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the “happy to have you” dance
The first Greendale dance is supposed to set the pattern for the whole year.
This year, Craig’s thinking of a sort of cotillion theme, but he caves at the last minute and does a welcome/welcome back dance where you’re supposed to wear your clothes front-ways if you’re a new student or faculty member and backwards if you’re coming back for more Greendale!
“Dean,” Jeff says, “as this is my final year at Greendale, I have to ask: why do we have so many dances?”
Annie gives him an encouraging smile. “Did you read a lot of Jane Austen at a very influential age? It happens to all of us sometimes.”
Actually, Craig did, but that isn’t why he likes dances. He doesn’t tell Jeff why, either, because Jeff Winger may look like he should be on a billboard for aviator sunglasses, fine Scotch, and sex hotels with swings attached to the ceiling, but Jeff isn’t Mr. Understanding, he’s just Mr. Handsome, and Craig’s been around the block enough to know the difference. He settles for school cheer: “Because, Jeffrey, Greendale human beings become human beings through the power of dance!”
“And to think we all had to take biology twice,” Jeff says, but he and the study group show up at the dance anyway, with at least one clothing item on backwards, though only Troy (bless him) goes the whole mile and limps around in backwards-turned shoes.
Craig tries to make conversation with the new faculty members, but honestly, Greendale doesn’t always get the pick of the professorial litter. The new communications teacher he hired to do public speaking? No direct eye contact, no smiling, and what Craig swears is an intermittent but severe stutter. He really has to stop hiring people based on whether or not they like Dalmatians.
New communications professor Brian says, “D-do you have a lot of dances?”
“As many as we can fit in. Sometimes you really have to encourage students to socialize, you know?” Anyway, he almost says, it’s an excuse to get dressed up. He’s in a tux tonight because it was more comfortable reversed than the Scarlett O’Hara number, which he can save for later. “These aren’t people who would necessarily get to dance with anyone if there weren’t organized dances. And even then, sometimes it’s only the chicken dance.”
He also really has to stop having alcohol in the punch. For one thing, he always forgets to post someone at the bowl to check for IDs and for another, he always says stupid things when he’s had one too many little paper Dixie cups full of Greendale’s finest (he thinks Leonard’s running a still somewhere, but he’s so far past caring about that now that he’s found out about the woodchuck den).
The airport Ramada has a lot of things, but it doesn’t have dancing.
“I l-l-like the chicken d-dance,” Brian says.
the “if I could turn back time” dance
Then he breaks out the Scarlett O’Hara and he adds a few more frills to it. Sometimes Craig feels like Craig in a dress and other times she feels like someone she doesn’t have a name for, but Craig’s fine for her, too. (Though she also likes Regina, if anyone’s asking.)
“Dean,” Britta says, “I can’t believe you’re having a dance about regret.”
“It’s about undoing regret,” Craig says. She knows that some people think Britta Perry overdoes the lipstick, and while Britta’s fashion sense isn’t always what Craig wants to imitate, actually the lipstick looks good tonight. Craig’s a little jealous. “It’s about second chances, Britta. It’s about the ability of time travel to undo all your old mistakes and give you a new lease on life in a parallel universe still influenced by your essential personality!”
“Troy and Abed,” she says, half-sigh.
“I’m not above colonizing a good idea. Well, not colonizing. Let’s rephrase that, shall we? Appropriating. No. Using? Utilizing? Taking without permission? Remixing. Let’s go with that. I remixed their Inspector Spacetime-themed dance for this one, with just a dash of a slightly older sense of nostalgia and pain.”
If Time Desk: The Adventures of Dean Dangerous were a dance, it would be the If I Could Turn Back Time Dance. Not to mention the fact that if Time Desk were a dance, Craig would have danced it already instead of trying to represent his plotline on a Mobius strip and a Penrose Steps diagram (hey, it worked for Inception). Craig shrugs it off and asks Britta if she wants to dance. (Britta will probably step on her feet, but Craig can be charitable.)
