The next evening, a waxing moon lit concrete building and the parking lot that served as the production studio for The Office. Alec sprang over the chain link fence and then prowled through the hodgepodge of vans and trailers inhabiting the parking lot. He found the designated trailer number and knocked on the door.
Gita Banerjee parted open the door, stooping to a kneel when she saw it was Alec. "Buona notte, signore," she greeted. Even in this modern setting, with the computers and cameras in view, she had not forgotten her deference.
Alec stepped in when she backed towards her station. Three television screens displayed the interior of Dunder-Mifflin. The footage played on the center screen with the office at a slow moment of the day: the image centered on Dwight as he made a sales call. The other two screens had paused.
"I found a questionable scene," Gita reported. She resumed the left-hand screen, which showed Danica alone at her desk, idling on the computer.
"How questionable?" Alec asked. If his heart still beat, it would have raced at a supersonic speed. What trouble has Danica caused now?
"Nothing overtly dangerous," Gita said. She played the tape, then thumbed a dial to jack up the volume.
Ryan barged in, after he was supposed to have left for the day. Then he accused Danica of hiding her lesbian proclivities from him. Danica calmly denied it. Instead she alluded vaguely to "personal demons."
Gita stopped the recording after Danica uttered that phrase.
Alec did not see anything particularly risky. "Play it again," he ordered. Gita replayed it, but still he found nothing the Volturi should object to.
Finally, he asked, "What is the trouble exactly?"
"'Personal demons, signore,'" Gita recited, unemotional in her identifying the problem. "As I said, it is not overtly risky. Nonetheless, she might have tried to insert a hint about us."
"Not necessarily. It is an English language figure of speech used commonly by humans," Alec reasoned, though already he second-guessed his defense for her.
"Would the Volturi allow it?" Gita asked. "Even if it is a figure of speech?"
Alec shook his head. No, Danica would not be so reckless as to hint at the existence of vampires.
Unless she was not aware she was being recorded. And the hint was meant only for Ryan.
Alec recalled how devastated Danica was when he explained how Gita had erased Ryan's and Kelly's memories of that night. No matter that Alec had not meant to hurt them: on the contrary, Gita's mind-wipe had spared the humans' lives. With that sensitive knowledge gone, they posed no threat to the Volturi.
If so, it was a foolish move. Ryan's memory of her revelation had been wiped out, and no clumsy figure of speech would enable Ryan to regain it.
"Excise the recording," he ordered to Gita. "But we needn't alert Aro about this. We are not so paranoid that we would take metaphorical phrases as threats. I will talk to Danica about this, instruct her to mind her language."
Gita pursed her lips wistfully. "I would have liked to include this in the show. It would have provided closure to Ryan and Danica's short-lived romance."
"Your audience will have to live without their closure," Alec commented as Gita erased the footage.
Kelly worked fast; she had found a date for Pam. She had chosen one of Danica's cast-offs.
"Alan," Danica had protested. "He's kind of boring."
"So is Pam," Kelly reasoned. "So he'll suit her fine."
Which gave Danica a momentary identity crisis. Kelly saw fit to set her up with Alan; did that mean she was boring?
"I am not boring," Danica rants to the camera. "Didn't I move here all by myself? Didn't I go with Kelly and Ryan and their friends to that club in Philadelphia? Of course, I didn't drink, because I was the designated driver. And I didn't hook up with anyone. But I did dance." Her mouth drops open in horror. "To Alanis Morissette."
The day of, Kelly and Danica stopped by Pam's desk.
"So?" Kelly squealed. "Are you excited about the date tonight?"
Pam nodded. That she did not look terribly thrilled, Danica suspected, Kelly dismissed as Pam being quiet and boring Pam.
"Yes I have a date," Pam tells the camera. "He's a cartoonist for the local paper, which is kind of cool, because I like to draw, too. I'm kind of nervous. I have not had a first date in . . . nine years. I probably shouldn't broadcast that."
"It's great that you're doing this," Danica offered, twisting a gold chain around her neck as she talked. "Venturing into the unknown."
"If you want, you can come," Kelly suggested. Clapping her hands together and rubbing them in the universal scheming gesture, she brainstormed out loud. "We could make it a triple date. You could bring your hot cousin along."
"Kelly, no." Danica jerked her head back and forth. Kelly understood what she meant; this was supposed to be about poor, husbandless Pam. Plus it might be awkward, as Kelly never told Pam that she set Alan up with Danica first. Dutifully, Kelly turned her attention back on Pam.
"So what are you wearing?" she asked.
Pam glanced down at her blue blouse and cardigan set. "This."
"Oh," Kelly and Danica chorused together. Pam's outfit was a little dowdy and off color; okay for the office but not very flattering. Danica imagined that Alice would have an aneurysm if she ever caught one of her family wearing what Pam was wearing.
Kelly decided to move onto more important points. "Now remember, no matter how much you want to, do not sleep with him on the first date. It gives him all the power."
"She's not going to want to," Danica said off-hand.
"Shut up, Danica. You're not helping."
Then Michael interrupted. He and Dwight crossed by the reception desk, hefting their luggage for the big convention in Philadelphia. Kelly explained about the blind date between Pam and Alan.
"You know what would be hilarious?" Michael erupted with a chortle, "is if you wore your wedding dress."
"And your veil," Dwight added. Michael and Dwight bent forward, overcome with laughter at their own joke. Dwight slapped Michael's shoulder.
The women stared them down.
"Actually, I'll be wearing this," Pam said once their laughter died down.
"Oh." Michael regained control of his crass humor, but threw in a suggestion that she unbutton the top button and "let those things breathe."
They strutted out, trumpeting the "message" that they obtained from Pam to Jim: "Um! Um! Um!"
After work, while Kelly prepared for the double date, Danica enlisted Laura's help in finding ways to become less boring.
Laura hadn't a clue. "Extreme sports," she offered, as she adeptly shuffled the cards and then dealt them out for a round of gin rummy.
"Any you recommend?" Cliff diving came to mind, but considering all the drama that episode had caused for the Cullens, Danica would rather avoid it. Besides, there were no cliffs in Scranton.
"The only things I can think of are skydiving and bungee jumping," Laura replied.
"Hmm." Danica examined her cards. "Bungee jumping would be less expensive."
Laura concentrated on her card, then selected one to discard. "Too bad Kelly and I would never be allowed to do that," she commented. "Mom and Dad have been panicky about bridges ever since Maggie died."
"Who's Maggie?"
"Our sister. She died in a car accident. Are you going to go?"
Danica hurriedly thrust out a card and retrieved a new one.
Kelly stomped into the room. "Did you take my eyeshadow?" she shrieked.
"Tammi was playing with it, but I told her to put it back," Laura said, in the same detached tone she used to mention her sister's death. But when Laura was playing cards, or any other game, everything else stayed out of her mind.
"Well, she didn't." Kelly banged at the door and screamed at Tammi. Then Mrs. Kapoor interrupted in Hindi, likely to admonish Kelly for screaming at her sister. Kelly and her mother argued in Hindi for several more minutes, until Kelly stomped away defeated.
That argument, in which neither Danica nor Laura had any part, derailed any natural progression in the conversation about Kelly's dead sister. Laura declared gin.