~~~~~

He's not allowed to say that part of him wishes she wouldn't go, that it will be hard, or that he will be lonely. Pam would tell him to turn the car around in an instant. Worse, she would worry and she wouldn't do what they are taking her to Brooklyn to do. He wants to tell her that there are schools she could go to in Scranton and that there's a ring in his messenger bag on the floor of the backseat. He carries her ring with him everywhere now, waiting for both inspiration and nerve to strike. The thought of proposing still makes his heart race. She'll say yes, of course, but he really wants to ask if she knows what she's signing up for. And, if so, could she fill him in?

He ignores all of his maddening, caveman impulses to not allow her out of his sight and carries boxes upstairs, too impatient to wait for the ancient elevator. He notices the ketubah on the wall in her sublet and wonders where one finds a calligrapher as he jogs back down the stairs. He kisses her in the stairwell as they pass.

They find a pizza place down the street and, while they eat, he asks her repeatedly if she has everything she needs. She smiles at him like the Mona Lisa, like she used to, and it knocks the wind out of him. He follows her upstairs and watches her open boxes for a little while before he says that he should go. The sun is lower than the tops of the buildings and the soft hair on the back of her neck is sweaty. He can't bring himself to stop kissing her, but, after a while, he can feel her leaning back toward the door. She wants to get started. He says that he loves her and she says it back, natural as breathing, even though it used to be so hard, so scary. She says "thank you," and doesn't explain why, but the look in her eyes, their old, silent language, says everything.

Jim gets to work early on Monday and moves the box of Pam's things from reception, tucking it under his desk. He looks through it while waiting for a client to return his call and finds a old picture of himself and Pam at an office Christmas party. She's laughing and glancing sideways at the photographer; her left hand is on its way up to her mouth. She's holding a red plastic cup in her right. He's standing next to her with one hand in his pocket, looking up at the mistletoe hanging over them. His mouth is half-open and he is leaning toward her slightly. He didn't notice it that afternoon, as he was making some asinine comment about poison ivy, but she is standing directly under the sprig of greenery while he is keeping his weight on his heels, using his height to lean in without actually getting close to her. He found her standing there. He remembers the high color in her cheeks and the huge smile on her face and remembers thinking that she had probably gone back to the punchbowl for seconds. It was impossible that anything about her, least of all her joy, could have been for him. He left her there when Kevin called to him from across the room, but he sees now that it would have been so easy to lean in just a little more and taste the sticky-sweet punch on her lips. Surely she would have kissed him back and laughed and surely he would have spent the rest of the evening feeling like he'd been dropped down a flight of stairs. He tapes the picture to the corner of his monitor and looks at her all day, noticing that he can see Roy's engagement ring on her pretty finger.

When he goes home that night, he turns on the stereo and fixes dinner. He sits down at the kitchen table with his laptop and begins arranging songs that remind him of how it felt to stand on her street in Brooklyn. He burns a CD before he leaves for work in the morning and sends it to her during his lunch break. He makes a copy for himself and listens to it every day for a week. Somehow, it feels a little like being there with her.

On Tuesday, Michael escorts Julie, the temporary receptionist, around the room, introducing her to everyone and making an ass of himself. They pass by when Jim has a free moment and Michael says that she should watch out because "Jimbo here has a thing for secretaries." When he tries to protest, Michael claps him on the shoulder and sends Julie back to her desk. As she sits down, she looks over at Jim. Inclining his head toward Michael's door, he rolls his eyes. She looks a little relieved. He sits with her at lunch and does his best to make it clear that there is at least one completely boring, normal person in the office. On Tuesday, she tosses him an eye-roll that reminds him of Pam, and he feels his cheeks get warm.

Out of curiosity and with larger plans urging him on, Jim throws himself into his work. He makes a deal with himself - he has three months to figure out if he hates this as much as he thinks he does. He's not sure what the point is, save that he'll know and that's worth something. When Wallace calls and asks if he'd be willing to help with post-Ryan damage control, Jim says yes right away.

She doesn't leave him alone. She emails him multiple times a day, sometimes no more than a sentence. She is happy, distracted, and brimming with new things to tell him. Her joy is contagious and thrilling. He is leaving a meeting with a client one afternoon when he gets a text message - "Haircut. Consider yourself warned." The thought of her slows him down as he walks through the parking lot. He receives sketches rolled up in mailing tubes a couple of times a week and cell-phone camera photographs of her, her neighborhood, and school. She calls him on her first Friday night away and says that she just came back from Sabbath dinner at her neighbor's apartment and "We should do that sometime." He asks if she'll light the candles and she says "Of course!" He's sitting on his living room floor when she answers and he tips over onto the carpet.

