~~~~~

"Pam! Could you come in here, please?"

She didn't acknowledge Michael, and continued to refine the handle of her mug in the sketch she was making of the top of her desk. She was thinking of it as more a landscape than a still-life. She could add a rising sun or a bird, soaring above the candy dish. Perhaps she should enter a surrealist period.

"Pamarama?" His voice was thinner, brighter. Pam was sure she could make him cry. The thought made her uncomfortable. Too much power for fourteen dollars an hour, plus benefits.

She carefully capped and laid her good pen aside, separate from the ones she had taken from the supply shelf, then picked up her notebook.

Jim was seated in the chair opposite Michael's desk, slouching slightly, his feet set wide apart. She thought, as she often did when she looked at him, that he didn't wear his height very well, seeming almost apologetic about it at times. He glanced up and smiled at her when she stepped into the room. She smiled back as she turned to a clean page. "What's up?"

"Jim was just telling me that you've expressed an interest in learning about sales." Michael's hands were folded neatly on his desk, his eyes bright, his condescension and delight inextricably intertwined.

She glanced quickly back at Jim, who was now tilting his head back as far as he could, still smiling up at her. His eyes were wondering when she'd catch what was happening. She stared at the line of his exposed throat, watched his adam's apple shift as he swallowed. He was so radiant with mischief that only Michael could have missed it.

The arch of his eyebrow was giving clear instructions, so she said, "Oh! Oh, yeah! We were just talking about it the other day and -"

She was gearing up to spin some sort of story about wanting to advance professionally or better understand the company or something, anything that would make Jim choke on a laugh then tease her later, when Michael, bless him, interrupted. "Great! Jim has an afternoon full of sales calls and he has graciously offered to take you along, show you the ropes." Michael's smile was wide, almost frightening. "Exciting stuff!"

She stole another look at Jim. He had lowered his head and was biting on his bottom lip, nodding almost rhythmically as he looked at Michael. His eyes were bright and he seemed to be firmly ordering himself not to look at her.

"That sounds great."

"Then it's settled," Michael held his palms up, helpless in the face of such a perfect plan. "Get out of here. Go to lunch. Have a nice afternoon." He clapped his hands once. Pam turned, Jim rose to follow her out of the room, and Michael called, "Now you be gentle with her, Halpert! It's her first time!" after them. Phyllis lifted her head and watched them pass.

The color in his cheeks was high when he approached her desk, jacket on, bag slung over his shoulder. As she switched the phone over to automatic forwarding, she said, "I'm sure you wouldn't hurt an innocent little thing like me."

"He just - can't help it, can he?"

They waited for the elevator in silence. Once they were inside, he grinned at her and leaned against the wall. "Lesson one - always make sure that the customer thinks it was his idea."

"Right." Pam felt the elevator drop beneath her feet. Her insides hopped. "Now, really, where are we going?"

~~~~~

She pointed across the mini-golf course to the only other people on it, a pair of high school students four holes ahead. "Shouldn't they be in school?" They were dressed in skinny jeans, ragged t-shirts, and appeared to have split a bottle of cheap black hair dye. They were alternating between making out and loudly, gleefully criticizing each others' games. He kept tugging her belt loops as she lined up a shot and she would dig her fingers into his ribcage as he did the same.

"Shouldn't you be at work?" Jim had undone two buttons on his shirt and she could see a couple of inches of his undershirt. He was squinting in the mid-May sun and the breeze was arranging his hair at odd angles. She told herself that it was just a fact that he was quite handsome; it meant nothing that she noticed it.

"Hey," she leaned on her club, trying to affect a jaunty air, while he placed his green ball on the second tee, "I'm on a sales call, I'll have you know."

Without looking up, he said, "You have chocolate milkshake on your blouse."

"And dipping your fries in mayo is disgusting."

"It's very European."

"Why do you hate America so much, Jim?"

"God, where to begin?" His ball bounced off of the first set of concrete bumpers between him and the hole.

There was an indignant yell a few yards away and Pam and Jim watched as the black-haired girl threatened to drop her boyfriend's ball into a water hazard. They had tremendous smiles on their faces.

~~~~~

Pam was up by a stroke and Jim had just finished going on in an increasingly absurd fashion about the legendary miniature golf courses of the Scottish highlands when he gestured toward the twelfth hole, the dreaded windmill. "Oh, that is such an amateur move." The boy had wrapped his arms around his date, his hands on hers and his mouth near her ear, as she considered her shot.

"What, is he ripping off your game, Halpert?" The easy, happy way in which he took her abuse was one of the several dozen things Pam really liked about Jim.

"Please. Women are helpless - helpless - in the face of my charms."

She couldn't stop the bark of a laugh that escaped her chest. "Oh, really?"

"Really."

She dropped her chin and twisted her mouth, kind of wanting to ask him for specifics. They never talked about those things. It was a remote and interesting part of him. Jim on a date, flirting, kissing... she couldn't picture it. It wasn't that he seemed sexless, like male friends she had in the past, but it was as if that part of him was carefully closed off, definitely not for her. There was something old-fashioned and polite about it that she appreciated, even respected. "Right." She tilted her head toward the other pair of golfers. "Anyway, they're cute." Pam turned her attention to her game while Jim began trying to bounce his ball on the side of his putter. When she had taken her shot, she added, "They remind me of Roy and me." Still concentrating on the task he had invented for himself, he didn't look up, just nodded. Pam had hoped that he would ask about her and Roy, that he wanted to know more about her than what he was able to learn at work. For the past couple of months, she had been contending with a weird impulse to tell him everything about herself. She wanted to see how he would respond to the mundane details of her life - childhood pets, stories about her family, things she did in high school, all of it.

The girl laughed and shoved her date behind the windmill, where they disappeared from view for several minutes.

~~~~~

When she took her turn at the twelfth, Jim wrapped his arms around her and, right near her ear, with a smirk and a tone in his voice she wasn't familiar with, said, "This is a tough one. Let me show you how it works."

She could feel that he was going to back away, so she rearranged her fingers, getting a better grip, hooking her pinky with his. He settled his hands more firmly over hers. "You suck."

"I told you that this was a lame move, didn't I?" He didn't let her go, though, and she tried to ignore the goosebumps on her arms and legs. "I'm supposed to be teaching you something this afternoon, right? So let's talk about the windmill. Lesson two - It's all about timing."

"Cheesy business metaphors? Really?" His arms were long enough that there was space between her back and his chest. She looked down at their hands, admiring his fingers and neatly trimmed nails.

"Do you want to be able to put this on the company credit card or not?"

"You'll never get it past Angela."

"Shh. The windmill," he whispered as if they were about to sneak up on it and a small tremor hummed beneath her skin.

"I've played miniature golf before. The windmill and I have met."

He ignored her, making a gesture with his head that she could just see out of the corner of her eye. "Watch the red panel."

She concentrated on the rotating blades while Jim rearranged his feet, pressing his chest lightly into her back. She swung the club and his hands followed. The ball rolled away and through the windmill. She could hear him breathing, feel his warmth through the thin fabric of their dress shirts. She redistributed more of her weight to her heels and let herself be held for a moment, just a little, hoping that he wouldn't think it was weird. He was staring at her; she could feel it, and maybe he did think she was weird. There was a distant, plastic click when the ball found the cup. She smiled. "Hole in one."

He gave her hands a small squeeze before he let go. "Well done."

~~~~~

"Who won?"

She was sitting at a picnic table, tallying their scores, when Jim came back from returning their clubs. They were alone on the course; the kids having left in a beat-up car with a loud, lousy stereo a half hour ago.

"Um... you did, by five strokes."

"We should have been playing for cash. Fifty cents a hole."

She turned to face him. "We can next time."

"Next time?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm obviously hustling you here, Halpert. Just let it happen."

He laughed and shook his head. "No, you really aren't. Unless having to get the nice man with the net to fish your ball out of the little pond - twice - was all part of your elaborate plan."

Pam's jaw dropped and she threw the golf pencil. It hit Jim in the center of his chest and he caught it before it fell and tossed it back to her. She stood, handed him the scorecard, and tucked the pencil behind her ear. His eyes followed her hand and she said, simply, "souvenir." He nodded and slipped the card into his back pocket.

~~~~~

They lingered in the arcade and took the long way home. They didn't talk much as he drove. She flipped through his CD wallet, changing the selection in the stereo three or four times, which drove Roy nuts when she did it. Jim didn't comment, just sang along with some songs under his breath. He glanced over at her occasionally and smiled.

It was after six by the time he brought her back to the office. He pulled into the spot next to where she had parked and turned off the car, getting out when she did. Over the roof, she asked, "How on earth do we trick Michael into letting us do that again?"

He crossed over to her and leaned against the side of his car as she dug for her keys. "What? Did you think you could master the complex world of sales after one afternoon? You might have to go with me all summer, if you really want to learn the finer points."

