Mondays were normally Dwight's favorite day of the week. Back to work, refreshed by a weekend of rest and relaxation, ready to tackle the challenge of a week's worth of duties as Assistant Regional Manager. He usually did his best sales on Monday, although he sometimes wondered if it was because none of his coworkers in the sales department seemed to have a positive attitude about coming back to work every week.
Today, however, was a strange Monday. Dwight had been on edge ever since he came into work. The last week had been strange enough, but this weekend had given him more of an opportunity to think about things, and Dwight couldn't help noticing a difference in the atmosphere of the office. Pam seemed even quieter than usual, and she was usually pretty quiet. Jim and Karen hadn't talked once since they came in, almost like they were avoiding each other. And, in a continuation from last week, Jim seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder. No snarky comments, no pranks. He had enjoyed the respite last week, but it was starting to get unsettling.
Dwight's phone began ringing just when he was about to reach over and dial a number for a sales call. He frowned and picked it up.
“Dwight Schrute, Assistant –“
Dwight recognized the noticeably upset voice on the other end of the line.
“Mose? How did you know my extension? I didn't know you could even operate the phone.”
Mose began a blubbering explanation as Dwight listened patiently. He shot Jim a glance, expecting to see his coworker listening intently to the conversation for any possible openings to poke fun later, but once again, Jim seemed to be ignoring him.
“Mose, calm down. I have at least six more copies of that anthropomorphic beet sculpture in the downstairs closet. That novelty shop was stupid for letting them go with such a steep discount,” he said with a chuckle, speaking partly to himself and partly to his cousin. “Just be more careful when you're running past the fireplace mantle next time, okay?”
Dwight heard the telltale sound of a desk chair swiveling behind him; Phyllis, nosy woman that she was, had probably decided to eavesdrop on his private conversation. As he listened to his cousin on the phone, who had disappeared from the line for a moment, he heard a faint screech.
“Mose!” Dwight shouted. “Get the dustbin and brush. Don't try to pick up the broken porcelain pieces with your hands! The first aid kit is underneath my bed if you need it.”
Dwight stayed on the phone long enough to make sure Mose was in no danger of harming himself; fortunately, it sounded like his cousin had avoided serious injury. Once Mose got to cleaning, he hung up with a sigh of exasperation. Mose must have been flailing his arms around again if he had managed to knock a piece off the mantle. Even if there were five porcelain beet sculptures remaining, Dwight was a little irked at losing one.
His irritation changed rapidly to nervousness as he looked at Jim again, expecting a snappy insult or cheeky statement about the phone call. Dwight steeled his reflexes, but nothing happened. As usual, Jim stared at his computer monitor, as if making a special point to ignore him. Phyllis did say something behind him, but Dwight paid no attention. That phone call had been unexpected, a potential embarrassment – not that there was anything embarrassing about collecting beet paraphernalia, but Jim would probably disagree – and yet Jim was not taking a golden opportunity.
It was just bizarre.
Dwight stared blankly at his computer screen. Although he tried, he was unable to concentrate on his work. After it became obvious that he need a break to gather his concentration, Dwight got up and walked to Michael's closed office door, knocking as a warning before letting himself in. Michael was on the phone, but he seemed to be wrapping up a conversation with someone, and hung up as soon as Dwight entered. Michael motioned for him to take a seat.
“Michael,” said Dwight, “how is your Monday?”
“Very productive, Dwight. Very productive. What brings you to my office?”
“Just wanted to catch up on things.”
Dwight nodded as Michael peered at him and tapped a pen nervously on the desk.
“What kinds of things?”
“Um – office things?”
The sound of Michael's pen tapping on the desk filled the office. Michael seemed to be waiting for more clarification. There was exactly one office thing weighing heavily on Dwight's mind, and he decided the best way to broach the subject was to jump right into it. As casually as possible, of course.
“So how about Jim quitting, huh?”
A suspicious look crossed Michael's face as he sat back in his desk.
“What about him quitting?”
“Well, I was wondering – do you have anybody applying for his position yet? Interviewed anybody? Who's going to replace him?”
“I haven't thought about that,” said Michael. “I don't think we need to hire anybody. Andy will be coming back from Anger Management soon, if he passes, and we could always bring Todd Packer in from the road. I'm sure he'd like to be back at a desk after all this time.”
A chill ran down Dwight's spine at the thought of being paired with Todd Packer on a sales call. Or having to sit next to him all day at work, for that matter. Andy Bernard wasn't as bad, but Dwight got the feeling if Jim was gone, he'd get the full brunt of Andy's attention, which was not a good thing. Dwight's brow creased with worry at the thought.
