Dear Pam,

I’m sorry I had to leave like this. I just had to get away, sort things out on my own. You’ll be fine, I promise. You’re marrying Roy and you’ll have the life you want. By the time I get back, you’ll have forgotten all about me, and what happened that night. That’s why I’m leaving too, to try and forget. Not that I want to forget it, necessarily. There’s nothing I want to forget. But I need to get past this and I can’t be around you and hope to accomplish that. This isn’t a punishment; I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything like that. I’m just looking out for myself.

I just wanted you to know, one more time, that I love you – have loved you – from the first, and that nothing has changed. I’m not mad that you chose Roy. He’s your fianc�, I have no problem with that. It’s just that sometimes, I wonder what it would have looked like, if you could choose me instead, and I couldn’t ignore that anymore. Maybe explaining things will help, but maybe that’s too much information for you, and if that’s the case, I’m sorry for that as well. I just wanted you to know. I needed you to know.

I really do hope your wedding is beautiful, and everything you wanted in a wedding.

Your friend always,

Jim

“My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind hold the key...
You’re standing next to me
My mind holds the key...
Set my spirit free”

Saw the sky this morning and thought of you. Maybe you should paint this one day. Jim.

Pam,
I am in meetings and on the trade show floor all day. But you’ll be thinking of me all day, I promise. Call the front desk. Breakfast is on its way.
Jim

Pam

I know it’s not enough to just have yogurt for breakfast. So when you’re done consuming this fine mixture of bacterially fermented milk… get dressed. You should find my iPod in your shoe. It is pre-loaded with the music and lyrics of some of Canada’s finest musical talent. When you leave the hotel and walk onto the street, task #2 is to press play and walk down the street away from the harbour. When the first song is over, you should be standing next to a bakery on the corner. (Make sure you pause the song.) Task #3 is to ask the baker if you can help him make his daily batch of �clairs. Buy one and enjoy.

More instructions to follow.

Pam,

Now that you’ve really enjoyed your breakfast, you have the energy to walk again. This is your 4th task. I want you to go out onto the sidewalk again. Press play on the iPod and head north out of the bakery. When Joni tells you about the rainbow she saw on the wall, look to your right. You should see a used bookstore. Go inside and scour the shelves for a well-loved copy of the book The Lover’s Watch by Aphra Behn, noted female English Restoration playwright extraordinaire. Turn to page 15.

Jim

Pammaroo,

Short story shorter: Iris instructs Damon on how to spend his time in each of the hours they are apart, in case he should get it in his mind to stray while she is away. Don’t worry, I trust you. But at least you’re thinking of me. #5 on your task list is to go next door and ask to pick up an order under my name; #6 is to find singing seashells in every colour of the rainbow. Feel free to reverse the order of operations if necessary.

Big Tuna

Pam,

Task #7: There are 13 roses in this bouquet. I want you to give 12 of them away to people you meet on the street; keep the nicest one for yourself. You must give one to a woman with blond hair, one to an older gentleman in a hat, one to a pair of young lovers, and one to a child. The rest can be given away as you see fit. You also must document each gift; open the box.

J

Beesly,

I trust you have been having an enjoyable day so far. While I have been stuck in meetings, you have been gallivanting around Halifax, buying things and eating things and reading things and giving things away. Now, for #8, do something nice for yourself. There is a boutique around the block from the National Citadel Historical site. Go there and buy yourself a beautiful dress to wear tonight.

Halpert

Pamela,

Take #9: You are about two city blocks from one of the most beautiful places in Halifax, in my opinion. Turn on the iPod again – I hope you haven’t been cheating and listening to it when I didn’t tell you to! Press play and walk west. When the song changes, you should be there. You’ll know it when you see it.

James

Miss Beesly,

I hope you are enjoying the view. I walked through this park this morning and decided this is where you should end your adventure. One day, I’d like to sit here with you on this park bench and watch the ducks and talk with you about whatever you want to talk about. But for now, you must content yourself with the knowledge that in a few hours, you and I will embark on a date to end all dates. Your 10th task of the day, then, is to return to the hotel room and take the perfect bath before getting ready for that date. I will call you at 5 o’clock. You’d better be ready, Beesly.

Happily yours,

Mr. Halpert

April 1… around dinner…

Jim walked into his apartment and tossed his shoulder bag onto the chair by the door before checking the answering machine for messages, as had become his routine. The one message that blinked back at him had Karen’s phone number attached to it. He groaned and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and decided he didn’t really want to hear it, not just yet; he had been hoping against hope that someone else had called and was bitterly disappointed that she hadn’t. He went to the fridge and grabbed a can of grape soda and settled onto the couch. Kicking off his shoes, he set his feet up on the coffee table and switched on the television.

