Gary Cooper 

He used to sit next to her at the conference table, hyper-aware of the location of their legs relative to one another. Michael would be saying something like: the paper business is changing, my friends; we’re making history. We’re pioneers. But, you’re in the covered wagons. I’m Gary Cooper, leading the way. On horseback. With a gun. But I only use it when we’re attacked…not by wild Indians, because that’s just ignorant. 

She’d shift restlessly in her seat and he’d feel her knee and his – worse, her thigh and his – move incrementally closer. He’d think, if he let his leg ease over just an inch or two, he could touch hers and it would appear totally inadvertent. Sometimes he’d let it happen, almost as if there were some magnetic force field compelling him. Of course, he’d immediately retreat, pull away as if the contact were unintentional. Or sometimes her knee would fall toward his. She’d instantly pull back as well, but he always wondered if her slip was accidentally-on-purpose too. And what about when she let her leg press against his for a barely perceptible beat too long? Maybe it was just his imagination. Maybe not.

It was complicated. All this not touching. It could be so distracting that he’d miss the entire gist of whatever was being said. He didn’t care.

Now when they sit together in that same stupid deja-vu of a meeting, or even in one where Toby tries to explain something actually useful, like the new medical spending plan (and Michael interrupts incessantly, because this is just the kind of boring nonsense that makes everyone resent Toby and besides, I’ve already asked Dwight to put together a comprehensive manual of special benefits available only to the Scranton branch; Toby’s reply that no such benefits exist just proves Toby’s…oh, some failing or another) it still all turns into background noise. He still loses the thread. But it’s not the same.

He lets his leg relax against hers. He doesn’t recoil or pretend it wasn’t deliberate. Neither does she. When she slides off her shoe and rubs her foot over his ankle, or rests her hand on his thigh under the table, it doesn’t matter where they are.

Michael might actually be Gary Cooper.