“Only if she can turn back time later,” Jeff says as he walks by, and Craig smiles tightly, but it’s not like it doesn’t land, and it’s not like Britta smiling and rolling her eyes at Jeff but still not dancing doesn’t feel like exactly the same thing.
Craig closes her eyes and turns back time to when the study group came to rescue him, back when he was an answer and not a joke. It’s not that there aren’t people who love him, Craig thinks, it’s just that there’s never been anyone who takes him seriously.
Craig ends up talking to Brian for the rest of the night, or talking while Brian listens. She complains about the shoes hurting her feet (even though she loves them) and she rubs her ankles. She doesn’t say anything about why she wants, sometimes, to write about time travel even though it’s so hard to get the rules right and to figure out how to undo just a few things without collapsing all the good with the bad.
the “hearts and cupids” dance
“All hearts can dance with Cupids and all Cupids can dance with hearts,” Craig says into the microphone. “And the Human Being will be roaming the floor with its special Valentine’s Day arrows to pierce couples together with eternal love! And to enforce the dance rules. We don’t want another broken heart on our hands, people, not after last year.”
Craig is a heart in shiny pink and red sateen, way more elaborate than anyone else’s, not that he’s bragging (but really, people, you get what you pay for, and do you really want to be the person there in a second-hand cardboard cut-out costume? That’s the life decision you want?), and he scans the crowd for Cupids. Jeff is a heart, so maybe later he’ll have to announce that it’s time for two hearts to beat as one, but for right now, there’s no Cupid for him. Sometimes he over-thinks the high concept dances and boxes himself in a little too tightly to a theme.
“I think it’s c-clever,” Brian says. “Everyone has someone. Even p-people who think they’re l-lonely just haven’t noticed that there’s a m-match yet.”
The Human Being comes up to Craig and holds out an arrow.
“P-prick,” Brian says, with a sort-of smile on his face, as the arrow tip touches Craig’s arm, and Craig blinks: he didn’t know that Brian had a sense of humor, even a bad one.
the “spring into action” dance
All things considered—and Craig’s always a fan of considering all things—the jazzercise theme was a little bit of a mistake. Too many Greendale students just cannot make sweatbands and neon colors work for them. Surprising exception: Garrett. Unsurprising exceptions: Annie, Troy.
Jeff shows up doing little curls with a hand-weight in a way that would normally make Craig’s stomach do little curls right along with him, but for some reason he isn’t paying (too much) attention the way the muscles on Jeff’s arm leap into definition under his skin. It goes without saying that Jeff makes the shorts work for him and has since his very memorable billiards class. It’s just that he doesn’t reduce Craig to quivering wordlessness anymore, which, really, is for the best. It’s possible that he was coming on just an eensy bit strong before. Actually, Jeff’s done this appearing-at-his-side thing far more often since Craig started losing interest, which Craig figures is half-narcissism (Jeff doesn’t want to be flirted with but doesn’t want to be distinctly not flirted with) and half-relaxation.
Then, while he’s still congratulating himself on pretty much being over the devastating good looks of one Jeffrey Winger, the whole rest of the study group appears around him, and Craig really does have to concede that for a community college, Greendale really does draw an abnormal number of attractive students. (And Pierce.)
“Dean,” Annie says, “we wanted to know—”
“Everyone’s wondering why you haven’t made a move on Professor Darcy yet,” Abed says.
“That’s what we’re calling Professor Brian Nicholas,” Annie says.
“No, that’s what you’re calling Professor Brian Nicholas,” Jeff says.
“Yeah, some of think ‘Brian Nicholas’ already sounds like a romance novel name,” Shirley says. “And some of us are a little ambivalent about getting too involved in love lives we’re not certain we approve of, but we have new pastors that have started giving sermons about—”
“What Shirley’s saying is Professor Darcy’s really hot and you should hit that,” Troy says.
“Some of us are saying that with less apparent emotional investment than Troy,” Jeff says, since his evidently self-appointed role in the conversation is to distance himself from how much he is actually in the conversation. Every now and then, Craig will notice something like that, and he’ll realize that he’s essentially irony-free, and so really, he and Jeff probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.