He knew what Karen had called about. The night before, after dinner, Jim drove Karen to her hotel. She had invited him in, and he had refused, being as non-specific as he could be about his reasons. It hadn’t gone over well. Before he could even begin to explain, Karen faked a smile and left him in the car, telling him she understood. He knew she didn’t, that she never would. He would have tried to make her understand, but how could he have explained all that it had taken him so long to understand, about himself, about Pam, about what they were, and what he and Karen could never be as a result? How could he tell her that, when he had felt her tiny hand in his as he walked her up to her front door, he saw how far he had let it go and how wrong he’d been to do it? He was always looking for the ending rather than enjoying the ride, and never believed that any of it was real or meant anything or that he deserved any of it at all. That was his fatal flaw; he’d known that for years. Being with Pam was no different than any other situation he’d been in; if it had been different, he realized, Pam would have been the exception and not the rule.

And that’s when he realized it. Karen was up on her tiptoes and kissing him softly on the lips, and Jim was thinking that maybe Pam should be the exception. Maybe she was, all along, and he hadn’t fought hard enough for her because he still didn’t believe he deserved her, it, happiness. And he knew then that, even if he was wrong, he had to try, because Pam had done so much for him already. So he broke away, left Karen, with no plan in mind, hoping it wasn’t too late to start acting like an adult.

By 2:30 the next afternoon, immediately after doing his last scheduled one-on-one interview with the cameramen for that day, Jim fired off a one-sentence email to Pam. “We need to talk. It’s important” was all he wrote before hitting ‘Send’.

When he logged off his computer at 5:30 with no response yet, he felt slightly stupid for trying. But he didn’t blame Pam and tried to be logical, rational. Maybe her internet is down. Maybe she’s not even near a computer. Give her a day or two to reply, he reasoned. It’s her vacation, after all.

The phone felt heavy in his hand as he picked it up off the cushion beside him. He knew he should call Karen, to try at least; after all the time spent together, and the simple fact that he had been – up until he’d tried the night before – less than forthcoming about everything, he felt he owed it to her to come clean. But he couldn’t bring himself to push those buttons. CNN droned in the background, more coverage of the Democratic primaries, and Jim felt his eyelids grow as heavy as the phone as he listened to Wolf Blitzer and the other talking heads.

A knock at Jim’s door drew his attention away from the television. He closed his eyes and tried to will the unwanted visitor away. But a second round of persistent knocks snapped his eyes open. He strode across the apartment and unlatched the top lock, then swung the door inward. He saw the svelte brunette dripping wet from the rain outside standing on the threshold, and he froze.

“I thought I’d surprise you. Did you get my message?”

Jim shook his head. “What’s the occasion?”

“I’m here and you’re here. What occasion do we need?”

Jim knew it was a come-on. He could see the way her eyes darkened as her pupils dilated, remembering from somewhere that it was a sure sign of affection that couldn’t be faked. And he felt instantly bad that he hadn’t done anything, said anything earlier. When she stepped towards him, he rocked back a little on his foot, keeping his distance. She stopped.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “If you’re worried about last night, don’t be. I know it’s strange and we’re… new at this… whatever this is…” she laughed, “Don’t be strange. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, I think…,” he put a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed it there, “I think I just need some coffee. Would you like some coffee? We should have some coffee and then I think we should talk about some things.”

“Sounds great!” she exclaimed, clutching her purse under her arm. “But first, can I use your bathroom? I’d like to try and dry off if I can.” Karen asked. Jim didn’t need to tell her where it was, and she walked off down the hallway. He filled the coffee pot with water and poured it absently into the reservoir. He was pretty sure he put too many scoops of coffee in the filter. His mind whirled. Tell her when she gets back…, Inner Jim said. You have to tell her. The aroma of coffee filled his small kitchen. He put his hands on the counter and waited for the coffee. Waited for Karen. Waited for emails. Waited.

Karen finally emerged, looking as if she’d aged ten years. She flashed him a quick smile. “I’ve got to go.”

“Why? You just got here.”

“No, it’s best if I go.” She was putting her shoes on, soggy socks squishing into narrow runners – he didn’t even know she owned a pair.

“Why?”

She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. “I know. It’s not your fault.” She sniffed and picked up her bag.

Jim was confused. “What are you talking about? Why are you crying? Were there no clean towels?”

Karen paused, her hand on the door. “I’m sorry if I ruined things.”

Jim didn’t have the chance to ask her what was going on; she walked out the door and closed it quietly behind her. Jim made his way towards the bathroom to see what had happened. The light was off, but his bedroom light was on. He peered in – What was she doing in my room? he wondered – saw the depression in the bed where Karen had been sitting. Next to the bed, in the light of his bedside lamp, he saw his sock drawer wide open. He wasn’t even upset that she had been rooting through his clothes drawer; the girl was soaked from head to toe and was probably looking for some dry clothes or something. Why else was she in my room? “She could have asked…,” Jim said out loud to no one as his eyes travelled to the table top and to what Karen must have also seen. The black box. The engagement ring. Pam’s ring. How did she know?

He opened the lid, saw the ring glittering in the box. The inner lid of the box was silkscreened with the name of the jewelry store in Halifax where he’d bought the ring. Karen must have opened it. He pictured it – her tapered fingers opening the box, gasping at the diamond, seeing the jeweler’s name and realizing that the ring was bought after they’d existed as an item, that even if he and Pam were never going to get together again, this ring would never sit on her finger because he’d bought it for someone else. He had wanted to tell her; but he wanted her to find out some other way than this.