"I don't know if miniature golfing in work clothes in August sounds like all that much fun."

He shrugged. "I don't care. I like spending time with you."

She didn't know how to react. There was a lot she wanted to say to him, but she didn't trust any of it. Finally, when it seemed like too much time had passed and she really had to respond somehow, she murmured a "thank you," which felt insufficient.

"You're welcome."

"I'll see you Monday?"

"Yup."

She said "good night" as she was stepping toward him, getting up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek, something she had never done before, but had been meaning to try. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he wrapped one arm low around her back, helping her compensate for their height difference. It was easy and comfortable to be held by him like that.

As she pulled away, they both turned their heads, and their cheeks, then the corners of their mouths, brushed, but just barely. The contact surprised her. She was finding her breath and balance as he turned his head further and gently stole a kiss. He pulled away after a bare second, before she could really process what was happening, hearing the quiet snap as their mouths parted, intimate and a little strange. In the moment, Pam was too stunned to feel guilty; to think about Roy. She realized that her hand had come to rest on his cheek, which was soft and rough at the same time. He smelled good, tasted better, and she either wanted to forget that immediately or keep it at the very front of her mind for a long time.

He closed his eyes and she moved her hand back to his shoulder, trailing her fingers down his cheek, feeling him lean slightly into her touch. His eyes were sad and wide and worried when he finally opened them again. It was insane, but she was thinking about kissing him, to see if she could find out what the look in his eyes had to do with her, when he blinked, seemed to snap out of it, and quietly said, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. An accident." Her voice was too light, unconvincing. She was staring at his mouth and he seemed to notice. They weren't letting each other go and she pretended not to notice.

"I think - I -" he sighed. "Yeah. An accident."

She laid her palm on his chest and said, "Okay, it's a really dorky thing to say, but do you know that you're my best friend?" Even as she said it, Pam knew that it wasn't the whole truth, but more accurate words failed her.

He smiled with one side of his mouth, but there was that same sadness in his eyes. "Am I?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad to hear it. So you don't have to be dorky alone, I'll say that you're definitely mine." He pressed his open, flat palm lightly into her lower back and she tilted forward on her toes a little. She reached into her hair and pulled the golf pencil from behind her ear. He studied her face as she dropped the pencil into his shirt pocket. She leaned back a little and he let her go. "Monday?"

"Monday." She smiled and looked down at his feet. "Good night."

"Good night."

When she got to work on Monday morning, the scorecard was wedged above home row on her keyboard. A small pink Post-It note was stuck to it, the words "I want a rematch" written neatly in the center. She slipped it into her sketchbook, wondering if it was silly that she hoped he had kept the pencil.

~~~~~

~~~~~

When Michael told them about the cameras, the production company, the whole horrifying prospect of being filmed in business casual under bad lights while selling, God help them, paper, he was so excited that he could barely control the volume of his voice. Jan, tight-lipped, smiling, and silent, sat next to him at the table in the conference room on the morning he made the announcement.

Jim glanced over at Pam, whose face was impassive, though the slight widening of her eyes gave her away. She had stopped doodling and capped her pen. He felt blank, strange, and certain that the implications of this announcement weren't coming to him as quickly as they should. It was that sensation of forgetting his keys or a homework assignment before the oversight has been discovered; a tiny sliver of doubt wedged into every thought. Pam looked his way and he nodded his head once, setting the agenda for their ten o'clock coffee break.

Phyllis spoke first, her slow, sleepy voice creeping up into the anxious silence. "How long would the cameras be here, Michael?"

"They're saying six months to start, but -" eyes bulging, he crossed his fingers and bit his lip, "who knows?"

~~~~~

The following day, he stared at Pam while she filled out some paperwork. Her head was bowed and she was oblivious to his gaze. He loved the way the overhead lights brought out the copper in her hair; how fresh and soft and, well, lovely she looked in her pink sweater. When she glanced up, he looked away, and the quick, hot shame in the twist of his neck knocked something loose in his head.

Oh. Right. That.

~~~~~

They wanted to talk to everyone individually. Pam went first, glancing over at Jim, who raised his eyebrows to wish her luck, as she carefully closed the conference room door. He could hear the notes of her voice through the wall, the way her statements sometimes turned up like questions at their ends. When she came out of the room twenty minutes later, everyone looked up. She shrugged at no one in particular and sat down at her desk without a word. He followed her as they called Dwight, who shoved an overstuffed three-ring binder under his arm as he rose. He entered the conference room like he was anticipating a round of applause.

"So?"

"I don't know. They asked me about myself, where I was from, stuff like that." She tipped her head. "They asked me if I liked being a receptionist."

"Do you?" He knew the answer.

"No."

"Is that what you said?"

"Yeah." She bit her lip. "They laughed."

"Well, it's funny."

"Right. Me hating my job is just hilarious."

"I didn't mean it like that." He had done some pathetic math in his head after his last raise. With his annual bonus, he had finally cleared $40,000 a year - they could live on what he made. She could quit her job, do something fun or work part-time, whatever she wanted.

She sighed. "I know. I'm sorry. It was just - weird, you know? I'm not that interesting."

"Well, you're no Dwight," he gestured toward the closed door with his head and she smiled. He wanted to touch the dimple in her cheek.

~~~~~

Jim liked toying with Dwight and letting Michael maintain his illusions. He'd been in the drama club for two years in high school, played poker on a regular basis for most of his adult life, and made a living getting people to believe every word that he was saying. The trick, no matter the situation, was buying into the fabrication: he had a flush, Michael meant well, that new guy in the warehouse was a spy from Staples, he was in Grover's Corners, and that was a fantastic deal on 20 lb. ultrawhite bond.

He felt as if he was being dealt in as he sat down at the conference room table.

"Uh, I'm 25, I'm from Scranton originally. I, uh, I've got two brothers; one younger, one older." He paused, uncomfortable with the production reps' calm, smiling interest. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you want to know." He wanted them to think him harmless, friendly, and totally uninteresting. There was no subterfuge necessary, really, as he was all of these things.

"Did you go to college?" they prompted.

"Oh, yeah," he said as if they had just reminded him, "I have a B.A. in English."

"What do you like to do for fun?"

"I play basketball, listen to music, hang out with my friends. Nothing special." He shrugged like he did every time he dropped a pair of twos on a friend's kitchen table.

"Are you married?"

He laughed quietly, fidgeting with his own fingers. "No. Very, very single."

They nodded in sync. It was a little creepy. "Do you like working here?"

"It's alright. The work isn't very hard and it pays the bills, so, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to be here forever, so it's fine for now."

"You're not? What would you rather be doing?"

He felt his mouth open, but no sound came out for a moment. "I," they were looking at him expectantly, "have no idea, honestly," another nervous laugh, the heat in his face intensifying.

Their smiles were sympathetic, but they were leaning back in their chairs. He took a breath to steady himself. "What about the people here? Do you like your boss?"

"Michael's great. He's friendly and he really cares about us."

"Some of your coworkers aren't too crazy about him."

"Well, he's an acquired taste, but it could be a lot worse, right?." He didn't know the answer to his own question, he realized, so he continued. "It's actually a pretty fun place to work."

"What about everyone else? Are you friends with them?"

"Some of them, yeah."

"Like who?" Jim felt the air in the room shift slightly. The man on the left, who wasn't much older than him, glanced quickly at something he had written on the legal pad in front of him and then tried to pretend that he hadn't.

"Kevin's a great guy. We play fantasy football together. Oscar's cool, too, and Toby and I get along really well."

"What about Dwight?"

"Dwight is - Dwight. You know, you could make an entire documentary just about him. People would think that you made the whole thing up, but you could do it."

The reps laughed. "He called you an insubordinate anarchist."

Jim's eyes widened. "Really? Wow. He's probably still mad about that bloody glove..."

"Excuse me?" The rep with the legal pad reached for his pen.

"The, uh... you know what? Forget I said anything."

"He also said that you and Pam are constantly undermining his authority as Assistant Regional Manager." Her name clicked like a chip bouncing off the table. Again, he played with his own fingers in lieu of rearranging cards.

"Assistant to the Regional Manager," he said quickly, absently. "I mean, yeah, Pam and I do give Dwight a hard time, but, if he wasn't so," Jim gestured helplessly in the air in front of him, "He's just asking for it half of the time."

"And the other half?"

"I'm bored or Pam's got a really good idea." He laughed, testing out his ability to say her name. "She's a criminal genius. We've been going after him for years and he still doesn't see her coming."

"What do you think of Pam?"

"She's great." Sweat prickled on his palms. His smile was brittle. He was holding a good hand and they were onto him. But she was his best friend. That was all.

"Are the two of you friends?"

"Oh, yeah. We get along great." Of course they were friends. What else would they be? Jim shifted in his chair.

"She's engaged, right?"

He was biting his lip too hard, nodding too fast. "Uh-huh."

"Her fiance works in the warehouse, right?" Jim felt like one of Dwight's bobbleheads, like the biggest idiot around. "Do you like him?"

"We don't really talk much, but he seems like a cool guy. If Pam likes him, then I like him."

"She talked about you a lot when we spoke to her this morning."

"Really?"

It was a fast, clumsy response that tried and failed miserably at sounding casual, detached. He was holding great cards, diamonds and hearts, suits that throbbed like his pulse. The smiles on the faces of the reps grew and the man on the left added something else to his notes.

