to understand.

“No, it is not that time of the month, you know that.” She lamentably sighed. She never understood why men would always assume that whenever something was wrong.

Her hands unclasped, and she twirled the fork absent-mindedly, re-willing the strength that she had come into the room with to return to her.

He cleared his throat again before he spoke. “I know, I just wasn’t sure. Wh-what’s the problem?”

Angela pushed a piece of cauliflower around, and lazily covered it with a forkful of noodles. She squinted thoughtfully at the plate, desperately looking for an answer to his feelings in the food that he had prepared for her.

But there was nothing there, or at least nothing that she trusted. Alex had cooked for her dozens of times, always with a smile, always with laughter, and always with a warmness that she had soaked up completely, only to have it painfully rung from her in an instant.

“The problem….” She looked up at him, and into his eyes. The ones that were resolute and official when they reflected the harsh fluorescent glare of the office everyday, and soft and languid in the brilliance of the rising sun that split through her blinds in the morning when they lay in bed.

“….is…” her lips willed the words to come, to tumble out of her, but her mind rebelled, and tried to play it safe, like it always did, like it always had.

But not this time. This time, Angela slowly dragged her sweaty palm down the tablecloth and into her lap. She clutched a napkin in a tight fist and asked the question. She was tired of not knowing, of worrying, of questioning the last two years.

“…..why don’t you love me?” With each syllable his reaction changed, and with every God-given fiber in her being she forced herself to keep from shaking, and to keep her eyes on him.

“I-What?” He squinted hard, his face blotched with shock.

“You heard me.” She wouldn’t repeat herself; she knew that he had heard her. That he always had, and she desperately hoped, always would.

“Monkey, I love you. Y-you know that. Do you need me to prove it to you? Is….” His entire expression changed in an instant, the flummoxed features set themselves resolutely in a hard display of determination. “…there someone else?”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. Someone else?! How could he ever think that? Didn’t he know that he was the only one for her? That he was the man that she had waited her entire life for? Had patiently and piously prayed for over and over again? A man who respected her, who was a gentlemen, and….she hoped….loved her for her.

As much as she tried to restrain herself, his words splashed surprise on her expression, and her panicked voice squeaked in reply. “Someone else?! D, I-No there is no one else. I want to know why you’ve been acting this way! Why didn’t you send me an e-mail today? I want to know what I did wrong! Why don’t you…..” but she couldn’t continue, her high-pitch cracked over the tears that now ran down her face, cool against her flushed and hot cheeks. Her throat was tight with fear, worry, and uncertainty.

She dropped her head, her shoulders heaving slightly in silent sobs that were interrupted by sharp and wild intakes of breath. The noise of the chair across the room split the solemn silence and suddenly he was at her side, kneeling with a large hand across her back.

“Monkey, Monkey….” He leaned into her, murmuring softly, and wrapped his other arm around her tiny frame, as she buried her face into his shoulder. The comfort of his awkward embrace slowly eroded the tempest of emotion inside of her. He kept whispering softly into her ear, and after a minute, she felt the acute pangs that had racked her subside into a warm tranquility. The kind that he always seemed to instill in her with his comfort and security. She pushed away from him, and he disentangled himself from her.

The look on his face almost made her break into tears all over again. It was if through his touch he had absorbed her pain, and now was sharing it with her, like he shared everything else.

“Why would you say that I don’t love you?” His voice was unusually soft. It was the kind of tenderness that he only used in their most intimate of moments.

“We’ve been together, as…man and woman, for two years.” He nodded at her words, willing her to continue, to finally say what had tormented her lately.

“And I thought that…” she paused again, her cheeks felt like they were on fire, her shame and fear burning blue-hot inside of her.

“…this relationship had a future. Don’t you want….a future with me Dwight?” She choked on the word that she wanted to say, the m-word, the one that meant that their relationship would be forever and right in the eyes of God.

“Of course I do, why would you think that I don’t?” She watched as his face contorted itself into a desperate, maddening desire to understand what she meant.

She knew then that she had to say it. It made her feel like less of a woman, like less of a girlfriend, and like less of a lover to have to bring it up first, but as she looked at his face, Pam’s word echoed inside of her, as if she just spoken them.

“What is better, embarrassing yourself a little and getting what you want? Or…..saying nothing and….watching someone you love possibly drift further away? If you love someone, and care for them…then you have to say something.”

“Marriage….” It came out quiet, like a whisper. Like a prayer.

His face fell for a moment, along with her heart, but then, in an instant, it came back up with a smile so wide that she had to swallow back her surprise. She had never seen him smile so widely, he had always said it was a sign of weakness.

“Marriage?” He asked through tight lips.

“Yes, I…why are you smiling?” She had a million questions, but for some reason, that was the one that came out, that suddenly seemed so important.

“You want to get married?” He asked, his smile softening somewhat tenderly.

“Are you…. are you asking me?” She was so confused, by everything, by his reaction, by his words. What was going on? Was he asking her, right now?

“No, I’m not.” He leaned back from her slightly, and pushed himself up.

“Oh” was her only reply. Her eyes found her lap, and she stared at her napkin with wide-eyes, her heart pounding at his words.

“Because all the times that I practiced asking you, I was on one knee.” She looked up quickly, and saw that he had kneeled on one knee in front of her and that his hand was in his pocket. In a moment, he pulled out a small black box.

“I’ve had this box in my pocket everyday for the last two months, Angela. But every time I have tried to ask you….I’ve become….worried.”

“Worried?” she choked out; her voice was raspy and pulverized into a whisper by the emotion of the past couple of minutes.

“Yes.” He took a deep breath before he continued. “Angela Noelle Martin, you are the strongest, most capable, and most beautiful woman that I have ever met. I know, that you know I’m not….religious, but you are a miracle in my life.” He reached out and took her shaking right hand and steadied it. “I want to spend the rest of my life as your husband, and be the begetter of your children. And the reason I was worried, was because you are the only woman for me and I didn’t want to screw it up. But…I love you, and I…. Angela, will you marry me?”

She heard the creak of the hinges of the box, but didn’t look down to see what she already knew would be the perfect symbol of their union. Instead, she launched herself out of the chair and into his arms, knocking him over and onto the floor.

He smiled again as she lay on top of him, but it was nothing compared to the one that stretched her own wet cheeks. She leaned down and kissed him slowly, savoring their connection, the truth of it, and the eternity of it. After a moment, she pulled back and whispered slowly to him.

“Yes.”