With a sigh, he sat on the edge of the bed. Too tired and confused to think or do anything, except curse the curiosity of some women and trying to convince himself that she had made the choice to go into his sock drawer in the first place, Jim just leaned back against the pillows and drifted off into sleep.

--

12 hours later, an entire state away…

It wasn’t overly early – Pam used to get up at this time to go to work – but after a month and a half of sleeping in until she was ready to wake up, Pam was feeling the strain of those lost hours pulling on her eyelids as she stared at her computer screen, watching the cursor blinking and taunting her, daring her to write back to the man she was still so desperately in love with. She had heard that Jim was spending a lot of time with Karen in Scranton; she didn’t blame him. She didn’t want to hold him back and that was why she’d left in the first place.

But then she’d been woken by that phone call... .

She could barely remember it, it had faded away like a dream almost immediately after it had happened. But now she recalled that her cell phone, ringing and ringing from deep within her purse, had gone off very early that morning. Pam had scrambled out of bed to answer it but it had already gone to voicemail – Reminder: check voicemail she told herself as she sat up a little straighter in her chair and reached for her handset. She couldn’t imagine who it was, unless it was a wrong number. Nobody called that early.

Except Jim.

Her confusion was replaced by a sudden sense of urgency as she scrambled to listen to the voicemail recording, fingers sliding over keys instead of pressing into them, phone slipping as her hands began to sweat. She cursed herself for drifting off to sleep again after the phone call instead of checking her voicemail right away; she cursed herself for not putting it together – the email and the phone call – sooner than she had done. They were just strange, isolated incidents until then, when she realized it might have been him trying to call her. Maybe there was something wrong. Maybe he needed her, and she had shunned him for an extra twenty minutes of sleep.

We need to talk. It’s important.

She pressed the phone to hear ear and strained to hear the message. But it wasn’t Jim’s voice that greeted her with such urgency. Under normal circumstances, Pam wouldn’t have given the caller a second thought. In fact, she still wondered if she should do anything at all, if it was her business, even though she knew he would be making a mistake, and even though she was angry and wanted to yell at him for turning his back on her. Yet on this morning, and without thinking about it too much, Pam threw on the first thing she could find and didn’t bother telling her mother where she was going as she flew out the door to the carpark, thinking to herself as she ran: I just hope I’m not too late.

--

Jim dreamed about Pam all night. He imagined that the two of them were preparing to go on a space flight, and they were in their NASA spacesuits and all set to go, when Pam turned to him and started to talk. He could see her mouth moving but he couldn’t hear her. He tried and tried to listen, straining inside his helmet, but he could just see her and she looked panicked and stressed. Then she was ushered on board the shuttle and Jim was forced to stay behind to wait for the next trip. She had been wrenched from him, arms flailing, and instead of running after her, he had stood on the deck and watched as she blasted off into space. When he awoke, the deep sense of loss he had felt in his dream lasted for a few minutes before he stood up and stretched, the ring box still clasped in his hand, went to the kitchen to turn off the burned, black, smelly mess of coffee in the kitchen from the night before, and flicked on his computer to check for email.

She had read it; he knew because he had requested a read receipt and had gotten one that morning. But there was no reply. No phone calls, no texts. Nothing. Dejected, Jim began running the shower. His phone rang twice before he realized what it was. He had just started to lather up his hair; turning off the scalding hot stream, he raced to the phone, towel wrapped around his waist and shampoo running down his back.

“Hello?” Please be Pam, please be Pam… .

It wasn’t Pam. He almost hung up. “Yeah… yeah, I know it’s you… ” he asked, totally unenthused. “Make it quick, I was in the shower… .”

Then the caller began to launch into his story. At first Jim was skeptical – maybe in some bizarre Amish calendar today was April Fool’s, Jim thought, but even if it wasn’t, why would he believe anything the other guy said? But there was an urgency in his voice that seemed real and it was something Jim didn’t think anyone would joke about, at least not if they knew the story, which was obviously the case this time.

“Are you serious?” Jim asked. He got his reply, and with a quick thanks and the addition of ‘I might not be at work today’, Jim slammed the phone back on the cradle, checked his watch, and quickly hopped back into the shower to finish what he’d started before bolting – shoes in hand, jeans unbuttoned, dress shirt flapping loosely over his undershirt – to his car and speeding off towards the interstate.

--

Dwight set his alarm to go off extra early that morning so he could set his plan in motion. He had, at first, hated to admit that he actually cared about the lanky salesman with whom he shared a workspace. It was easier to admit that he liked Pam, but that was mostly because she was a fine female specimen and Dwight admired that much about her already. But the more he saw them together, and the more depressed Jim got when she was gone, the more he realized that he was secretly pulling for them to make it. His own upset over losing Angela to Andy was, for the first time in months, secondary in his mind to the current goal. Strange and unwelcome a thought as it was, he just wanted the old Jim back.

It helped that, in the process, he would most certainly go down in the annals of Dunder Mifflin Scranton for orchestrating the best prank in branch history. That made him smile.