~~~~~

He and Pam were on the roof, watching their coworkers in the parking lot below as the sun set. It was the Friday before Labor Day; the cameras were coming the following Tuesday. Michael had invited the production team to a cookout and everyone had moved their cars into the street, set up tables, filled coolers, and tended the grills. Someone had set up a stereo and a small group of people had started to dance. Their tipsy giggling reached Jim's ears four stories up.

Pam was in a blue sundress, her hair pulled up off her neck, rolling the last of her second beer around in the bottom of its bottle. She had consumed the first one in three hasty swallows after accidentally covering her hotdog with an entire packet of hot sauce. "How's your face, Beesly?"

"Medium-rare." She glared at him. "Why didn't you tell me that was hot sauce?"

"Because," he bit back a laugh, "watching you hop around and swear like a Teamster was too fantastic to pass up." She swatted him lightly with her free hand. "I don't think I've ever heard you say fuck before."

"Dunder fucking Mifflin, this is Pam," she used the soft, bored voice he heard every day and he let his laugh go. "Doesn't seem appropriate, does it?"

"Especially not with the cameras around. You're really going to have to watch that mouth of yours," He was looking at that mouth of hers, thinking that he should cut himself off after he finished the beer in his hand. Roy, who was down in the parking lot with Darryl, could undoubtedly see them leaning on the wall. It was quite possibly the only thing stopping him from kissing the freckles on her shoulders to celebrate the novelty of seeing them bare. Their particular roundness would be a perfect fit for the hollows of his palms.

"Yeah, I was thinking. It's going to be kind of weird, isn't it?"

"Are you going to watch it? Whenever it's finally on?"

"God, no. I don't want to see what my life looks like." She waved her bottle down at the camera crew, "or what they think it looks like, anyway."

"Your life doesn't look bad," he shrugged, "but, yeah. I'm not going to watch it."

"Do you think anyone will?" They both laughed. "God, Michael's going to come off like a nightmare, isn't he?"

"Did you see the looks on their faces when they came out of their meeting with him?"

"The FBI's going to start a file on Dwight. They'll raid his farm."

"Poor Mose." He moved a little closer to her and brushed his shoulder with hers. "And what about Pam Beesly, our receptionist? What is everyone going to think of her?"

She covered her face with her hand. "Ugh. Boring, boring, boring."

"Oh, I don't think so. Happily engaged to her high school sweetheart, a budding artist, really smart, really cute," Jim had a sudden urge to rest his burning cheek against the cool concrete wall they were leaning on. "Everyone'll love you."

When he dared to glance over at her, there was a surprising shine in her eyes. She bit her lip, then said, "And Jim Halpert, paper salesman?"

"The less said about that guy, the better."

"Nah," she finished her beer and set the bottle on the wall. "Smart, wicked sense of humor, really lazy, really cute," she looked away, craning her neck to watch the party below. Her voice was strained when she added, "Everyone'll love you, too."

"We'll have to be really careful -" Surprised that he had said it, he looked away from her profile, following her gaze. Creed and Meredith were executing a sloppy tango down the length of the parking lot. "I mean, about what we say about Michael and Dwight and stuff."

"Yeah," Pam said as she waved at Roy, who had just spotted them. Roy held his bottle aloft to Jim and he returned the gesture. "I wonder if the camera guys would film my wedding?" Michael cut in on Creed, dancing Meredith back up the lot. Everyone clapped when he dipped her and looked away when he dropped her. "It'd save me some money."

"Probably, yeah, if you let them put it in the show."

"You think people would want to watch me get married?"

"Yeah. People like romance, happy endings, all that."

"So lame."

"Completely lame."

~~~~~

~~~~~

Pam had lost control of her game of Spider Solitaire. Initially feeling equal to the challenge and unwilling to actually work, she selected two suits, slipped off her shoes under her desk, and, with a wary glance around the room, rolled her chair closer to her monitor. Though she wasn't quite sure how it had happened, she was in her tenth minute of making stupid mistakes, taking too many hints, and feeling oddly soothed by rhythm of the whole frustrating thing, when Jim approached her desk. "Hi."

"Hi," she didn't look up. He usually didn't hesitate to make suggestions when she played, which she either accepted without comment or, if she was really in a bind, scolded him for. She stared with bleary interest at a three of hearts hovering on the game board until she realized that he wasn't going to say anything else or crane his neck to discover the disarray her fives and twos were in. He was just staring at her, smiling slightly. She minimized the game. "What?"

His wrists were hanging over the edge of the counter, the band of his watch caught on the edge. Jim raised his eyebrows, glanced down, and turned one hand over, revealing a Boggle timer hidden in his palm. He held it up, let her look at in for a minute, and then inverted it on the counter with a hollow click. "Get Dwight to challenge you to a fight. You have three minutes."

"What?" Her brain was still sorting cards, still wondering how to get the seven of the spades out of her way and why she cared.

"You. Dwight. Three minutes."

She looked past Jim. Dwight was at his desk, systematically sharpening a new package of pencils, lining them up in a perfect, warm yellow row. She narrowed her eyes, and, with a glance back at Jim, stood.

Pam crossed the room and leaned against the side of Jim's desk. Dwight didn't look up. She wasted a few seconds, waiting, before she said, "Hey, Dwight."

"What."

"Uh, I was wondering - Do you ever fight women at your dojo?"

He sharpened another pencil before he answered. Pam peeked over her shoulder. The timer was nearly half-empty. Jim was nonchalantly checking his messages, his back to the room. She was sure he could hear every word. Holding the fresh point of the pencil at eye-level, Dwight responded, "Of course not. That would be an unfair fight, as women have far less upper body strength."

"But let's say a woman wanted to fight you. Would you do it?"

"If my sensei paired me with a woman for sparring, yes, I would."

"But you'd win."

"Of course."

She paused. "I don't think so."

Dwight looked up and she knew she had him. "Pam, I am bigger, I am stronger, and I am better. I would always win."

She pressed her lips together in an unbelieving line. "I don't know. I have a lower center of gravity and the element of surprise -"

"You?" He scoffed, "You wouldn't stand a chance against a trained fighter like me!"

"I took these self-defense classes at the Y. We learned about going for the eyes and the groin. I think I might do okay." She was sure the timer was almost out. She heard a strangled sound that seemed to originate near her desk, but she didn't dare look behind her.

Dwight stood abruptly, his chair skittering toward Phyllis, and planted himself in her personal space. "We could settle this right now."

She didn't budge. "We could." They stared at one another for a long minute. Pam tried to keep her voice steely as she added, "but I don't have my workout clothes."

"Fine." His glasses were sliding down his nose; his tie was askew.

"Fine."

After giving him one last glare, she turned on her heel and walked away. As she returned to her seat, she snatched the timer off of the desk and put it in her pocket. She took a sip of her tea and looked up at Jim. He clapped quietly. "Nice. You did run out of time before he actually called you out, but I'll give it to you anyway."

"Give me a hard one next time, okay?"

"Are you talking smack?" He leaned a little closer as he said it, his voice pitched low and conspiratorial, lemon jellybeans on his breath.

"Watch out, Halpert. You're next." The end of his tie dragged on her desk. She wanted to tug on it.

He stepped back, holding his palms up in surrender. "I'm waiting."

"When you least expect it."

"I'll sleep with one eye open."

"Good idea."

~~~~~

"Ask Kelly about Tom Cruise. Politely remove yourself from the conversation." She had pulled the timer from her lunch bag, turning it on the table between them.

"Seriously?"

"Tick, tick."

"Do you hate me?" He was already sliding his chair back.

She disregarded the honest response in favor of a roll of her eyes. "Time's wasting."

~~~~~

In the space of a week, Pam flirted with Todd Packer on the phone, completed a row of knit stitches on the scarf Phyllis was making, balanced Jim's pencil cup on her head and did laps around his desk, sang without anyone asking her to stop, and sketched Michael. In turn, Jim flirted with Meredith in person, learned how to make oven-roasted beets, did a handstand against the wall of the conference room, and, on Tuesday morning in the warehouse, made ten free-throws.

Pam dribbled the ball while Jim put his dress shirt back on. She stared as he absently re-tied his tie. He glanced down at his own hands and asked, "what?"

"I just haven't seen anyone tie a tie in a while. Roy doesn't need to wear them."

"Not very interesting."

