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Frankie has been working at Greendale for over a year now. The school is definitely doing better than when she arrived, and for a while, she felt very proud of her accomplishment in saving Greendale… mainly from itself. In fact, she believes she once boasted that she swooped in in the final hour and “nailed it”. But now, as she looks at her watch waiting for 4:00PM to arrive as she sits at her desk, she feels… apprehensive… and guilty. Like she isn’t good at her job, and, maybe more importantly, she’s a bad friend.
While she was off handling school-wide paintball massacres and whatever creepy cultish behavior was going on with the air conditioning repair school, thinking she was saving Greendale, an issue sat right under her nose that could have crushed the entire community college in a single lawsuit any time between now and some six odd years ago when Jeff Winger first arrived on Greendale campus as a 35-year-old freshman student.
It wasn’t that Frankie didn’t notice when she arrived. It would be hard not to notice, honestly. But she supposes it was her own social peculiarities that confounded her. She thought, for a while, that maybe she just didn’t understand. She’s now very sure that she has a handle on what exactly the nature of this relationship she was being confronted with daily really is, and unfortunately, it’s exactly as bad as she feared.
Someone raps on the door, pulling Frankie out of her pondering. 4:00PM on the dot.
“Come in,” She calls.
The door opens, and Jeff Winger’s imposing form looms in the doorway for a moment. There’s stillness for an instant, then his whole body jumps, and he turns around, facing back out the way he came.
“Get off me, Craig!” He gripes.
“Whoops! Sorry Jeffrey! Didn’t see you there,” Dean Pelton says with a light chuckle.
Jeff sighs, long-suffering, and rolls his eyes as he turns back around and strides into Frankie’s office, Craig’s smaller form only becoming visible when Jeff gets out of the entryway.
Frankie has placed two chairs facing her desk, and Jeff slumps into the one farthest from the door, instantly taking up his usual simultaneously relaxed and tense posture, legs jutted out straight and crossed, shoulders hunched and arms folded across his chest.
Craig follows in closely behind him, and sits primly in the other chair with his hands on his knees. He beams a smile at Frankie.
There’s silence as they both get situated. Too much silence too soon, apparently for Jeff. “What’s this meeting about, Frankie?” He grouses. “You were very cryptic, and I have papers to grade. I hope this isn’t about my teaching performance, because I’ve actually been trying lately, and I will have you know, my teaching evaluations have been very high the past two semesters.”
“This meeting has nothing to do with your teaching, Jeff,” Frankie assures him. “In fact, you aren’t in trouble for anything at all.”
Jeff gives her a strange and somewhat suspicious look. He’s been cranky and somewhat on edge since Abed and Annie left a bit over a semester ago, so he’s not lately been capable of fully relaxing. But the fact that the meeting isn’t about him being in trouble does seem to put him slightly more at ease. “Well, what is this about then? Because it obviously has something to do with me, or else I wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t have brought my boss in too. Craig told me he doesn’t know either, so I’d appreciate it if you’d get to the point so we can get whatever this is over with.”
“Alright,” Frankie leans forward in her chair, clasping her hands together in front of herself. “I have sat and observed... certain behaviors, and tried to understand the nuances of your relationship with each other and what exactly is going on, trying to figure out if there was something I just... wasn’t seeing... and as a result, I have let this go on unaddressed longer than I should have.” She turns to Jeff and looks at him quite seriously. “That’s something you deserve an apology for, Jeff. So I just want you to know that I’m very sorry that it’s taken me this long to address this matter. I should have called this meeting a year ago, but I didn’t, because I wanted to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood. That was poor judgement on my part. It was not only unprofessional of me, but my negligence has caused you to suffer even longer than you already have.”
The longer she talks, the more confused Jeff seems to become. He squints at her, clearly still uncertain about what exactly is going on. “Um... okay?” He tries to sound confidently uncaring, but he hunches his shoulders further—something Frankie has noticed he does often when he’s uncomfortable—like he’s trying his best to make his body take up less space.
Frankie turns to the Dean. “Craig, I have come to the conclusion that there really is not any reasonable excuse I can make for you. Your behavior toward Jeff is completely unacceptable. The way you treat him is incredibly inappropriate—doubly so because of your position of authority over him. Your frequent acts of sexual harassment toward him need to stop both because Mr. Winger could have sued the school due to your behavior years ago, and because Jeff is your friend and my friend, is entitled to his personal space, and deserves to be treated with respect.”
It hangs in the air there for a moment, with Craig’s mouth open wide, and Jeff’s eyebrow raised.
“Sexual harassment?” Craig says five seconds later, incredulous.
“Jesus Christ…” Jeff sighs, tipping his head back in his chair and looking heavenward. “I need a drink for this conversation.”
