Take Me out of My Envelope, Chapter 3, first half
Title: Take Me out of My Envelope (3A/?)
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Word count: 5,900 (this post)
Rating: PG-13 (a little language)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Note: Sorry it has taken so long to get this chapter written! I'm hoping to get the rest of this knocked out pretty quickly now. Spoilers through Freddy Spaghetti, but then it veers off the canon timeline (starting pretty much now).
Hours after the workday ended, Leslie was still in her office, trying to rally her spirits with a little solo brainstorming session.
“Sell the vegetables from the community garden at a roadside produce stand,” she said into her memo recorder, then mentally tried to calculate how many carrots they’d have to sell to offset the budget cuts. Probably … a lot.
Ugh. Who would want to eat that many vegetables?
And also, there had been that problem with someone trying to grow weed there last summer.
Wait, how much money did pot dealers make?
She brushed the question aside, shaking her head in frustration. She was not going to get Pawnee’s kids hooked on pot just so she could teach them arts and crafts at the rec center. No matter how many potheads were on the art council.
What else could they sell? “Some sort of beverage, maybe lemonade …”
Crap. Now she sounded like she was eight.
Leslie rewound and played the tape back, her slightly tinny-sounding voice reverberating through the empty building as it recounted every idea she’d had for the past three hours, and listened hard for the golden ticket, the big idea that was going to get them out of this mess.
She didn’t hear it. It wasn’t there.
Shoving the recorder into a drawer, she leaned back with a sigh and thumbed her essential personnel badge-a lot of good that was doing her, she thought, glancing around the ghostly still parks department offices. She used to like working late, having all of City Hall to herself and being productive long after everyone else was gone or even asleep.
Tonight the silence felt different, more permanent, as if the City Hall she knew and loved was more than asleep. And she hated not knowing when it was going to come alive again.
Earlier that evening, she had researched fees for potential musicians for the summer concert series she’d proposed, and reluctantly had to admit that Ben had been right-about that small detail, at least. There were a lot of other things he was still wrong about. A lot a lot.
She could probably raise the money to pay the musicians, but she wasn’t even sure if that was where she should be focusing her energies right now. A concert series would have been nice, and it would have given her something to do this summer, but was it what this town most needed from her?
Pawnee needed her to fight for it. She just hadn’t figured out how.
Leslie pushed back her chair, stood up, and paced back and forth across her small office a few times before setting off through the parks department. She didn’t even know where she was going, but she just felt like she wanted to be moving. Enough of this sitting around and feeling powerless.
Her heels clicked through the eerily quiet hallways, up the stairs, until she inevitably ended up in front of the wallflower mural on the second floor.
It was a spot she came to often. She liked the vibrant colors. She liked the juxtaposition of things she loved-the free feeling of being outdoors on a summer day, combined with the powerful feeling of being in the hallways of government. But there was something else about it, too, the way that it made her feel-
It was the flowers themselves, and what they represented. The deep roots, the way they looked so happy, growing and thriving in the wild, like nothing could mow them down. They were so pretty there, not even BentheJerk could come along with his canister of budgetary Roundup and ruin them. Not that they were actual flowers, but he’d have to go through the art council to paint over it, and why would he do that anyway?
There were some things in City Hall that were still safe.
Feeling a little bit soothed by the sight, she started to head back to get her bag and probably call it a night, but paused as she was passing room 214B-the auditors’ office.
Speak of the devil.
Without thinking, she pushed lightly on the door and was surprised it wasn’t locked, so she went in.
She knew she shouldn’t be here, but she wasn’t snooping. She was just … curious.
Ignoring Chris’s half of the room, Leslie walked over to Ben’s makeshift desk, which looked weirdly innocuous. She wasn’t even sure what she had expected to see there-an actual machete? A giant pair of scissors?
The desktop was uncluttered, save for a neat stack of file folders, a canister of freshly sharpened yellow pencils, one clean notepad, and a calculator-the bulky kind with a printer ribbon. She glanced at the strip of paper it was emitting, but out of context the stream of numbers meant nothing to her, and she couldn’t help but wonder what problem he had been working on, and whether he’d been able to solve it.
Noticing the organizational chart on the wall behind his desk, she flinched. As her fingertips traced lightly over the box in the lower corner, the one that contained her department, she heard Ben’s words all over again-your department, all the way down here, not a priority-and bit her lip. She didn't have long to convince him otherwise. Then the budgetary task force was scheduled to take up the parks department, and giant scissors or not, who knew what would be left of it after Ben was finished.
Turning back toward the door, she came face to face with the map of Pawnee that was hanging next to his desk and felt suddenly defensive on its behalf.
Pawnee was better than Idaho. What did Idaho have? She didn’t know. Potatoes, maybe. What did Ben know about Idaho, or Pawnee, for that matter?
He was wrong, and she’d just have to show him. Pawnee was special.
Back in her own office a few moments later, she reached to shut down her computer but noticed at the last second that a message alert had popped up while she had been taking her walk.
It was from Nerd Boy! Nerd Boy was someone who would get it. She wondered if he’d ever been to Idaho.
It took her a moment to remember what she’d last written to him, about keeping things impersonal. Maybe she’d been too quick to keep him at arm’s length? It could have been nice to have some company this summer from someone who understood where she was coming from. Maybe she could still walk that back.
I’ve given it some thought-too much thought, probably-and I think you might be right. Stay anonymous, we must, yes, as Yoda would put it. I am Nerd Boy, and you are Pawnee Lover, and that is all we shall be.
Well, that settled that. And also, she realized, the name Nerd Boy kind of fit.
But I wonder if you even realize how much you’ve already told me with just those two words in your user name. You are someone who loves Pawnee, and that seems to say something about you. I haven’t known Pawnee for very long, but it has a way of getting under your skin, doesn’t it?
This town is relentless. Like a dandelion plant, and I’ve never been able to decide how I feel about dandelions. Nobody asks for them, and they’re annoying, and getting rid of them is a pain, but their tenacity is kind of admirable. They’re the color of sunshine, and they have deep roots, and … I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. I did not just compare you to a weed. A gardener? That’s not quite right either. I think I’m comparing you to a person who appreciates wildflowers. Is that too far off the mark?
Leslie stopped and read the paragraph over again.
It was uncanny. It was almost like he’d walked by the same mural and had the same thoughts about it that day as she had. Of course, those flowers weren’t dandelions, but they were yellow. They reminded her of the kind of flowers that grew in abandoned lots, the kind that some people would look at and call weeds, and that other people would look at and call wildflowers.