Her mind sailed through the loose constellation of things she associated with neckties: dress clothes laid out on the bed, her grandmother's pearls, and the steam on the bathroom mirror while Roy shaved, a towel slung low around his hips. She would kiss the space between his shoulder blades sometimes and breathe in his clean, humid skin. She wondered when someone last kissed Jim while he was shaving, trying to picture a bare back she had never seen and the wet ends of his hair sticking to his neck. "It's just one of those boy things," she replied as he drew the knot closer to his throat.

"Like lip gloss and nylons."

"Girl things?"

Jim smiled, seeming to recall something vivid and dear to him. "Girl things."

She threw the ball to him and he caught it, staggering as if the force knocked him backwards a step. He recovered and collected the Boggle timer from the cold concrete floor as he passed.

~~~~~

Her cell phone rang in her purse. Expecting her mother, she answered it without checking the display. "Hello?"

"I'm on the roof."

"Okay?"

"Three minutes or this container of yogurt gets it." The breeze was blowing across the mouthpiece on his cell phone, making Jim's voice sound alternately much too quiet and much too loud.

"You wouldn't."

"It's kind of out of my hands, Beesly. It's windy today and this ledge is awfully narrow - "

She hung up on him, stopping only to grab his empty coffee mug from his desk before she hurried out the door and up the stairs.

Even in heels, she made it to the roof in plenty of time, slightly winded and holding his coffee mug above her head. He was sitting in a lawn chair near the edge of the roof, smirking, with his sandwich balanced on his knee. Her lunch bag was resting against the chair next to him. "You know, you could have just asked if I'd have lunch with you." She spoke past her struggling lungs. "When did I give you my cell phone number?"

"You didn't. I'm stalking you."

"Good to know. Is my yogurt wearing a blindfold?" She was crossing the roof, still holding the mug aloft. Her yogurt was on the ledge, a tissue tied around the container.

"I didn't want it to be able to tell the authorities where I had taken it." He used half of his sandwich to gesture at her raised hand. "What's that?"

"Hostage negotiation."

"Ah. Well, you made it in time, so we're good." He held her yogurt out to her and she sat down next to him. "Just so you know, I planned to drop it on Dwight's car. It wouldn't have given its life in vain." He reached under his chair and handed her a Coke. "For you."

She opened it and poured half into his mug. "Thank you. Where's the timer?"

"Downstairs. In your purse." He swallowed a bite of his apple. "I used my watch."

"You are stalking me."

"Without a doubt."

~~~~~

When he bolted from his desk at three o'clock the next day, she managed to get to him before the cameramen came out of their interview with Angela. He was slouched at a table in the breakroom, staring blankly at the wall. Looking behind her and seeing no raised heads, no interest at all, she locked the door and closed the blinds.

"Hi."

He didn't respond. He had arrived ten minutes late; time enough for Dwight to steal one of his clients.

"I'm, um, how are you?"

He shrugged. Michael had made an overenthusiastic comment about how Jim was on the right track to be "just like him" by the time he turned thirty-five.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee or something?"

He held his tie up over his shoulder to show where he had spilled coffee on himself when Michael had crept up behind him and mussed his hair. Pam seemed to recall the tie being a gift from his grandmother.

She nodded even though he couldn't see her. "Right. So you need water, then," and strode over to the vending machine, trying to be cheerful enough for both of them.

She didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she heard what she assumed was the last straw. Five minutes before, someone named Jennifer had called to cancel a date. She had planned to tease him about the way his voice dropped lower as he told Jennifer that it was no problem and asked when he could see her again. He listened for a moment and then said, "oh," in a small, flat tone. When she tried to give him a sympathetic smile, he stood suddenly and headed for the breakroom. She got the distinct impression that he didn't want her to follow, but, after a minute of indecision, she did anyway.

Pam placed the unopened bottle on the table and arranged a chair so she could sit next to him. He didn't look at her. Finally, with a sigh, she removed the timer from her skirt pocket, held it before his unmoving eyes, and inverted it in front of him. "You've got three minutes to do whatever you want to make yourself feel better."

One corner of his mouth pulled into a smile, but he still didn't look at her. "How am I going to ship Dwight to Antarctica in three minutes?"

"Jim, this is no time for jokes."

"I know. This is very serious business." He folded his hands on the table before him, making a loose circle around the bottle of water. "What else could I do?"

"I don't think you could make it to Poor Richard's and back."

"I'm not really a drinking in the middle of the day kind of guy, anyway."

She watched the timer run down for a moment. "You could hard-boil an egg."

He shook his head; knitted his brows at her. "How would that make me feel better?"

"Being hungry makes me cranky. Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Thirsty?"

"No."

"Hating your job so much that you don't know how you get out of bed every morning?"

"No - wait. Yeah." He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "That's it."

"Maybe you need a nap."

"I have about forty-five seconds here."

"A power nap?"

He pushed his chair back a few inches before leaning in to rest his forehead on the table. He held very still for just a moment, and then said, "I don't think this is working."

"Do you want me to sing you a -"

"No."

"I'm going to pretend that wasn't an insult."

"Okay. But do it quietly. I'm napping over here."

And she was quiet; quiet enough that she could hear the hiss of the sand in the timer growing fainter, then stopping. He had closed his eyes and she stared at him before doing the same, taking a moment to draw a breath. She raised her hand, the hush of the fabric of her shirt the only sound in the room. The noises coming from the other side of the door seemed to grow distant as Pam opened her eyes again and rested her hand lightly in his hair. She moved her fingers in a single stroke from the crown of his head to the collar of his shirt and then down, a feathery touch between his shoulder blades. He didn't move; she drew her hand away and settled it, palm up, in her lap. After a few more seconds had passed, he lifted his head and propped his cheek on his fist. He raised his eyebrows and she said, "Time's up." He nodded once. "I'm sorry you're having a bad day." He shrugged. "You wanna have dinner tonight? Roy's having boy's night."

"Sure." He closed his eyes. "I thought it was going really well."

"What?"

"With Jennifer." He reached awkwardly across himself for the water bottle. "I can't believe she dumped me."

"Neither can I." She heard the excess of quiet surprise in her voice, so, embarrassed, she reached for a joke, "Want me to beat her up for you?"

"You're just dying to use those self-defense classes, aren't you?" Pam laughed. He covered his face with his hands. "Am I going to end up like Michael?"

"We won't let you."

He lowered his hands. "Really?"

She nodded, though she had no idea what she meant. She would figure it out, she hoped, when she truly needed to. "Really. Here -" she turned the timer again. "We're not done yet. Obviously."

"Actually, I feel a lot better."

"But you didn't do anything."

Jim smiled at her and shook his head. "I'm good."

She unlocked the door, opened the blinds. When she turned, Jim was leaning against the table, watching her. The timer had disappeared, removed before it could have run out, the moment suspended in the dark of his pocket or the warmth of his hand.

~~~~~

~~~~~

"So that's Pam, huh?" Mark paused on his way to the back door, full trashbag in tow, to look at Jim, who stood at the sink, washing dishes. Michael, who was, of course, their last guest, had been gently ushered out the front door fifteen minutes earlier.

He was expecting Mark's comment, or something very much like it, and he had a reply ready. "And Dwight and Kevin and Angela and Oscar. And everyone else."

"She's cute." Jim didn't say anything. "Really cute." He didn't look up, keeping his eyes on his hands and arms in the soapy water. "You are so fucked."

Mark waited for a response. It eventually came as Jim dropped a handful of silverware into the drainer from a greater height than was strictly necessary. A butterknife clattered to the floor and spun, stopping so the blade menaced the refrigerator. "Yup."

"Do you think she -"

"Nope," which was a lie, because he was almost certain that she, but it was a far easier thing to stop that thought and all of its obnoxious, circular friends before they could start.

"I don't know. I saw her looking at you."

Jim sighed, steadying himself on the edge of the sink and the heels of his wet hands. His shoulders were angled up and nearly into his ears. "It doesn't matter."

"She was staring at you."

"Doesn't matter," he insisted quietly, shaking his head.

"Just go for it. To hell with her boyfriend or whatever. Get it out of your system, right?"

He didn't like Mark's smirk; didn't want to hear what he would say next. "It's not like that. At all."

Mark shrugged and turned. "You are so fucked." The screen door snapped shut behind him.

Before Mark could come back and before all of the dishes were done, Jim grabbed one of the last beers from the fridge and went up to his room. He closed the door with his back and stared at the bed. The indentation in the comforter where she had stretched out across the mattress was still visible. He pushed slowly away from the door with his free hand, placing the bottle on his desk.

He stepped over the yearbook, laying open on the floor where Pam had abandoned it. He would most likely leave it there for days; a little shrine asserting that the half-hour they had spent in his room was real. He pulled his sweater over his head, the nice one that his grandmother had given him last winter, though he had cut the tags off only that afternoon, and dropped it at his feet. Facedown, he crawled onto the middle of his bed. He held very still for a moment, making and unmaking the same decision several times, before drawing a deep breath through his nose, filling his lungs with the scent of her. He rolled over and exhaled at the ceiling, face blank, before he turned his head to the side and took in more air.