He can't leave her alone. He calls her more than she calls him. He sends her postcards and tries to make their separation into a joke. He's reading so much that the clerks at the library know his name. He copies and sends passages that remind him of her. Because he remembers the name from a literature survey course he took seven years earlier, he brings a collection of Neruda's poems home with him one night and spends the evening in bed. The next day, he sends photocopies of about half of the book to her.

He is told to be absolutely frank and to do whatever it takes to pacify clients. So he calls them, explains the situation, and makes himself available to answer questions. He takes them out to lunch, Michael in tow, because he is preternaturally good at this after you get a couple of drinks in him, telling stupid jokes and somehow remembering everything about everyone's kids. Jim reviews contracts, pulling discounts out of thin air. He shakes hands and smiles a lot. There is a crystal-clear, tacit agreement that Ryan is the scapegoat and Jim makes use of him at every opportunity. He knows full well that Ryan's only real crime was being a moron, and that punishing him won't fix a thing, but that bastard tried to get him fired and Jim refuses to let it slide. He tries not to enjoy being deposed, looking Ryan in the eye while he explains how he and the other salespeople were ordered to enter their sales twice. He is asked his opinion of the success of the website by the attorneys and by Wallace and he gives it. Ryan flinches when Jim uses the word "incompetent."

After three weeks of the computer, the mailman, and the phone, he takes Friday off and leaves Scranton on a bus early on Thursday afternoon. It takes three hours to get to the Port Authority, and more time still to get to Brooklyn on the subway. He is sweaty and jittery, taking two steps at a time out of the subway station closest to her place.

He has seen photographs of her new clothes and hair, but she looks utterly different coming down the street to meet him. She's wearing a cotton skirt and a tank top, her hair pulled back in a scarf, sandals on her feet. Her legs are bare and she is beaming, raising her arms to embrace him. He lifts her off the ground and kisses her. He keeps one arm around her waist and touches her hair. "Look at you," he says and she ducks her head a little, "you look amazing."

She leans close to him and he can smell her lotion and the salt of her sweat. "It's my New York City disguise. I seem to be fooling everyone. Shhh."

He feels much as he did in the first month they were dating - stunned stupid and utterly useless - as she leads him down the sidewalk to her front step, where an old woman is waiting with an expectant look on her face. Pam introduces her as Mrs. Chapsky and Jim gets both of his cheeks kissed. He is impatient to get away, but he waits for Pam to excuse them. They go upstairs and he gets her naked before she can get his shirt off, much less get to the bedroom. When she wiggles free of his grasp and heads down the hall, he just stands there for a moment and watches her incredible curves disappear around the corner. He leaves a trail of clothes when he follows her.

She takes him to a Middle Eastern restaurant in Williamsburg that night and then to a show at a club. He enjoys the music and gets more than a little drunk. He feels out of place and stays close to Pam, who, in her New York City disguise, looks much more at home. He's just a paper salesman in a polo shirt, jeans, and beat-up canvas sneakers. He stands against the back wall of the room with his arms around his girlfriend, hoping that she doesn't care that he's dripping sweat. She tilts her head up to kiss him and she tastes like beer. He's got her tank top pulled up a fraction of an inch at her right hip and he's playing with her bare skin.

They go back to her apartment in the middle of the night and draw a bath. While they stand in the bathroom in their underwear and wait for the tub to fill, Pam announces that she's not going to class in the morning, and, when he tries to argue with her, she just shakes her head and hugs him. He unhooks her bra and licks the sweat off her shoulder. He wants to spend the entire weekend touching her. She sits between his knees in the water and he slides his fingers up the inside of her thigh and pushes two of them inside of her without any preamble. She is hot and wet and she makes a noise that he feels in his chest.

He receives a formal introduction to Pam's widows at Sabbath dinner in Mrs. Farber's apartment. He is reminded of his grandmothers and the smell of freshly baked, eggy, dense challah dredges up things that he didn't know he remembered. Mrs. Farber, Mrs. Chapsky, and Mrs. Rabinovich hover and ask him the kinds of questions that let him know that Pam talks about him all the time. They sit down at the table, Mrs. Farber lights the candles, and then sets the kiddush cup in front of Jim, telling him to say the blessing. He blanks for just a moment, but then, even though he's never done it before, the words and the gesture are there like a reflex, like muscle memory. Mrs. Rabinovich nods her approval and Pam smiles from behind her wineglass, surprise widening her eyes.

They're lying on her bed sometime before midnight, listening to the radio that she turned on after he explained the concept of a Shabbes goy. She's petting his hair and studying his face. She begins, "How on earth..."

He knows to what she's referring. "It's just a formula. Always starts the same way," and he recites. "It's pretty easy to remember. I heard it a lot when I was a kid."

"You are just full of surprises."

God, I hope so, he thinks, but says "Don't underestimate me, Pam." He is trying to tease her, but he's so touched that he can't stop himself from smiling.