It crossed Leslie’s mind that Nerd Boy would like that mural. As she finished reading his message, she wondered if she might ever get to show it to him.
Sorry if I’m not making much sense. It’s been another strange day, in another strange town, this one stranger than most. But strangely infectious too. So what is it about this place? I’m serious. If you won’t tell me about yourself, at least tell me about this town you love so much.
NB
By the time she was finished reading his short missive, she was smiling for the first time that evening. He was right, Pawnee was special-and it seemed to say something about him that he got that, after spending such a short time here.
It seemed to say something about Pawnee too.
She reached for her memo recorder one more time and clicked it on. “Pawnee is better than Idaho,” she said into the little microphone, her words echoing through the empty building.
A plan was starting to take shape.
--
Ever since he had arrived in Pawnee, Ben had been finding himself doing things it never would have occurred to him that he’d do. Online dating, for example. Not that they were dating, because they had pretty much established that was not what they were doing. Writing to an online pen pal?
Yeah. Somehow that didn’t make it sound any better.
Whatever it was they were doing, he just knew that he didn’t want it to end. So when he got her talking about Pawnee, he kept asking questions, partly because it was interesting-seriously, the era when everyone was worshipping Zorp sounded straight out of a kitschy sci-fi novel-but partly because he liked the way that she talked about it. He’d been moving around for so many years, he’d forgotten what it was like to feel so tied to a place. Something about it was really appealing in a way that he hadn’t quite put words to yet.
So when she mentioned how much she loved the snow globe museum, he made a point of going, just so that he could tell her later that he went and keep the conversation going.
Voluntarily visiting a snow globe museum by himself-add that to the list of things he never thought he’d be doing. Good lord-his sister would have a field day with that one. But apparently this was what happened in places like Pawnee.
Places like Pawnee. He was starting to think there was no other place like Pawnee.
It was different from any other town he’d been to, and he’d been to quite for a few. People here cared. They cared-loudly-all over his voicemail, and his e-mail box, and his lunch break, and his meeting prep time. But for as many feathers as he had ruffled and names he’d been called, no one had keyed his car or done weird unappetizing things to his takeout or any of the usual nasty stuff he’d faced.
The worst thing anyone had done to him since he arrived in Pawnee was to make that fake dating profile for him, and … that actually had turned out okay. Better than okay, possibly, as long as he avoided thinking too critically about what on earth he was doing writing to a stranger like she was a long-lost … something.
Even the snow globe museum was turning out better than expected. It was quiet and cool, a nice change from the harsh June sun beating down outside. As he entered, an older woman glanced up at him disinterestedly from behind a small table and charged him five dollars for admission. Then she pointed to a sign that proclaimed “Do not handle the snow globes. Under any circumstances. This will be enforced.”
Under the crisp block letters, a few small words were scrawled in pencil, and he leaned forward to read them. “This means you, Leslie!” For a moment he thought it might be his Leslie-his colleague Leslie-but quickly dismissed the notion. There must be more than one Leslie in Pawnee, right?
Ben started working his way through the museum, inspecting various winter scenes-one of children ice skating on a frozen pond, an idyllic glade of evergreen trees, a sleepy town in a snowstorm. They reminded him of Minnesota, and he felt that pang of longing for the feeling of belonging that was starting to creep into his consciousness-along with the touch of nervousness that always accompanied any thoughts of Minnesota.
Moving on, he worked his way past elaborate Christmas and Arctic displays, then started to inspect a large set of globes containing scenes from Pawnee’s history. Some of them were interesting, little models capturing moments in time-the signing of the town charter, the first lighting of the town Christmas tree-but others were as weird and disturbing as most of the murals in Pioneer Hall. He leaned in close to inspect a winter street scene that looked pleasant enough, until he noticed the Native American who appeared to be stuck under the wheel of a wagon. Was that supposed to be symbolic, or-?
“You lied to me.”
He started at the sound of Leslie Knope’s voice behind him, bumping his head on the shelf directly in front of him. The shelf of globes rattled a bit, setting off little snow flurries within a few.
“What are you-what?” Good lord. Was she following him? “What are you doing here?”
“The parks are closed,” she said matter-of-factly, frowning at him.
He raised an eyebrow, rubbing his temple, thinking of the sign by the door. “And this is where you hang out when the parks are closed.”
“Why are you here?”
This did not sound like friendly curiosity, and he wasn’t going to explain the whole thing about his pen pal, so instead of answering, he turned back to the display and asked a question that had been on his mind since he saw that sign by the door. “What is the point of a snow globe if you can’t pick it up? The snow just sits there.”
He was genuinely curious why this would be forbidden, but when he glanced back at Leslie he realized he’d offended her.
“How do you know that’s the rule for everyone? Maybe that’s just the rule for state auditors. Maybe they’re worried you’re going to break anything you touch.”
He couldn’t break what was already broken, he thought wryly, but didn’t dare say it out loud. Not in a room full of glass.
Leslie reached for a snow globe as if to demonstrate that she was in a different category of patron, and immediately the elderly curator-not asleep after all-materialized out of nowhere to scold.
“Put the globe down, Leslie. You’ve been warned three times, and I’m going to have to ban you for 30 days. That’s the rule.”
The woman made those little tsk-tsk sounds that old ladies and librarians make, and Leslie looked like she had just seen the last straw and wanted to snap it in half.
Ben felt a surge of sympathy for her: the parks were closed, her department was in limbo, and now she was being banned from her favorite hangout. So what if it was weird; he felt bad for her, so he tried to smile compassionately.
“It’s a dumb rule.”
“Maybe you’re dumb,” she said, then spun on her heels and stalked toward the door.
After a moment, he followed her, catching up with her in the parking lot. “Hey, wait. Um, what did you mean I lied to you?”
“Idaho.” She took a deep breath, pulling herself under control. “You said Idaho cut 80 percent of its parks department.”
“… excuse me?”
“The Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation had the portion of its budget that comes from the state general fund cut by 80 percent. But that’s not the whole story, is it? Most of the state parks department’s funding comes from entrance fees. Cutting 80 percent of the general fund budget is a mere one-fifth reduction overall. Still significant, but not what you implied.”
Okay, first of all, she looked that up? And secondly-what was she getting at? “We can’t charge entrance fees to Ramsett Park, Leslie. Your department doesn’t have other revenue streams.”
“I know that!” she snapped. “I’m just saying you shouldn’t have lied to me. And now I’m going to need half an hour to give a presentation to the task force before it considers the parks department budget.”
He didn’t quite see the connection there, but it seemed like the least he could do. “Fine. Half an hour.”
