Angela has Andy over for dinner that night because, despite what certain people or camera crews may think, she is trying to make the engagement work.
She decides to make eggplant parmesan because she knows Andy loves it. She cries when she chops the onions for the sauce because onions have always stung her eyes and nose and then she cries again when she peels the garlic because the way the skins stick to her fingers is absolutely frustrating and she has to take a break from cooking for a few minutes.
By the time Andy comes over she's been in the kitchen for 3 hours. She doesn't know a better way to tell someone you love them than a home cooked meal and she hopes Andy understands this. Some horrible part of her thinks that actually loving them would be a better way of letting them know but she tries not think about that fact as she watches him brighten her house when she opens the front door.
"Hey, babe," he smiles and kisses her forehead, "Smells delicioso!" His grin is so contagious that she doesn't even correct his mix of the Spanish language with Italian food.
Angela ushers him to the table and when he's seated she brings out two plates for them. He takes a bite, closes his eyes, and goes, Mmmm, all over-dramatic and phony. Staring down into her food, she tries to appreciate everything Andy's doing for her. It's not that hard to when she peers up and meets his gaze.
He looks so handsome in her kitchen with the light bouncing off his hair. He's been growing it longer so he can wear it parted and proper at their wedding -- her insistence. These are the little things that make Angela happy to have him, a Cornell grad who pulls her chair out for her and knows just wear to scratch Ash behind the ears to make him purr.
A future of Andy isn't so bad. It's actually quite nice, she thinks as he talks about his parents. She can see a yearly, hefty donation to the local animal shelter written in elegant cursive on checks that say Andrew and Angela Bernard in the left hand corner. She looks over and sees his penny loafers lined up neatly by her door and in that moment Angela knows that Andy will always accompany her to church, that he won't get grumpy when she wants to listen to The Osmonds in the car, and that he'll never force her to go camping or any such ridiculousness. She could maybe learn to love him for all of that.
"So, about the wedding," he starts in as he stands up and brings his plate to the sink. "All the guys are super psyched about Little Drummer Boy."
She throws him a glance of quiet gratitude despite the fact she is far from grateful when it comes to Here Comes Treble! but she lets it slide because he just seems happy to be there with her.
"And I got the greatest idea for our first dance while I was watching the tube last night. There's this show," he explains, sitting down and placing a hand over hers, "Rock The Reception, and the couple gets together with a choreographer and they plan out their first dance to be like, really fun and surprising and everyone always loves it."
Angela's eyebrows are knit with confusion and there's that thing with Andy's face that he gets sometimes, all eager eyed and toothy, that she just, for the life of her, cannot understand. "I'm not sure..."
"And!" he adds, like there's this one puzzle piece he forgot to place and with it everything will suddenly make sense to her, "Stroke of genius on my part -- the barummp bum bum bum of the Little Drummer Boy segues b-e-a-utifully into bum bum be dum of that Rihanna song!" He's bopping his head.
She feels like she might choke on her tongue. "Andy, I don't know what that even means..."
"Disturbia!" Andy shouts in her face, all excited and pleased with himself. "You know it, Angie. It goes, Disturbia! In the darkness and the light. Disturbia! Am I scaring you tonight? We could start off with your song, do the whole slow, sweet dance, then boom! Lunchbox kicks it off with some beat-boxing and then it's dance party! You won't even have to learn that many moves, I can do most of the dancing myself. What do you think?"
Angela doesn't speak because she's not sure she can. She tries to think of hand towels monogrammed with AB & AB but what he's saying is such a -- a perversion of everything, everything a wedding should be and all she can imagine is Andy, with a pastel pink tie, dirtying up his tuxedo while trying to break dance on the wooden floors. She wonders how it is that he's able to drag things to hell so quickly because not 2 minutes ago was she marveling over the bronze, genteel pennies tucked so snugly into his shoes.
"No, Andy, no. That sounds... horrible."
"OK, well, if you don't like the idea..." he looks baffled and crushed and she feels bad for a second but then he opens his mouth again. "But I really think if you saw the show you'd come around! Look, we can pop on over to the living room, 2 minutes, I bet it's on, and you can just see how awesome the dances are. It'll be the best of both worlds, babe."
She watches Andy stand up and start for the other room and before she knows it, Angela is at the wall with the phone in her hand, dialing a number without having to look at the buttons. It'll be at least ten minutes before Dwight gets there.
"I need to check my messages," she echoes, voice hollow, gone, and so frustrated with this joke of a wedding he seems to be keen on beating with a stick until it's bloodied and embarrassing. For one violent second she thinks that being married standing in her own grave would be better than this but she pushes that traitorous thought from her mind. "Maybe you'd better go."
His face drops but then it lifts suddenly, sunny, optimistic, and just so misplaced. "No problemo, my flower. Just mull it over a little, you'll come around. It's a great idea, really. And if you don't like Disturbia we can always do Kissed a Girl or whatever you want. I'll call you, kay?" He kisses her cheek softly, thanks her for dinner, then he's out the front door and his penny loafers are walking out to his Prius. It's not until he's gone and the smell is lingering does she realize how thick his cologne was.
She's sure he will pass a red Trans-am as he drives back to his home and whether or not he recognizes it isn't her problem.