~~~~~

A week later, Pam calls Jim and tells him that one of her classmates asked her out. She sounds genuinely surprised, which amuses him. He had to convince her that Toby had a crush on her, that it wasn't a business meeting when Ryan asked her to dinner, and that the bartender at Poor Richard's was hitting on her. She would deny it and shake her head firmly and he would say "You have no idea, do you?" which never failed to make her blush and tell him that he was being silly.

He feigns nonchalance, "So are you going to go?"

"No, I told him that my boyfriend was coming into town and I couldn't."

"Ooh, efficient. The ol' not 'I'm not interested, I'm taken' one-two." Jim lies down on the couch. "What's the poor sap's name?"

"Ben."

"Ben, huh? Sounds like a douchebag."

"Jim, he's really nice. And he's - he's cute."

"Great, now I'm going to have to come over there and smash his clunky glasses."

"Oh, yeah. You're scary."

"What? I'm like a jungle cat. He won't even see me coming. Just a little rustle behind the plant in the coffee shop and then - wham - Ben's just a splatter and a shredded Bad Religion t-shirt."

He has earned a laugh. He imagines that she is sprawled out on her borrowed bed in front of the only air conditioner in the apartment, probably wearing the boxer shorts he accidentally left there. Her hair is a little wild from the humidity and her shorter haircut. She's completely foreign, entirely familiar, too far away, and he's not allowed to say that he misses her.

~~~~~

~~~~~

The shift he's been hoping for happens at the start of her second month away. They're 122 miles apart, but it's as palpable as if it happened to him. She writes to him less often, twice a day instead of six or seven times. When she calls, she apologizes for being "so distracted," and then begins to talk about one of her projects or something she learned in class that day. She's been spending her free time in museums and he gets hushed phone calls from ladies' rooms - "Jim, go online and look up Vasily Kandinsky. I just saw the most amazing thing..." She loses him more often and he has to ask her to define and explain things. She calls one evening, absolutely livid because a classmate called Lee Krasner "a groupie." He can picture her pacing around her apartment when she exclaims, "Can you believe that?" He looked the name up on Wikipedia while she talked, so, when the question comes, he can honestly say, "No, I can't. What did you say to him?"

And that's the fantastic thing, the thing that makes 92 days and 122 miles worth it. Now he knows before she replies that she did say something.

She keeps sending him sketches and, though he doesn't know the words to explain what he sees, they're getting weirder, freer. She sends him links to websites she's designed and postcards from museums she's visited. His refrigerator is becoming a mass of bold colors and odd shapes. He says that he's proud of her so many times that he starts to bore himself, so he sends her flowers. He steals Dwight's stapler and mails it to her. When it comes back a week later with an "I [heart] NY" sticker affixed to the top and a small bundle of drawings and photographs, Dwight spends a half-hour looking through them and staring at his globetrotting stapler. The next morning, when Jim comes into work, there is a wrapped package sitting on Dwight's desk with Pam's address on it. When he asks what's inside, Dwight sneers at him and says, "Someone has to look out for her in that war zone." Though he's wondering if Dwight would actually be dumb enough to send a gun through the mail, Jim smiles and thanks him. Dwight just gathers up the package and hurries out the door.

The combination of distance and her fascinating transformation into someone a little stranger, a little more herself, leaves Jim feeling desperate. He wants to talk dirty to her on the phone, but he's afraid they'd both start laughing. He finds one of her magazines in the stack on his coffee table with an ad for a woman-friendly sex shop on the back cover. He visits the website, makes himself a little dizzy contemplating the options, and finally makes up his mind when he discovers the "waterproof" section of the site. He hasn't been able to stop thinking about her in the bathtub; her wet, slippery skin. She calls a few days later, a note of something a little frantic, a little rushed seeping into her voice, the sound of running water in the background. He sits on the edge of the bed and holds the phone so tight his hand sweats. They do laugh, but it's more than okay. When he hangs up the phone, feeling embarrassed for no good reason, he's lying on his side, half-undressed, wondering when the sun went down.

Jim keeps busy, working weekends and evenings, driving his sales numbers through the roof. He retraces Ryan's steps, and, just when he thinks he's left no stone unturned, he gets a frantic phone call from a client or looks up to find Oscar hovering over his desk with an open ledger and a crease between his eyebrows. He plays ball at the community center three times a week, doesn't eat enough, and accidentally loses ten pounds. He sees his parents a lot and spends time with his brothers.

At the start of week six, Jim gets a phone call from David Wallace, thanking him for all of his hard work, saying that he has handled things so professionally, has maybe even saved the company. Jim is shaking his head, dismissing that idea, when Wallace says that he just signed a bonus check and it's on its way. When Wallace tells Jim how much it's for, he thinks we're going to Europe on the honeymoon. He manages to stammer out a thank you.

He knows that he's getting paid, in part, for selling Ryan out, but he goes to Macy's that night and buys new shirts, ties, and some cufflinks. He couldn't possibly care less about what happens to the company, but he takes his brothers out for drinks the next day and, finally, shows them her ring. He knows without a doubt that he doesn't want to do this for the rest of his life, but he calls and makes reservations at a French place in Manhattan while he burns two more CDs for her, like firing a warning shot, daring the universe to stop him this time. He is a nervous wreck as he leaves work at lunch on Friday after changing in the bathroom. Julie gives a low whistle as he walks past reception, says, "Damn, you clean up nice," and he nods at her, unable to stop smiling.