“And I’m going to need the projector. I’ll bring a stereo.” He raised an eyebrow at her, just slightly, and she glared at him defensively. “It’s a multimedia presentation.”
Of course it was.
He watched Leslie drive away, sighed, and then went back into the museum. He’d already seen enough to be able to credibly mention he’d been there, but he wanted to spend a little more time looking at that display on Pawnee’s history. This place was weird, but a really intriguing kind of weird.
And anyway, he’d already paid his admission.
--
Leslie had been delighted to find out that Nerd Boy had gone to the snowglobe museum.
As much as she had talked it up in the past, she’d never been able to get a boyfriend to go with her. Even Dave, who had seemed so eager to please, had always managed to come up with excuses. Not only had Nerd Boy gone, he had followed up afterward to ask such specific questions about the snow globes pertaining to Pawnee’s history. Now there was a boy after her own heart.
Not that anyone was after anyone’s heart here.
Then they had gotten on the subject of history in general, and it turned out he was as much of a buff as she was.
They started talking politics and trading historical quotes, and she could tell by the ones he sent her that he was either someone who thought like her, or that he was paying close enough attention to the way she thought about things to pick ones she’d like. The implications of that made her feel warm inside, even as she was brushing away any thoughts about why she felt that way. She had enough to think about this week anyway, with this big presentation she was preparing.
Leslie copied a few of the most relevant quotes he’d sent onto post-it notes and affixed them to the inside of the binder where she was keeping her notes and materials, so that every time she opened it she got a little pep talk from someone in her corner.
On the day of her presentation, she read them again as the task force members were milling about before taking their seats.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.-Teddy Roosevelt
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.-Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes, the only realists are the dreamers.-Paul Wellstone
She’d been familiar with the Jefferson and Roosevelt quotes, of course, but the Wellstone one was new, and she loved it. He’d been a popular senator in Minnesota until dying in a plane crash in 2002, which was too bad, because when she read up on him, she found out that he’d really been her kind of politician.
Across the room, Leslie eyed Ben, looking tense and uptight, and remembered that he was from Minnesota. But he’d probably voted for someone else back then-someone who thought the only realists were numbers robots, she was sure.
When she finished setting up the projector, she cued up the stereo to play the mix she had prepared. It started off with the somber strains of the prelude from The Ten Commandments soundtrack.
Her title card flashed up on the screen, and she read it aloud to begin her presentation. “Pawnee is better than Idaho,” she proclaimed with cheerful confidence.
A tiny strangled sound caught her attention, and she glanced over to see Ben cover it in a cough, his eyes darkening perceptibly. Not everybody was born supportive, she thought, and she’d be bent out of shape too if all her preconceived notions about something were about to be toppled. Served him right.
After allowing herself a small smile, she launched into a brief explanation of what had happened to the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, focusing on one detail that had seemed particularly relevant to her-that the park system of Idaho brought in $40 million of tourism revenue to the state each year, almost twice the amount of its entire operating budget. A graph popped up behind her to illustrate this point.
“Those dollars go to local businesses, they keep people in jobs, they foster a healthy economy that benefits everyone, and they contribute property and income tax dollars to the general fund. So you see, while Idaho’s parks preserve nature and provide for the enjoyment of park users, they also are key to the overall wellbeing of the state. They are what help make Idaho a place where people want to live, and a place where they want to visit.”
As she spoke, images of Idaho state parks flashed on the screen behind her. Then her background music shifted to a jauntier theme from Beverly Hills Cop, and she shifted gears. “But come on. We don’t live in Idaho. Thank goodness, right?” This elicited some appreciative chuckles around the room. Ben was the only one who still looked stony faced, but she ignored him. “I’d rather eat corn than potatoes any day,” she quipped with a bright smile, then turned more serious again.
“But the same is true here,” she said. “Some in Pawnee might think of parks as the lowest priority department, and we do have one of the smallest budgets. Of course we need roads to drive on, and schools to teach our children, and sewers to carry our byproducts. But we also need parks. The Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation has a reputation for providing excellent services for all age groups.”
She detailed a sampling of the services, accompanied by colorful photographs of happy people enjoying the many parks programs. As the music behind her crescendoed, she worked up to her conclusion.
“All of these programs add to the quality of life we have come to expect in Pawnee. We take pride in our local parks and recreation programs, and Pawnee has been a better place for that. These programs are part of the reason that people choose to live here, instead of going to Eagleton or Snerling. When people live in Pawnee, they make their homes here, they pay taxes, they work here, and they spend their money at local businesses. We all benefit. A strong and vibrant parks and recreation department is crucial to the long-term health of our community. We are part of what makes Pawnee special.”
She finished to a smattering of applause, and then Chris Traeger joined her in the front of the room and patted her on the back, which was a little weird, but good probably. “Thank you for that wonderful presentation, Leslie. You are an inspiration to us all.”
Leslie was more worried about what Ben thought, but he wasn’t even looking at her, instead fumbling with something on his phone.
--
Ben seethed quietly during Leslie’s presentation, which clearly had been designed specifically to make him look like more of an asshole. Why else would she have even brought up Idaho? He was starting to wish he’d never even heard of the state's budget situation, much less made the foolhardy mistake of trying to quote numbers off the top of his head to someone who filed every little detail away to use against him later.
Leslie Knope, overzealous fact checker. Leslie Knope, spiteful motivational speaker.
Oh, it was good. He had to give her that, at least-she could give a speech and work an audience and win people over in a way that he kind of envied. She was likable. She showed colorful pictures of cute happy kids and endearingly ancient seniors and used words like “future leaders of tomorrow” and “keepers of our history.”
But they were just words. They didn’t do a thing to change the financial situation of this city, and he had to recommend the same set of changes regardless. The only thing she’d accomplished was to set him up to sound like even more of a jerk than he already was going to.
As she concluded to something he recognized from Raiders of the Lost Ark (low blow, appropriating one of his favorite movies while making him look bad), he slipped out his Blackberry and flipped to a message he’d gotten last night from Pawnee Lover. He just felt like he needed the boost before having to drag himself up there in front of this cheerfully hostile crowd, and she had written to him in response to something he had mentioned about the friction he was facing at work.
Believe me, I sympathize with having to deal with difficult people. At times this summer I’ve felt like the whole world is stacked against me, challenging what I’m trying to accomplish, and it’s all I can do just to keep moving forward on the path that feels right. But Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.” Your heart seems like it’s in the right place. Trust it, and be true to it, and you will be fine. Hopefully, so will I.