“Does that mean I'd have to go on sales calls with Andy or Todd whenever we double team it?”
“Maybe so, maybe so.”
The prospect of Jim's departure had gotten Dwight thinking about what his coworker's absence would mean for his dynamics with the office, and he didn't like some of the possibilities that came to mind. If they hired a new salesman, it was possible he'd be worse than Jim. Under normal circumstances, Dwight would have scoffed at the suggestion that anyone could be worse than Jim. Now that he might actually leave Dunder Mifflin, however, Dwight was thinking about it more carefully. A new salesman would be an unknown. Jim, at least, was an evil that Dwight knew he could deal with. He had a full arsenal of anti-Jim skills, honed with time and practice. If Jim left, they would be useless.
Something else had been weighing on Dwight ever since last week. Something that was pressing more heavily on him as Jim's departure fast approached. Although it wasn't exactly the same situation, Dwight remembered resigning from Dunder Mifflin after Michael suspected him of wrongdoing when he took Angela's tax forms to New York. Working at Staples was bad enough; having to deal with common riffraff, working with coworkers who made the ones at Dunder Mifflin seem exciting by comparison.
But what Dwight remembered most about that low point of his life was his reaction to seeing Jim when he had just resigned, on his way to the parking lot. He had given Jim a hug. It was spontaneous, that was true, and Dwight had tried to convince himself it didn't happen ever since Michael took him back in, but now that Jim was leaving again, Dwight couldn't get the moment out of his mind. He had been genuinely sad to leave. Sad to know that he would no longer be working with Jim. No more pranks, no more blatant disregard for Dwight's authority as Assistant Regional Manager. No more sales calls with Jim as his wing man. Jim was his enemy, there was no doubt about it; but he was an enemy who honed Dwight's skills and kept him on the alert. And Dwight had gotten used to having Jim as an enemy. Maybe that old saying was true. Keep your enemies as your friends.
Wait a minute, thought Dwight. Maybe that's not the way it goes. Keep your enemies and your friends in the same room? Maybe so they can fight each other. But what would the point of-
“Dwight, what the hell are you doing?”
Dwight noticed Michael staring at him and clicking his pen in exasperation.
“What do you mean?”
“You've just been sitting there slack-jawed for like five minutes. Is there some reason you came in here?”
Dwight coughed and looked over his shoulder for a moment to make sure the door was closed. He wanted to be honest with his boss, but he certainly didn't want Jim overhearing anything, and he knew he could trust in Michael's confidentiality.
“Michael,” he said, “I've been having a feeling ever since we lied to David Wallace about Jim messing up our client meeting with John Schneider. I think it's an...” - he paused, looking back at Michael's office window again. “An emotion, Michael. It's this strange feeling, almost like it's in my stomach. It's hard to explain. Like when you eat a piece of deer jerky that wasn't preserved well, and you have to vomit, except in an emotional way. You know what I mean?”
Michael looked over his employee before nodding sagely.
“Yes, Dwight, I know exactly what you mean.”
“What's wrong with me, Michael?”
“It's called guilt.”
The revelation hit Dwight like a paintball pellet to the groin. He felt like a wheelbarrow filled with heavy dirt clods had just run over him. Guilt? It was impossible. Guilt was a weak emotion. The only reason a person would feel guilty was if they were wasting their emotions on someone, when they were justified in doing what it took to dominate them. Or maybe when they actually did something wrong, and somebody got hurt as a result of...
Dwight gulped.
“What should I do, Michael?”
“I'm already taking care of it.”
“What do you mean?”
Michael gave his phone a light tap. “I was just setting up a meeting with John Schneider. I'll be leaving in a few minutes to talk to him and see if I can get things cleared up. I've been feeling guilty about this whole thing myself, Dwight – but I think I can fix this and get Jim to forgive us and stay on the job.”
“How?”
“He's angry because I made him look like a fool in front of David Wallace and wouldn't tell David what really happened. Telling David right now would be crazy, but he might go easy on me if I can get Schneider back on board with Dunder Mifflin. And then I can tell David it wasn't Jim's fault.”
“How are you going to get Schneider back?”
“He's an old coot,” said Michael. “I think he was just angry we skipped out on a lunch meeting. As long as he hasn't finalized anything with another paper company yet, I think I have a chance, as long as I'm really nice to him and say I'm sorry a lot.”
Dwight thought it sounded like a stretch, but then, he hadn't met John Schneider personally; the man was Michael's client, and Michael had always dealt with him in the past.