He turns on his iPod, takes out his cufflinks, and manages to doze during the first hour and a half of the interminable bus ride from Scranton to New York City. Every few minutes, he slips his hand into his pocket and fiddles with the box containing Pam's ring.

The jostling and disturbance that come with a stop wake him up and he sits up straighter, looking around. Across the aisle from him are two teenage girls who look away a little too quickly when he turns his head in their direction. He's got Nada Surf blaring in his ears, so he can't hear what they're saying, but the one seated next to the window gives the one on the aisle a tiny shove. They're serious-looking girls with heavy, unstyled hair pulled into headbands and braids, navy school uniforms, and glasses. Half a lifetime ago, their long-limbed, exotic-bird awkwardness would have leveled him. Now, they just remind him of Pam and make him feel surprisingly paternal at the same time. He wishes again that he could have known her when she was 15.

He pauses his iPod and takes out his earphones. Another little shove from the girl by the window and the girl closest to him speaks. "Hi. Are you Jim Halpert?"

"I am. What're your names?" High school girls and old women, he thinks. There was a time, when they first started filming, that Jim half-hoped that some brutally gorgeous, bookish woman his own age would find his pining after Pam to be a turn-on and seek him out. After a year of occasional pats on the hand from women old enough to be his grandmother and electric pink blushes from girls half his age, he stopped thinking about it.

"I'm Andrea and" she points over her shoulder, "this is Marisol. We watch your show every Friday." He shakes their hands.

They ask him questions about Pam and himself as if they're friends. He hasn't really gotten used to this kind of familiarity, but these girls are nice and it's flattering to have two total strangers concerned about his well-being. They prod him about the proposal and he pulls the ring box out of his pocket, opens it, and shows it to them. He says he's going to ask tonight and earns a squeal that makes nearby passengers glare. They coach him on the appropriate ways to go about it and he accepts their advice with a serious nod. They ask him about Pam, how she's doing, and if she's really "that nice." He knows that it's all more complicated than it appears on television; that pure, romantic rendering of their relationship is both more beautiful and less incredible than it is in reality, but, yes, he says, she is really that nice.

The girls talk to him until they arrive at the Port Authority. Once they get off of and away from the bus, they stop and inspect him. Marisol says, "God, you're really, really tall," as if she wishes there was a way to take him in for alterations. Andrea fusses with his tie and Marisol looks at the dress he has brought for Pam. They hug him simultaneously, Andrea pronounces him "super-hot," and they send him on his way.

Pam is beaming when she opens the apartment door and he knows that she has taken his hint. He holds out the dress and she doesn't stop looking at his face as she reaches for it. He follows her into the bedroom and sits on the bed as she takes off her top, bra, and skirt. She's all but naked, asking how his trip was. He wants to kiss the red lines that the elastic of her clothes have dug into her skin. She steps into the dress and stands in front of the mirror as he ties the neck for her, like he did the day he bought it for her, shaking hands and all. He remembers the weird twist of nausea he felt at the sight of her bra. Seeing her half-undressed in that tiny room had been too much, too intimate, and he was immediately ashamed because he knew he'd think about it, use it, later. He had itched to undo the hooks, and run his fingers down her bare back. He wanted to kiss her neck, let the ties he was holding onto drop, slide his hands up under her skirt and learn if her underwear matched the pale pink strap across her back. He wanted to ask her if she wasn't paying attention or if she was just mean.

She turns and regards him, and, for a fleeting moment, looks as if she's about to crack a joke. She meets his eyes for a moment and something in her expression shifts. Instead, she says, "you look handsome tonight," and wraps her arms around him. Her bare back is warm and soft under his hands.

The maitre'd blatantly checks Pam out when they step through the propped-open door of the restaurant and Jim smirks at him. The windows at the front of the room are open and little breezes are pushing strands of her hair around. He orders wine and entwines his feet with hers under the table. The sun is just going down and there are candles lit all around the room. She orders a salad and he asks for one, too. It's crowded, but pleasantly so, and he thinks again of taking her to Europe. He'll get the ring on her finger and buy the tickets when they set a date. He tells her about the call he got from Wallace, about the bonus, and, at the last minute, backs down from proposing to her on the spot. Enough of their relationship is tied up in where they happen to work. He doesn't want to make it part of the story of how they got engaged, too. Instead, he accepts her praise and says, "So, yeah, we're celebrating tonight." They're holding hands and he's feeling terribly adult.

She started with the salad, but moved on to an eggplant dish, asking the waiter to refill the bread basket. He has the coq au vin and she steals some of his fries. He requests the dessert menu and hands it to her. She orders a dish he's never heard of but she seems happy to see on the menu, coffee, and armagnac. The waiter places a wide bowl containing puffs of meringue covered in caramel, afloat in a shallow pool of thick ivory liquid between them and Pam claps her hands once, reaching for her spoon. He pays the check and escorts her out of the restaurant on his arm. She's a little wobbly on her heels and she laughs and holds onto him a little tighter.

