She learned about Jim’s past in drips and drabs, over the days and weeks she kept coming in. It wasn’t really a surprise to learn that he went to Marywood, or that the rest of his family had as well (“it’s a family school, like it would be if one of my ancestors founded it,” he jokes, “except none of us got our names on the buildings”). It was, after all, a local school and Jim was clearly a local boy. Scranton to the core. He showed her some footage one day that he shot on his phone, centered on the Penn Paper building, and it would be obvious just from that, if nothing else, that he loved the place. Apparently he and his friend Mark were just out driving one day in Mark’s Jeep, and he started taking photos and then video—and he still hadn’t deleted it.

“You shot this yourself?” She couldn’t deny she was impressed. “Were you a film major?”

“I wish.” He shook his head, leaning out over the counter towards her and pushing a jar of jellybeans that she had not previously noticed towards her. “I hear tell there are jobs in film. At least behind the camera, if not in front.”

“Why not in front?” She took a jellybean and popped it in her mouth, waiting for his reply.

“With this face?” He gestured all around with one hand.

“Yes, with that face.” She popped another jellybean. “What other face?”

“You have looked at me, right?” He made a funny face and she did her best not to break.

“Maybe once or twice.”

He pulled another face, and this time she did laugh. “Fine, fine, what was your major then, if not film?”

“Guess.” He winked, and she swooned a little inside. Seriously, did he really think that he wasn’t handsome enough to be on the front side of the camera? Humility was one thing, but was just silly. Wait, what had he asked? Oh right, she was supposed to guess what his major could have been.

“Hmm…let me see.” She drummed her fingers on the counter. Fortunately no one else was in the shop to notice what she was doing, or that she was taking Jim away from his work. Even Michael was somewhere else today, or so she assumed because there had been no loud thumps or cries of “I’m OK!” coming from the back.

What might Jim have majored in? Obviously not film, though he’d taken such good footage…maybe the whole thing about being in front of the camera was a fake-out?

“Theater?” she guessed.

“Nope.” He popped the p. “I see what you did there, though. Nice try.” He raised his eyebrows distractingly. “Two guesses left.”

“Who said I only got three guesses?” She raised an eyebrow right back. “I don’t recall agreeing to any limit.”

“Come on now, it’s standard!” He smirked. “If you came up to someone and they offered you guesses, you’d assume it was three guesses.”

“Not if they didn’t say there was a limit!” She shook her head. “I thought better of you, Jim. I really did. Changing the rules after the game has started? Shame on you.”

He hung his head playfully. “Fine. Go on. Guess away.”

“You know, I ought to just go get the Marywood catalog and go through one by one.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “It would serve you right.”

“Don’t be boring, Pam.” He started to putter away the detritus left by previous customers.

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes and thought again. Not film or theater. What did she actually know about Jim? He was funny, loyal, interesting, hot…but none of those necessarily pointed to a specific major. If they had, of course, that major would probably have been flooded with students to the point where it could no longer accommodate them. After all, who wouldn’t want to be like Jim, if it were just the result of which college major you took? She had been a art major, of course, but she thought that it was rather that her own interests had led her to art, not the other way around.

So what did she know about what Jim was interested in, besides “not so much coffee as you’d think” and, well, seemingly the exact same things as her?

Huh.

There was an idea. Maybe he was an art major. But no; she and Jim were, she thought, complementary, not identical. Besides, if he were an art major, he definitely would have had more comments to make about the actual design work he’d caught her doing on more than one occasion as he mopped around her. So art was out—and so, probably, were related fields like art history.

But what would complement art the way he complemented her? What would make Jim Halpert tick?

There was, in the end, only one real possibility.

“You were a philosophy major, weren’t you?” she asked with a sigh and a shake of her head. “You like arguing too much to have been anything else.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you accepted my objection about definitions, so you clearly care too much about them—which doubly confirms it.”

He shook his head, and for a moment she thought she’d overthought it, but then she realized what he was saying. “Pam, Pam, Pam. I should have known you’d figure it out. I was a philosophy major. I wrote my thesis on Marxism, actually.” He looked up and grinned. “But of course, you know, that proves why I can’t ever serve you tea here.”

“Why not?” She frowned, perplexed.

“Because I have to follow in Marx’s footsteps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, obviously Marx would never actually serve a pot of tea if he ran a coffeeshop.”

“Why not?”

“Because he thought that proper tea is murder.”