Even though Kelly did not expect Ryan to appear (or so she said), Kelly took over an hour choosing what to wear to Jim's party. Every item of clothing was draped across a piece of furniture or was wadded on the floor. Laura and Danica sat on Laura's bed, waiting Kelly out with a quick card game.
Danica had not dressed up much; she had stopped at her apartment long enough to change from her work clothes to a nice berry-colored sweater and jeans. She had not bothered to put on any more makeup than she usually wore. Kelly had tsk-tsked when she showed up at the Kapoors after sundown, but Laura assured her she looked great.
"So why isn't she going with Ryan," Laura asked pointedly, not for the first time.
"Because we decided not to," Kelly answered clippedly.
"But it's Valentine's Day."
"God, Laura, don't be so shallow." Kelly emerged from the closet and regarded her younger sister, her hands mangling a dress. "Ryan and I are mature enough to handle being apart for one night."
Laura only giggled.
"Is she serious?" she whispered when Kelly bent down to rummage through her shoes.
"Of course."
"Was it their decision?"
"Sure." Danica did not want to feed Laura any discouraging ammunition. She really did not know, anyway; she had not been there when Ryan broke Kelly's expectations of a romantic night out. He could have been regretful and embarrassed that he forgot the significant date and that he was unable to weasel his way out of his prior commitment. Or he could have been overwhelmed by Kelly's intensity and was attempting to slow down the relationship to a saner pace.
It was not her business.
Ten minutes later, Kelly finally approved of one of her ensembles. She applied her makeup and brushed her hair; that took another half hour. She was not the least bit concerned about showing up late. "I told Dad that the party started at 7:30," she had confided to Danica, even though it was at seven. "There's nothing more pathetic than showing up on time at a singles' party."
The fact that she only delayed her entrance a half hour implied that she was secretly hoping that Ryan would ditch his friends and surprise her at Jim's.
Finally, Kelly smeared a lip gloss to her lips, blotted and tossed the used tissue on top of a pile of clothes. "OK, lets go."
"Wait a minute, " Laura ordered. "While Dani and I finish up the game, you could at least clean up a little."
"Now?" Kelly whined. "Why should I?"
"Because it's your mess."
Kelly picked up the piles from the floor, stomped over to the closet and threw everything inside. By the time Laura picked up the winning card, the floor was almost clear.
Kelly dashed to the mirror. "Look at what you did," she accused Laura. "My mascara's all runny.
Even with her supervampire sight, Danica did not see any streaks. "It looks fine," she told her but Kelly insisted on taking another few minutes to redo it.
"Laura is such a clean freak," Kelly muttered when they climbed downstairs.
Kelly's parents were downstairs. Mrs. Kapoor stopped them before they got to the door. "Where is this party?" she asked.
"At my coworker's," Kelly answered, her eyes roaming to the clock. "I've been there before."
"The unmarried one?" Mr. Kapoor asked from behind his news magazine. As if being married absolved people of all evil intentions.
"Most everyone at Dunder Mifflin is unmarried." Kelly said, her impatience coming through. "I've been to Jim's house before. Lots of other people are going to be there."
Mr. Kapoor looked at Danica. "Is this the kind of party your parents would approve of?" he asked.
"I think they would," Danica said. She could not say for sure without knowing who else was going, but she trusted Jim.
"Do you tell your parents when you go out with strangers?" Mrs. Kapoor wanted to know.
"My parents died when I was fifteen," Danica said straightforwardly. Fortunately, the Kapoors were not inclined to fawning pity, though Mrs. Kapoor did hesitate before posing the next question.
"A car accident?"
"A house fire." That was fairly accurate; she would never be able to tell humans the whole truth.
"Can we go now?" Kelly groaned, clearly embarrassed by her parents' interrogation.
Mr. Kapoor steered his attention back to his daughter. "There's no reason you should stay out late?"
"I guess not," Kelly said. "Eleven or midnight."
"Why not ten?"
"Dad!" She was really straining her patience at this point.
"Very well. Eleven."
"Thank you." She skipped over to her father's chair and kissed him on the cheek. She gave her mother a kiss on the way out.
The evening was not a success by any means.
Danica hung back and chatted with Jim, who also was not inclined to pair up with any of the guests. Jim was an excellent conversationalist and he did not ask intrusive questions like many of her other coworkers. Danica might have enjoyed herself if Kelly had not constantly interrupted them with her newly surfacing doubts about Ryan.
"Do you think Ryan is seeing other girls? Ohmigod, do you think he's on a date with another girl? Do you think he canceled with me so he could go out with another girl? If he's seeing another girl, I'll kill myself!"
The ordeal left Danica extremely exhausted. (Never mind that her kind never got exhausted).
Kelly glommed onto Ryan all the next morning. All those doubts that had occupied her had vanished. When Michael summoned everyone for a diversity meeting, Kelly sat on Ryan's lap. Then she dragged him up to the annex on the pretext of some computer malfunction.
While he examined Kelly's hard drive, he said to Danica, "I heard you and Jim were getting friendly."
"Huh?" Danica jerked back her headset. Before she could work out a reasonable answer, Kelly leapt in with her affirmation.
"It's true. They were totally joined at the hip."
A vicious clank sounded as Ryan's grip tightened on the screwdriver. He set the hard drive on the floor. He stared into it so intently an outside observer might have thought it hypnotized him.
Kelly rambled on, "You and Jim would be a great couple. You have so much in common."
She would have added more, but Danica cut in. "He's not interested. Neither am I."
"That's because he hasn't gotten over Pam yet," Kelly said, waving dismissively. "But he will. You're much prettier and skinnier than Pam."
"So you were serious," Ryan said, not breaking his stare from the machine. "About not being in a couple."
"Of course. That's what I said, right?" Danica stated. She never could understand why when she said she was not interested in someone, others took it to mean the opposite.
"Yeah. It's what you said," Ryan agreed.
"Everybody says that," Kelly said, shifting in her chair. "Nobody really means it."
Danica stood. "I'm going to turn in these evaluations. You continue doing what you're doing."
She stalked over to Michael's office, and knocked.
"Hey, Danica" Michael greeted as he glanced up from his computer.
"Evaluations," she said, dropping the folder on his desk.
"So you and Jim," Michael mused.
"We're not getting together," Danica clarified right off.
"Right because of the whole Pam thing." Michael's eyes widened. "Oh wait that was supposed to be a secret. You know, the kind only best friends know."
"Kelly already told me." Danica felt compelled to reassure him: maybe because, with the drama from last night's party, she had filled her quota for hysterical crying of the past twenty-four hours.
"Oh, right. Kelly." Michael let out a whistling breath. "She can't keep a secret. Typical wo- wow, can she not keep a secret."
"So I heard." Danica turned to leave.
"I've got some ideas on where you and Jim can go on your first date. There's this elevator that goes down a coal chute -"
"No thanks," she said on the way out.
No sooner did Danica arrive home when the phone rang.
Kelly wailed that Ryan had canceled their date - again.