“Do you need me to come with you?”
“No, Dwight, it's too touchy. I only took you guys along in the first place because he bores the hell out of me. You'll probably just end up annoying him if you come along when he's already angry.”
Dwight dropped his head a little, feeling cowed.
“What happens if it works?”
“I go to David and tell him the truth.”
“Then what?”
Michael stared past Dwight, out through the window blinds at a certain young salesman sitting at his desk and typing listlessly away at his keyboard. Someone without the chiseled good looks of Ryan Howard, but just as near and dear to Micheal's heart.
“Then, I ask Jim to stay.”
.....
Zoom, zoom.
Pam voiced the sound under her breath, blinking as she watched streaks of bright light passing back and forth in the crack beneath the photocopier's lid. The light had a hypnotizing quality to it, and Pam was bored out of her mind, facing yet another day where she had to make a small amount of work stretch out to fill a large amount of work hours. She was trying to do her copying as slowly as possible before she returned to her desk with nothing to do. Even worse, it was a Monday. Pam hated Mondays.
Jim yawned at his desk. Although he was not looking at her, Pam noticed his yawn and yawned as well. Yawns were very contagious. “Long weekend, Jim?” she ventured.
Jim looked up from his work and gave her a smile.
“Sort of,” he said. “How about you?”
“My weekend? It was alright. I had another art class.”
“Nice. What were you doing?”
“Oil painting. And there was a nude model.”
Jim held a hand up to his face in mock shock. “No way,” he said. “A guy?”
“Yes,” said Pam as she stuck her tongue out.
“Scandalous.”
“Oh my God. That's exactly what my mom said.”
“You should bring some of your paintings in so everybody in the office can see them. Just don't bring the naked guy paintings, nobody wants to see those. Except maybe Kevin,” he added in jest as Kevin happened to walk by on his way to the water cooler. Unfortunately, Kevin didn't hear his comment.
Pam rolled her eyes, although she was really glad to hear that Jim was interested in seeing her paintings. For just a moment, the night of the art show flashed through her mind; if Jim wanted to see her art so much, he could have come. But she forced the thought out, not wanting to dwell on it. Talking to Jim was dispelling her dull Monday mood, if only for a moment.
“I had lunch with my mom, too. After the art class. It was nice to see her – sometimes it feels like we don't talk about things nearly as much as I'd like to.”
Pam couldn't help remembering just what the topic she and her mother had talked about over their lunch.
“Sweet,” said Jim. “You should bring her around sometime too, with your paintings. I still need to talk to her about your receptionist career path, you know. We have things to go over.”
Pam laughed. A beeping sound from the copier told her that her copies were finished. She was honestly considering making more unnecessary copies, just to prolong her conversation with Jim, but as she watched, he suddenly glanced to her side and looked back down at his desk abruptly. Something moved in the corner of Pam's eye, and she gave a little involuntary spasm at the sight Karen standing behind her, waiting for her turn at the machine. Apparently she had gotten up from her desk without Pam even noticing.
“Hi Pam,” she said.
Pam smiled as she gathered her copies.
“Hi Karen.”
She grabbed her papers and got out of the way, returning to her desk and getting herself comfortable. A quick glance at the phone - reflexive after her years as receptionist - told her that there were no incoming calls, no messages. Nothing to distract her. Karen finished making her own copies, and as Pam watched while trying to keep a low profile, she noticed Karen returning to her desk without even glancing at Jim. Pam had been noticing something off between them all morning. Or maybe a better way to put it was that she had been noticing a lack of anything between them. But what she just saw was particularly obvious; it was almost like they were avoiding each other.
Pam wondered if they had gotten in another fight last night. She hoped it didn't mean Karen would be asking her for relationship help again. Getting involved with their problems one time had been more than enough. She noticed Jim staring at his desk, and wondered if it was just her imagination, or if he actually looked embarrassed. Almost as if Karen's appearance had surprised him as must as it did Pam. Was he embarrassed that Karen had caught them talking? She wondered why that would be such a big deal.
Unless they had been fighting about something involving her.
Pam smiled at the thought and told herself she was being ridiculous. She had no idea what was going on between Jim and Karen, if anything at all. There was no point in speculating about it.
Before she could figure out a plan to kill the next half hour – which almost always ended up being some variation of playing a card game on her computer, especially now that she couldn't hang out with Jim as much – Michael's office door swung forcefully open, and Michael stepped out with an aura of determination about him, holding a briefcase in one hand. Dwight, who had been cooped up with Michael for a while now, edged out of the office behind him and returned to his work desk. Pam looked up, her interest piqued, as Michael strode to her desk like he was on a mission. She knew he hated Mondays as much as she did – maybe even more – so his invigorated attitude was very strange.