They're walking down Fifth and he's trying to keep talking, but all he can think is Now. Now. Now. Now. He's contemplating park benches and buildings with romantic-looking facades, waiting for some spot to call out to him, and, before he knows it, they're a block from the Met.

Now.

He takes her hand and leads her up the steps. They look through the doors for a moment before stepping to one side. They're leaning against the pillars and she keeps grinning at him. She knows and he can see it on her face. They kiss and he feels a little silly. He wants to know if he's doing this right, so he says, "I suck at subtle, huh?"

Her laugh and her "Thank God" tells him that he is.

He touches her hair. Now. "Yeah. So, uh, I have a plan -"

She's giddy. "Clearly."

He kisses her temple while he takes out the ring and opens the box between them. "I love you. I miss you. Let's live together. Marry me." It's okay to say it, all of it, now. He notes, happily, that the smile has dripped right off of her face.

She says yes over and over again and he fumbles to get the ring out of the box. He's shaking a little too much to get it on her finger and she grabs his wrist to steady his hand, saying that he's "adorable." Once the ring is on, she pulls him into a hug, her hands under his jacket, and he rests his head lightly on hers.

They're still and silent for a moment before she says, "Would it be tacky of me to say that I really want to look at my ring? I kind of blacked out and didn't see it."

He lets her go. "No! No. Look at your ring! Let me tell you about your ring. I've been dying to tell you the story." He watches her admire her hand, looking from her face to her fingers. God, he thinks, this is my wife.

She doesn't look at him when she asks, "The story?"

"You should probably know how demented I am before we start sending out save-the-date cards and stealing more boxes from work." He's trying to make a joke of it, but he's really not certain that he should be telling her this right now. He's still not sure if what he did was creepy or romantic and he'd hate to find out that Pam thinks it's the former. "Do you remember the first night we spent together?"

He remembers being embarrassed and nervous and making silly jokes in an attempt to chase the wideness out of her eyes. He remembers wanting to be deadly serious and wildly happy at the same time. He recognizes that he's feeling a little of all of those things all over again. "Of course I remember."

"And you went out shopping with your mom the next day? We had dinner with your parents?"

He had planned to spend the day in bed with her, figuring out how not to be so shy with one another. No hiding in the dark, no looking away from her when he came. He had hoped that maybe they could really talk things through and that, finally, it was safe to do that. "Right."

"That's when I bought your ring. While you were out. You actually called me when I was at the store, trying to make up my mind."

She looks shocked, but she's smiling. "That was a week after our first date."

He is stroking her arm. "It was. But, really, it was because I watched you get out of my bed that morning and you were so beautiful and you were so" He closes his eyes for a second and remembers that first instant when her body was under his, that first movement up into her, the way she gasped when he did it " - amazing - the night before. I wanted to marry you years before that morning, but that was the first time that I thought it could actually happen. I was so happy." He shakes his head, "I am so happy."

She's blushing. "Wow."

He feels about 100 pounds lighter during the trip to her apartment. The ring and that dress are a heady combination and he loves how she laughs and sighs when he bends her over the bed. He shrugs out of his jacket, pulls off his tie, unzips his fly, and pushes her underwear out of the way. Her response lets him know that she's as wound up as he is and he threads his fingers through her hair, watching her left hand as she balls the sheet up in her fist.

They take a bath and he meets Colette, the tub duck, and then she takes him back to bed, turning on the air conditioner and straddling him. It's slow and sweet and he's holding her hands, their fingers laced together. She kisses his fingertips, pausing while he inches his way back from coming, and says, "Let's get married in November."

He squeezes her hands. "November."

The next morning, at Mrs. Rabinovich's insistence, he goes to temple for the first time since he was a teenager. He feels a little stunned and weird out on the hot sidewalk, a feeling that only intensifies when he's sitting alone among the other men, Pam somewhere behind him. The men to either side of him are barely older than he is, and, recognizing that he's out of practice, they keep one eye on him and give him small smiles of encouragement. They shake his hand at the end of the service and he explains that he's visiting from Scranton and, because he wants to tell everyone, he says that he proposed to his girlfriend last night. More handshakes follow his announcement.

They go home arm in arm and Jim calls his parents while Pam sits on the couch and watches him. They pass the phone back and forth, talking to his mother and father, then hers. He calls his brothers and endures the requisite amount of abuse.

He's already got five apartments picked out, has already made several phone calls, and seen one of them, but he lies on her bed and pretends to start his search anew, seeking her approval of all of the places he's looked into. She's making a guest list, asking him to spell the names of all of his aunts and uncles and will the caterer need to be kosher? He realizes that he can't provide complete answers to either of her questions. He opens a Word document on her laptop, names it "Wedding," and begins a list - 1. Carla/Karla? 2. Kosher? By the time they order dinner, his list has multiplied tenfold. He calls landlords and endures the particular brand of eccentricity that seems to be a prerequisite for their line of work. He's going to see three apartments in the next week. The prospect exhausts and pleases him. Finally, just like Jonathan said.