PL
He took a deep breath and reminded himself that what he was doing was necessary, that he was doing what needed to be done to get Pawnee on the path to financial health, and that other people would be able to build on that after he was gone. The Leslie Knopes of the world might not understand that about him, but the work he did paved the way for people like her to do what they did-within the reasonable constraints of a publicly funded budget.
Then he gathered up his own presentation-a series of gray scale graphs and spreadsheets-and headed up to the front of the room to lay his case out for the task force-nonmusically.
He had to admit, the recommendations looked pretty severe. He’d done what he could to keep the cuts low impact-mowing the parks every other week instead of every week, eliminating some landscaping niceties such as flower beds-but those only went so far. Most of the department’s youth programs, its senior programs, and its athletic programs were operating at a deficit, and they couldn’t be sustained as currently implemented.
But he left the staff mostly intact, except for a few maintenance and seasonal workers. One thing he’d realized after years of doing this was that if the employees he left behind were quality, they’d find a way to work with what they had and make it into something more. And hopefully with a little more foresight.
He hoped, at least, that was the case here.
After a lot of wrangling and outrage and debate among the task force members, he managed to stick to his original plan, plus two youth basketball teams. Apparently, that was the thing people cared most about. Whatever. It was done.
Or at least, so he had thought. Leslie Knope hung back after the task force dispersed for the day. Her face was all scrunched up, and he didn’t know if she was going to burst into tears or fly into a rage. To her credit, she didn’t do either-yet.
“Did you even listen to my presentation?” she demanded petulantly.
Still annoyed about the whole incident but not wanting to fan the flames, he flailed about for something diplomatic to say. “Of course. Ah, your slideshow was very … colorful. And you obviously have good taste in movie soundtracks.”
And her research on Idaho was actually pretty impressive. He was going to have to look that up later.
Leslie narrowed her eyes at him threateningly, so apparently that wasn’t the right thing to say.
“You’re … an asshole.”
He sighed, his sympathy for her mingling with his frustration at how much harder she’d made it for him to sell the task force on a reasonable level of cuts.
“Yeah, I think you’ve already made that point today.”
“What?”
“Your presentation? Clearly designed to make me look like a jerk. Thanks for that. Really did a bang-up job in there, if that was your goal.”
“Um. You’re the one who made you look like a jerk. Nobody else in here wanted to gut my department. That was all you.”
Seriously, he was really getting tired of being the villain in this story.
“No. That was the numbers. You can use as many pretty words and pictures and Academy Award-nominated theme songs as you want, but it doesn’t change the numbers. Look at this.”
He reached for the binder that contained his spreadsheets for the rest of Pawnee’s government and started flipping through the pages, because they were the only thing in this entire town he had on his side (outside of his gmail account). “Here, this is the public works department, streetlights and potholes that need to be repaired for safety reasons. And this-animal control. The raccoon problem is seriously out of control. Do you want me to ignore that? Or here, schools. If I cut any more from the education budget, class sizes are going to go through the roof. Is that what you want?”
He paused and looked up at her to find her gaping at him, looking kind of stricken and overwhelmed, and he reminded himself how hard this probably was for her. Yeah, he definitely felt like an asshole today. Fuck.
“It’s the numbers,” he said less forcefully, trying to soften it. “There’s a finite budget. Everything has to come from somewhere.”
As he stopped talking, he gestured a little helplessly with his hands and watched her carefully, pleading to her with his eyes to understand this. It’s not me. It’s the numbers. And then he wondered why he even cared what she thought of him.
“Give that to me,” Leslie finally said.
“Give you … what? My binder?”
“Yes! If the numbers are as bad as you say, I want to see them.”
“Which … wait, all of it?”
“Yes. All of it. Whatever you have in that binder. I may be the deputy director of the lowest priority department in Pawnee, but I know how to read a spreadsheet.” She made sarcastic little air quotes around lowest priority.
“I didn’t say …” He really wasn’t getting through to her. And maybe if she looked through the information for herself, she’d see the situation her city was in and not hold this against him so much. Or maybe, at least, she’d just leave, and he could get out of here, go back to his motel, and … write to his pen pal. God, his life was so weird right now. “Okay. I’ll get Chris’s assistant to make copies for you.”
“Good. Thank you,” she said stiffly, and then they just looked at each other for a moment, warily. And he had the odd urge to say something to her, something that would let her know that he wasn’t this evil robot who hated kids and wanted to keep all the parks closed forever.
“Hey, um … it was a good presentation,” he said finally, shoving his hands awkwardly into his pockets. “You’re a … persuasive speaker.”
“It’s called having people skills,” she snapped. “You should get some.” Then she spun on her heels, her yellow hair swishing around her head as she turned away from him.
He stood there for a few long moments after she left, wondering how he’d gotten to this place where people like Leslie hated his guts. He liked his job, and he thought he was doing something good-something necessary-but sometimes it wore on him, and he wanted to be on the other side of the fence. To fight for things instead of against them, to stay someplace afterward and help build it all back up, instead of swooping into another town to start the whole painful process over again.
Taking out his Blackberry, he looked at the message from Pawnee Lover again-“Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.”-and wondered if she had any idea what her (and Eleanor’s) words of encouragement meant to him.
Back at his motel, he spent the evening half-watching a baseball game, compulsively refreshing his browser hoping to get another message from her, because her notes always cheered him up. Sometime after 11, he finally did, but it was different from what he was expecting:
Have you ever met someone who just brings out the worst in you? I think I’m a nice person. I get along with a lot of different kinds of people. One of my best friends is a man whose beliefs are so far removed from mine, he thinks some of the things I love the most shouldn’t even exist. Still, we respect each other, and he’s one of the best people I know. But there’s this person in my life right now who just … I can’t even explain it. It’s not just that we disagree. It’s like he doesn’t have any respect for me. He doesn’t even have any interest in hearing my side. And it makes me feel awful. And it makes me say awful things to him. And then I feel worse.
I’m single. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that. And I don’t mind it-I love my life, and my friends, and my work. But once in a while, on a day like this, I wish my house wasn’t empty when I walked through the door. I wish someone was here, and I could just say “I had a bad day”-that’s it, that’s all I want. I don’t want to have to make plans with a friend. I don’t even want to hold up my end of a phone conversation. I just want to say the words, and have someone hear them, someone who’s on my side.
I’m having a bad day. That’s all, I just wanted to tell you. And to thank you, for being here, even if it’s only on my computer. It makes the room feel a little less empty.
PL
Ben sighed loudly, to his own empty room, feeling a sharp tugging in his chest and a bit of a lump in his throat.
