If she could have had her way, the Scranton branch would have closed after that night. She didn't care that downsizing was, for once, not absolutely imminent, she just wanted to rid herself of it. She never wanted to have to make the drive there again. Especially after the long, silent drive home she had faced.
She kept this opinion to herself though. She would be risking her job to suggest the closing to corporate. She had to keep things professional. Professional. Wasn't that the way she had acted toward him before? Keeping herself from ruining her career over some stupid fling. And look where that had got her. She'd dug herself into this hole.
"Just ignore it," she told herself. "You didn't really want him anyway." He was just there when she needed to escape from her role as a businesswoman, a purpose that he likely failed to understand. And now he had a real relationship in his life, someone who wasn't going to kiss him half of the time and ignore him the other.
She wasn't alone in her wish to escape from all things Scranton though. The young salesman, Jim, had seemed genuinely distraught when he had asked for a transfer to Stamford. Something deep had to be driving him away, a force greater than ambition, perhaps it was Dwight, or Michael, and in such a hurry too. When she told him he had the job, he wanted to start immediately.
She had been rational in that conversation. Telling him to spend a little longer in Scranton. Surely he needed some time to say goodbye and make living arrangements in a new city. Besides, the transfer still needed the approval of the rest of corporate, a process that was bound to take a couple of weeks. And then there was the vacation time he was taking in June. She had convinced him it would be for the best to wait until after the trip to begin his new job. Why couldn't she convince herself of matters in the same manner?
It was that very transfer that forced her to go back. There were forms to be filled out and paperwork to be filed and if she knew Michael, it would never get done in time unless she went down there and made sure of it herself. He would be foolish to let Jim leave without a fight; losing Dunder Mifflin's ninth best salesman would certainly be a blow. Someone needed to make sure that it was one he was going to take. Besides, she had to face her fear sometime. It would give her closure, with which would hopefully come sanity.
She had scheduled her visit for June 1, as close to Jim's vacation as possible with her schedule. She wanted to let things settle down before she arrived. Even though she hadn't forgotten about the casino night mess, hopefully he would have. When Pam had transferred in her call to confirm that he would be around to sign the necessary documents, his responses had been free of the crass remarks about their relationship that plagued their conversations in the past. He had slipped and called her Carol once, a mistake for which he apologized courteously, but she doubted that he knew how much it had hurt. He had reminded her of how she didn't even have a silly sales manager idolizing her anymore, she was truly alone. She'd smoked an endless chain of cigarettes after the call. Who would have thought that one simple rejection could endanger her health so much more?
Smoking was like Michael in a way. She knew that both would hurt her, but when denied them, she was driven into anguish. Maybe if she focused her energy on quitting she could forget, but it was the one thing in her life that she knew she could rely on to be there. She knew exactly where her life was with every smoke, but didn't mind. She was the executive with the lucrative career, not some airhead desperate for a relationship in the worst possible place. As much as she felt snubbed, at least she could take comfort in the fact that what she had endured was practically over. Or at least she hoped it was.