So even though Dwight was groggy and spent five minutes reconsidering his act of kindness – which he affectionately termed the “swift kick in the ass they both need” on his blog – the thought that he would almost certainly be able to pull one over on Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly in one fell swoop made the task of getting out of bed and over to his telephone that much easier. After clearing the sleep from his voice and practicing a scared and urgent inflection, Dwight picked up the phone and began to dial.

“May I speak to Jim please? Jim, it’s Dwight! There’s something you need to know! It’s about Pam!”

When he was done, Dwight thought he should seriously be nominated for an Oscar for acting. Feeling pleased, he began to ready himself for work.

Pam felt her foot like lead on the accelerator as she sped down the highway. As her car merged with i-81N, she could hear her heart pounding in her ears and had to squeeze the steering wheel until her knuckles were white to keep them from shaking. Her entire body vibrated; she was in no condition to drive like this, but as she flew past the highway signage, her thoughts were centered and focused on one thing – getting to the church in Pottsville (“What the hell is in Pottsville?” she’d ask herself out loud more than once on the hour-long drive to the small town she’d only ever seen as a dot on the map, almost exactly halfway between Scranton and Harrisburg).

The sun was lightening the sky in the east; it was just past 7:00. Pam remembered her painting, the one she’d been making for Jim and which was sitting behind her television at home as she spoke, and felt herself starting to cry for the hundredth time in the twenty minutes she’d been behind the wheel. She had been stupid. She had left Jim to figure herself out and had left him hanging for too long. What had she honestly expected? Her actions had been meant to help solve their problems; instead, she had driven him into the arms of another woman. And it had been her fault! If only she’d explained, telephoned… something, anything would have been better than leaving their relationship to fate!

Now, she was paying for it. She floored it, watching as the city gave way to suburbs and then to open fields and rolling hills. No matter how fast she drove, she couldn’t go fast enough; Pam felt as if she were the one encased in Jell-O instead of Dwight’s stapler. It made her think of Jim, and she cried again.

Eventually, she saw her exit. She slowed down enough to take the ramp safely and pulled off the interstate, eventually finding herself on the narrow and cozy streets of a town that could have been any town in America, but which was all the more important because it was the town in which Jim had decided to marry Karen. Pam had no idea why – perhaps Karen had family there. Maybe Jim did. There was a lot she didn’t know about him, she realized. But I would have learned.

She had an address – Dwight had provided that over the phone – and as she scanned street signs and examined landmarks, she felt more tears, realizing that time was ticking and she wasn’t any closer to finding her way. She briefly considered calling Dwight and begging him to help her find it, and as she struggled to compose herself for the phone call, she saw a spire rising high above the tree tops, impossibly white in the early morning sun. She rubbed her eyes and brushed the tears away and turned onto the street towards the church.

---

“Come on… COME ON!” Jim hollered, even though he knew it would make no difference, that it wouldn’t part the shining silver sea of car rooftops in front of him, glimmering in the early morning sunshine. It was quarter to seven, the sun wasn’t even up yet, and there was a water main break which was causing traffic to back up way longer than normal. He scanned the side roads up ahead, looking for somewhere to turn, some other way to get to the i-81.

He tapped his long, impatient fingers on the steering wheel, focusing his eyes on the license plate of the car in front of him until his vision blurred and he realized he was crying. He blinked tears away and slowly depressed the accelerator to inch the car forward a few car lengths before he had to stop again.

“And who is she marrying anyway?!” he cried at the windshield. The woman in the car next to him avoided his eyes when he glanced over at her. An embarrassed Jim sank a little lower in his seat and continued to wait himself into insanity.

Dwight’s call had sent him into a panic. He knew he had messed up, but he didn’t think it would be enough to make Pam think of marrying someone else. His stomach churned; he’d forgotten to eat breakfast. But he couldn’t think of anything else except getting to the church and stopping the proceedings. Even if he couldn’t convince her, Jim knew he hadn’t done enough, hadn’t tried, and he had to pull all the stops now to show her that it was real, that he was ready, that she was the one. If she still chose someone else over him, there wasn’t much he could do – it wouldn’t have been the first time he would let her go – but at least he would have known that he’d done all he could on that day.

Pottsville. What the hell is in Pottsville? Jim wondered. So many things did not make sense; he hoped Dwight was wrong, that he’d gotten his information mixed up. He couldn’t imagine the Pam he knew eloping with out warning with her pre-Roy high school boyfriend. Jim had heard all about the guy, was well aware that he was Pam’s first love. But as far she’d told him, Pam hadn’t seen the guy since that impromptu five year reunion a few years ago when she’d gone to Atlantic City for the weekend with half her graduating class and Michael thought she’d quit and had started looking for her replacement. That was already almost five years ago. Pam was so… sensible. So thorough. It didn’t make sense.

Maybe that’s why she hasn’t called… Jim thought ruefully. It wasn’t impossible. Highly improbable, but not impossible.