He sat up and turned off the light.

She had laughed in his bed. Even better, he had made her laugh in his bed. Okay, on his bed, but it sounded totally different than it did clashing with industrial carpeting and cheap office furniture. In here, it was warm and sweet, lacking the undercurrent of frustration that he had become accustomed to. It burrowed into his pillows and crawled under his blankets.

He had imagined making her laugh in his bed. The circumstances weren't at all what he had pictured and was, in fact, picturing, as he lay there in the dark, hand on the button of his jeans, making and unmaking yet another decision, but it was still good. Better than good, with the cameraman in some other part of the house and the door closed. It was his, it was clear and bright as her eyes, and he couldn't stop noticing the way her hips pressed into his mattress or the way her hair dragged on the comforter when she dropped her head forward.

He slid his hands between her hips and the bed, undoing her pants, lifting her to pull them down and off. He had always thought that she seemed like the kind of girl who would wear plain cotton underwear, the not-too-skimpy kind from Victoria's Secret that he loved, and he was right. Light green. He kissed his way up the backs of her legs and pulled her everyday, totally boring, completely fascinating underwear off with his teeth. He did a terrible job of it, getting stuck somewhere a few inches north of her knees, and that's when she laughed, offered to help, rolled over, and

He turned again, curling into the space she had occupied, tugging at the top button of his jeans with his thumb and index finger. Some sort of citrusy lotion and a warm, basic smell that was certainly her skin. Not that he would know for sure. He unzipped his fly.

She looked at him. Stared, even. And maybe Mark was right, he thought, maybe he should just - what? - seduce her? Could he do that? Were either of them like that? He let out a single gasp of a laugh into the covers and could smell his breath mingling with the smell of her body. It made his heart race.

When Pam asked him to tell stories about the pictures he appeared in, he craned his neck and tried to do it from his desk chair. Finally, while she was admiring his basketball team, she rolled her eyes and said, "There are like forty people. I can't see who you're pointing to from there."

"Okay." He settled himself on the bed next to her, tailor-style, and began pointing to the grainy, black-and-white faces of his former classmates. "So, uh, that's me, obviously," He could just barely hear or concentrate on what he was saying, though she seemed to be hanging on every word, nodding and repeating names.

When he was done, she turned back to his class picture again and laughed. "I should show you my yearbook sometime." She traced his 17-year-old cheek with her index fingertip.

"You should."

"You have to promise not to laugh. Lots of puffy hair."

"We graduated the same year. I know about the puffy hair."

She tucked her chin. "I was all about art club and seriousness."

"That's -" he chuckled.

"See? No laughing!"

"No, I like that idea."

She sighed and rolled onto her back, her hair fanning out on the bed, the bottom of her shirt riding up just enough to reveal the barest sliver of skin. "It would have been fun to know you then."

"Nah. I was a pain." Her temple was resting against his knee and she was looking up at him with a smile.

As he was laying in the dark, jeans unbuttoned, dispassionately noting how fucking weird he had become, he thought about the way that she had smiled at him. If she was any other woman, he would have asked her if she had any idea that she was torturing him. If she was any other woman, giving him that look, he would have kissed her or just said it, leaving no nauseating, all-consuming doubt as to what was going on. Mark was right: to hell with Roy. He hooked his fingers in the waist of his boxer shorts for a shaky moment, then withdrew them, sat up, and groped around on his desk for his beer.

He knew he was going to tell her eventually. It felt as if it was beyond his control, as if it would just happen, somehow, at some probably not-too-distant point, and he would have to find some way to contend with the aftermath, whatever it might be.

Jim's fingers knocked into the bottle and he made a quick grab to stop it from tipping. He took a drink and drew his legs to his chest, ignoring the way his zipper was digging into his bare skin of his thigh. She had gotten so angry with him at Dwight's dojo, swatting him away, panic and shock in her voice. She had been touching him all day, playing that silly, flirty palm-reading game that he hadn't been on the receiving end of since high school. And, yes, he was sorry that he upset her or made her uncomfortable, but was she sorry that she was making both of them miserable? Surely she noticed that she

Jim lay down again. He pressed his feet into the mattress, slipping out of his jeans, kicking them to the floor.

He had discovered a number of possibilities. They all worked, sometimes.

She wanted him, and it was the easiest, most normal thing he had ever done. He leaned down and touched her cheek, kissed her, and they both simply knew. She wanted everything beyond his bedroom door to stop existing as badly as he did and they found a way to manage it, for a little while. Her breath against his face and the way that she would stare, just stare at him, finally acknowledging and knowing and accepting. There were no repercussions, fiances, girlfriends, or gossiping coworkers.

He spit in his palm and closed his eyes.

She didn't. She wouldn't. She was shocked, disgusted with him, but she kissed back. He wanted to break the kiss, to take her by the shoulders and say, "See?" to mark the moment that she finally copped to it, but instead he palmed the back of her head, holding onto the one chance he would probably have to do this, until he felt her struggle to pull away. He backed off, because of course he backed off, but she stood rooted to the spot in the middle of his floor, eyes wide, cheeks two hot dots of color. He could only do one thing about the expression on her face. His bedroom wall, then, and she dug her fingers into his back, leaving red marks, even through his t-shirt. He made her holler and covered her mouth with his to stifle the sound. He gasped against her neck, begging her to admit it, all of it.

It felt better than it should have. The fingers of his idle left hand skittered uselessly over the comforter, the imaginary line of her hip.

He made some stupid, clumsy pass at Pam; a kiss that didn't quite connect or an awkward admission that he couldn't, wouldn't contain any longer.

She left the party early, avoiding the other guests as she collected her coat and purse. He tried to walk her to the door, sick at the sight of the tears standing in her eyes.

He spent an awful week, month, year waiting before she showed up unannounced one evening, with an incomprehensible expression on her face and a bare left hand. She stepped into his arms and stood silently, her cheek against his chest. After a few minutes, he cautiously led her up the stairs to his room and they undressed each other with shaking fingers and kisses on every inch of new skin. It was evening, just getting dark, their bare arms and legs tangled, the warm face of her thigh pressing against him, her hands soft, small, everywhere. She was in charge, he made sure of that, because he needed to know that she wanted him; that when she rolled onto her back, she was pulling, not being pushed; that it was her hand between them, careful and urgent. She laughed because he couldn't manage the ends of his sentences while he was inside of her, her thighs against his hips, and his fingers in her hair.

"Pam," her name was a warning that she didn't heed. Laying her hand on his sweaty cheek, arching her back, and, looking right at him, she said

Jim was alarmed by the way his heart was hammering against his ribcage. He told himself that all of this was normal and okay and she didn't have to know and what else was he supposed to do until he couldn't feel his pulse in his back anymore. The very real, extremely immediate sadness that had him by the throat dissipated as he pulled off his shirt, being careful not to touch the bed as he sat up. He tossed it away and listened to himself breathe for a moment, before he lay back down, his head resting where her stomach would have been, were she there in the dark with him.

~~~~~

~~~~~

When Pam stepped out into the backyard, Mrs. Johnson from next door smiled, waved, and asked if she was going on a trip. "I am," she answered brightly, lifting her suitcase, packed with pieces of the life she used to love, into her father's trunk.

"Well, have a nice time!" the older woman replied.

"I will," she slipped into the front seat, closed the door, and looked down at her lap as her father pulled away.

Her mother tried to comfort her, so Pam stood in her parents' kitchen, resting her cheek on Laura's narrow shoulder for a few minutes, staring dry-eyed at the kitchen sink. The only thing Pam could think to do was claim she needed a nap. She climbed the stairs, dragging her suitcase behind herself, and locked the only door that was ever hers alone. She could hear her parents' voices under her feet, still in the kitchen. Surely the phone calls would start soon, her father sitting at the table, watching her mother pace and twist the phone cord around her fingers.

She was the opposite of tired. Unpacking turned into something else altogether. She made piles on the floor; artifacts from her dresser drawers, out-of-date clothes, yearbooks, and photo albums. The yearbooks she lined up on her half-empty bookshelves; the clothes she inspected and stacked in piles bound for the Salvation Army. She took her clothes from the suitcase and laid them in the empty drawers with an excess of care.

On her knees, digging in her nightstand, she discovered a hairbrush, dried-out pastels, intricately folded notes from girls she had apparently loved but no longer remembered, a condom that had expired in 1999, a battered program from a drama club production for which she had painted sets, and an envelope filled with pictures of Roy. She folded her legs under her, spread the photos across her lap, and examined his face for a while. The phone rang downstairs. She shook her head.