“That’s precisely why I didn’t reveal the nature of the meeting in advance,” Frankie admits.
Jeff scowls at her.
“Wait… you think I’m sexually harassing Jeffrey?” Craig cuts in again, voice pitching high.
“Craig, you constantly make passes at Jeff—almost every time we’re in a meeting together. You try to touch him inappropriately and constantly talk about him in a sexual way. He pushes your hands off of him, he moves across the room, and he clearly doesn’t appreciate your innuendos. And yet you persist. Why?” Frankie asks.
Craig purses his lips and looks down at his shoes. “Well… I mean… but—Jeffrey’s never really said that it bothered him. He just acts like it does sometimes, but he acts like everything bothers him even when it really doesn’t. So… his boundaries aren’t very… clear.”
A strange look crosses Jeff’s face for an instant, before he forces it back to a blank mask. He turns his head away from both of them and looks at a painting on the wall to his right.
“It doesn’t matter Craig, he shouldn’t have to say anything, because the boundaries you’re violating are socially inferable,” Frankie replies. “While I’m very confident from observation that Jeff doesn’t approve of your advances, even if he did, they would still be inappropriate for the workplace. The fact that you have always had a position of authority over Jeff, either as the Dean of the college, or as his boss, makes your advances even more inappropriate, and also means that Jeff has likely been afraid of addressing the matter directly.” Frankie leans forward. “I don’t want you to miss how big of a deal this is, Craig. I’m seriously considering calling for you to be fired over this.”
Predictably, Craig instantly freaks out, crying out in fear. “Jeffrey!” He yelps, turning to Greendale’s resident law teacher with fretful, pleading eyes. “Save me!”
Jeff rolls his eyes, ending up with his gaze on Frankie again, never sparing Craig a glance. “Frankie…look—thanks—really. But it’s honestly not that big of a deal. Craig is—though I hate to say it—technically a friend,” Craig perks up somewhat hopefully at this.
“This isn’t as serious as you’re trying to make it. Besides, you’d be a fool to fire Craig. He’s an idiot, but he’s the only idiot who is enough of an idiot to agree to run this crappy toilet of a school long term, and actually care about it instead of wanting to sell it to some multimillion dollar sandwich chain that wants to use it to teach people how to chop cold cuts. And yeah, he makes me uncomfortable sometimes… a lot of times… and he can’t take a hint, and I’d definitely prefer that he didn’t constantly make passes at me, but a lot of the friends I’ve had here have done that—just slightly less overtly, and about 1000 times less often, and with about 85% less touching of my abs and shoulders. And I would like to make it clear that I have never, in my life, been afraid of the guy. I mean—he’s obviously not physically threatening to someone of my size-“
“And oh how I relish in that…” Craig sighs under his breath.
“Dean,” Frankie and Jeff say at the same time.
“Sorry. Please continue, Jeffrey.”
“…Look, the guy is harmless, and everybody knows it. He’d never have expelled me for ‘spurning his advances’ and he’ll never fire me, because he likes me too much. “
Craig shrugs and nods at Frankie. “That’s true. He’s safe.”
“...My point is,” Jeff continues, clearly annoyed with Craig’s unhelpful interruptions, “…The power imbalance that you think is there is really barely there, and it’s never really been that big of a deal beyond a passing annoyance, and I’ve even used Craig’s crush on me for my own benefit, so don’t fire him. It doesn’t… matter.”
Frankie looks at Jeff.
Just… looks at him for a moment.
It’s one of his typical speeches—almost exactly the kind of thing he always says to smooth things over for himself or the group as a whole, except this time he’s doing it for Craig and at the expense of himself. It’s a speech full of as many half-truths designed to sound right and good as usual, and for the first time, Frankie wonders how often he tells himself these same things and doesn’t recognize them for half truths at all.
Jeff becomes uncomfortable with Frankie’s staring—like he knows she isn’t buying it—like he feels exposed. He tears his eyes away.
Frankie purses her lips and rotates her office chair. She opens a drawer, and pulls out a heavy 3-inch binder. It’s stuffed to absolute capacity with papers, and it lands on the table with a hard thump. She stares at it for a moment without opening it, making its contents seem even more ominous.
“I anticipated some resistance since this has actually gone on so long without being treated like the ‘big deal’ that it is, and I am aware that the two of you are friends. So I approached Britta for help, and through my own observations just in the last year, as well as things Britta has told me, I have extensively documented a list of the occurrences that are, by definition, harassment of Mr. Winger, both sexual and otherwise—mostly sexual—perpetrated by you, Dean Pelton.”
“Britta helped you do that?” Jeff asks, looking on the binder with confusion. “She’s never cared. She’s never said anything. Nobody in the study group ever did. It’s never been a big deal to anyone, and I don’t get why now all of the sudden, it matters.”