She cries when she sees him off on Sunday afternoon. It surprises, but does not worry, him. He feels a little like crying, too. He's anxious to have this part over with so they can start being all of the things that come next.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Jim comes into the city, but she's in the middle of a project and he's stuck in meetings all day. He manages to steal fifteen minutes and calls her from the stairwell down the hall from Wallace's office. The meetings are going well, and so is her work, so he sits down on the floor, back against the wall, and they talk about the wedding they've barely begun planning. She tells him that she's found a dress and refuses to describe it, which gives him little choice but to guess that it is hot pink and two-piece. "You got me," she sighs, "we need to find a matching bow tie for you."

He tilts his head back until it bumps the wall, "Nah, I've already got like three or four. Have I mentioned that I used to be a stripper?" He pretends to be hurt by how hard she laughs at this.

He stands in empty rooms and pictures Pam at kitchen counters, painting in spare bedrooms, and reading on back porches. He contemplates doorframes and windowsills, imagining that he's a foot shorter. The place with a really nice master bedroom has a tiny kitchen. Another one has a fantastic bathtub but bad light in the living room. On her instructions, he looks for hardwood floors. He pokes around basements, flips lightswitches, and asks about heating costs. He takes notes and pictures. When he can, he makes one of his brothers come with him, just so someone else thinks of all of the questions he's forgetting. The eleventh place he sees is a small bungalow with an equally modest yard. It has the floors she wants and the big bedroom he wants. He can easily picture Pam curled on her couch in the bright living room. He drops into smiling, fast-talking, flirting salesman mode until the elderly landlady promises to give him a few days to come back. He chooses two more places, though he has already begun mentally arranging their furniture and filling the closets.

He's barely gotten used to calling her his girlfriend, his tongue knotting around the word in disbelief, and now she's something else. He gets an email from pmhalpert and can feel his heartbeat in his ears as he writes back. Making a joke of it, he acts as if he doesn't know her, because his relief and excitement feel excessive. He reminds himself for the thousandth time since he proposed that he can stop waiting for the punchline, that this is really happening, and that she wants this just as much as he does.

He starts filling the empty boxes stacked in his living room. Pam calls ministers and Reform rabbis. He breaks his lease and loses his security deposit. Dark red ties are fine with him, but won't that clash with her dress? He calls his brothers and they agree to help with the move as long as he promises to get rid of "that fucking couch." She asks if it would be weird to get the cake from the same place she and Roy were supposed to get their cake. He starts to pack up his CDs, and, unable to overcome inertia, spends the evening on his bedroom floor, assembling another mix for her. jhalpert writes - "Is is really good cake?"

There's a meeting on the first Monday in August to explain everything that is being done to rectify the almost endless series of problems Ryan left in his wake. Jim's acting the part. He made a Power Point presentation, put on the same tie and cufflinks he wore when he proposed, and everyone seems to be buying it. Dwight, who got a weird little gleam in his eye when Jim started giving him instructions, is operating a camera in the back of the room for the benefit of the other branches. David Wallace is on speakerphone. Jim answers questions for a half-hour, including two from Karen. Her tone of voice suggests that they've never met. Because it's the closest he can get to taking a shot at her with an audience, he calls her "Ms. Filipelli," placing the emphasis on the wrong syllable, knowing that it drives her insane. When Stanley smiles and thanks him for his response to a question, Jim realizes that he's actually enjoying himself, and it throws him off of his game for just a moment. Wallace praises him in front of everyone and he hates liking it.

After Dwight turns the camera off, while everyone is gathering their things to leave, Jim says, "Actually, one more thing." The room pauses. "I asked Pam to marry me a couple of weeks ago. The wedding's in November." He hears Phyllis' "oh!", Andy's "Tuna!", and sees Kelly give a small hop. "So you're all invited. I put save-the-date cards in your mailboxes." As they leave the room, Phyllis, Kelly, and Michael hug him, and Andy, Oscar, and Kevin shake his hand.

Dwight is the last one to leave. He pauses for a moment in front of Jim, the tripod tucked under his arm, before holding out his hand. Very solemnly, he says, "Congratulations. She's much too good for you."

Jim shakes his hand and says, "Thanks, Dwight."

He spends almost every weekend in the city now, playing tourist both with and without Pam. He tries to stay away, but she insists that she wants him there. One weekend, he goes to Pratt with her and sits in her workspace reading while she paints. He makes food runs, emergency trips to the library, and meets some of her classmates. Pam's conversations with these people are filled with references to things he doesn't quite grasp. It makes him happy and uncomfortable at the same time. He reads about the programs at Pratt, but does not recognize himself anywhere in the descriptions.