Her old Walkman was among the debris, the headphone cord knotted around itself and a couple of barrettes, a tape inside the player. She pressed play and held a speaker to her right ear. It was the tape from his Christmas gift to her, left behind during the holidays. She untangled the cord, put the headphones on, and listened to the entire thing, leaning back against the side of her bed.

She had listened to it once before, on Christmas Day, while Roy was downstairs watching the game with her father and uncles. She sat on her bed in a new sweater, on that brilliantly sunny, freezing cold day, and cradled the cheap headphones against her ears, smiling with her eyes closed.

Pam lay down on her stomach, started the tape again, this time to note love songs, references to kisses, secrets, and silence, and peered under the bed. She dragged out a dusty box containing old sketchbooks, a dried corsage, and her journals. The transcript of the first years of her relationship with Roy revealed no cause for concern. She didn't remember being as brutally happy as she seemed to have been.

She padded downstairs to get a garbage bag and some furniture polish, the cassette player clipped to the waist of her jeans. She felt her parents' eyes on her as she stepped into the kitchen. She bagged up the diaries, the ticket stubs, the mummified flowers, the photos; all of it. She put on her father's sneakers and carried the bag out to the garbage before she could think better of it.

Back in her room, the sun going down, the entire day having passed without a meal or a shower, she steeled herself and opened the closet. Her prom and homecoming dresses hung there, next to an old vacuum cleaner and box filled with Seventeen and Sassy magazines, but the massive white garment bag, the shoe box, and her veil were gone.

"Mom?" she was speaking much too quietly to be heard either through a closed door and down a flight of stairs or over the music in her ears. It took her a long handful of seconds to realize this. She asked again, louder, pulling the headphones down around her neck, aware that she was clutching the edge of the closet door.

Her mother came through the door. Without turning her head, Pam asked, "Where's my dress?"

"Oh, honey, I took it to your aunt's house. I didn't think you'd want to see it."

"I - I don't." She relaxed her grip. The blood rushed back into her fingers. "I just - I never said - nothing -" she trailed off.

"Morgan has all of it. Don't worry."

"Okay." Pam closed the door slowly and found herself looking at a Monet calendar from 1998, all soft, weepy pastels. "What am I going to do with it anyway, right?" She tried to laugh and wished she had known about Frieda Khalo's sharp, electric insanity when she was 18. She couldn't look at her mother.

"We'll take care of it for you until you need it, sweetie." Pam ignored the gentle nudge in her voice.

"I'm never getting -" she turned her head and felt her face crumple as soon as their eyes met. She said something like "oh God" or "oh no" and covered her face with her bare left hand.

Laura led her to her bed. Pam, curled on her side with her head half in her mom's lap, cried uncontrollably for a half-hour, letting herself be held and told that everything was going to be fine.

~~~~~

She turned on his music to start her day, carefully laying the tape player on the side of the bathtub on a folded towel. The music was tinny and weird without the benefit of the headphones. A cup of tea steamed, untouched, on the windowsill, and she sank to the tops of her shoulders in the water, pulling humid air into her dry, creaking sinuses.

The thud of the front door reverberated in her lower back, announcing Morgan's arrival. Pam closed her eyes and wiggled her fingers underwater, enjoying the return of yesterday afternoon's unreasonable calm.

He was in love with her, he said. A preposition; no emphasis placed on it.

Pam groped for the washcloth, soaked it, and draped it over her face.

She loved him, too, of course. He was just overstating things, getting carried away.

The cassette player popped as the first side ended. She didn't move.

She had felt his breath against her lips and the barest touch of his tongue, hints of things about him she had only seriously considered once or twice. She could call him a friend and insist that she couldn't, but he knew. It was in his eyes, uncomplicated, and her expression had been a simple mirror of his.

Morgan tapped on the door, said "Pamela? Sweetie? Hi. Are you okay?"

She sat up quickly, the washcloth hitting the surface of the water with a slap.

"I'm fine. I'll be out soon, okay?" Her voice was loud in the small, close room.

~~~~~

Roy called, drunk, on Sunday night, dragging her in a series of circles for an hour. Pam lay on her bed in one of his old flannel shirts and her pajama pants, the dinner her mother had brought in getting cold on a tray on the floor, and let him. She only got angry when he began to suggest that there was someone else; that she had cheated on him.

"Roy, you see? This is why I'd rather be alone!"

"Yeah, okay, Pam. You be alone. No one's ever going to love you as much as I do. Don't forget that."

It was a cliche and stupid and she hung up on him, turned off the ringer on her phone. He left a dozen messages in four hours and she erased them all without listening.

~~~~~

First thing Monday morning, everyone in the office received an email. She read it sitting in her mother's study, both hands wrapped around a mug of strong, black tea, her second of the day:

Good morning, everyone -

I've just talked to Pam. She asked me to let all of you know that she has called off her wedding. She won't be in this week. Let's respect her privacy. I'm sure this is a difficult time for her.

Toby

The replies came steadily for a half-hour. Everyone was kind; even her boss wrote only: Let me know if you need anything. Love, Michael. It brought tears to her eyes. She shook them away.

There was a message that had arrived well before Toby's. It was timestamped about twelve hours after she had last seen him and sent to everyone at work.

Hi -

I won't be coming in on Monday. I'll check my voicemail from home in the afternoon.

~J

There was no other message from him.

~~~~~

They had their first, good, hot day on Tuesday and their first storm of the season that night. The lightening strike that knocked the power out also woke her up. She lay in bed, listening to the absolute silence - no air conditioners, no televisions, nothing - before she rose, pulling a sweatshirt on over her nightgown, slipping on her flip-flops. She went out into the night, pausing on the porch to see if it had stopped raining.

The air was sweet and cool and Pam stepped carefully over fallen branches and slick, green maple leaves stuck to the pavement. Down the street, the beam of a flashlight cut the darkness and she walked toward it. A woman about her age was standing before a fallen tree limb blocking her driveway. The woman sighed and rested her hand on her hip. The gesture pulled her nightshirt tighter around her waist, making it apparent that she was a few months pregnant.

"Hi," Pam called, stopping about twenty feet away.

The woman swung the flashlight quickly, accidentally aiming it too high and into Pam's eyes. "Oh, hi."

"Sorry if I scared you."

"It's okay. I was just - what am I going to do about this? Steven's out of town. I have to work in the morning." She pointed up the driveway to her car.

They regarded the limb for a moment before Pam said, "I could try to move it." Laying her hand on her own stomach, she added, "You probably shouldn't do it yourself."

"No, I shouldn't," she placed one hand on her belly, "people have just started noticing. It's weird."

"Here," she walked up the driveway and considered her approach. "I'm Pam, by the way."

"Jessica," the two women shook hands, "Are you new to the neighborhood?"

"No, uh, I'm visiting my parents. The Beesleys?"

"Oh! They're really nice people. Are you the daughter who's getting married? That's coming up, right?"

She stalled by giving one end of the limb an experimental nudge with her foot. As she bent down to try lifting it, she said, "It would have been."

The beam of the flashlight wavered. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"No, don't be," it wasn't too heavy, really; she dragged it up onto the lawn, "I called it off. Last week."

"Well, then, congratulations?" Jessica sounded completely uncertain about her own joke and seemed relieved when Pam laughed.

She wiped her palms on her sweatshirt. "Thank you. It's - " there was a piece of bark stuck to her palm. She dug it out, flicked it away, and soothed the indentation it left in her skin with her thumb. "We were together for nine years, but it wasn't right, you know?"

Jessica was massaging her stomach with one hand, the flashlight off and sitting on the driveway next to her bare feet. "Something like that happened to me. It was hard."

"It was. It is. Kind of." She stuffed her hands in her pockets, detached her toes from the wet insides of her sandals. "I'm in love with someone else." The breeze tugged on the hem of her nightgown. The tree over their heads dripped into her hair. She wanted to know how it sounded out loud. "I think," she added.

"Uh-huh. I did that." Jessica looked back at her house. "It was worth it."

"I hope it - " She took a step back without turning. "I should go. You probably need your sleep."

Jessica rolled her eyes and smiled. "Haven't you heard? Pregnant women don't sleep. Come inside, let me make you a cup of tea to thank you."

"That would actually be really nice. I haven't been sleeping, either."

"I bet."