“Yes, Michael?”
“Hold all my calls, Pamento, because I am going to a very important meeting for lunch. I'll probably be gone the rest of the work day, so you guys can all leave early if you want. It's on me!”
“What do you mean by that, Michael? Like, if Jan calls tomorrow and asks why the office was closed early, I can tell her that the responsibility is on you?”
Michael paused for a moment and pursed his lips.
“Well, don't say it like that, Pam. I'm just trying to be generous. Giving out a freebie. Gotta give the chain gang a break for food and water every once in a while, am I right?”
Michael snorted with laughter as Pam realized she had been second-guessing Michael's offer for everyone to leave work early. If Michael didn't care about getting in trouble with Jan, then Pam certainly didn't care about Michael getting in trouble with Jan. Especially not with the way he had been behaving the last couple of weeks. What had she been thinking?
“Okay, Michael. What client meeting, though? You don't have any scheduled today.”
“A very important one.”
Michael turned to the rest of the office and slapped the top of Pam's receptionist desk as hard as possible, causing everyone to jerk their heads up in surprise. Some had been absorbed in their work, like Dwight, and some had been on the verge of dozing off, like Jim. Stanley had been fast asleep, and did not look pleased to be woken up.
“I'm gone for the day, folks! Adios, muchach – mu – chacherones!”
Briefcase in hand, Michael strode out of the office. Pam looked out at the rest of her coworkers, who still seemed to be dealing with Michael's loud interruption to their peace and quiet. No matter how many times he did it, they never seemed to get used to it. “Hey guys,” said Pam, “Michael said we could leave a little early today if we wanted to. I don't know exactly what he meant by that, but-”
Stanley immediately got up from his desk, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door as Pam trailed off. From the looks of it, Meredith was about to join him. Michael had probably been thinking they would leave a little earlier than usual that afternoon, but he should have been more specific if that was what he meant. Pam wasn't really in the mood to sit around thinking about Jim leaving, anyway. Maybe Stanley and Meredith had the right idea. A half day didn't sound bad at all.
.....
Michael stared at a head of cauliflower, wondering why it looked so much like broccoli. Maybe it was some kind of albino broccoli. He had never been a big fan of cauliflower – it seemed strange to eat something that tasted like a more rubbery form of broccoli to him. The color wasn't appealing either. But grocery stores sold it, so somebody had to be buying it. Maybe cauliflower was broccoli's ugly cousin.
Grocery stores always fascinated Michael. All the choices, all the colors, all the variety. He enjoyed looking at fresh-sprayed vegetables tucked in their aisle along the wall. Something about the idea of food being sprayed appealed to him. The little water bubbles were fascinating. He wasn't visiting Schneider's Groceries in order to shop, of course, but Michael was looking at some of the produce before meeting John Schneider himself. He wasn't looking forward to the meeting. With John, there was no telling how it would work out.
Not to mention that Jan had sounded like she wanted to stop by Michael's condo sometime over the next weekend to have a fancy dinner with him. She had given him a few suggestions as to what would be most delicious, but Michael was having trouble thinking about shopping for a meal with Jan. He loved Jan and all, but she was getting a little strange, especially since the unannounced booty call to Michael's condo that started all his problems in the first place. There was even something a little scary about her. Pushy. Domineering. Jan's controlling attitude was less exciting to Michael than he would have expected, especially considering how much he enjoyed that Cinemax movie he watched last month.
“Can I help you, sir?”
A teenage boy in a red uniform appeared beside Michael, staring at the vegetables with him.
“What's that?”
“You looked like you were zoning out over the vegetables,” said the teen. “Something you can't find?”
“Oh, no. Actually, I have an appointment with John Schneider. Is he here?”
“In his office, I bet. I can tell him you're here. What's your name?”
“That's alright. I know where the office is. John knows me.”
Michael left the rows of glistening vegetables and made his way through the store. It was time to get this over with. Besides, he'd be digging an even deeper hole for himself if he ended up late to yet another lunch appointment with John Schneider. He had left himself a lot of buffer time, just in case.
Michael had called Schneider and arranged to meet him in his personal office at a store branch on the outskirts of Scranton, which had been the original family store belonging to Schneider's parents. Schneider himself had expanded the business a great deal since his parents' deaths. That had to have been a long time ago, thought Michael. John himself looked like he was on his last legs, as far as he was concerned. Schneider's Groceries had many locations over the Lackawanna County area, but John still insisted on running the operation from his very first store, in a little office in the back, despite the fact that the corporation would have been better off with separate corporate facilities like they had at Dunder Mifflin.