“Right,” Abed says, “but we’re still saying it.”
“Professor Darcy’s the blonde chick who teaches hang-gliding, right?” Pierce says.
Everyone gives a rousing chorus of: “Sure, whatever,” and Pierce nods definitively. Craig doesn’t so much understand certain dynamics within Greendale, because if he wanted to, he’d never be able to be home in time to catch Hawaii Five-O.
“Look,” Britta says, “I don’t normally like to tell other people what they should do—”
Everyone starts coughing.
“Oh, screw you guys. I’m just saying Professor Darcy wears those cute emo glasses and we’re all pretty sure he’s your type and you’re his.”
“And it’s our last semester, so there’s a limit to how much this can backfire on us,” Jeff says. Then he half-shrugs and he smiles the way he used to in Craig’s head sometimes. “And—Greendale owes you a handsome, vaguely incompetent communications professor. You’ve earned it. Or him. Well, now it’s creepy and sort of objectifying, because I accidentally—we just want you to be happy.”
“That one kind of crashed and burned,” Britta says.
“I’m out of practice. We’ve been functional lately.”
Craig says, “You think Brian likes me?”
“So,” Annie says, with a go-get-‘em air punch, “spring into action!”
Craig tries to spring, but he’s not the springing type. He ends up talking to Brian about hockey for twenty minutes and then slinking back to the still-guarded punch bowl.
“That must have been embarrassing,” Abed says, and he gives Craig a piece of chocolate.
the “all the flowers are dying from the heat” dance
“Went a little dark with this one,” Annie says. “Still choking with Professor Darcy?”
“You know,” Troy says, “the dude is pretty shy. Maybe you just have to be a little bolder. And stop designing dances where there are dead flowers on all the tables.” He sneezes: it’s a dainty little sneeze that makes Craig refocus a little.
“And you’re wearing your good news-bad news costume,” Annie says helpfully. “So no matter what he says, you’re set as far as reactions go.”
“Plus, we’re all getting a little tired of delivering pep talks,” Jeff says. “Only Pierce is going to be around next year, and right now he’s under the impression that Professor Darcy works in the cafeteria and teaches aviation, and is possibly an iguana. You were never this reluctant to hit on me.”
“It didn’t matter as much,” Craig says, all squirmy.
“Ouch,” Britta says, poking Jeff in the arm.
Craig almost apologizes but then doesn’t, and Jeff says, of all things, “I kind of deserved that,” because relaxed Jeff Winger is a lot less mean than old (possibly sexually harassed, a little bit) Jeff Winger. “Well, sometimes you have to man up, or half-man, half-woman up, in tonight’s costume case, and tell people how you feel about them.”
He’s right. Craig squares his shoulders and then gets a little teary—luckily, both halves of him tonight come with handkerchiefs. “I love you guys. You’re my favorite students that I’ve ever had.”
“Yeah,” Troy says, “we’re pretty awesome. We didn’t mean us, you are the worst at picking up messages. We want you to make out with Darcy.”
“Yeah, it’s the finale, and the rest of us exhausted our romantic chemistry options already.”
Normally, Craig isn’t the biggest fan of Abed’s our-lives-are-like-TV routine, because he knows that there’s no place for him there, that he would be nothing more than a joke, nothing more than the costumes, but somehow, thinking about this as the finale gives him the courage to go up to Brian, who’s surrounded by dead marigolds and roses, and say, “Look, I know I’m the dean and you’re a professor, but to be fair, this school is run really sloppily, and I don’t think anyone would—”
And Brian lights up in a way that Craig, like the flowers, would wither from the heat, and he says, “Yes.”
“Yes?” This never happens, not to Craig and not like this, this isn’t the way this has ever worked for him, but Brian is still smiling.
He says, “I just—you look very p-pretty and very handsome.”
So there’s another reason to like dances, then: there’s always the chance of being swept off your feet.