He knew the feeling.
--
Second half
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Word count: 5,900 (this post)
Rating: PG-13 (a little language)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Note: Sorry it has taken so long to get this chapter written! I'm hoping to get the rest of this knocked out pretty quickly now. Spoilers through Freddy Spaghetti, but then it veers off the canon timeline (starting pretty much now).
Hours after the workday ended, Leslie was still in her office, trying to rally her spirits with a little solo brainstorming session.
“Sell the vegetables from the community garden at a roadside produce stand,” she said into her memo recorder, then mentally tried to calculate how many carrots they’d have to sell to offset the budget cuts. Probably … a lot.
Ugh. Who would want to eat that many vegetables?
And also, there had been that problem with someone trying to grow weed there last summer.
Wait, how much money did pot dealers make?
She brushed the question aside, shaking her head in frustration. She was not going to get Pawnee’s kids hooked on pot just so she could teach them arts and crafts at the rec center. No matter how many potheads were on the art council.
What else could they sell? “Some sort of beverage, maybe lemonade …”
Crap. Now she sounded like she was eight.
Leslie rewound and played the tape back, her slightly tinny-sounding voice reverberating through the empty building as it recounted every idea she’d had for the past three hours, and listened hard for the golden ticket, the big idea that was going to get them out of this mess.
She didn’t hear it. It wasn’t there.
Shoving the recorder into a drawer, she leaned back with a sigh and thumbed her essential personnel badge-a lot of good that was doing her, she thought, glancing around the ghostly still parks department offices. She used to like working late, having all of City Hall to herself and being productive long after everyone else was gone or even asleep.
Tonight the silence felt different, more permanent, as if the City Hall she knew and loved was more than asleep. And she hated not knowing when it was going to come alive again.
Earlier that evening, she had researched fees for potential musicians for the summer concert series she’d proposed, and reluctantly had to admit that Ben had been right-about that small detail, at least. There were a lot of other things he was still wrong about. A lot a lot.
She could probably raise the money to pay the musicians, but she wasn’t even sure if that was where she should be focusing her energies right now. A concert series would have been nice, and it would have given her something to do this summer, but was it what this town most needed from her?
Pawnee needed her to fight for it. She just hadn’t figured out how.
Leslie pushed back her chair, stood up, and paced back and forth across her small office a few times before setting off through the parks department. She didn’t even know where she was going, but she just felt like she wanted to be moving. Enough of this sitting around and feeling powerless.
Her heels clicked through the eerily quiet hallways, up the stairs, until she inevitably ended up in front of the wallflower mural on the second floor.
It was a spot she came to often. She liked the vibrant colors. She liked the juxtaposition of things she loved-the free feeling of being outdoors on a summer day, combined with the powerful feeling of being in the hallways of government. But there was something else about it, too, the way that it made her feel-
It was the flowers themselves, and what they represented. The deep roots, the way they looked so happy, growing and thriving in the wild, like nothing could mow them down. They were so pretty there, not even BentheJerk could come along with his canister of budgetary Roundup and ruin them. Not that they were actual flowers, but he’d have to go through the art council to paint over it, and why would he do that anyway?
There were some things in City Hall that were still safe.
Feeling a little bit soothed by the sight, she started to head back to get her bag and probably call it a night, but paused as she was passing room 214B-the auditors’ office.
Speak of the devil.
Without thinking, she pushed lightly on the door and was surprised it wasn’t locked, so she went in.
She knew she shouldn’t be here, but she wasn’t snooping. She was just … curious.
Ignoring Chris’s half of the room, Leslie walked over to Ben’s makeshift desk, which looked weirdly innocuous. She wasn’t even sure what she had expected to see there-an actual machete? A giant pair of scissors?
The desktop was uncluttered, save for a neat stack of file folders, a canister of freshly sharpened yellow pencils, one clean notepad, and a calculator-the bulky kind with a printer ribbon. She glanced at the strip of paper it was emitting, but out of context the stream of numbers meant nothing to her, and she couldn’t help but wonder what problem he had been working on, and whether he’d been able to solve it.
Noticing the organizational chart on the wall behind his desk, she flinched. As her fingertips traced lightly over the box in the lower corner, the one that contained her department, she heard Ben’s words all over again-your department, all the way down here, not a priority-and bit her lip. She didn't have long to convince him otherwise. Then the budgetary task force was scheduled to take up the parks department, and giant scissors or not, who knew what would be left of it after Ben was finished.
Turning back toward the door, she came face to face with the map of Pawnee that was hanging next to his desk and felt suddenly defensive on its behalf.
Pawnee was better than Idaho. What did Idaho have? She didn’t know. Potatoes, maybe. What did Ben know about Idaho, or Pawnee, for that matter?
He was wrong, and she’d just have to show him. Pawnee was special.
Back in her own office a few moments later, she reached to shut down her computer but noticed at the last second that a message alert had popped up while she had been taking her walk.
It was from Nerd Boy! Nerd Boy was someone who would get it. She wondered if he’d ever been to Idaho.
It took her a moment to remember what she’d last written to him, about keeping things impersonal. Maybe she’d been too quick to keep him at arm’s length? It could have been nice to have some company this summer from someone who understood where she was coming from. Maybe she could still walk that back.
I’ve given it some thought-too much thought, probably-and I think you might be right. Stay anonymous, we must, yes, as Yoda would put it. I am Nerd Boy, and you are Pawnee Lover, and that is all we shall be.
Well, that settled that. And also, she realized, the name Nerd Boy kind of fit.
But I wonder if you even realize how much you’ve already told me with just those two words in your user name. You are someone who loves Pawnee, and that seems to say something about you. I haven’t known Pawnee for very long, but it has a way of getting under your skin, doesn’t it?
This town is relentless. Like a dandelion plant, and I’ve never been able to decide how I feel about dandelions. Nobody asks for them, and they’re annoying, and getting rid of them is a pain, but their tenacity is kind of admirable. They’re the color of sunshine, and they have deep roots, and … I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. I did not just compare you to a weed. A gardener? That’s not quite right either. I think I’m comparing you to a person who appreciates wildflowers. Is that too far off the mark?
Leslie stopped and read the paragraph over again.
It was uncanny. It was almost like he’d walked by the same mural and had the same thoughts about it that day as she had. Of course, those flowers weren’t dandelions, but they were yellow. They reminded her of the kind of flowers that grew in abandoned lots, the kind that some people would look at and call weeds, and that other people would look at and call wildflowers.
It crossed Leslie’s mind that Nerd Boy would like that mural. As she finished reading his message, she wondered if she might ever get to show it to him.