“Well, it’s true that it hadn’t really occurred to Britta that you’ve been suffering repeated sexual harassment until I brought the matter to her attention. But after I pointed it out, Britta only briefly rejected the idea that you were being sexually harassed all these years before gasping and calling herself a ‘rape culture apologist’. She indicated to me that she has very strong feelings about the tenure system and how it can protect sexual predators, so when I explained what I was seeing, she was actually eager to help me build a case.” She turns to The Dean and gestures to the notebook. “Do you see this, Craig? I’d only need a few of these documents to have grounds to have you fired on the spot.”
“Really?” Craig grimaces, curling in on himself slightly in fear.
“Yes.” Frankie opens the binder. “I’m going to point out some select entries, and we’ll see if this doesn’t bring you to your senses…” She flips a few pages then begins reading.
“Mr. Winger, is it true that Dean Pelton at one point revealed to you that he had a list ranking the attractiveness of the students and faculty at Greendale, and had placed you at number 2?”
Jeff rolls his eyes. “Yes.”
“He also asked you and your girlfriend at the time, Professor Michelle Slater, unnecessarily intrusive questions about your sex life as part of some paperwork he made you fill out for the university. Is that correct?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well—I think you might be reaching with this one, Frankie, because that was all for official school reasons intended to reduce sexual harassment complaints between students and staff. Oh” Craig places a hand on Jeff’s arm. “By the way Jeffrey, you’re number one now since Professor Matthews moved away.”
The other two ignore him. Jeff jerks his arm away from Craig’s grasp.
“Mr. Winger, did Dean Pelton, on more than one occasion, produce dolls or puppets at school that bore a striking resemblance to you, that it was clear he had used in some form of sexual role play?”
“I never—“ Craig starts.
“Yes.” Jeff cuts in over his protests.
“—Okay yeah. That’s… also true. So fine. Now you both know about my puppet fetish…” Craig murmurs.
“‘He said, as if he had ever, at any point, successfully hidden it’,” Jeff narrated.
“Craig, is it true that you’ve used Mr. Winger’s image in every single school brochure and school poster printed by the college since he came here over six years ago, as well as featured pictures of him prominently and extensively on the college’s website?”
“Yes, but every student agrees to their image being used on brochures, posters, and our very badly managed website when they complete their registration,” Craig says innocently.
“And there’s no significance to the fact that Jeff’s image makes up 50% of all student and faculty images ever used on any official advertisement?” Frankie follows up.
“Well… what can I say? Jeffrey is an attractive man, and his face looks good on the posters,” Craig says with a chuckle. “That doesn’t mean I’m harassing him.”
Jeff rolls his eyes yet again.
“Is it true that you once leveraged Mr. Winger’s discomfort with mail brochures that featured his face to blackmail him into convincing Troy Barnes to join the football team?”
The Dean bites his lip. “Okay, yes.”
“Jeff, is it true that on multiple occasions, the Dean has tried to convince you to remove your shirt for so-called “official” school photos?”
“Yep. But here’s the thing: I just don’t,” Jeff snarks.
“Jeff, is it true that on multiple occasions, you have walked into Dean Pelton’s office to find him cutting out images of your face and placing them in a scrapbook?”
“Yes.”
“Does his office feature photoshopped images of the two of you together?”
“Badly photoshopped, and yes.”
“Jeff, did the Dean at any point email you links to a personal fanfiction site full of sexually explicit images and stories he had written about the two of you?”
“Mh hm,” Jeff nodded his head vigorously with a sardonic smile, as if to say, What you’re describing is just a regular Tuesday—don’t have anything better?
“That one was actually an accident,” Craig pipes up, “He was never supposed to see those.”
Jeff appears surprised about this, and looks over at him. “Then, may I ask, who exactly did you mean to send them to?”
Craig shrugs. “Just… some uh, old friends of mine.”
“Really?”
“…Sorry.”
“Look, would you just stop talking? I’d like to get out of here some time today, and you are not helping.”
“You’re right. You’re the one with the mediation experience. I should let you handle it.”
“Look,” Jeff says raising a hand in Frankie’s direction, “Yeah, all that stuff was creepy, but the fanfiction thing, even though I’m not exactly comfortable with it, was actually pretty entertaining. Me and Britta both read a ton of it over drinks one night and laughed our asses off at Craig’s expense.”
“What?” Craig cries. “You showed my private personal writing to Britta?”
“You posted it on the internet, Craig. The website has pictures of my face photoshopped onto naked bodies. Anyone can see it, and anyone did. Besides, you have no regard for my privacy, so I see no reason why I shouldn’t share your stupid fanfiction with my friend.”
“But Britta? Of all people did it have to be her?”