She followed Jessica up the driveway and into her small kitchen. They sat at the table, a lit candle between them, until the sun came up. While Jessica listened, Pam told herself the whole story for the first time.

~~~~~

Out of necessity, everything happened fast. On Wednesday, she and her mother found an apartment in Scranton, so Thursday, suddenly, became moving day.

At her old place, Roy thankfully nowhere to be found, they gathered up her things. When her mother started dividing dishes and towels, Pam told her to stop. She wanted nothing that wasn't hers alone. Laura rolled her eyes and began wrapping up a few plates.

When they pulled up to her new apartment, there was a little blue car sitting in her parking spot. Her father gave her the keys and said, "You're doing the right thing, pumpkin." She stood in the driveway and cried while Margaret, her new landlady, helped carry her boxes inside. The sympathetic line of her brow told Pam that Laura had explained things.

They found a bedframe, a couch, and a small kitchen table with two chairs at a secondhand store. Pam used part of her savings to buy a new mattress. They bought sheets, a trashcan, and towel sets. She bought a week's worth of groceries, comfort food and pepper and sugar and butter, and her mother arranged it all in her cupboards.

Laura spent the night, helping to open boxes and arrange shelves. At nine o'clock, they took turns in the shower, then sat down on the couch. Pam made a pot of tea, and they turned on the little tv she had taken from her old bedroom.

Laura looked around the room and nodded. There was the couch, a coffee table, a bookshelf built into the wall, and a stand for the tv and stereo. There were a couple of plants on the sill and a print in a frame. "This is pretty nice."

Pam thought it looked sad and small. She planned to paint the walls warm colors. "It is."

They found a PBS documentary on Eleanor Roosevelt and watched in silence for a while. When the credits were rolling and Pam was dozing for the first time in days, her mother cleared her throat and asked, "Honey, have you called Jim yet?"

~~~~~

Pam waited for the cable guy, the phone guy, and the electric guy. She had a glass of wine with her landlady, who was sweet and pleasantly nosy. She took long drives in her funny little car, telling herself that it was okay because it was very fuel-efficient. She bought the things that she needed, accumulating a pile of receipts from Target and the mall.

The loneliness was worse than regret, and the uncertainty trumped both of them. She didn't know what was supposed to happen next. On the Sunday before she went back to work, she lay on her new bed, pretending to read, checking the clock every ten minutes.

She had to stop him. He would have kept kissing her. Pam imagined the kisses getting longer and slower until the spaces between them disappeared. What then? He seemed unsure, maybe even a little scared, which was flattering and weird, and it was easy to imagine his unsteady hand touching her cheek, as he whispered something daring, watching her face like he was waiting to get slapped. She thought of the lock on the conference room door, just as she had in the moment, but that seemed all wrong. He tasted like gin and limes and his eyes were overbright, but he wasn't drunk. Maybe they could have gone back to his house, talked, kissed again.

She could picture him in bed with her, the warmth of his skin and that thrilling anxiety in his eyes, but she couldn't press on the image, make it move. There was a very deep, well-defined line there that she wasn't sure how to cross. Pam feared that it was going to take a long time to learn.

~~~~~

At ten on her first day back, when they should have been taking a break together, maybe on the roof, so they could finally, really talk about everything, she took the stairs down to the parking lot. She looked around as she stepped out the door, like he would be waiting right outside, still her partner in crime, ready to ruin Dwight's day with his return, but, of course, no one was there.

She crossed the lot to her car, unlocked the door, and sat down behind the wheel. She smoothed the wrinkles in the shirt she had ironed at 5:30 that morning. All she had to go on was a short paragraph that he had sent to everyone, something about more money and a great opportunity; no messages on her phone; no emails sent to her private account. She had checked Mapquest: he was 150 miles away, living in a city she had never seen, even though he knew about the canceled wedding, even though she hadn't known she was being handed an ultimatum.

Her anger had a steadying effect. She thought about his tongue, his transfer, their hands, and her answer. She thought she should call or make the two hour drive now and show up at his new apartment to yell at him and kiss him. Pam put her key in the ignition, hesitated, and then took it out again. She got out of her car, locked it, walked back across the parking lot, and went upstairs.

~~~~~

~~~~~

It began in earnest, as it did every year, the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Almost overnight, the neighbors' frozen lawns sprouted inflatable snow-globes, cut-out Santas, and green floodlights. Jim and Mark raked the last of the leaves while Melissa put up a tabletop Christmas tree in the living room. When he came inside, ears numb from the cold, the house smelled like pine and the apple cider she had heated on the stove. Melissa presented Jim with a mug. "I like it," he indicated the little tree with a tilt of his chin. She had decorated it with white lights, tiny glass balls, and a ribbon tied around the green, foil-wrapped pot.

"Good," she smiled and patted him on the arm. "Charlie Brown's on. Wanna watch it?"

He joined them in the living room, taking the chair while they sat close together on the couch, Mark's arm around Melissa's shoulders. Jim found himself stealing glances at them, wondering why he seemed to be incapable of such a simple thing. During the commercial break, Melissa got up and switched off the light. The little tree sparkled in the dark. As she settled back onto the couch, she smiled at Jim and said, "Have you ever seen this before?"

"What? Charlie Brown Christmas?" She nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, like every year."

"Really?"

He felt the tiny tug of exasperation particular to this time of year, but kept his face neutral. "Who wants to miss the Snoopy dance, right?"

She giggled and patted Mark on the knee. Jim closed his eyes when Linus took the stage to recite the Christmas story. It was his favorite part.

~~~~~

"Oh. my. God."

Pam rarely said hello when she called. It made him want to take her pretty face between his hands and kiss her.

"What?"

"Pure insanity. I'm at the mall -"

"It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. What were you expecting?"

"Sales on gifts for my family, friends, and jerky coworkers."

"Are you talking about -"

She cut him off before he could flirt, implicate himself, and find out if he was getting a present. "Why do people take their poor children to be photographed with some guy on work release in a furry red suit?"

His smile was so broad that he was getting a headache behind his ears. "Pam, you should watch what you're saying."

As he reached for the punchline, she interrupted him again, "He knows when I am sleeping, blah blah - No! I've been sitting here, you know, near Santa's castle for like twenty minutes -"

"Why would you do -"

" - and it's just horrifying. These poor children in little suits and dresses just screaming while their parents make them sit in some scary stranger's lap." She was speaking quickly and quietly, miles away, but he could sense the way she would have squeezed his forearm with both hands if she could have, the metal of her engagement ring burning a little hotter than the rest of her.

"Did your parents ever take you to visit Santa?"

"Yes! And I cried the entire time. They still have the picture - I was three and I was so angry about the whole thing that I yelled until I turned purple."

His temples throbbed. "Purple?"

"It really clashed with my dress. It was red velvet, just like that little girl's," he imagined her, shopping bags around her feet, a half-empty large lemonade from the pretzel place wedged between her knees, pointing across the plaza to present him with an example he couldn't actually see. "Does parenthood break peoples' brains or something?"

"I don't know."

"Years of therapy..." she trailed off and Jim could clearly hear a shrieking child in the background. "So, yeah. That's all I really called to say. Parents and Santa are evil." She took an audible breath, released it. "How are you?"

"Well, I'm totally reevaluating my plan to earn extra money for holiday gifts, but I'm fine."

"You'd make a lousy Santa. You're too skinny. Bony lap." He could picture her face, the glint of anticipation in her eyes as she waited for his comeback.

"Oh, yeah? When have you ever -" quickly, he corrected his course, "An elf, then."

This warranted a laugh. "Freakshow elf."

"See? I could charge extra."

"Clever. Very clever. I'll see you tomorrow, Halpert."

"I'll be the one in the curly shoes."

He hung up and sat staring at his phone for ten minutes.

~~~~~

On Monday morning, Pam placed a blue, Star of David-shaped ceramic candy dish on her counter before she sat down.

"What's this?"

Evidently, Michael had noticed.

"Chocolate coins. You know, for Hanukkah? Christmas and Hanukkah are on the same day this year, so I picked some up."

Jim leaned to his right slightly, so he could hear what was being said, but he didn't take his eyes off of his email.

Michael's voice dropped to a whisper. "Pam, that's really - that's - I'm surprised that you - "

"What?"

He leaned in closer. "You shouldn't make jokes about Jewish people and money. It's really offensive."

Jim turned quickly in his chair, resting his chin on his fist. Pam was wearing a green sweater that day. It brought out the red in her hair. Tiny, cartoonish reindeer heads dangled from her earlobes. She looked over Michael's shoulder and into Jim's eyes for an exasperated second before she said, "Michael, the chocolate coins are for playing dreidel. The little tops? It's not offensive."

He picked up the dish and handed it to her. "I'm very disappointed, Pam. Put these away." Michael turned to face the room. "Everyone, I'm sorry about Pam's tasteless joke. Especially our Jewish employees. I'm sorry." He looked around, brow knit, and then back to Pam. "Do we have any Jewish employees?"

"Uh, yeah, Toby is." Again, she looked at Jim. He squinted, worried his chin with the side of his index finger, and cast his eyes around the room. "I think that's it, though."

"Well, then," Michael stood on his toes and called, "sorry, Toby! Maybe give Pam some sensitivity training? Shalom!" There was no reply and Michael continued on to his office, plucking his Santa hat from his head as he walked.

That afternoon, after he drew her name for Secret Santa and after he had sent Michael a link to the about.com page on dreidels, he opened his desk drawer in search of a fresh highlighter pen. The gold, foil-covered chocolates were piled where his paperclips should have been, four tiny wooden tops nestled among them, gimel facing up on each. He selected one of the larger coins, caught Pam's eye, and tossed it to her. She collected it easily and stage-whispered, "I bought a one pound bag. I hope you like these things."