Sorry if I’m not making much sense. It’s been another strange day, in another strange town, this one stranger than most. But strangely infectious too. So what is it about this place? I’m serious. If you won’t tell me about yourself, at least tell me about this town you love so much.
NB
By the time she was finished reading his short missive, she was smiling for the first time that evening. He was right, Pawnee was special-and it seemed to say something about him that he got that, after spending such a short time here.
It seemed to say something about Pawnee too.
She reached for her memo recorder one more time and clicked it on. “Pawnee is better than Idaho,” she said into the little microphone, her words echoing through the empty building.
A plan was starting to take shape.
--
Ever since he had arrived in Pawnee, Ben had been finding himself doing things it never would have occurred to him that he’d do. Online dating, for example. Not that they were dating, because they had pretty much established that was not what they were doing. Writing to an online pen pal?
Yeah. Somehow that didn’t make it sound any better.
Whatever it was they were doing, he just knew that he didn’t want it to end. So when he got her talking about Pawnee, he kept asking questions, partly because it was interesting-seriously, the era when everyone was worshipping Zorp sounded straight out of a kitschy sci-fi novel-but partly because he liked the way that she talked about it. He’d been moving around for so many years, he’d forgotten what it was like to feel so tied to a place. Something about it was really appealing in a way that he hadn’t quite put words to yet.
So when she mentioned how much she loved the snow globe museum, he made a point of going, just so that he could tell her later that he went and keep the conversation going.
Voluntarily visiting a snow globe museum by himself-add that to the list of things he never thought he’d be doing. Good lord-his sister would have a field day with that one. But apparently this was what happened in places like Pawnee.
Places like Pawnee. He was starting to think there was no other place like Pawnee.
It was different from any other town he’d been to, and he’d been to quite for a few. People here cared. They cared-loudly-all over his voicemail, and his e-mail box, and his lunch break, and his meeting prep time. But for as many feathers as he had ruffled and names he’d been called, no one had keyed his car or done weird unappetizing things to his takeout or any of the usual nasty stuff he’d faced.
The worst thing anyone had done to him since he arrived in Pawnee was to make that fake dating profile for him, and … that actually had turned out okay. Better than okay, possibly, as long as he avoided thinking too critically about what on earth he was doing writing to a stranger like she was a long-lost … something.
Even the snow globe museum was turning out better than expected. It was quiet and cool, a nice change from the harsh June sun beating down outside. As he entered, an older woman glanced up at him disinterestedly from behind a small table and charged him five dollars for admission. Then she pointed to a sign that proclaimed “Do not handle the snow globes. Under any circumstances. This will be enforced.”
Under the crisp block letters, a few small words were scrawled in pencil, and he leaned forward to read them. “This means you, Leslie!” For a moment he thought it might be his Leslie-his colleague Leslie-but quickly dismissed the notion. There must be more than one Leslie in Pawnee, right?
Ben started working his way through the museum, inspecting various winter scenes-one of children ice skating on a frozen pond, an idyllic glade of evergreen trees, a sleepy town in a snowstorm. They reminded him of Minnesota, and he felt that pang of longing for the feeling of belonging that was starting to creep into his consciousness-along with the touch of nervousness that always accompanied any thoughts of Minnesota.
Moving on, he worked his way past elaborate Christmas and Arctic displays, then started to inspect a large set of globes containing scenes from Pawnee’s history. Some of them were interesting, little models capturing moments in time-the signing of the town charter, the first lighting of the town Christmas tree-but others were as weird and disturbing as most of the murals in Pioneer Hall. He leaned in close to inspect a winter street scene that looked pleasant enough, until he noticed the Native American who appeared to be stuck under the wheel of a wagon. Was that supposed to be symbolic, or-?
“You lied to me.”
He started at the sound of Leslie Knope’s voice behind him, bumping his head on the shelf directly in front of him. The shelf of globes rattled a bit, setting off little snow flurries within a few.
“What are you-what?” Good lord. Was she following him? “What are you doing here?”
“The parks are closed,” she said matter-of-factly, frowning at him.
He raised an eyebrow, rubbing his temple, thinking of the sign by the door. “And this is where you hang out when the parks are closed.”
“Why are you here?”
This did not sound like friendly curiosity, and he wasn’t going to explain the whole thing about his pen pal, so instead of answering, he turned back to the display and asked a question that had been on his mind since he saw that sign by the door. “What is the point of a snow globe if you can’t pick it up? The snow just sits there.”
He was genuinely curious why this would be forbidden, but when he glanced back at Leslie he realized he’d offended her.
“How do you know that’s the rule for everyone? Maybe that’s just the rule for state auditors. Maybe they’re worried you’re going to break anything you touch.”
He couldn’t break what was already broken, he thought wryly, but didn’t dare say it out loud. Not in a room full of glass.
Leslie reached for a snow globe as if to demonstrate that she was in a different category of patron, and immediately the elderly curator-not asleep after all-materialized out of nowhere to scold.
“Put the globe down, Leslie. You’ve been warned three times, and I’m going to have to ban you for 30 days. That’s the rule.”
The woman made those little tsk-tsk sounds that old ladies and librarians make, and Leslie looked like she had just seen the last straw and wanted to snap it in half.
Ben felt a surge of sympathy for her: the parks were closed, her department was in limbo, and now she was being banned from her favorite hangout. So what if it was weird; he felt bad for her, so he tried to smile compassionately.
“It’s a dumb rule.”
“Maybe you’re dumb,” she said, then spun on her heels and stalked toward the door.
After a moment, he followed her, catching up with her in the parking lot. “Hey, wait. Um, what did you mean I lied to you?”
“Idaho.” She took a deep breath, pulling herself under control. “You said Idaho cut 80 percent of its parks department.”
“… excuse me?”
“The Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation had the portion of its budget that comes from the state general fund cut by 80 percent. But that’s not the whole story, is it? Most of the state parks department’s funding comes from entrance fees. Cutting 80 percent of the general fund budget is a mere one-fifth reduction overall. Still significant, but not what you implied.”
Okay, first of all, she looked that up? And secondly-what was she getting at? “We can’t charge entrance fees to Ramsett Park, Leslie. Your department doesn’t have other revenue streams.”
“I know that!” she snapped. “I’m just saying you shouldn’t have lied to me. And now I’m going to need half an hour to give a presentation to the task force before it considers the parks department budget.”
He didn’t quite see the connection there, but it seemed like the least he could do. “Fine. Half an hour.”
