It hadn’t been a great day, but it wasn’t really a bad one either.
Holly sat under the fluorescent lights in the Glider Diner, eating an ice cream sundae with sprinkles and whipped cream, and drinking chocolate milk, like a six-year-old. The stein of beer to its side, already mostly gone with some sad foam trails clinging to its sides, was less juvenile. She banished thoughts from her head about how her new skirt had already been too tight and was digging into her stomach whenever she sat.
This was sad.
She was selfish and horrible and wrong for thinking this, but she wondered which was worse: spending a Friday night alone on her super-squishy sofa eating Ben and Jerrys straight from the tub watching some permutation of Law and Order (and, if she was honest with herself, it was actually probably Flavor of Love), or spending a Friday night in this diner with a mentally challenged co-worker, eating... well, still eating ice cream. And Law and Order was on the televisions here, so she had that covered.
She was sad.
Holly had always thought of herself as kind of a weird girl, even though now she was in every way a woman (and that word still made her giggle when she thought of herself as one, which she guessed proved she wasn’t, in some strange way). Well, she was a woman in every way, minus that whole good-and-balanced-relationship-with-a-man thing. She chugged the last of her beer, thinking it all went back to the weirdness. Damn, she should have thought that over, not drank so fast, she’s going to have to stay here for another half an hour before she’s okay to drive. She doesn’t think as much as she should. She’s silly and she’s impulsive too much, especially for someone in HR, for God’s sake.
“What did you do before you came to Dunder-Mifflin,” Kevin asked with a snicker, even though it was more like a statement than a question with his inflection. She smiled. She genuinely liked him; he was so sweet and unassuming.
Much like Michael Scott.
God no. You do not like him already. He’s, like, your boss. He’s decently attractive and pretty charismatic. It’s a crush. It’s natural. It will pass. You need to have sex, with a man, sometime soon.
God you like him.
Holly talks about her old job while her mind skips along the various highlights and lowlights of her first day at Dunder-Mifflin. Toby had been nice enough, but he seemed like he just wanted to get out of there and his eyes and mouth did very strange things when he talked (way too much, like creepily much, no, no, that’s a really mean thought) about the pretty receptionist. Then, of course, Michael had been so funny with all the jokes about hating HR, and giving Toby that rock and... no don’t think Michael.
The preppy one – Andy? – had proposed to the accountant that seemed vaguely like an ice queen (Holly, that’s awful to think about your co-worker. You don’t even know her!). She’d smiled and applauded, but bringing her hands together again and again while watching the fireworks explode overhead just emphasized how she had no diamond, be it microscopic or gaudy, to fracture the many exploding colors. She’d never had one. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it really didn’t bother her – that’s probably the weirdness, because all my married friends don’t understand how I don’t have one, how I can possibly survive without one – but there were tiny moments where she thought I’m just too weird, I quote obscure Saturday Night Live references on a daily basis, and I’m destined to die alone.
“You’re really pretty,” Kevin said.
Holly couldn’t help the smile that spread over her face again. Maybe it was her smile. She thought she looked like a reptile when she grinned. Combined with her flinty eyes, it didn’t look genuine, never had. “Thank you, Kevin.” Michael’s smiles had been toothy and – yearning? Was that the right word? Maybe.
“You look like my old fiancée, Stacy.” It was his turn to give her a tight little smile. Well. That was forward. Of course, given his condition, she knew he couldn’t help it, but was this what her life had come to? Then, a second, more shocked thought – fiancée?
“Oh, you were engaged?” He had to be making it up, had to be, but he launched into a whole story about how she was definitely the most awesome of all the four girls he’d proposed to even though they were all awesome and how she’d totally tolerated all the time he needed for his band even if she sometimes ran off to Arizona and didn’t tell him for days –
This was sad.
She wondered what she’d be talking about with Michael. She could still remember the way her knees had brushed against his on the Ferris wheel. There had just been this little jolt, but, like, a happy one. She’d been so terribly embarrassed when the cameras zoomed in on her touching his arm (God, she needed to get used to having her every move tracked by a damn camera crew!). They’d had chemistry, she thought almost giddily, then scolded herself because that word would be used by a… she didn’t even know, a seventeen-year-old theater chick, or something.
She’d been imagining it, because he could not have brushed her away quicker when she proposed (dammit, why does everything come back to proposing, and rings and engagements and marriage, at the worst times) that they go for dessert. His interest in her had only been to make her feel welcome, and on Monday he’d be businesslike, and soon she’d get over this silly little thing she had for him. Soon.
She was tipsy. Maybe she’d order a brownie. She’d already eaten the ice cream, she might as well. The thought of brownies made her unconditionally happy (maybe she was full-on drunk), like, she realized, the thought of returning to work on Monday. There was Michael and, he’d told her, the cameras were going on hiatus for a few weeks. Ugh, she might as well just admit it: she liked Michael Scott so much. It would probably go nowhere, and she didn’t know how much she wanted her personal life documented if it did miraculously go somewhere, but she knew she hadn’t been imagining that spark, the little shy way he’d looked down and away when she’d touched his arm. She was 39 and single, and she had an alligator’s smile and she made orgy jokes, but she refused to lose hope.
The giant clock on the wall read 11:57. Kevin was still talking and she felt truly bad for not paying attention, but she kept repeating one mantra in her head: it wasn’t a great day, but it was really far from a bad one.
Story Notes:
So, I decided I heart Holly Flax.
Chapter End Notes:
If I owned anything on The Office other than the DVDs and a t-shirt, I'd be very busy with Mr. Halpert right now.