“Dean Pelton,” Frankie interrupts, “Is it true that you once removed a required history credit from the school’s Fall schedule to try and prevent Mr. Winger from graduating?”
Craig tries to look innocent, and refuses to answer.
Jeff rolls his eyes. “Yes, he did. He confessed when I confronted him about it while we were dancing.” Jeff turns to Frankie with a grin like knives. “Look, it was screwed up, but he made it right. He brought back the class, and I ended up graduating a semester early.”
Frankie sighs and leans back in her chair.
“Craig, would you please step out for a moment so Jeff and I can have a word in private?”
Craig looks anxious and maybe slightly bummed that he’s going to be left out of something, but he does as he’s told, stepping out, and reluctantly closing the door at Frankie’s motion for him to go on.
“And no eavesdropping,” Jeff shouts after him.
“Okay, Jeffrey,” Craig’s muffled voice replies sullenly, and they both know he’ll obey even if he doesn’t want to, because Jeff was the one who said it.
Frankie stares at Jeff.
“What?” He asks, cranky and annoyed and clearly on edge.
“I just think it’s strange how many concessions you’re making for Craig’s behavior, despite the fact that you’re clearly uncomfortable with everything he’s done. You’re erasing it, like it doesn’t matter, even though I’ve seen that it bothers you over and over—especially lately.”
“Because, Frankie,” Jeff says, voice heated and rife with condescension, “It never has mattered, until you suddenly decided to make it matter—today. Why does this matter all of the sudden, hm? It didn’t matter yesterday, or last month, or last year, or when I first started at Greendale as a student. So why now, today, does all of this suddenly matter so much? Huh?!” His voice rises as he speaks, until he’s nearly shouting. “Why are you pushing this? Why are you pushing me?”
“Pushing you?” Frankie asks. “Jeff, I’m not pushing you.”
“Yes you are!” Jeff says, and suddenly he really is shouting, and pointing at her accusingly, and he looks more than annoyed and put upon. He looks angry—backed into a corner. “You-you’re trying to make me feel things! You’re trying to make me think this matters, and it doesn’t, and I want you to stop. How about that, Frankie, huh? Or do my boundaries only matter when it’s about something that could hurt the school?” His voice turns suddenly hard-edged, and he looks at her fiercely—like he despises her in that moment. “This isn’t because you care about me at all. This is just another feather in your cap, isn’t it, Frankie? You’re afraid you’re running out of things to take care of at the school! You’re afraid things could finally start to go on without your constant intervention, so you’re trying to keep yourself relevant by inventing a huge crisis, even though you know I would never sue this school, ever! But you’re trying to drag shit up, and trying to make this matter, and it doesn’t matter, okay? It doesn’t! So stop trying to make it a big deal!”
He cuts himself off. He opens and closes his mouth, and nothing more comes out, like he only just processes some of what he said. He looks remorseful, but he seals his lips firmly shut, takes a breath, and then just leans back in his chair again, folding his arms, and acting like nothing matters—stubborn and cold—unbendable.
Frankie isn’t hurt. She doesn’t take any of it personally. She hasn’t known him all that long, but she’s known him long enough to understand that he didn’t mean any of it—that he was lashing out—that he’ll apologize later. It wouldn’t even matter if he didn’t apologize, even though she knows he will. The attacks were weak and didn’t land. She’s not at all worried about becoming irrelevant. They discovered a black mold problem in the men’s restroom just last week.
“Jeff, it was not my intention to cause you distress by bringing all of this up and naming it for what it is. I wasn’t expecting that it would upset you this much. In fact, I wasn’t expecting you to be truly upset about me bringing it up at all. Thinking about it, I’m sure at least a part of why you’re upset and feel that you have to defend Craig, is that a lot of your friends have left, and people who have always been here, like Britta, and even Chang and Craig, are comforting. You feel like I’m threatening what you have with them. You don’t want things to change, because you’re afraid change could upset the dynamic and further shatter what pieces of your family remain here at home with you.”
Jeff won’t look at her. He clenches his jaw hard and just stares at the painting on the wall. His Adam’s apple bobs.
“So you’re trying to pretend it doesn’t matter—that you don’t have any feelings about it and it’s fine. And I’m starting to get, now, that you’ve been telling yourself that for a very long time. But let me make this clear: this is not and has never been about pushing you. This is about pushing Craig. His behavior needs to change. The dynamic needs to be upset… because you deserve better. You’ve been trying to smooth things over for him almost since the moment I revealed the nature of this meeting, but you haven’t once denied that Craig’s behavior toward you frequently constitutes sexual harassment. You were a lawyer, and you’re not stupid. You’re aware that what you have experienced is repeated textbook sexual harassment. You have always known. And because you’re a former lawyer, you must also have known that you’ve been sitting on a lawsuit worth at least a couple million dollars for several years now. I know you would never sue Greendale, because it would bankrupt the school, and the school is your home. But I don’t think that means you need to act like this isn’t a big deal, and that Craig’s behavior toward you is okay. It’s alright to stick up for yourself and demand better. It does matter how you are treated, it is a big deal, and if Craig is your friend—if he is family—then he will change for you.”
