Editing The Apartment (section)

==Plot==
C.C. "Bud" Baxter is a lonely minor office worker at a large insurance company in New York City. To climb the corporate ladder, he allows four company managers to take turns borrowing his [[Upper West Side]] apartment for their extramarital affairs. Baxter meticulously juggles the "booking" schedule; a steady stream of women and liquor bottles convinces his neighbors that he is a playboy.

Baxter earns glowing performance reviews from the four managers, flagging the attention of personnel director Jeff Sheldrake. He deduces the scheme, but promises Baxter a promotion in return for a key, starting that night. As compensation for such short notice, he gives Baxter two tickets to ''[[The Music Man]]''. Bud asks Fran Kubelik, an [[elevator operator]] in the office building to whom he is strongly attracted, to join him. She explains she already has a date for the evening, but agrees to meet him at the theater before showtime. It turns out to be with Sheldrake, whom she had been trysting before breaking it off. When Sheldrake tells her that he plans to divorce his wife to be with her they head to Baxter's apartment, while Baxter waits forlornly outside the theater.

During the company's raucous Christmas Eve party Sheldrake's secretary, Miss Olsen, tells Fran that her boss has had numerous affairs with office personnel, including herself. Fran betrays this to Sheldrake at Baxter's apartment. She gives him a wrapped present - he can do no better than pull a $100 bill from his wallet and tell her to buy herself something expensive. Claiming he loves her, he rushes for the train back to his family in [[White Plains, New York|White Plains]]. Receiving money in return for her love strikes Fran to her core.

Realizing that Fran is the woman Sheldrake has been taking to his apartment, Baxter gets thoroughly drunk at a local bar. Killing time before he can go home dancing with a married woman, he lets himself be picked up. Shooed out by the bartender they head back to his apartment. There, he discovers Fran passed out on his bed from an overdose of his sleeping pills. He ditches the woman and enlists his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, to revive Fran. Baxter implies that he was responsible for the incident. Dreyfuss scolds him for philandering and advises him to "be a ''[[mensch]]''."

Fran spends two days recuperating in Baxter's apartment, during which a bond develops between them, especially after he confesses to an earlier suicide attempt over unrequited love back in his hometown of Cincinnati. Fran says that she has always suffered bad luck in her love life. 

During Fran's stay one of the managers arrives for a tryst. Baxter persuades him to leave, but the manager recognizes her and later informs his colleagues. Though impressed, they are nonetheless annoyed that they have not had the same ready access to the apartment since Baxter's promotion. 

When Fran's brother-in-law Karl shows up at the office building looking for her, he is sent to Baxter's apartment, catching him in the middle of preparing a romantic dinner. Baxter deflects Karl's anger over Fran's wayward behavior by once again assuming all responsibility. Karl slugs him, prompting Fran to kiss Baxter on the forehead for protecting her.

When Sheldrake had learned that Miss Olsen had ratted him out to Fran, he had fired her. She had retaliated by spilling all to his wife, who threw him out. Now free, Sheldrake welcomes the opportunity to renew his pursuit of Fran. Having promoted Baxter to Assistant Personnel Director, Sheldrake expects to be lent the key to his apartment yet again. Baxter produces one - to the building's "executive washroom" - proclaiming that he is quitting the firm in favor of becoming a ''mensch''. Back home, he begins to pack his things at his apartment room.

That night at a New Year's Eve party Sheldrake indignantly tells Fran about Baxter quitting, complaining that Baxter refused to let him use his apartment, particularly with her. Realizing who is the right man for her, Fran abandons Sheldrake and runs to the apartment. At the door, she hears an apparent gunshot, but Baxter opens the door holding a bottle of frothing champagne. She retrieves a deck of cards to resume a game of [[gin rummy]] they had left unfinished earlier. He declares his love for her. With a tender smile, she replies: “Shut up and deal”.