I always wished the people of the office would've wrapped up Jan's character a little better, so I decided to write a little 5 things bit about one of our favorite returning guest stars!:) I'm writing each thing in separate chapters cuz their kinda longer than normal. So I'll update as fast as I can...
Disclaimer: I own a dwight bobblehead, but nothing really to sue me over.
I. She lied about the reason for her divorce.
She was a natural-born workaholic. Even when she was a child, she always had to keep herself occupied. Her parents signed her up for every possible extracurricular, and from that she learned how to deal with all kinds of stress. She remembers in high school, when the pressure got to be too much, she would knaw at her fingertips. This was a bad idea, seeing as she took guitar lessons, and the pain got to be too annoying to continue. She eventually dropped music, and her fingertips eventually began to heal. She then just focused on acedemics and sports; emphasis on the sports. She absolutely loved volleyball. It was her life, and she wished she could center her whole world around it. Her parents knew she liked volleyball, but they had no idea she was so invested in it. That's why it was such a shock to them when, in her junior year, she approached them and told them she was going for a volleyball scholarship into college. Her father was absolutely furious. He put his foot down, saying that no daughter of his was going to slack off of her studies and hope to get into a good college because of pointless ball-playing abilities. This turned into screaming fights and tears and sleepless nights, until finally she was forced to immerse herself into her studies, focusing solely on them. She joined several clubs, the yearbook staff, the newspaper, anything to get her ready for college. Over time she slowly forgot about her volleyball dream, and in senior year she finally dropped it and replaced it with some other nameless club without another thought. She worked very hard for the rest of her high school life and ended up going to Princeton. By then she was used to keeping herself completely busy with work, and she did nothing but study. She probably would have stayed in her dorm forever with her nose buried in a book if her roommate, Susannah, wasn't such a party animal. Susannah always dragged her to every party, whether it was against her will or not.
A party was where she met Gould. And that was where the idea was born.
He was sweet and handsome and charming, much like some of the other guys she dated. But something about him was different. Much different. She couldn't explain what, but she liked it immediately. She and him chatted for most of the party, and he asked her out for coffee the next day, which she happily accepted.
Before she knew it, they were a couple. He was funny and smart and seemed to adore everything about her. Going out with him seemed to cool her off a bit, for now she had a social life with her almost overbearing work life. He helped her relax and have fun for the first time since high school. Two months into dating, he said he loved her, and she loved him too. It was like a fairytale, and that was when she knew she would get her happily ever after with Gould.
He was her volleyball.
Six months and he asked her to marry him, and she said yes. It was a dream come true.
After college she and him moved to New York and got jobs at the Lehman Bros. Corporate building. She was an administrative assistant and he was a sales manager. They had enough money to buy a relatively nice apartment, and they were starting to feel at home.
When they started working together, she felt that deep, hidden desire taking over her. The desire that completely changed her personality and drove her to do the strangest things. The change wasn't sudden; in fact she doesn't think that he even noticed a change in her for quite awhile. It began building during their first year of marriage and manifested into actions during their second. She would dress in low-cut tops and pencil skirts that got shorter and shorter. When she visited her husband on the second floor (she worked on the ninth) she gave up sitting on the chair and instead splayed herself seductively on his desk when they talked. The other men noticed her, she saw, but Gould would treat her exactly the same; like she was still his perfectly normal, modest wife. She loved being his wife, don't get her wrong. She just wished she looked more attractive to him and not just to the perverts he worked with.
Over the months she took even more drastic action. She began visiting him eight or nine times a day, playing with his tie and ruffling his hair and flirting. At least twice a week, she'd drag him into the supply closet and fool around. She paid the secretary to cover up their absences and aviod certain spots on certain days.
It was exciting. It was bad. It was fun.
Gould was slowly and steadily getting more and more annoyed by her behavior. He hid it at first, thinking that it was just some sort of phase she was going through. When she became more erratic, he pretended that he was having fun, flirting back whenever she came to his office and going along with it during her supply closet escapades. He figured he could deal with it as long as he had her, and that was what mattered, right?
He loved her, but he was not in love with this side of her.
This went on for three and a half years; their first three and a half years of marriage obscured and ruined by ridiculous sexual fantasies and disgusting behavior. He knew deep down she wouldn't turn back to that sweet girl he met in New Jersey, but he hated to admit it. He hated admitting he was falling out of love with the sexual monster that took over his wife. He took her to his therapist, hoping he would help her. But she just ended up showing him their sex tapes, asking him what they could improve. Horribly embarressed, Gould quit therapy and accepted the inevitable.
The Jan Levinson he once knew and loved was gone.
He still had to try though, right? She was his wife, and she deserved a second chance. She deserved as many as he could give. He wanted to start over and have a new life with her; to leave this monster behind. He found two open jobs at the Dunder Mifflin Corporate office, and talked her into leaving Lehman Brothers. She obviously didn't care what job she had as long as she worked with him. They moved to the other side of Manhatten and got settled in a new apartment and new neighborhood, leaving everything behind.
After a month of working at Dunder Mifflin, she had become just as erratic as she was at their old company. He asked her not to visit him so many times a day and to please, please stop dragging him to the supply closet. That seemed to push her off the edge and she stopped speaking to him other than to drag him into the supply closet at least five times a week and be more vicious than ever.
There was only one choice left now. And it broke his heart...
He broke her heart. She didn't understand why he suddenly said that they wanted different things; that she wasn't the girl he had married. He had hurt her terribly, and she desperately wanted him to give her another shot. She cried, begging him between sobs not to do this. That she would do anything.
He was quietly adamant, and she sobbed harder for both of them.
When the divorce was final, he moved back to New Jersey, obviously attempting to start his life over again. She stayed at Dunder Mifflin and once again completely immersed herself in her work. She worked her way up to sales, to boss, then to boss's boss. She never talked to anyone at work about her divorce, but some people (Michael) were stupid enough to ask. She knew it was her fault for it; her disgusting and erratic fantasies drove her husband away from her. The guilt was almost unbearable, and she hated herself for it.
She lied and said that they didn't agree about children. That seemed like a common reason for divorce, and went along with it.
That lie, and work, kept her mind off the guilt.
Like she said, she was a natural-born workaholic.
So please review!!!! I know this kind've started off as Jan's life story, but there is more to come.