Jeff doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say a word, and he still won’t look at her.
Frankie sighs. “Jeff… I want to ask you something important. Consider it rhetorical. Just… think about it. Craig has done a lot of things to you that are not okay. You say it’s no big deal. But… besides being worried about how it could upset the dynamic of the home you’ve made for yourself here, I’m wondering how much of your reluctance to have this addressed has to do with the fact that it’s happening to you specifically.
“I want you to ask yourself how you would feel, and how you would handle it, if Craig was treating Annie or Abed the way that he treats you. I want you to think about whether or not it would be a big deal then.”
Jeff’s face remains blank and impassive—hard. However, the color drains out of his face shockingly fast—an unconscious reaction he can’t control.
Frankie clears her throat. It’s a low blow. She picked them because they’re young, and innocent, and Jeff is very protective of both of them, and they’ve recently left the nest. At least it got the point across. Still, she’s distressed him enough as it is, and she knows he’s at the limit of what he can deal with—especially without a glass of whiskey. Craig was the one she was supposed to be dangling over hot coals—not Jeff’s insecurities and fears. “I’ll get Craig now, unless you have any objections.”
Jeff shakes his head, still stubbornly staring at the wall.
By the time that Frankie has gone to Craig’s office and retrieved him and they’ve filtered back into the room, Jeff’s calmed down again. The mask is back in place, and he’s managed to make himself just look bored and put upon again. It’s a shockingly fast transformation—so much so that Frankie is rather impressed.
Craig still looks nervous, but less so since he found out Jeff was in his corner. Frankie sees him give Jeff several glances as they reenter the room, as if to check that Jeff still is on his side, but Jeff’s expression is unreadable and he doesn’t make eye contact with Craig.
“Okay,” Frankie clears her throat. “Back to business.” She starts flipping through the binder again.
“Dean Pelton, is it true that you once used your faculty position to hack into Mr. Winger’s Greendale student email account and read all of his personal emails, including HIPPA protected correspondence between him and his therapist?”
Craig avoids her gaze, biting his lip. He looks at Jeff again.
Jeff sighs.
“….Okay, yes. It’s… possible that I may have done that at some point,” Craig admits. “And… you’re right, Frankie. That was wrong.”
“Mr. Winger, is it true that Dean Pelton used your personal emails to stalk you, follow you to the mall, and then blackmail you into taking him out on a date?”
“Yes,” Jeff says, confident and easy. Pretending nothing matters again except him getting back to his office to grade papers.
“He then spread videos on social media of a Karaoke video that he forced you to make with him?”
“Yep.”
“Craig, is it true that you once placed a microphone in Jeff’s Lexus, which you used to listen to his conversations for over three months, until you were caught because you played, over the school’s speaker system, a recording of him belting out ‘Hot Blooded’ in his car?”
“Yes. Yes, I um… may have done that.”
“Craig, is it true that, during a game of strip pool that Mr. Winger participated in, rather than stopping the game for its violation of the school’s conduct policies, you allowed the game to go on and observed it yourself so that you could take nude photos of Mr. Winger, including a close-up if somewhat grainy image of his anus, which you then posted on the school’s ‘Activities’ page?”
“Well, you see, our school flag has an anus on it and Jeffrey and his friends are the ones who came up with that so…”
Jeff turns and gives him a withering glare. Craig’s protest die.
Frankie pauses for effect, looks at Craig to see if he’s finally coming to his senses.
It’s unclear. He fiddles with his shirt, bites at his nails. She isn’t sure if he’s nervous about getting in trouble, or if it’s because he’s finally starting to feel guilty.
“Mr. Pelton, did you move into the apartment adjacent to Mr. Wingers?”
“I only did that because my lease was up and I wanted a new apartment. I had no idea that Jeffrey—“
“Oh come on, Craig.” Jeff butts in, almost whining. “We could actually get out of here sometime today if you wouldn’t lie, and you’d just shut up and answer the stupid questions and not try to justify anything. Just fucking admit it and agree to stop so Frankie will drop it and I can go back to my office. Jesus Christ.”
“Okay yeah. I did that too and it was because I knew Jeffrey lived next door.”
Frankie sighs, and flips through more pages of the binder. She’d hoped for more reaction from either of them, but they’re both nearly as stubborn as ever…. At least on the outside.
