What did she mean by "That's not your business?"

Ryan mulled over this question as he refilled his coffee. Danica entered the break room, maneuvering around him to get to the refrigerator. Then Michael made his usual timely entrance. When she became aware of his leering at her, she grabbed a bottle of her special cranberry juice and retreated to the annex.

Understandably, Danica would not give an answer at the meeting: not while Michael was behaving like a dumb ox, trampling over everyone else's privacy and emotional stability because he needed to know. Whatever the answer, it was not Michael's business - or Ryan's. Nevertheless, Danica's untranslated statement refused to budge from Ryan's conscious mind.

"When Danica said it's not my business," Michael echoed, as he hovered over the counter of the breakroom, "what do you think she meant?"

"That it's not your business?" Ryan answered clumsily.

Michael aimed an amused look at the camera. Ryan is so naive, he seemed to express.

"Do you think she meant it's not your business as in she's wildly in love with Jim, or it's not your business as in she's not wildly in love with Jim because she's a lesbian?"

"Or," Ryan started to speak. "Or there's another reason."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

Ryan did not want to explain his unfurling thoughts to Michael. Damnit, he was not the type who was always ready with a clever retort. "Uh . . ."

"I know. You could go and ask her out, and if she says no, it proves she's a lesbian."

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

This time Ryan did have a quick answer. "I'm seeing Kelly."

"Well you don't have to go out with her. You just have to ask her," Michael persisted. "Though if I were you, I'd rather go out with Danica than Kelly. Especially if she was a lesbian. Scha-wing. Wayne's World" he added for the benefit of their audience.

"Don't you think you've caused enough trouble today?" Ryan said clippedly. He slammed down the empty coffeepot. "Or is one employee threatening to quit not serious enough for you to rethink your behavior?"

"Geez, don't get your balls in a twist," Michael said, with a nervous laugh.

Ryan strode back to his desk. He was disgusted with Michael and disgusted with himself for thinking along the same lines.

She turned him down. She possibly turned Jim down. She resists all of Kelly's attempts to fix her up with a male friend. She doesn't hang around Kelly and me when we're together. For such a small girl, she's pretty strong . . .

All of that culminated to weak evidence. The biggest clue, the one that rankled the most, was that he kissed her and she turned him away.

Ryan had always been fairly successful at getting the girl he wanted. He was pleasing to the eye, well-educated, sensitive (but not too sensitive), adequately employed. There was no reason why he should repel Danica.

His fidgeting caught Dwight's attention.

"Do you have something to you need to confess?" Dwight asked, assuming his police-deputy-turned-security-officer expression.

"No." Ryan rummaged through his desk until he found his call list. He made a big show of studying it.

"Just wait until Jim's gay-dar arrives," Dwight threatened. "Then I'll find out everything you're not confessing."

"Fine."

Apparently that was not the reaction Dwight wanted. He clenched his jaw and pounded away on his keyboard.

After work, Ryan dropped Kelly off at her house, then, on impulse, he swung his car back to Dunder Mifflin.

Danica often stayed later than most employees; she told Kelly it was because she got better Internet service in the office than at home, which struck Ryan as a pitiful excuse, but Michael allowed it because she replied to some of his less salacious email forwards. Ryan wondered what she was really doing after hours.

She was alone in the annex, reading the Not Always Right website. When Ryan entered, she looked up. "Oh, hey."

"Hey," Ryan said, then launched into his question. "If you're a lesbian, why didn't you just say so?"

"What?" Danica's breath rippled out, carrying a strange laugh with it. She might have been more indignant, but she could guess the source of Ryan's conclusion. She had already had a similar talk with Pam, thanks to Michael's dragging her personal life into today's meeting.

Ryan slapped his hand against his forehead. "Okay, let's start over."

"Okay." Danica drew her hands from the keyboard and swiveled to him.

"Are you a lesbian?"

"No."

Ryan expected more from this conversation. But for such a straightforward answer, it did not explain anything.

"Why didn't you say so at the meeting?" Ryan grappled.

"Because I wasn't going to play Michael's game."

"Then what is going on?" Ryan asked. Why couldn't he make himself shut up? He was sounding as obnoxious as Kelly with the incessant questions crowding in his mouth.

Danica lightly kicked at the table leg. For a moment, Ryan thought she would put forth the "not your business" defense. Finally she said, "The truth? I don't want to date because I have some personal demons to work through, and I don't think I should be in a relationship until I do."

That was it? Ryan had the nagging suspicion that there was more, but he had regained control of his head. Personal demons could cover a lot of different areas that Danica would not want to discuss with him at this point. So instead, he conceded, "That sounds reasonable, I guess."

"Okay."

"Sorry," he offered belatedly. "I'll see you later."

"See you."

Ryan stops by the camera room. "I'm glad today's over. Michael's thinking can be like a contagious virus infecting everyone who comes within his radius. Anyone that spends any amount of time in this building catches it and becomes insane."

He pauses, as if realizing how ridiculous his theory sounds. "That's the best I can explain it," he adds.