It's very new.
She knows she needs to be better at being discrete, at reining in the corners of her mouth, which seem unavoidably determined to escape upwards in his presence. Her usually unflappable reserve has become begrudgingly amused by her descent into smitten and so although she knows it's very new, that she is still very new, she allows herself to radiate just a little every once in awhile.
Her family and friends had been surprised to hear she was going to follow her job to some town in Pennsylvania, a town whose very name even seemed in sharp contrast to her personality. She thinks she is slowly beginning to adjust to this place, slowly learning the little things that make the big things less noticeable. She keeps a small bag of coffee beans in her desk and has learned an assortment of ways to subtly sniff them when the pine scent emanating from Phyllis becomes too much. Although she’d rather not think about it, after a two day stare down she realizes never to whisper to Ryan, not even about card stock prices. She also learns how far online gossip columns can go towards mending fences, although she’d rather not think about that either.
She sometimes thinks about the friends she left behind in Stamford, the ones she half heartedly emails whenever Michael is lurking around the office. She wonders if they felt able to judge her for her decision because they really knew her, or whether they judged because they were surprised to realize that with her making this decision, they might not. When resolved towards the former she feels stubborn and determined to prove that it was the best choice for her, for her life. When leaning towards the latter she feels lonely. Conditional friendships can very rarely be true friendships she suspects, and she's realizing most of hers were of the cherry stained and high pitched variety.
She thinks about asking Pam to have lunch but she has been uncharacteristically shy and hesistant. Pam seems nice, normal, but has made no overtures towards friendship and it makes her embarrassed by her own interest. Eventually she takes to flattering herself into wondering if her arrival somehow bothered Pam, whether taking away her position as the sole normal female in the office was an unforgivable offense. On more generous days she thinks maybe Pam is just being shy too. When he said he had been planning on setting Andy on Pam “perfect” she is almost grateful, hoping that Pam is a good sport and goes along with the prank, hoping that maybe this could break the ice. When instead he says they should probably try someone else she doesn't hide her grimace, as she already knows she has no strong desire to break anything with Angela.
Stamford. Scranton. Stamford. Scranton. Stamford. Scranton. Sometimes she says them over and over again in her head, secretly liking the way their names each claim a different tone of her voice. She thinks sometimes about how it would have been impossible for her to grow up in a place like this and be the person she is now. She wonders if she will stay here and stay the same, or whether she will stay here and slowly begin to take on parts of a shadow Scranton persona, slowly adopting little things to make the big differences less noticeable. She sees the way he shifts subtly when he thinks she isn’t watching, a split second when he is totally one of them and then a face and he is back to being Stamford. It makes her envious that he doesn’t seem to need to think about being Stamford or Scranton –that somehow here he just fits as a lazy mixture of the two. She doesn’t particularly like feeling envious but it makes her even more attracted to him all the same.
It's still all very new.