“And I’m going to need the projector. I’ll bring a stereo.” He raised an eyebrow at her, just slightly, and she glared at him defensively. “It’s a multimedia presentation.”
Of course it was.
He watched Leslie drive away, sighed, and then went back into the museum. He’d already seen enough to be able to credibly mention he’d been there, but he wanted to spend a little more time looking at that display on Pawnee’s history. This place was weird, but a really intriguing kind of weird.
And anyway, he’d already paid his admission.
--
Leslie had been delighted to find out that Nerd Boy had gone to the snowglobe museum.
As much as she had talked it up in the past, she’d never been able to get a boyfriend to go with her. Even Dave, who had seemed so eager to please, had always managed to come up with excuses. Not only had Nerd Boy gone, he had followed up afterward to ask such specific questions about the snow globes pertaining to Pawnee’s history. Now there was a boy after her own heart.
Not that anyone was after anyone’s heart here.
Then they had gotten on the subject of history in general, and it turned out he was as much of a buff as she was.
They started talking politics and trading historical quotes, and she could tell by the ones he sent her that he was either someone who thought like her, or that he was paying close enough attention to the way she thought about things to pick ones she’d like. The implications of that made her feel warm inside, even as she was brushing away any thoughts about why she felt that way. She had enough to think about this week anyway, with this big presentation she was preparing.
Leslie copied a few of the most relevant quotes he’d sent onto post-it notes and affixed them to the inside of the binder where she was keeping her notes and materials, so that every time she opened it she got a little pep talk from someone in her corner.
On the day of her presentation, she read them again as the task force members were milling about before taking their seats.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.-Teddy Roosevelt
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.-Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes, the only realists are the dreamers.-Paul Wellstone
She’d been familiar with the Jefferson and Roosevelt quotes, of course, but the Wellstone one was new, and she loved it. He’d been a popular senator in Minnesota until dying in a plane crash in 2002, which was too bad, because when she read up on him, she found out that he’d really been her kind of politician.
Across the room, Leslie eyed Ben, looking tense and uptight, and remembered that he was from Minnesota. But he’d probably voted for someone else back then-someone who thought the only realists were numbers robots, she was sure.
When she finished setting up the projector, she cued up the stereo to play the mix she had prepared. It started off with the somber strains of the prelude from The Ten Commandments soundtrack.
Her title card flashed up on the screen, and she read it aloud to begin her presentation. “Pawnee is better than Idaho,” she proclaimed with cheerful confidence.
A tiny strangled sound caught her attention, and she glanced over to see Ben cover it in a cough, his eyes darkening perceptibly. Not everybody was born supportive, she thought, and she’d be bent out of shape too if all her preconceived notions about something were about to be toppled. Served him right.
After allowing herself a small smile, she launched into a brief explanation of what had happened to the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, focusing on one detail that had seemed particularly relevant to her-that the park system of Idaho brought in $40 million of tourism revenue to the state each year, almost twice the amount of its entire operating budget. A graph popped up behind her to illustrate this point.
“Those dollars go to local businesses, they keep people in jobs, they foster a healthy economy that benefits everyone, and they contribute property and income tax dollars to the general fund. So you see, while Idaho’s parks preserve nature and provide for the enjoyment of park users, they also are key to the overall wellbeing of the state. They are what help make Idaho a place where people want to live, and a place where they want to visit.”
As she spoke, images of Idaho state parks flashed on the screen behind her. Then her background music shifted to a jauntier theme from Beverly Hills Cop, and she shifted gears. “But come on. We don’t live in Idaho. Thank goodness, right?” This elicited some appreciative chuckles around the room. Ben was the only one who still looked stony faced, but she ignored him. “I’d rather eat corn than potatoes any day,” she quipped with a bright smile, then turned more serious again.
“But the same is true here,” she said. “Some in Pawnee might think of parks as the lowest priority department, and we do have one of the smallest budgets. Of course we need roads to drive on, and schools to teach our children, and sewers to carry our byproducts. But we also need parks. The Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation has a reputation for providing excellent services for all age groups.”
She detailed a sampling of the services, accompanied by colorful photographs of happy people enjoying the many parks programs. As the music behind her crescendoed, she worked up to her conclusion.
“All of these programs add to the quality of life we have come to expect in Pawnee. We take pride in our local parks and recreation programs, and Pawnee has been a better place for that. These programs are part of the reason that people choose to live here, instead of going to Eagleton or Snerling. When people live in Pawnee, they make their homes here, they pay taxes, they work here, and they spend their money at local businesses. We all benefit. A strong and vibrant parks and recreation department is crucial to the long-term health of our community. We are part of what makes Pawnee special.”
She finished to a smattering of applause, and then Chris Traeger joined her in the front of the room and patted her on the back, which was a little weird, but good probably. “Thank you for that wonderful presentation, Leslie. You are an inspiration to us all.”
Leslie was more worried about what Ben thought, but he wasn’t even looking at her, instead fumbling with something on his phone.
--
Ben seethed quietly during Leslie’s presentation, which clearly had been designed specifically to make him look like more of an asshole. Why else would she have even brought up Idaho? He was starting to wish he’d never even heard of the state's budget situation, much less made the foolhardy mistake of trying to quote numbers off the top of his head to someone who filed every little detail away to use against him later.
Leslie Knope, overzealous fact checker. Leslie Knope, spiteful motivational speaker.
Oh, it was good. He had to give her that, at least-she could give a speech and work an audience and win people over in a way that he kind of envied. She was likable. She showed colorful pictures of cute happy kids and endearingly ancient seniors and used words like “future leaders of tomorrow” and “keepers of our history.”
But they were just words. They didn’t do a thing to change the financial situation of this city, and he had to recommend the same set of changes regardless. The only thing she’d accomplished was to set him up to sound like even more of a jerk than he already was going to.
As she concluded to something he recognized from Raiders of the Lost Ark (low blow, appropriating one of his favorite movies while making him look bad), he slipped out his Blackberry and flipped to a message he’d gotten last night from Pawnee Lover. He just felt like he needed the boost before having to drag himself up there in front of this cheerfully hostile crowd, and she had written to him in response to something he had mentioned about the friction he was facing at work.
Believe me, I sympathize with having to deal with difficult people. At times this summer I’ve felt like the whole world is stacked against me, challenging what I’m trying to accomplish, and it’s all I can do just to keep moving forward on the path that feels right. But Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.” Your heart seems like it’s in the right place. Trust it, and be true to it, and you will be fine. Hopefully, so will I.