She comes home for the first time since late May and they look at the places he's found. She likes the house as much as he does. They fill out the paperwork and it's the first thing ever that's theirs. They stand in the middle of the empty living room, arms around one another, not speaking. Jim follows Pam into the backyard and watches as she looks through the flowerbed that lines the fence. She tells him that there are tulips everywhere.

That night, she turns his living room into a studio and he stays in the kitchen, fixing dinner. They eat and he recognizes that rattled, distant look in her eye that she gets when she's been working for too long. He clears their plates and asks if she wants to work some more. She nods and shakes her head at the same time. He sends her into the bedroom, shuts down her computer, and, leaving their clothes in a heap on the floor, they watch Almost Famous for the third time. She dozes with her head on his chest. When the credits roll, he wakes her by turning until she's on her back and he's half on top of her. Her sleepiness makes everything dreamy and a little detached, quiet and calm leeching into his skin. He loses track of time and of himself, feeling like he's in one of the fantasies he used to have, when he knew nothing about her and could only assume that they would be perfect together, even if what they did wasn't.

Afterward, she ends up on her stomach, arm around his waist. Sex and drowsiness have opened things up and they talk their way down well-worn paths. When Pam gently asks what he wants to do, he feels a sudden flash of frustration, and deals with it by hugging her.

"Marry you," get you pregnant, worship the ground you walk on, spend the rest of my life following you around and making sure you get to do whatever you want...

"But - I mean - for a living."

Even though she's asking, he can't bring himself to say all of it, "I have no idea." He leaves the part about how much it troubles him out and his worry that she'll think him pathetic, "I just want to take care of you. That makes me happy. It's enough for now."

She furrows her brow like she's deciding if she wants to fight him on this right now. She says, "We'll figure it out" and he feels reassured. He thinks that she probably knows everything he won't say.

When he wakes up the next morning, she is in the chair in the corner of the room, drawing. The way her eyes flick back and forth between the bed and her paper lets him know that he's her subject. He doesn't reach for the sheet and holds still. After a minute, she notices that he's awake and tells him that he can move. While she finishes, he takes a shower. They sit on the bed together and he looks at what she's drawn. He's never gotten quite used to seeing sketches of himself, particularly the ones where she's caught or talked him out of his clothes. It never fails to make him blush. "I don't look like that," he says, even though he knows that she'll smile and say, "Yeah. You do."

~~~~~

Josh and Jonathan arrive early on the Friday afternoon before Pam comes home to help Jim move into their new place. There's furniture, boxes he never unpacked from Stamford, and boxes he's packing as quickly as Josh and Jon can take them away. They unload the truck at his new place and leave things unpacked in the appropriate rooms. They assemble the bed in Pam's studio and Jim sets up an air mattress along the wall in his bedroom, where Pam's bed - their bed - will be by the following night. Josh finds some plates and Jim orders pizza. They sit on the living room floor in a circle, the box in the middle, too tired to say much of anything.

He leaves before sunup, all of the car windows down and the stereo up, just the truck drivers and him until he gets close to the city. He's so excited to bring her home that he's not even close to sleepy, but anticipates the collapse that will come when they haul the last box off the truck.

Pam is waiting for him, standing in the middle of the living room with the door open and her belongings stacked on and around the couch. She's in a ratty t-shirt and rolled-up jeans with a paint stain on the right hip. Her hair has all but grown out and her nose is sunburned and freckled so he kisses it. She wiggles a little when he picks her up and spins her. They work quickly, carrying her small collection of boxes downstairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator that's set for the Sabbath, stopping on every floor. The widows are on the front step, watching them hurry by. When Pam goes back upstairs one last time to leave the key, Jim stands with them. Mrs. Chapsky kisses his cheek and Mrs. Farber embraces him. Mrs. Rabinovich pats his hand and says, "You make her happy." Jim's not sure if it's a command or an observation, so he just nods at all three of them.

Pam bounds down the stairs, her canvas shoes cracking on every step, and hugs all three women again, looking at Jim with tears in her eyes as she does. They get in the car and she leans out the window, waving goodbye. Jim's got one hand on the wheel and one hand on the back of her calf while she kneels in the seat.

Josh and Jon are waiting in her kitchen when they arrive. Jim stands back and watches his brothers greet her, the familiarity with which she presses quick kisses to their lips, touches their shoulders. He remembers that it took months before Karen would hug them. He knew that it had a lot to do with the million little ways in which he was holding back with her. She didn't want to get too comfortable. The first time Jon and Pam met, the three of them out for dinner, she embraced him before she even said hello. When Pam excused herself to visit the ladies' room, Jon held up his drink, pointed at her empty seat, and said, "Yes. Her. Absolutely."

Saturday becomes a repeat of Friday - more boxes and awkward furniture. But Pam doesn't own as many things as Jim, so it goes a little faster and they find the energy to joke around with one another. Jim chases Jon into the backyard, falling happily for a cheap provocation, jokes about his sex life. After he gets a couple of pulled punches to Jon's bicep in, they sit in the grass for a while, surveying the little square that's worth some part of $900 a month. "Pam says there are tulips back here. She wants to plant some trees."

"It's really nice, man."

"I know." Jim shakes his head. "How in the hell did I manage this?"

Jon smiles and squints in the sun. "I know what you mean."

Pam lays the new tablecloth out and unpacks their dinner, a bounty of Chinese takeout containers. Josh digs into the box the cloth came from, finds the kiddush cup Pam was given as an engagement gift, and she explains her neighbors. Josh laughs as he reaches for the lo mein, and says, "You have got to watch out for those bubbies. They'll get the drop on you." The cup ends up among the white boxes and Jim rolls the stem between his hands while he talks, thinking that he'll put it in the china cabinet at Pam's back.

He can hear Pam saying goodnight to Josh and Jon while he's in the shower, letting the water run down his face. He stands in their bedroom, looking out at the backyard, picturing tulips and young trees, waiting for Pam. When she steps into the room, wearing only a towel, he draws the curtain. He undoes the place where she has tucked its two ends together above her breasts and runs his hands over her. He says something about being tired and she agrees, kissing him. They are pulling each other down to the bed, even as sleepiness and the thought of his brothers just down the hall is making him hesitate, but not stop. He shushes her and draws her close. She makes a joke about Jon's cheeky questions and he arranges her leg over his hip. He uses his fingertips to gently get his bearings. She helps and they adjust around one another until they are as close as they can be, quiet, and kissing.