Then again, thought Michael, Dunder Mifflin's corporate offices made it difficult for any of the higher ups to visit most of their branches. Bad for them, good for him, since he got to run things his way in Scranton.
It was hard to resist the urge to grab and fondle various grocery items on his way through the store, but Michael controlled his impulses and made it to the employee area to the back, walking down a bare hallway with a concrete floor. At the end of the hallway was a white door, blank except for a name plate which read 'J. Schneider, CEO.' The door was open just a crack. Michael knocked before pushing it open the rest of the way.
“Hey there, Mr. Schneider!”
John Schneider looked up from his desk with a grumpy expression, his haggard eyebrows and drooping lips twisted in displeasure. It was hard to tell if it was really a look of displeasure or not, since. Schneider usually had a bit of an angry-old-man look about him. He wore a cream-colored shirt and pants held up with gray suspenders that clashed horribly with the cream color, as he usually wore when Michael saw him. Liver-spotted hands shakily clutched a piece of paper which Schneider had been looking over. A pudgy belly was visible even from behind the desk. Michael gave him a smile and waited patiently until the man put down the paper and motioned to a chair on the other side of his desk, at which point Michael took a seat, placing his briefcase beside him.
“How's it going?”
“How d'you think it's going, Michael,” said Mr. Schneider. “You come to say yer sorry for missin' our appointment th' other day?”
"Yes I have,” said Michael, modulating his voice to be as pleasing and gentle as possible. “It was very rude of me, and I wanted to come apologize. I always enjoy our lunches together, so I thought maybe we could have one together today. Maybe talk business a little.”
“Don't feel like talkin' business right now,” said Mr. Schneider. “As for eatin', I ain't goin' out anywhere.”
“That's fine,” said Michael. “I didn't feel like going out either.”
“I got a cauliflower I was munchin' on here. Take half of it.”
Michael suddenly noticed the cauliflower sitting on a paper towel roll spread out on Mr. Schneider's desk, to the left of some paperwork he had been working on. There was definitely a chunk missing already; Schneider grabbed the large piece of cauliflower and tore off another chunk, handing it to Michael along with another paper towel square that he ripped from a roll on his desk. Michael stared at the cauliflower. Although he could not see his own face, he had a strange sensation that it was turning a similar shade of white. How had he not noticed Schneider eating the thing when he came into the man's office?
“Go on, take a bite.”
Michael picked up the cauliflower, gingerly giving it a sniff. He opened his mouth. He bit.
“Good, eh?”
“Mmf,” said Michael through a mouthful of the disgusting vegetable. Sort of like broccoli, but so not broccoli. “Ith tho good.”
“So how's everything been goin' over at the Dunder Mifflin?”
“Very well, very well. We've just been-”
“You know,” interrupted Mr. Schneider, “just earlier this mornin', you wouldn't believe what one of my young employees was caught doin' over by the vegetables. I tell you what, Michael, young kids these days, they got no idea how to behave proper at a job. They're lucky to have a job, you ask me! Anyways, this young kid...”
Michael nodded politely as he listened to Mr. Schneider droning on. This was about the way that all of their lunch meetings went, trailing back for years. They always met to discuss an extension to their contract, make any changes that were needed, and set up a deal to deliver paper to Schneider's Groceries for another six months, usually. There were rarely any changes to the contract, but Michael knew that John Schneider was a man of habit. A man of tradition. He thought the lunch meetings were the proper way to do business.
More than that, though, Michael knew that John Schneider enjoyed talking to him. Talking about anything, really – his family, his physical ailments, annoying things his employees had done, things he had seen in the news that stuck in his craw, as he liked to put it. The meetings were his excuse to socialize with Michael, which was why he had taken it so personally when Michael was late to their contract renewal meeting last week.
Socializing, of course, was just another way of doing business to Schneider. And Michael didn't really disagree with the man. It was just too bad that listening to him talk was like taking a hefty dose of sleeping pills. But if he wanted to try to renew the deal and make sure he didn't lose Schneider as a client – if he wanted to give himself some leeway when he told David the truth about his screwup, or at least most of the truth – Michael needed to stick it out.
Schneider's rambling conversation switched topics from his annoying employee to something about a urinary problem for which he had been seeing his doctor a lot lately. Michael smiled and nodded, forcing himself to take another bite of the cauliflower for the sake of appearance. All he knew was that Jim had better appreciate the sacrifice he was making.
