Pam,

I'll pick you up at seven.

Jim Halpert

I can't wait.

Pam read the note again.  And then again.  And then once more.  She would have never thought a little scrap of paper ripped from a legal pad could make her so fervently happy, nor fill her with such intense anxiety.  Tonight was the night.  The night she'd been dreaming of for months or, if she was completely honest with herself, years.  Tonight she was going on a date with Jim.

 She gingerly laid the note on her desk, smoothing it out with the heel of her palm so that it lay flat, feeling an irrational need to protect it, keep it safe and unspoiled.  She read it once again.

Suddenly, it took on a new form, a menacing form.  A feeling of disquiet fell over her.  For some reason, she couldn't bear to look at it.  Impulsively, she shoved it irreverently in her drawer and turned away.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Beesly," she told herself fiercely.

Her eyes were locked on her computer screen, but it was not the half-finished game of freecell she saw.  She was involuntarily reliving a moment from a few months ago.  Her best friend had come back to the office after a painful and tense sabbatical.  Upon his return, she had greeted him exuberantly, throwing for a rare moment her self-consciousness to the wind and pressing her body against his in sheer joy.

Her contentment was dissolved almost instantly however, when later that day, she spied him receiving the affections of another.

That familiar tightening sensation in her belly came rushing back as she remembered how Karen had playfully rubbed Jim on the back, both of them laughing, probably at some inside joke of which she would never be a part.  The feeling of emptiness and then shock, and then that paralyzing flash of panic, what do I do now?, realizing suddenly that up until that moment, she had been putting all her money on Jim, expecting him to be ready and willing to be with her, now that she was ready for him.

Firmly, she pushed away the unpleasant memory.  She had long since come to accept her share of the blame for that development.  It had been selfish for her to secretly expect, or hope, that Jim would have spent his entire time in Stamford pining away for her, merely biding his time until she should belatedly come to her senses and match the courage he had displayed that night.  That night.

Sighing, she turned back to the drawer and quickly and penitently withdrew the note.  She needed to see it again, gripped by an abrupt fear that it may have vanished or changed, that she had imagined the last hour or so of her life.  That Jim had not burst in on her interview in that life-changing moment a mere half-hour ago, but was in fact still in New York, no doubt accepting the job there, where he and Karen would live happily ever after, leaving "Fancy New Beesly" to pick up the pieces and start her life over from scratch.

It was still the same.  She reread it for the umpteenth time, taking in every last detail with an almost supernatural clarity.  The straight, large, angular letters of Jim's handwriting.  The way the vivid purple ink clashed hideously with the yellow paper.  He had used her favorite pen, the one with the little plastic troll stuck on the end of it.  The grooves in one word, suggesting that the pen had started to run out of ink.  The way he had signed his first and last name, in cursive, at the bottom as if it was some sort of official document.  Finally, the messily scrawled line at the end, as if he had been unsure of writing the words, and had jotted them down before he chickened out.  I can't wait.

He was just as anxious as she was, then.  Rather than unnerving her, she was bizarrely comforted by this thought.  However scared and unsure she might feel, she was not alone.  Spirits substantially buoyed by this conclusion, she picked up the note, an unexpected talisman of hope and confidence, gathered her belongings and headed out the door.

She was almost skipping out of pure giddiness.  It was only as the elevator doors closed that she remembered she had forgotten to shut down her computer.  She very briefly entertained the idea of doubling back, before unconcernedly dismissing it.  She would gladly pay the electric bill of the entire building if they asked her to; right now she had to go home and get ready.

"After all," she thought cockily, "Pammy's got a date."

They hadn't spoken much during the ride to Cugino's.  There was nothing to say.  Okay, there was everything to say, he amended, but most of the things he wanted to say, he needed to say, were a little heady for a first date.  Such as. . .I've loved you ever since the first day we met. . .you're all I think about. . .when I was asked today where want to be in five years from now, all I could see was you.  "No, that won't be too much pressure, will it?"

The waiter showed them to their seat, a booth in the front corner of the restaurant.  As Jim slid into his seat, he glanced to the left, spotting the table where they sat the first time they came here together, five. . .no, almost six years ago.  A lifetime ago.

His head spun.  Was it always so quiet in here?  The waiter's name was Eddie; a teenager whose parents owned the place.  He gave Jim a knowing smile, eyes lighting on Pam and then flitting back to Jim.  Perhaps it had been a mistake to come here, where they were so well known.  Apparently, it was only too obvious to Eddie--and judging from a quick peek at the counter, to the tender-faced girl behind the register as well--what was going on.

All of his concentration was being employed into keeping his menu steady.  If it quaked visibly, she would know his hands were shaking.

He glanced up at her quickly.  She glanced away quickly.  Not quickly enough, though.  He had noticed the one upward drawn brow, the slight smile on her lips, before her face had hastily rearranged itself.  "What's that all about," he wondered.

"So, what are you going to order?"  The small smirk was back in place, her voice quavering a little.

"Uh. . .I'm going for the ham and cheese, I think."  And then he got it.  She knew he always ordered the same thing, that he never needed the menu.  It had clearly been a diversion.  Her eyes fixed on his, and gave her a small nod of acknowledgement.  "Okay, you caught me, Beesly."

The conversational lull returned, heavy and oppressive.  She was using the menu, giving him the opportunity to survey her covertly.  She was wearing a purple shirt he'd never seen before, her hair loose over her shoulders, tucked behind her ear on one side.  She only wore her hair down when she was excited for something; he had picked up on this over many Valentine's Days and anniversaries.  It gave him a tiny thrill to see it tonight.

She looked up in a startling flash of pale green, and he instinctively looked away at once, that familiar surge of guilt washing over him.  "Old habits die hard," he thought to himself, cheeks burning with a sudden sense of foolishness.

Scouring his brain for something, anything, to say, and finding nothing suitable, he exhaled strongly and audibly through his nose, defeated.  He felt something nudge his shin under the table.  He narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion, but she was busy gazing at the dessert selections, an expression of bland, and unconvincing, contemplation on her face.

"So that's how you want to play?"  He donned a similarly passive face, and brought his foot casually and deliberately into contact with hers.  His reward for this was a gratifying slow bloom of pink to her cheeks.  Her foot brushed up against his ankle.  He covered her toes with his, resting them there lightly.

It was a small beacon of encouragement, this shy, subterranean conversation.  She was telling him that she understood.  "It's weird and a little scary right now, but I trust you.  We'll get past it."  He could hear her voice in his head just as clearly as if she had been speaking in his ear, and dimly wondered for a second if he was telepathic.  Their eyes met; no, it wasn't telepathy.

She had a face he could read like a book.  One of his favorite things about her, one of the reasons he had fallen in love with her in the first place; the way every tiny flicker of emotion was instantaneously displayed on her lovely face.  She was a horrible liar.

"Am I going to have to pull out the conversation cards, Halpert, or do you think we can manage on our own?"

Caught off guard, he laughed.  "That depends.  Do you actually have conversation cards?"

She grinned and nodded.  "Kelly gave them to me."  Her shoulders hunched as she giggled.

"Okay, well, now we have to use them."  He made a mental note to get Kelly something really nice for her birthday.

She pulled a stack of pink index cards from her purse.  "First card; Topic: movies.  So, insert-name-of-date-here, how do you feel about The Notebook?  Titanic?  Sleepless in Seattle?  Lady and the Tramp?"