“Most of the rest of this is innuendo or harassment of a purely physical nature…” She murmurs, “A horrifying amount of it documented just by me from the last year, with who knows how many incidents lost to time and Britta’s memory… but I’ve collected about 250 examples of unwanted touching, and about 300 examples of various inappropriate flirtations, which often involve references to Mr. Winger’s muscles, backside, and genital area.”
There’s silence.
Craig shifts in his chair.
Jeff sighs yet again.
“Okay, look, you’re right, Frankie. There’s some… inappropriate things in there. Some things that I should never have done. But… the really serious stuff is in the past,” Craig hedges, nodding at her, then turning to Jeff and trying to get eye contact with him for agreement.
Jeff gives him nothing—just looks back sullenly.
“No.” Frankie shakes her head. “Just last week, I heard the two of your arguing in the hallway because Jeff caught you wandering off with the clothes from his gym bag. He had to yank the clothes out of your hands because you refused to relinquish them, and was very upset that you ripped his shirt by refusing to let it go. You then apologized and asked Jeff to ‘punish’ you in a tone that very obviously implied you would find the experience sexually gratifying. The week before that, you persistently tried to convince him to dress up as a Dalmatian for a skit where no one else was playing an animal, and yes, we’re all very aware of your associated fetish.”
Craig slumps in defeat. He hunches over, propping his elbows on his knees, and puts a hand on his head, rubbing at his temple. They can’t see his face. He’s hiding. He breathes.
Frankie feels relieved: maybe she’s getting through to him after all.
“Craig… while you were in your office, I asked Jeff a question that I think maybe you should think about too. You seem to be having trouble recognizing your behavior as inappropriate, so I want to ask you this: Would it be okay to constantly make sexual innuendos to someone else? Would it be okay to walk up to another member of the faculty and touch their stomach?”
“No,” Craig murmurs.
This gets Jeff’s attention.
“Why not?” Frankie challenges.
“Um…” Craig says weakly, still not looking up. “Because… because they’re them, and Jeffrey is Jeffrey,” He finally settles on.
Jeff‘s mouth forms a tight line.
“That… that didn’t come out, right,” Craig says, still not looking up. But he doesn’t clarify. He just goes silent again.
Frankie decides to push Craig one last time. “Craig, Britta also mentioned, and… I have to say I’m just as confused as she is… that you have, on several occasions, brought Jeff multiple cans of olives. I’m not sure if that’s some sort of sexual innuendo or not, but I’m comfortable saying that, at the very least, it’s… very weird.”
A nearly animalistic whine suddenly comes from Craig’s throat—so strangely toned and abrupt that Jeff and Frankie look at each other in alarm.
“Jeffrey ASKED me to bring him those!” Craig blurts out, standing and shouting frantically, any remaining calm he was still holding onto dissolving into panicked protest, his eyes red-rimmed and blurred with tears. He turns to Jeff, who looks as shocked and confused as Frankie feels. “M’sorry, Jeffrey, I know you told me to play along and never mention it, but this is serious! You have to tell Frankie the truth! I could lose my job!”
Jeff gapes up at him. “What the fuck?”
“Please tell her the truth, Jeffrey! Please!” Craig sobs.
The transformation in Jeff’s demeanor is immediate. They’ve all seen Jeff get mad—seen him throw things and shout and overall deal with his anger in unhealthy ways, but this is somehow more and for a moment, Frankie is sure that he’s going to hit Craig—so much so that she eyes her office phone, thinking about how long it would take her to call security to pull them apart.
Jeff bursts out of his chair so fast that it flips over, and Frankie and Craig both jump. He rises to his full height, towering over Craig, and starts screaming at him. Not over reading his personal emails, repeatedly violating his personal space, blackmailing him, or stalking him, but over the goddamned cans of fucking olives.
“If I told you once, I told you a thousand goddamned times to STOP. FUCKING. BRINGING ME OLIVES as part of whatever sick, creepy, sexual fetish you were trying to involve me in! I was never EVER more clear about ANYTHING than that! The fact that you’re pretending that I told you to do that makes me so fucking mad! Are you fucking bat shit insane!? I was very VERY clear about the fucking olives! It freaked me the fuck out and confused the shit outta me, and I really wanted you to fucking stop, and I fucking told you! I told you how it made me feel! I told you to stop over and over, and you just kept on and kept on with the STUPID FUCKING OLIVES!”
Jeff’s face is quickly reddening, and his eyes are suddenly blurring with tears. His hands are shaking, and he looks like he knows he’s completely lost it but he just can’t stop.
“Frankie’s fucking right!” Jeff yells. “You don’t fucking respect me! You don’t respect my boundaries or my personal space! You think because I’m Jeff Winger, it’s okay to touch me and talk about me however you want! You’re a fucking sexual predator and you’ve fucking stalked me and done other weird shit to me that’s made me feel fucking awful on and off for six fucking years, and I don’t like any of it and I don’t fucking want it! Is that clear enough for your Craig? Do you understand my boundaries now?!”