The dishes need washing so she runs the soapy water over the sauce stuck to the plates. Her ring shining in the sink makes her think about Dennis, that veterinarian she had met at Phyllis' wedding, for the first time in years. She had missed such a good thing with him and Angela wants to kick herself for that. He would never insist on all sorts of ostentatious shows or outlandish, expensive ideas. No, a wedding with Dennis would be simple and virtuous and she's sure she would not be cheating on a man like him in the warehouse during work hours. But then she thinks of dancing with Dwight, wonderfully and silently in the night air, and she doubts she could ever have that with Dennis except, Angela stops herself, she doesn't know why she's even thinking about Dennis at all when she'd only met him once and it's all very unreasonable and confusing and the water is still running and where is Dwight?
She takes a deep breath to calm down; her house smells like garlic, onions, and Ralph Lauren.
There's a knock at her door (four knocks, their secret code) and Angela is suddenly faced with all of Dwight before her. He's wearing his weekend clothes and her heart grows just a little as her mind clears of everything but the man in front of her then.
"I parked two blocks away," he says, stoic and low. She doesn't really need to hear that, they've perfected the formula long ago so she pulls his face to hers and kisses him, her movements quick and desperate. He's breathing harder, so is she, and Angela likes that all she needs to focus on is moving him toward her bedroom. It's just easier this way.
It's almost like their old love, only primal and linear. He has her up against the refrigerator, hungry hands under her shirt. Her head bumps up on the freezer and the implication that that was the place where Sprinkle's life was forced out of her body is a horrific thought, so chilling and morbid, that she turns her cat's killer around and they start down the hallway.
Dwight's head knocks her sun hat from it's hook when she presses him into the wall and it falls wordlessly to the floor. That same exact thing had happened the first time they had stumbled into her house, heaving and full of sin so many years ago, and Angela doesn't know what to think about that so she just doesn't think about it at all.
She didn't realize how cold the night was getting until his warm body is around her and all Angela is thinking in that moment is Dwight, Sex, Dwight.
His lips part wickedly and he whispers her name before kicking her bedroom door shut.
---
Her hair is stuck to her forehead and Dwight's foot is touching hers. He's mumbling little words of adoration but she's not listening.
"I think I'm just going to go to sleep," she announces as she lets her eyes fall shut. She's not sure if he's staying or leaving but if she keeps her eyes shut maybe he won't exist at all. A second goes by and Dwight's presence is made known when she hears him singing a lullaby to her in German. The song is one she recognizes, old, fragile, and heavy with the voices of his ancestors.
It makes her think of the time they had pulled weeds out in her garden last summer and of the humidity that had soaked both their shirts with sweat and atmosphere. He'd been humming the tune to himself and she'd smiled so big and broad at him from beneath the giant rim of that sun hat. Dwight had tried to kiss her but got only her teeth so he'd pulled her close, getting bits of dirt on the back of her white shirt and she hadn't even cared.
Lately, Angela hasn't been able to think about Dwight without thinking about Andy, and vice versa, so her thoughts turn to the winter.
She remembers Andy at her house one afternoon, taking that sun hat from it's hook on the wall, pulling the rim down low so it concealed half his face, and singing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? She'd quietly chuckled from her place at the kitchen table and he'd been so happy to make her laugh that he'd kissed her cheek, warm and appreciative.
She wishes they hadn't knocked the hat off the wall because now she knows it's on her floor and she wishes she didn't have to think of either of them because it really does make her head hurt.
Dwight is still singing quietly and she doesn't want to think of him in that way anymore: vulnerable and real. She tries to forget about farmer's markets and table making because is all of that really worth it? He's crazy and wrong for her and what does she get in the end? Dead cat.
She interrupts him with harsh words spoken gently, "Maybe you'd better go." It's the second time she's said that tonight.
He props himself up on one elbow to look at her and then he's placing a large hand on her forehead as if to check for a temperature. "Are you feeling all right, Monkey?"
"I'm fine. I'm just tired, really."
Dwight stares at her, long and hard, then kisses her the same way. When he pulls back she knows his kiss was really a question, jealous, confused, and desperate for an answer: Why are you still marrying him?
They don't always need words between them and so she looks into his eyes and chews her upper lip in a response that goes something like: Because he went to Cornell and he's sweet to me and he doesn't read Harry Potter while I'm in the other room and he wears expensive shoes and he never put a cat in my freezer.
Understanding her silent answer, Dwight nods -- maybe she loves him for that.
She watches him pull his clothes back on and then he's opening the door. She twists the covers up around her chest when she speaks. "There's eggplant parmesan in the kitchen, why don't you take it back for Mose?" The words sound so reasonable, as if the food was cooked for Dwight and his cousin in the first place not her fiance, but she just doesn't want the leftovers to go to waste.
He smiles, tight-lipped and defeated, says OK, then closes the door to her room. Angela listens to him in the kitchen, knows he knows where the tupperware is, knows he'll see the red and white Cornell mug in her sink, and hears him leave her house.
She realizes that this isn't going to last too much longer. Both of them are going to want more soon, Andy will want a wife and Dwight will want her without Andy. She's not ready for either.
Standing up, naked skin in the bedroom air, she pulls on a night gown and brushes her teeth. Angela slips back into bed, fluffs her pillows, and grabs her book from the night stand. She thinks of neither Andy nor Dwight while reading and when she finishes a chapter she closes the book.
She checks her clock, 8:27, then Angela turns off the light and falls asleep.
Story Notes:
I'm so fascinated, confused, and inspired by what they did with Angela in the premiere that I had to try my hand at it especially since Angela Kinsey gave such a great explanation on NBC.com. Dwight's gardening and lullaby inspired by the song Minnesota by The Mountain Goats.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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