But Jim wasn’t leaving anything to chance. Even if he was wildly off base, he had to go. Enough was enough. He would go to Pottsville, and he would find the church, and he’d make more noise and create a bigger commotion than even Ben Braddock could handle. Because it was Pam, and he’d been a fool, and she needed to know that if nothing else. Only a small part of him cared that it was her wedding day; the rest of him wanted to desperately believe that she couldn’t honestly marry anyone else but him.

Finally, he spotted a stretch of open road up ahead, signaling that the construction zone was ending. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, and he’d be on the highway, jetting through townships and entire counties, flying across the space and distance separating them. It wouldn’t be long, but it couldn’t be fast enough.

---

Pam parked her car in front of the church, glancing at her clock, which blinked out 8:00. She’d made it to the church – it was the right one, she knew – but she wondered if she’d made it on time. No cars in the parking lot, no people on the steps. Perhaps they hadn’t invited anyone, but when Dwight had said it was going to be a quick ceremony, Pam still imagined that there would be guests. She let herself imagine for a scant second that either Dwight was horribly mistaken, or that maybe she had beat them there and she could still stop this thing from happening. It was the weirdest wedding she would ever attend – she’d never heard of a pastor agreeing to marry a couple before breakfast on a Wednesday! – but Dwight said it was important that they did it right away. Maybe that’s what Jim needed to tell her: he was marrying Karen because she was pregnant. Pam knew she was torturing herself, and more unself-conscious tears streamed down her cheeks as her stomach fell out and she wished she hadn’t been so stupid.

Pam rested her head against the cool leather of the steering wheel and sobbed. She waited, for a sign that someone was there, or for Jim and Karen to pull up outside the church, smiling and happy… Stop it, she ordered herself. You’re not making this easier! She had begun to panic, worried that she’d missed them, and decided to step out of her car and run up the steps and into the church, because then at least she’d know.

She realized she was wearing the dress. The yellow one, from Halifax. It had been an accident, a coincidence, since this was the dress she had worn the day before when she’d gone out for lunch with her mom and it was the first thing she had found on the chair by the bed when she ran out that morning. She smoothed it out against her legs and cursed her winter weight for making her belly stick out just a little more than it had when she first wore the dress. It still looked good; she wondered if Jim would notice.

Not if he’s standing next to his pregnant wife, she said. She wanted to kick her own ass; what if it was too late?

She locked the door and ran across the tree-lined street and up across the lawn in front of the church. The doors were open, and she stepped inside, shivering because she forgot a jacket and it was only April, after all.

No one met her at the door. There were no crowds, no people. No happy, smiling newlyweds or a bemused pastor. Her heart thudded against her ribcage. Where are all the people? Where’s the bride? Where’s Jim?

She heard the sound of a vacuum running, and she followed it into the nave. A cleaning lady in a blue apron stood bent over the carpet running up the center aisle, pushing a grey vacuum over and over the worn floor covering. Pam thought it was strange, somewhat anachronistic or something, to see such a modern object in such a beautiful and historic place. The vaulted ceiling reached up above her head, and stained glass windows lined the walls. From behind her, the sunlight shone in and illuminated the pews in bright blues and purples and yellows. She choked back a sob as she thought about a wedding – any wedding – taking place in such a beautiful setting.

“Excuse me, miss?” the lady startled her as she yelled over the hum of the vacuum. “Can I help you?”

Pam nodded. “Can you tell me… is there a wedding here today?”

The woman flicked off the vacuum and indicated that she hadn’t heard the question. Pam repeated it, and the other woman just stood there, smiling warmly, “Today is Wednesday, dear.”

“I know that,” Pam nodded briskly, “But is there a wedding today?”

“Not that I am aware of,” the woman said.

“This has to be the right church…,” Pam muttered. “Are there any other churches on this street?”

“We’re the only one,” the woman replied. “Are you okay?”

Pam nodded, but she knew she was lying. No wedding… what in the hell…? The woman was still smiling. “Stay as long as you’d like. I won’t bother you.”

And with that, she picked up her vacuum and left out the same door through which Pam had entered. Pam sank into the pew at the back, her eyes moist. Does nothing make sense anymore? She thought as she rested her head against her folded arms on the back of the pew in front of her. All I wanted was to see him… .

No more than five minutes passed before she stood up and wiped her eyes, resolving to wait until she heard from Jim, or Dwight, or something happened to make her leave. With great weariness, Pam turned on the heel of her little white sneakers and walked back out of the nave, into the foyer, and out onto the step where she felt the rays of the sun falling upon her exposed shoulders like warmed butter, dripping down her arms. She had made Jim wait; now it was her turn.

---

Jim arrived in Pottsville in record time, slamming on the brakes as he entered town limits where the speed limit dropped dramatically. Still, he cruised along ten miles over the speed limit when there were no cars around. He had to get to Pam. He ran over again what he was going to say to her when he saw her.

Dwight’s directions reverberated in his head. “Turn right at the second stop sign” or “Take the first left after the gnarled oak tree in front of the post office”. Or something like that. He really didn’t know what Dwight had said for directions, but he could hear his voice rattling off commands like an army drill sergeant as he drove the tree-lined streets with the church address in hand. The car was stiflingly hot; he rolled his window down, enjoying the crisp April morning air as it prickled his skin and made his breath catch in his throat.