PL
He took a deep breath and reminded himself that what he was doing was necessary, that he was doing what needed to be done to get Pawnee on the path to financial health, and that other people would be able to build on that after he was gone. The Leslie Knopes of the world might not understand that about him, but the work he did paved the way for people like her to do what they did-within the reasonable constraints of a publicly funded budget.
Then he gathered up his own presentation-a series of gray scale graphs and spreadsheets-and headed up to the front of the room to lay his case out for the task force-nonmusically.
He had to admit, the recommendations looked pretty severe. He’d done what he could to keep the cuts low impact-mowing the parks every other week instead of every week, eliminating some landscaping niceties such as flower beds-but those only went so far. Most of the department’s youth programs, its senior programs, and its athletic programs were operating at a deficit, and they couldn’t be sustained as currently implemented.
But he left the staff mostly intact, except for a few maintenance and seasonal workers. One thing he’d realized after years of doing this was that if the employees he left behind were quality, they’d find a way to work with what they had and make it into something more. And hopefully with a little more foresight.
He hoped, at least, that was the case here.
After a lot of wrangling and outrage and debate among the task force members, he managed to stick to his original plan, plus two youth basketball teams. Apparently, that was the thing people cared most about. Whatever. It was done.
Or at least, so he had thought. Leslie Knope hung back after the task force dispersed for the day. Her face was all scrunched up, and he didn’t know if she was going to burst into tears or fly into a rage. To her credit, she didn’t do either-yet.
“Did you even listen to my presentation?” she demanded petulantly.
Still annoyed about the whole incident but not wanting to fan the flames, he flailed about for something diplomatic to say. “Of course. Ah, your slideshow was very … colorful. And you obviously have good taste in movie soundtracks.”
And her research on Idaho was actually pretty impressive. He was going to have to look that up later.
Leslie narrowed her eyes at him threateningly, so apparently that wasn’t the right thing to say.
“You’re … an asshole.”
He sighed, his sympathy for her mingling with his frustration at how much harder she’d made it for him to sell the task force on a reasonable level of cuts.
“Yeah, I think you’ve already made that point today.”
“What?”
“Your presentation? Clearly designed to make me look like a jerk. Thanks for that. Really did a bang-up job in there, if that was your goal.”
“Um. You’re the one who made you look like a jerk. Nobody else in here wanted to gut my department. That was all you.”
Seriously, he was really getting tired of being the villain in this story.
“No. That was the numbers. You can use as many pretty words and pictures and Academy Award-nominated theme songs as you want, but it doesn’t change the numbers. Look at this.”
He reached for the binder that contained his spreadsheets for the rest of Pawnee’s government and started flipping through the pages, because they were the only thing in this entire town he had on his side (outside of his gmail account). “Here, this is the public works department, streetlights and potholes that need to be repaired for safety reasons. And this-animal control. The raccoon problem is seriously out of control. Do you want me to ignore that? Or here, schools. If I cut any more from the education budget, class sizes are going to go through the roof. Is that what you want?”
He paused and looked up at her to find her gaping at him, looking kind of stricken and overwhelmed, and he reminded himself how hard this probably was for her. Yeah, he definitely felt like an asshole today. Fuck.
“It’s the numbers,” he said less forcefully, trying to soften it. “There’s a finite budget. Everything has to come from somewhere.”
As he stopped talking, he gestured a little helplessly with his hands and watched her carefully, pleading to her with his eyes to understand this. It’s not me. It’s the numbers. And then he wondered why he even cared what she thought of him.
“Give that to me,” Leslie finally said.
“Give you … what? My binder?”
“Yes! If the numbers are as bad as you say, I want to see them.”
“Which … wait, all of it?”
“Yes. All of it. Whatever you have in that binder. I may be the deputy director of the lowest priority department in Pawnee, but I know how to read a spreadsheet.” She made sarcastic little air quotes around lowest priority.
“I didn’t say …” He really wasn’t getting through to her. And maybe if she looked through the information for herself, she’d see the situation her city was in and not hold this against him so much. Or maybe, at least, she’d just leave, and he could get out of here, go back to his motel, and … write to his pen pal. God, his life was so weird right now. “Okay. I’ll get Chris’s assistant to make copies for you.”
“Good. Thank you,” she said stiffly, and then they just looked at each other for a moment, warily. And he had the odd urge to say something to her, something that would let her know that he wasn’t this evil robot who hated kids and wanted to keep all the parks closed forever.
“Hey, um … it was a good presentation,” he said finally, shoving his hands awkwardly into his pockets. “You’re a … persuasive speaker.”
“It’s called having people skills,” she snapped. “You should get some.” Then she spun on her heels, her yellow hair swishing around her head as she turned away from him.
He stood there for a few long moments after she left, wondering how he’d gotten to this place where people like Leslie hated his guts. He liked his job, and he thought he was doing something good-something necessary-but sometimes it wore on him, and he wanted to be on the other side of the fence. To fight for things instead of against them, to stay someplace afterward and help build it all back up, instead of swooping into another town to start the whole painful process over again.
Taking out his Blackberry, he looked at the message from Pawnee Lover again-“Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.”-and wondered if she had any idea what her (and Eleanor’s) words of encouragement meant to him.
Back at his motel, he spent the evening half-watching a baseball game, compulsively refreshing his browser hoping to get another message from her, because her notes always cheered him up. Sometime after 11, he finally did, but it was different from what he was expecting:
Have you ever met someone who just brings out the worst in you? I think I’m a nice person. I get along with a lot of different kinds of people. One of my best friends is a man whose beliefs are so far removed from mine, he thinks some of the things I love the most shouldn’t even exist. Still, we respect each other, and he’s one of the best people I know. But there’s this person in my life right now who just … I can’t even explain it. It’s not just that we disagree. It’s like he doesn’t have any respect for me. He doesn’t even have any interest in hearing my side. And it makes me feel awful. And it makes me say awful things to him. And then I feel worse.
I’m single. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that. And I don’t mind it-I love my life, and my friends, and my work. But once in a while, on a day like this, I wish my house wasn’t empty when I walked through the door. I wish someone was here, and I could just say “I had a bad day”-that’s it, that’s all I want. I don’t want to have to make plans with a friend. I don’t even want to hold up my end of a phone conversation. I just want to say the words, and have someone hear them, someone who’s on my side.
I’m having a bad day. That’s all, I just wanted to tell you. And to thank you, for being here, even if it’s only on my computer. It makes the room feel a little less empty.
PL
Ben sighed loudly, to his own empty room, feeling a sharp tugging in his chest and a bit of a lump in his throat.
He knew the feeling.
--
Second half