Craig stares up at him, blubbering, then he drops like a sack down into his chair, sobbing wretchedly. “I don’t understand!” He wails, putting his head in his hands and crying and crying and crying. “I swear I thought you told me to, Jeffrey! I swear! I was just playing along! You told me to! You told me you loved me! Then you just… you just stopped talking to me and I never heard from you again about it so I stopped, but I swear, Jeffrey, I thought you wanted the olives! I thought you wanted them!”
Jeff stares down at him from above, whole upper body rising and falling with deep breaths meant to calm his anger, muscles tensed like he wants to reach out with his bare hands and crush Craig’s windpipe. But the more he watches Craig cry, the more the tension seems to drain, and the more his anger seems to slip and transform into sympathy and regret because Craig is sobbing, and Jeff seems like he feels… bad about it, even if Frankie doesn’t exactly think he should. One more pulse of rage rushes over Jeff’s face and then he turns his back on them both, breathing deep and trying to get himself back under control.
“Craig… why did you think that Jeff wanted the olives?” Frankie asks, voice softer than it’s been so far, as if to somehow counteract all the shouting that students could no doubt hear all the way across the building.
“Because he texted me and told me he wanted them!” Craig sobs, wringing his hands and shaking all over. “He said that he wanted me to bring them to him, and not to be surprised if he pretended to be confused or said he didn’t want them, because it was all a part of the game! I swear!” He gasps suddenly, and then starts fumbling for his phone. “I still have the text messages!”
He opens his phone up with shaking fingers and then shoves it into Frankie’s hands, even as Jeff turns around and looks at him and then Frankie. His face clearly says he has no clue what’s going on.
Frankie takes the phone just as Jeff says, much more calmly, “Craig… you don’t have my cell phone number.”
“What do you mean?” Craig sniffles and chokes. He dabs at his eyes.
Frankie hands him a tissue while she reads the text messages. It’s immediately apparent that someone has been talking to Craig, but definitely not Jeff. The texts have multiple grammatical errors that Jeff wouldn’t make, involve awkward phrasing common with foreign speakers, and the tone and language used is completely unlike him.
“Yes I do have your number,” Craig protests. “I-we-we used to talk all the time! Late at night, over text!”
Jeff stares at him and shakes his head. “Craig… Let me make this very clear: I realized how weird you were the day I met you, as an incoming freshman at Greendale. You made passes at me in the first five minutes of me entering the office to fill out my registration forms. I ignored it, but I knew you were probably the type to just pull something like a cell phone number off the applications I was about to hand you. So I put the same fake phone number on all my documents, and continued to use the same fake number on all my school forms every year for the exact same reason. It didn’t matter, since the school sent everything I needed to know through email anyway. And you’ve never asked for my number, so I assume you pulled it from official school documents. I assure you—your number is not in my contacts list, and we have never ever had a text conversation.”
“Yes…” Frankie murmurs, staring down at Craig’s phone. “I can confirm what Jeff is saying right now, Craig.” She navigates to the contact Craig has for Jeff, and calls it, facing the phone toward them both so they can see. Nobody answers, and when it goes to voicemail, someone starts talking in Japanese. “Now let me call Jeff from my phone, with the number I have for him.” Frankie navigates to her own contact for Jeff, presses dial, and Jeff’s phone immediately starts ringing in his pocket. Jeff pulls it out and faces the screen toward Craig, showing Frankie’s name on his caller ID.
“I… I don’t understand…” Craig says.
Jeff stares at him, his expression pinched, like he actually feels bad for him. “I think someone was just messing with you, Craig.”
There’s silence for a very long time, as he processes.
“So… so you never…” Craig starts eventually, voice very quiet.
“No,” Jeff replies, with an unusually gentle tone. “Definitely not.”
Craig’s face falls. He looks down at the floor, stares for a long time.
Eventually, he starts crying again—bitterly and quietly.
Jeff shifts uncomfortably on his feet.
It’s several agonizing minutes before Craig gets himself under control, and no one talks.
When Craig does emerge finally from his cocoon of distress to look at Jeff, it’s with tears streaming freely down his face, snot coming out of his nose, and swollen, irritated eyes.
“Jeffrey… I… I’m so SO sorry,” He says, and it’s… actually genuine, and bitter, and honest. “I never meant to hurt you with the olive thing or… any of the um… other things that I did.”
Jeff clearly doesn’t no how to react, silently listening, eyes sad, like he actually feels bad for Craig—actually hurts for him and wants to comfort him in some way, but knows he shouldn’t.