He caught a glimpse of the church steeple rising above the green trees up ahead of him. That must be it, he said, torn between speeding towards the parking lot or slowing down to avoid the parked cars on either side of him.

In the end, he pulled off the road and watched the church through the windows of his idling car. He was struck by the lack of fanfare – surely they had invited guests. The terrifying thought that he might be late struck him and he glanced at his clock. Dwight had said the ceremony would be early, before 9. It was 8:10 am. People would be starting to show up; as Jim exited his car, he practiced his speech. I’m yours, Pam, body and soul… I made mistakes, but I’m human, and I’ll beg for forgiveness and I’ll wait forever to get you back… it won’t be easy, but nothing ever really is… if you have to marry him, then fine, I won’t stand in your way but I won’t pretend that it’s okay because I was a fool and I let you walk out of my life, and I’ll regret it until the day I die… Why? Because I’m the man who loves you… I always have been… .

He felt tears, again, and looked up to blink them away. That’s when he saw it, a flash of yellow through blurred half-closed eyelids. There was someone standing on the church steps. He blinked his disbelieving eyes. The figure sat down on the stone steps and rested her head on her knees. He knew it was a her because he would have known Her anywhere. There was no one else around; he gave himself space to hope for a second that maybe he was wrong, that Dwight was wrong, and wondered if he could be that lucky.

He sped up, half-running, half-walking the strides in between the sidewalk and where she perched, stopping a few feet away because she had lifted her head and he wanted her to see him. He stood on the level ground, looking at her at eye-level because he was so tall. She was crying, tiny sobs that wracked her body and made her shoulders shiver. Jim wasn’t immune; he felt a lump in his throat, too.

When her eyes met his, he tried to smile but his tears broke out of their cages and spilled down his cheeks, so he cast his eyes down so she wouldn’t see and brought a hand up to brush the evidence away. He was aware of her standing up, could hear the rustle of her dress, the one he’d bought for her, so long ago. Then he felt her fingertips resting on his wrist, warm despite the cold, and he thanked the sun for its warmth. She slipped her hand into his – her left hand, unadorned and blissfully naked, with no ring to cloud his judgment and break his heart – and she squeezed, and he knew. He just knew.

“Pam, I--.”

“Ssh, Jim, don’t say anything,” Pam whispered.

Jim’s voice cracked. “But I can’t… I’m so sorry Pam… I’ve been such a fool and I know I probably don’t deserve you after all of this, but you can’t get married today unless you’re marrying me.”

Pam looked up at him, a confused expression painting her face. “I’m not getting married. You’re getting married.”

“Who said I was getting married?”

“Dwight. He called me this morning and told me to hurry to this church because you were going to marry Karen.”

“Dwight called you?” Jim asked, “Dwight called me too… told me you were marrying some ex-boyfriend from high school who you reconnected with or something.” He studied her, “You mean you’re not?”

She shook her head, letting out a shuddering breath. “Shit,” she choked, bringing the back of her hand up to her mouth and gripping Jim’s arm for support. “I’m gonna kill him… .”

Jim smiled, recognizing the situation for what it was, and felt something like pride towards his co-worker for managing to pull off the prank of the century. Maybe the man did care after all… . “Pam," he started, softly, "You have to admit – he did well. He really had us going.”

She was crying, fully and openly, as she held onto Jim’s arm. “I really thought I’d lost you. I don’t think I’ve driven this fast in my entire life.” Her voice was so soft as it floated to Jim’s ears and he realized this was the first time he’d heard her voice in over a month. And then she was looking down again, shoulders shaking.

Jim brought one hand to her chin, lifting it to she was looking into his eyes. “Hey. Pam, don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, Jim.”

“What are you talking about? I’m the one who needs to apologize.”

“I pushed you away.”

"It's okay."

"No, it's not. I made some awful accusations. I should have listened to you. I should have believed you. I should never have let my jealousies about Karen cloud my judgment where it came to you and... ."

“Pam, I don’t blame you. I was a complete and total jerk.”

Pam closed her half-open mouth, then smiled a little. “Well... yeah, you were.”

Jim didn't feel like laughing, but he managed a smile before his face fell again. “Pam, you don’t understand. When I heard you were getting married, I almost fell apart. I’ve lost you so many times -- I lost you before I had you, at the casino fundraiser, and I lost you when I did have you, when I left your house that night. Here I was losing you all over, for good,” he gripped both her hands now, not wanting to let her go. “I made so many mistakes, Pam… I can’t even begin to apologize.”

Pam was still crying. “Maybe you can start by explaining why you stopped trusting me.” Her eyes shone with tears. “That really hurt, Jim... .”

Jim looked down, “I didn’t not trust you. I got scared. I finally had you, after years of wanting you, but I had built the idea of ‘us’ up into something that I didn’t think we could live up to. I started to doubt it all, I guess. Then Karen started talking to me again and… I really had no idea what to think when Roy was at your house… I jumped to some major conclusions and they were totally wrong.”

“I wish you could have talked to me about it,” Pam said.

