January 20, 2009

Finally, their marriage was starting to feel normal. After Jim had nearly missed their anniversary, he had decided that enough was enough. He wouldn’t give up his position of vice president of the company, but he was able to finally negotiate a better way to deal with traveling for business. Since November, he had only gone on one “week long” business trip – though it was to Madrid, Spain, and it had turned into more of a week and a half when he finally struck up a deal with the businesses there. A lot of the other trips he would have gone on, he was able to send Michael or Ryan, who were more than willing to take advantage of the trips that they would otherwise never go on themselves. He passed up a month long trip to Australia during the month of December because he knew that Pam would have thrown a fit if he had gone. Instead, the two of them enjoyed the Christmas holidays together and went to Pennsylvania to visit Pam’s mother.

However, after returning back to work after the New Year, he had kind of wished that he had gone. He had enjoyed his position as vice president of the company – with the exception of the many business trips – and really, he had thought he was set for life. That was, until Karen returned. He had never worked with her before, and he enjoyed that immensely for all the obvious reasons. Unfortunately, 2009 had other plans for Jim Halpert, and they involved Karen trying to get her old job back in any way possible.

It was Jim’s first day back to work after he spent the weekend in Chicago – with Pam. He had gone to a meeting on Friday with one of their affiliate companies, and the rest of the weekend had been theirs. They went to the Art Institute all day Saturday, had a romantic dinner on Saturday night. Then Sunday, they went to the Shedd Aquarium just for fun before they returned home to New York. On Monday, Jim had taken a personal day off of work – as did Pam – and they spent the entire morning curled up in bed together. Once they finally rose and showered – together – they headed off for a late lunch at The Golden Beet. All in all, it had been a great weekend, and now…well, now Jim was back at work and he only wished that he could be back home.

His wish to be at home and in bed only intensified when there was a loud knock on his door. He looked up from his designs he had been working on for Virgin Mobile and tried not to groan audibly as he saw Karen walk through his door.

“Hey Halpert.” she said with a grin as she walked into his office as if it was hers. She quickly crossed the room and sat herself down in one of the large chairs across from where he sat.

“Well, well, it’s about time you returned to work.” he said, trying to avoid eye-contact with her. “You’re about two weeks late.”

“Michael allowed it.” she said with a shrug.

“So how’s the baby?” he asked, and he looked up, against his better judgment.

“Oh, he’s a little shithead.” Karen replied with a menacing chuckle. Jim’s eyes widened, and he quickly averted his gaze from her. “He cries all the time, he’s a constant nuisance to my other kid, Julian. And on top of all that, he made me fat, so I have that to try and work off.”

Again, against his better judgment, Jim looked towards Karen and his eyes looked her up and down – quickly – once. “You look great.” he said, dully and he hoped that she didn’t take it too earnestly.

“Well, I have been going to the gym every single day.” she said, leaning forward and propping her chin on her hands. “You know, I usually run about ten miles a day.”

“Ten miles?” he thought to himself, his gaze traveling back to his computer and he absentmindedly checked his e-mail.

“So what are you working on?” Karen asked, cocking her head to the side. Jim immediately stopped what he was doing and realized that she was different. There was something markedly different about her. Yes, she still had a sarcastic air about her, and he was pretty certain that deep down inside she was still pure evil but…she was different. She was smiling around him – around him – he hadn’t seen her smile a genuine smile in several years.

“I…uh…I’m sorry, what?” he asked, turning towards her yet again.

“What are you working on?” she asked. When she asked the question again she didn’t have the tone of voice that sounded like she was saying, “God, I can’t believe you didn’t hear me the first time.”

“Oh, it’s…they’re some mock-ups for Virgin Mobile.” he replied, spreading the three posters that were sitting in front of him out in front of her. “I have a meeting with them tomorrow. I think that I’m finished, but who knows.”

“I like them.” Karen said, nodding as she carefully looked them over.

“What?” Jim asked.

“I like them.” she repeated. “They’re all really good, except…except this one…” she pointed to the one of the right.

“What’s wrong with that one?” he asked, it had been his favorite.

“Not sexy enough.” she replied.

“Excuse…what?” he asked.

“It’s just, before the companies merged, I had an account with Virgin Mobile.” she replied. “They like to appear to be this hip company for young people and…they like a lot of sex in their advertisements.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever…” Jim began.

Karen cut him off, “Jim, this is going to be in Times Square…probably. I know what the CEO likes and, well, let’s face it. Sex sells.”

“But the others aren’t…” Jim started to say as he pointed to the others.

“The others are plenty sexy.” she said pointing to them. “This one has a bunch of thin women dancing together in a club. Sexy. This one, this one has two guys and a girl together in an apartment together and the girl is on her phone. Is she calling a friend? Is she setting up the other guy with someone? Are they going to have a threesome? It’s sexy. This one though?” Karen pointed to the poster on the far right again, “This is just a girl who’s standing in front of a backdrop of the city. There’s nothing sexy about that. She’s alone, she just has her phone…it’s too simple. She comes off looking like a spinster.”

“A spinster?” Jim asked, holding back his laughter. “I think she’s pretty far off from that…”

“Just...just trust me.” Karen replied. “I know what these people want.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, “okay.” He gathered up the posters and pulled them close to him again. “I’ll uh…I’ll work on them some more, I guess.”

“Sounds great.” she said with a genuine smile. He was shocked, drawn back by this friendly Karen.

“So I should.” he said as he waved towards his computer and the posters, “work and all.”

“Oh, of course.” she said and she stood up.

“It’s um…nice to have you back.” he said, and he had to try not to cringe as he said it because “nice to have you back” was probably the last thought on his mind at the moment.

“It’s nice to be back, Halpert.” she said as she turned around and started walking towards the door. “Oh, and Jim…” she stopped in the doorway and turned to face him again.

“Yeah, Karen?” he asked.

“No hard feelings.” she replied.

“Oh…okay.” he said as he watched her leave his office.

He turned to his computer and opened up the e-mail that he had received over the weekend from the people at Virgin Mobile to confirm what he had been thinking throughout his entire conversation with Karen. Right in the e-mail it read, “No overtly sexy advertisements! No romantic settings! Social settings (bars, clubs, parties, etc) are fine. Solitary persons in mock-ups preferred.”

The account with Virgin Mobile wouldn’t have been enough for him to lose his job – even if it did have the potential for Times Square. However, losing it would have certainly put a lot of added pressure on him for the next big account that they received and everyone in the company knew that the next big account was the New York City Department of Public Transportation.

He would have been angrier at Karen if he knew what exactly was going on. She was being nice to him, which completely threw him off. There had been no evil glares in his direction and there had been no exasperated sighs. In the past that would have been a very welcome relief but now…now it just perturbed him even further. He had no doubts that she would be harboring some resentment towards him – for everything, really. Though the real fact of the matter was that he still had her old job, and he was certain that she wasn’t going to stop with simply telling him to go a completely different direction than their clients actually wanted. If he knew anything about Karen – and he had known her for a good number of years – he knew that if she wanted something, she was willing to put up a fight for it. He could be ready to fight too.