~~~~~

He watched It's a Wonderful Life with Melissa, mocking the manipulative, frosty-windowed commercials for cranberry jelly, Hallmark ornaments, and electric razors. He accepted hot chocolate and cookies still warm from their oven with repeated thank-yous. She enthused that she liked having a "date" who actually enjoyed these things and seemed content with her efforts to establish a "family" tradition. He hadn't had this much Christmas in years.

Melissa didn't get his jokes and asserted that the polar bears in the soda commercial were "cute." Despite the dubious twist of his mouth during credit card commercials, he was alert and waiting for inspiration to strike. There was an ad for a local jeweler, but it seemed likely that earrings or a new charm for her necklace would earn him a dirty look from Roy, maybe more. He had never been to her house, so he didn't know what books and movies she didn't own. Chocolates or tea were too ephemeral; he wanted to give her something she could keep, something she would use all of the time.

He considered asking Melissa's advice and came close to doing it, but that would mean having to pick through a veritable minefield of loaded questions and knowing smiles. He was laying on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate resting on his chest, his eyes half-focused on the tree lights, and a blanket across his legs. He didn't need his own mounting certainty that he was in love with Pam to be vocalized by the well-meaning matchmaker in the easy chair, not while Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed danced into the swimming pool underneath the gymnasium floor.

~~~~~

Pam tested strings of lights before hanging them and weathered Angela's sustained, annual, two-week-long, holiday party planning meltdown with a tight smile and unimaginable calm. He tried to pretend he wasn't looking when she climbed up on desk chairs in her stocking feet to hang garland, her wool skirts tight against the curve of her bottom, her legs smoothed by the heavier tights that she wore in winter. He loved her turtlenecks and her silly, puffy coat. She drank cinnamon tea and it made her breath sweet.

"Hey, you missed one," Jim pointed to a sprig of plastic mistletoe stapled to the wall above the breakroom door. They were in the 25th minute of a 15-minute break, avoiding work and Phyllis's radio, tuned to the local Christmas music station since the Monday before Thanksgiving. Jim had begun composing death threats to the members of Mannheim Steamroller and emailing them to Pam, requesting that she print them out on company letterhead and leave them in Dwight's inbox for his signature.

She glared at the offending object. "I thought I checked in here."

"I'll grab it on the way out, okay?"

"Please don't forget. Michael's inviting Todd Packer to the party and I -" she sighed, "I can't deal with that."

"I don't know, Pam. If we leave it up, maybe queerboy Halpert will have one too many cups of punch and plant one on Packer."

She laughed and raised her eyebrows. "Would you do that?" It was as much a question as it was a request.

He considered it for a moment. "He'd either be so freaked out that he'd leave or he'd kiss me back."

"Calculated risk."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. Let's leave it up. You stay away from the door."

"Sounds like a plan."

On their way back to their desks, Jim reached above Pam's head and pushed the door open for her. She turned and walked out backwards, glancing up at the doorframe and then at him, her smirk reaching her eyes, making them shine. He took a hold of her wrist, letting his thumb brush over her pulse point and noting the jerk, the surprised resistance in her elbow. They were standing only a few inches apart and he was leaning in just far enough that there was no way he could possibly deny it. Her smile shifted, lost some of its simple warmth, and he let go. Quickly, she turned and put some space between them, completing the walk to reception without looking back again.

A half-hour later, she was perched on the corner of his desk, bearing scissors and a stack of paper from the copier, asking if he wanted to help cut out snowflakes, her mood making no reference to the moment outside of the break room. They closed themselves in the conference room and left an ultrawhite, 20-pound blizzard for the cleaning crew.

~~~~~

He found it at the big box store just outside of town. He was in search of a new pair of headphones for Josh, sidestepping exhausted parents and whiny children, firmly not noticing the fucking Mannheim Steamroller being piped in, when he noticed a display of cheerful ceramic teapots. They looked like they were about to burst into song or execute a well-choreographed dance along the edge of their metal shelves. He barely had to break his stride: he chose a bluish-green one and placed it in the bottom of his basket, next to Jon's wallet and his grandmother's scarf pin. He heard himself say "perfect" under his breath.

On the way to the checkout, he passed the obligatory oasis of Hanukkah cards, chocolate coins in mesh bags, and cheap menorahs, the tell-tale blue and white soothing in a garish landscape of red, glitter, and green, and paused there. He started looking through the cards, in search of the most marvelously awful specimen, the one that Pam truly needed to see. After a minute or two of rhyming couplets and excessive exclamation points, he picked up a very simple card: a photograph in black and white of a small, spinning top on the front, the letters on its sides a blur.

He turned the card over, looked at the back, and then the front again. He would have stood contemplating its blank inside for quite some time, had an apologetic woman with a long list and a full shopping cart not bumped into him. After dismissing all four of her apologies and returning her Merry Christmas, he chose an envelope and headed for the registers. While he waited, he stared down into his basket at the card.

The house was empty when he got home, the only light coming from the tree. He toed his shoes off and took the shopping bag into the living room. In the kitchen, he grabbed a beer, a pen, and a notepad.

He stalled for a while by picking the price tags off of his purchases and arranging his grandmother's pin in the gift box he had been given at the store. He placed everything but the teapot and the card on the table next to the tree, adding to the small collection of wrapped gifts Melissa and Mark had left there. He gave small shakes to the two gifts with his name on the tags before settling on the floor to look at the tree for a while, the notepad in his lap, the pen uncapped. He wrote a sentence or two on the pad before he stopped, sighed, and reached for the card, which was facedown on the floor an arm's length away. He opened it, and, in the top left corner, wrote "Dear Pam." On the bottom and to the right, he added, "Love, Jim."

He began writing.

~~~~~

Little things, tax returns, grocery lists, and the thrilling everydayness of them, make Pam feel married, even if they aren't yet. She's on the floor in the guest bedroom, half of the contents of a box that was never unpacked in the move spread out on the floor around her. She's made a pile of things to add to their newly minted file of bills, bank statements, and insurance information. They had already started receiving junk mail for the Halperts and, once, even a catalog of baby supplies for someone called Mrs. James Halpert. She and Jim had been making up elaborate stories about this unknown woman - she had six children, she was really into decoupage, her cats' names rhymed, etc. - ever since.

She finds an envelope, her first name written on the front and the flap sealed. The inexact science of box layers tells her that it has been wedged between the instruction manual for a DVD player and a 2004 Dunder-Mifflin staff directory for about three years. Her inner anthropologist wonders if this box was packed and taped shut during the move he made without her, because of her.

Of course, she opens the envelope, with one small, guilty glance in the direction of the living room. She can hear an adroit string of obscenities being directed at the most abused member of the household, the Playstation.

The card is filled with Jim's large, tidy writing. She turns it over and finds he had written on the back, too, a hasty "p.s" scribbled at the top of the glossy sheet. Concerned that she is spoiling a pending surprise, she checks inside the card, but finds no date. She reads it through twice before wiping her eyes, gathering the envelope, and following the sound of his contented frustration down the hall.

He is on the floor in his pajamas, in a grey t-shirt and dark blue flannel pants, his long legs crossed tailor-style under him. It takes him a moment to notice her leaning against the doorframe in her nightgown, holding up the card, watching him. He glances at her, smiles, and then looks again when he notices what she is holding.

"Where did you find that?"

She lowers the card and looks at it. "When did you write this?"

"Secret Santa."

"This is - this is a lot."

"I know."

"You were going to tell me?"

"I was trying. I wanted to."

She starts rereading and quietly says, "I don't know how I would have reacted."

"That's why I took it back."

Pam crosses the room and pushes the abandoned game controller out of the way with her foot, settling on her knees in front of Jim. She lets the card fall to the floor next to her. "Really?"

He's blushing. "What?"

"You wrote me a love letter."

"I guess I did." He shrugs. "I've done it since, right?"

"You wrote me a love letter three years ago." She glances down at the card. "A long love letter."

"There was a lot to say."

"It's really romantic."

"Well, thank you." He smiles.

"And, uh, kind of dirty in places."

"Pam, please - the word is passionate." He doesn't seem to be able to look at her.

"Oh, really?" She reaches for the card, "Isn't there something in here about wanting -"

He is on her in an instant, pushing the card out of reach and pressing her down to the floor. "Nope." He brushes his lips against hers and she knows that he remembers every word.

"You're embarrassed!" She laughs, wrapping her arms around his ribcage.

"I am." His cheeks get pinker.

She wiggles a little, adjusting her lower back. He kisses her neck. Their eyes meet and, quietly, she asks, "This whole time? Really?"

"This whole time. Really."

~~~~~~