“I wish I had, too,” Jim shrugged.

A pause. Jim waited with suspended breath.

Finally: “What about Karen?”

Jim exhaled, remembering the night before, how Karen had left his apartment. I’m sorry if I ruined things. “She didn’t mean anything by any of this.” He paused, running his thumbs over the backs of her hands. “Karen thought we could recapture what we had, and it took me too long to realize that’s what she was after. I should have figured it out, and I should have set things straight a long time ago. But she was wrong too, about the two of us. There was no future there." He recalled the look on her face as she left his apartment, after she'd seen the engagement ring he'd bought for Pam. "She knows now, without a doubt, how I feel about you.”

Pam nodded, and as she did, a tear fell from her eye onto Jim’s hand in front of her. “Well, I guess everyone just wants a piece of you, huh?” she was smiling, “How does it feel to be so desired?”

Jim grinned, marvelling at how such a woman – the kind who could smile when she was crying and make him smile with her – could have picked him.

Pam stepped forward. “But it’s over now,” she returned after a moment’s silence. She slipped her arms under his and nestled her head against his chest. Jim had forgotten, too, how wonderful it felt to hold her like that. He kissed her hair and rested his lips against her temple as he wrapped his arms tighter around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay,” she said, “Well… it’s not okay. I mean, this month has knocked years off my lifespan, you know.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“You bet you will.”

He knew that, despite the joking tone of her voice, he had a lot of ground to cover. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she didn’t trust him fully for a long time. And as the warmth of her body bled through his shirt and felt his heart synching with hers, he knew he would do whatever it took. A hundred miles, weeks of hardship (that he knew he had brought on himself), and Dwight Schrute brought them to where they needed to be, which was where they were all along if only he’d been able to see it for what it was. Pam had known; now he was finally fully aware, and couldn’t have been more ready to be everything he knew he should have been from the start.

“I still can’t believe we fell for it,” Pam said against Jim’s chest with a chuckle.

“He got me good yesterday,” Jim said.

“How?” she turned her face to look up at him.

Jim rolled his eyes and began to blush. “Err… it’s a long story, and it’s not one I want to get into.”

“Come on, Halpert. Spill it!”

He had begun walking down the steps away from her, and he shrugged his shoulders in her direction, “Sorry. Can’t do it.” He turned around and began to walk away.

She caught up to him, linking her arm through his and laughing as she snared him. “Jim, you can’t leave me hanging like this!” The combination of her laughter and the ecstasy of the entire moment gave Jim pause. He wanted to reach out and grab her hand and run away where they could be together and just love each other forever without worry.

The sun ducked behind a cloud; Jim could feel Pam shivering against him. “Why didn’t you bring a coat?” he scolded.

“When you’re rushing out of the house on a mission to break up your boyfriend’s wedding to another woman, you don’t really think about the weather,” Pam replied.

“Touché,” Jim laughed, “Do you want my coat? It’s in the car.”

“Why aren’t you wearing it?”

He smiled. “I don’t need it.”

She shook her head as they made their way across the street, “What are we going to do now? My stuff is still at my mother’s house.”

“I took the day off,” Jim said, “Dwight will surely understand.”

Pam seethed, “I could kill him! You know one of us could have crashed on our way here? Did he think of that?”

“I’m sure he rationalized it in some way,” Jim replied, opening his car door and grabbing his coat from the passenger seat, where he’d tossed it when he’d gotten in, and handing it to Pam. She slipped it on and wrapped it around herself, shoving her hands in the pockets and jumping up and down to warm up. “Look, I didn’t eat breakfast in my hurry to break up your imaginary wedding, so why don’t we find some diner in town and have a nice breakfast together before we decide anything… .”

Pam wasn’t listening. Her face had frozen, her hands shoved deep into the pockets, and she stood still in the middle of the road.

“Pam?”

She looked down at her left hand and she slowly brought it out of the pocket. Clasped inside her fist was a small black velvet box. Jim gulped. How did that get there? He didn’t remember putting it in his pocket; he didn’t even remember having it with him when he left the house. So how in the hell did it end up in the pocket of his coat?

Her hands shook as she turned the box around so she could open it. She lifted her twinkling eyes to Jim’s; only the pads of her fingers touched the outside of the box.

“Jim?” her voice trembled.

“This isn’t how I wanted this to go,” he said, mostly to himself, under his breath. But he looked around him, and realized that after all they’d gone through to get to one another that morning, there really wasn’t a better time. He shrugged, laughed out loud, and became truly amazed at how things had turned out. “Come on, Beesly. You know you want to open it.”

So she did. And she smiled. It was all the answer he needed.

Jim proposed without words, but that was okay with Pam. Their whole relationship had been based on a model of non-communication that seemed to always wind its way back to them again whether they said what they meant or meant what they said or said nothing or everything or something in between. Without a real conversation, and within a few short weeks, Jim moved into Pam’s much larger half duplex; his things slowly began to accumulate – on counters, in cupboards, on the floor, in her washing machine – and when his lease came up for renewal, he politely declined to renew and took his refunded damage deposit and he and Pam made their first joint purchase, a flat screen LCD TV (of which Michael was insanely jealous, they could tell).