It’s a strange thing for Frankie to behold, because she knows she definitely wouldn’t feel bad for Craig at all if she were Jeff, and even as a passive observer, she has very little remorse. He made his bed, and he has to lie in it.
“You’ve made it very clear now, that there’s nothing like that between us and never will be,” Craig continues, voice breaking every few seconds. “I’m… very sorry that I violated your boundaries and made you feel so uncomfortable. Especially, clearly, with the olives. But the other stuff too.”
“Like the touching,” Frankie cuts in, because she wants him to be clear and specific, so that she can be sure he understands that all of it was wrong.
“…Like the touching.”
“And the stalking.”
“…And the stalking.”
“And reading his private emails.”
“…And reading your private emails.”
“And the puppets and—“
“You know what, Frankie? We all get the point,” Jeff cuts in.
Frankie shrugs. She’ll recap with Craig later.
“I just…” Craig says, voice cracking, “Hope that you can forgive me, and we can… still be friends. But I understand if you don’t want to be around me, and if you wanted a-a restraining order or something, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t fight it.” His voice loses all its power at the last statement, but Frankie can tell he means it—that he really would agree to it.
Jeff worries his lower lip, and looks at Craig, for a long moment.
He sighs. “Look… clearly, a lot of this stuff has bothered me more than even I knew. Because… I’m good at… closing things off and not letting myself feel hurt.”
“Yes, I know,” Craig sniffles. “You talked about it extensively with your therapist over email.”
“Craig,” Jeff and Frankie say at the same time—again.
“Right. Sorry.”
“But… provided all this shit really is over…” Jeff continues, “I don’t need a restraining order, or to sue the school, or to get you fired, or anything else. As long as all it stops…? We’re good.”
“Really?” Craig asks, voice breaking.
Jeff nods.
Craig sniffles, wipes at his face. “Jeffrey… may I have permission to hug you?”
Jeff sighs, and opens his arms, and Craig runs into them.
“Craig?” Jeff says after a moment.
“Hm?” Craig says, eyes closed, still pressed agains Jeff’s chest.
“That’s enough hugging.”
Craig clears his throat, and pulls away, still sniffing and wiping at his eyes. “Right. By the way… Can I have your real cell phone number?”
Jeff hesitates for a moment. Glances at Frankie, whose expression is unreadable, then back at Craig. “No.”
Craig’s face falls a bit, but he nods. “Okay.” He turns to Frankie. “Can I leave now?” He asks plaintively.
“Yes. Though I want to meet alone with you next week to discuss how you’re going to behave going forward.”
“Right,” Craig murmurs. “I’ll… see you both on Monday,” He turns and walks out the door, posture slumped in pure dejection.
Frankie and Jeff watch the door close behind him.
There’s silence for a long time again, before Jeff breaks it.
“…Frankie?”
“Yes?”
He turns to her. “Sorry about all that stuff I yelled at you before.”
“It’s okay,” Frankie replies easily. “No offense was taken.”
“And… thank you. I really mean it this time.”
Frankie sighs. “Honestly Jeff… you shouldn’t thank me. This is my job, and I screwed it up by leaving this unaddressed for over a year. What’s more, you’re my friend, so I should have questioned things much sooner.”
Jeff shrugs. “Well… you’re the only person who noticed at all. Nobody else batted an eye… and I know why. It’s because… I’m me. I’m Jeff Winger, and I’m the largest proponent of my own objectification. So someone like Craig… he’s just fades in, like some kind of humorous side effect I have to accept for being obsessed with being attractive. So no one thought it was a big deal. And I didn’t either. Maybe a part of me even…” Jeff stops, and he breathes for a second.
“Maybe a part of me even liked it… because even if it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t actually like it.. it was still attention.”
“Jeff,” Frankie says, “Someone still should have stood up for you.”
“You did.”
Frankie just nods, not sure what else to say.
“Is it weird that I actually feel bad for him?” Jeff chuckles awkwardly. “It’s just… a lot of the shit he did wasn’t okay… but some of it… some of it was because he thought I loved him and then rejected him… and… now he has to face that a person he thought loved him… never did. And… I know how that feels, and it sucks. And even though I didn’t lead him on… it makes me feel… bad?”
“Don’t feel responsible,” Frankie says. “But hurting for Craig just shows what a loving person you can be, Jeff. I don’t think I would have any sympathy for him. I think I’d want him to hurt if it were me. But you don’t, and that… it’s why your friends love you. Not because of your looks or your charm.”
Jeff winces. “Sounds very cliche.”
“The most cliche truths are often not well understood, because we dismiss them as cliches,” Frankie says.
“...And that sounds like a line I would use to justify using a cliche.”
“Well… maybe it’ll be easier to take it to heart, then.”
Jeff thinks that maybe it will be.