~~~~~

An hour into the Welcome Back, Pam!tacular, he watches Kelly whisk her out of the conference room from the corner where Andy and Michael have pinned him. They have been holding forth on the pleasures of cohabitation and engagement, sharing anecdotes that make Jim feel very sorry for both of them. Dwight is lingering not too far away, looking from Andy to Angela like someone watching a ping-pong game upon which he's staked his next paycheck.

With a self-satisfied roll onto his heels, Andy says, "Married life is great," and takes a sip of his coffee.

Jim thinks he should probably figure out some way to talk Dwight into doing something drastic to win back Angela's affection. He tries to picture taking him out for a beer. "Andy, you're not married. You're not even living together." The dancing stapler cartoon that Pam made at Pratt is playing on an endless loop on the projector screen behind Andy.

"Yeah, but I'm engaged. Sooo..." he nods and Jim wonders if Dwight is free on Friday.

"So am I. We're getting married in November. Didn't I hear you say something about May of 2010?"

Andy's face falls a little, but he keeps smiling. "The yacht club was all booked up. Plus, uh, Angela's church has pretty rigorous pre-marital counseling."

From inside his coffee cup, Jim says, "Good luck with that."

"Actually, it's very interesting. I'm learning a lot about male headship." When Jim sees Michael's eyebrows shoot up, he worries that he's never going to escape this.

Not quite ready to share her with everyone after a long weekend of seeing and talking to no one else, he had planned to lure Pam up the narrow ladder to the roof with a promise of swiped muffins and coffee. He wants to be reminded that it's the tail end of August and it's therefore either two months too late or too early for a real, quality roof picnic, just like every August since he found those old lawn chairs in the warehouse. He remembers the first time they went up there together. She made him follow her up the ladder, because she was afraid her shoes would slip on the metal rungs. They dragged the chairs to a shady spot and she took off her cardigan, pulled her hair into a bun so it would stop blowing into her face. He stole glances at her bare neck and the skin above her knees where her skirt had hitched up. He loved her then, certainly, but he was still regularly attempting to convince himself that it was okay, that rooftop picnics and the worst eight hours of her day were enough for him. But she talked about her wedding that afternoon, about how silly it felt to think so much about her wedding dress when a date hadn't been set.

She was squinting at him in the sun. Little pieces of hair had already managed to escape from her bun. One was stuck to her lips. He thought to pull it away, but decided not to, which he knew was just another sign that he was in trouble. He said, "It makes sense to me. I'd probably spend more time thinking about the fun parts, too."

"Yeah, but shouldn't the whole thing be the fun part?" It was one of those questions that he knew not to answer. She leaned over to retrieve her soda can and took a sip. "Do you want to get married?"

The joke was easy, so he made it, "Yeah, but don't you think Roy would mind?"

She laughed and he couldn't tell if it was the heat or a blush that was coloring her cheeks. "No, I mean, you know, someday. Do you want to get married?"

She had altered her tone a little, but the question hadn't changed. Neither did his answer. "Yes." The lingering pause before she continued let Jim know that she had caught the subtext. The easy way in which she kept talking told him that she didn't mind.

They never make it out to the roof that day, as work and celebrating keeps them in the office. He wraps himself around her in bed that night, not caring about the heat, alternating between kissing the curve of her neck and trying to talk her into eloping. He's not sure if he's kidding. "Like, a beach in Puerto Rico or something. We could set up a big canopy so you wouldn't get a sunburn." But she wants to dance with Dwight at their reception and he wants desperately to see it.

He feels wonderfully trapped.

~~~~~