On the wall in their living room – it took a long time to get used to calling it “theirs” – Pam installed a narrow shelf on which she had planned to set some of the art she had been creating, but which ended up holding their memories.

Next to a few of their many Dundies and their slightly battered looking collection of yogurt lid Office Olympics medals – Kelly called it tacky that they had mixed the gold-colouring of the statues with the silver lids and paperclip strands, and always mentioned it whenever she came over – Pam really wanted to display a certain teapot that she thought was too pretty to use, which her best friend had given her one Christmas in a largely ignored attempt to show her how much she was loved. It was a tough item to explain; when asked about it, Jim and Pam would usually just smile at each other and say they liked the way it looked.

Above the shelf hung a large canvas painted in splashes of subdued blues and marvellous pinks, purples, and oranges, which Jim had put up without telling Pam and which he wouldn’t let her take down. “An impressionist masterpiece of the post-modern era”, Jim said, trying to sound smart even though he didn’t know what it meant. He just liked the way it looked, knowing that it was a scene he’d composed for her, with the grainy and pixellated camera on his cell phone one frosty September morning when he’d thought he’d lost her. A scene that she had committed to canvas. It was his treasure.

On either side of the canvas, Pam insisted on displaying 5x7 pictures of random people on the streets of a maritime city they’d once visited; she’d had the photos developed in black and white, and bought matching frames to show them off in, and she saved up a little money to buy some track lighting that really showcased them, and Jim thought it made their living room look like an art gallery, something he liked very much. That day in Halifax, and all the memories contained therein, had been borne out of a forced separation. It was the first time Jim could remember feeling that they were different, because so much love and connection and beautiful things could arise when nothing was said at all.

Just off to the side, however, on the shelf below, Pam had set up a beautiful, handmade seashell picture frame, from a time when miscommunication – or, to be more precise, the general lack of communication that characterized so much about the two of them – led to Jim’s return to Scranton still believing his best friend had married someone else bearing wedding gifts for a wedding that hadn’t occurred because of him. In the frame was a photo Pam’s mom had taken on the day Jim didn’t propose to Pam, when they’d driven well over the speed limit of the highway that brought them together, and then drove in their separate vehicles – gas prices be damned – at relatively human speeds to deliver the news to Pam’s family in Harrisburg. The picture frame, and the photo within, was their reminder that, as wonderful as it could be to communicate without words, the results could be less than favourable, and so wherever possible, it was a good idea to talk.

The office was well aware and generally supportive of Jim and Pam: Angela was the only one with a negative view of the “living in sin”, as she termed it. But it only lasted a week, after which she was suspiciously quiet on the whole subject, leading to speculation that she and Dwight had finally reinstated their affair and that they were co-habiting in Casa del Schrute. That, and there was a new woman coming to meet Andy at the office every night; it didn’t take much of an imagination to figure it all out.

The wedding took place on a Friday, to save money, during a mild July heat wave. It was a small, simple affair held under a white canopy and the guests enjoyed themselves, or so it could be presumed from the photos Michael added to his Facebook page the following day. There was no particular style or theme – they just set up a CD player and borrowed a PA system from the high school band teacher, and brought an iPod pre-loaded with songs to play for the ceremony and the dance, and let it happen. It seemed to work well.

Dwight’s casual indifference to Jim and Pam resumed almost the minute they arrived back to announce their engagement. Still, when they asked him to carry the rings down the aisle and give a speech at the wedding, he accepted. And before the ceremony began, Jim saw Dwight very carefully arranging the rings on the silk pillow on a bench away from the other guests. He had to smile at that.

They said their “I Do’s” – each adding an “Absolutely” to the time-tested phrase, a private joke that they were glad nobody else understood – but kept their vows simple. And when they danced their first dance under the twinkling canopy lights, they stared into each others’ eyes and grinned a lot, but neither really had a lot to say. Over the course of the evening, as they were pulled in different directions by the needs of their guests, they would smile across the floor at each other, comforted in the knowledge that this was one night – a beautiful night, but one night nonetheless – and it wasn’t worth it to sweat the small stuff. It made the private, quiet, shared moments they did have that much better, when words would have taken too much time and all they wanted was to feel.

And when it was all over, and Jim opened the lock on their honeymoon suite and carried Pam inside, they turned to each other, smiles lighting up their faces, and each was sure the other was thinking about the path that had led them there, to that very moment.

“Hello, Mr. Halpert,” Pam smiled.

“Hello, Mrs. Halpert,” Jim was grinning.

In a relationship characterized by words unspoken or words spoken poorly or at the wrong time and many words regretted in the light of day for being spoken or for being silenced, what was said that evening in the soft light of Scranton’s top bridal suite were six of the best words ever uttered from their mouths. Sealed with a kiss, Jim and Pam swayed for a while before going to bed for the first time as a married couple, with little more than those six words and a few of Pam’s hairpins between them. They knew – what more did they need?

Communication is key – they knew that better than anyone – but sometimes it’s just better when nothing is said at all.