First time writing Toby and Karen this much. Scared scared scared.
The chair is cold, but her back is scorched because the sunlight is burning directly on her shirt, which happens to be black. She doing that knee thing, and every few seconds the receptionist looks up to make Karen aware that she notices the noise she's making.
Karen sighs, applies Burt's Bees Pomegranate Lip Balm, sighs again and watches the door. Joyce the receptionist said she'd be right out, where is she?
"Hi Karen." Jan's smiling more than usual and when Karen enters, she shuts the door hard. The thud echoes through her mind, and it only takes her a second to know the answer.
"Karen," Jan says. Her eyes are trying to leave emotion out of this. "The transfer request you filed wasn't approved."
Karen notices that she doesn't skip a beat, tries not to frown, apologizes more than once, and she knows. She knows that Jan is really sorry.
[]
"I know you tried to transfer, and I'm sorry it wasn't approved."
Karen's eyes are low, like when she has to ask questions she doesn't want to know the answers to. Toby's just trying to be nice, she thinks.
"I understand how stressful it can be around here, and Michael is never that funny." Toby isn't smiling, just looking right at her and talking softly and evenly. "If you need to talk about anything, I'm here."
Karen looks at him, gives a smile that isn't completely a lie. "Okay."
[]
"The worst part," Karen says, making each word clear and hoping that this time, she isn't misunderstood. "The worst part is that I can't even hate Pam. Because I know why he'd love her. I wasn't even surprised to learn she's the reason he left."
Toby rubs his eyes, and for a second Karen wonders if he's tired of her ranting already, but then she realizes that this has to be better than filing another complaint about Michael.
"If I could just hate her, then I'd be left in peace." She probably sounds mean, but this is Toby and he's like the pastor at confession. He won't tell anyone, just listen and maybe she'll feel cleansed afterwards.
"I know what you mean," he mumbles, and she looks up, trying to catch his glance, but his eyes are so sad she can't really tell if he's looking at her.
Karen finds herself wondering how many people are in love with Pam.
[]
"You aren't sick of this, me talking to you, are you?" She likes talking in the break room, since they can get food and then talk without Kelly hearing. Not that she doesn't like Kelly, but she knows that Kelly talks to Pam.
He pauses, slowly chews his baked lays and looks at her thoughtfully.
"No." It's silence again, and she reaches into the bag, taking a few and chewing slowly, like he does. They aren't Herr's, but this is taking what you can get.
She knows now that Toby liked Pam. Loved her, maybe. He's told her his part of the story, finding bits and pieces of moments to add the occasional comment.
They laugh all the time, he picks her up and she giggles and tells him to stop it right now, and he tells her that it's not over yet, young lady. Karen laughs bitterly while Michael walks up to her and says, "Aren't they adorable?"
Yeah, she laughs. Jim and Pam are the cutest couple I've ever seen.
The absolute worst part of that statement is that it's true.
[]
It's been two months since he broke up with her, and she has become completely numb to their laughs and jokes, pranks on Dwight and dinner plans. She thinks that Toby might be the novocaine.
Two months, but it feels like two years of watching the cool kids make a scene and tell everyone that having a boyfriend like him is a dream come true. I wouldn't have it any other way. Would you, sweetie?
Karen was kind of a bum, to be honest. She smoked throughout high-school and skipped formal dances. Not that she wasn't pretty cool, but she felt above all the hype. It was high-school, that's all.
She can hear the fax machine making noise, and Dwight tapping his hand on her desk, he needs copies of his sale reports, but Pam's looking at a watercolor painting she made online.
"Hey, uh, Karen."
She spins around in her office chair and sees Toby standing, a hand on her desk and the other by his side, his fingers taptaptapping his thigh. She smiles.
"Yeah?"
He looks like he might want to crawl inside himself, and she knows what he's going to say.
"Are you free for dinner?"
She doesn't know why, but she's getting flustered and thinks that maybe, just maybe, she can meet Toby. Toby that loves ancient paintings and would like to see Paris some day, maybe even Italy. She wants to go to dinner with him.
"Yeah. I am."
She smiles and he smiles back. They both think that they both might not be debris, remains of a crushed romance. They both wonder if maybe there is still a chance, however slim, of smiling like this again.
If you read, review.