Jim was lifting the beer glass to his lips when his cell phone trilled. He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, put down the glass, and pulled out the phone. One glance at the screen confirmed his guess: a text message from Karen. He turned it to "silent", slammed the cell phone down on the bar and lifted his glass again.

"Bad news?" The bartender was a short, graying Hispanic woman with kind eyes. She flipped a towel over her shoulder and smiled at him.

"My girlfriend," Jim said shortly. He wiped foam from his upper lip. "She's called me six times since I left work an hour ago."

"Breakup?" Her tone was sympathetic.

Jim shook his head. "No, we're good. Just...today's not been a good day."

The bar was dark and cool, and almost empty. Onstage a trio was setting up a drum kit and some microphones, and a few early patrons were settling in at the tiny tables with beer. But Jim had the bar pretty much to himself. The bartender picked up a glass, started polishing it. She leaned back against the mirror in a classic listening pose.

"So," she said. "Most folks, after a bad day, go home to their loved ones. But here you are, ditching your girlfriend to hang with me. Which I totally understand, me being awesome and all, but some might wonder." Her smile took years off her age.

Jim smiled back. "I'm just trying to figure us out."

The bartender popped the top off a mineral water and took a swig. She waved a hand at the nearly empty room. "As you can see, I'm swamped."

Jim drank beer again. "Well. Take this beer. This is the first beer I've had in months. And I love beer."

Her eyebrows lifted. "She got you on the wagon?"

"Not at all. It's just that she likes wine, so I don't buy beer any more."

"Wine snob?"

"I don't know. She didn't really say anything. That's the thing. I mean, all she did was give me this look when I pulled a beer out of my own fridge, and I knew what she thought."

"Hmm."

"Don't get me wrong," Jim said hastily. "I mean, Karen is great. She's beautiful. Smart, funny, sexy."

The bartender's eyebrow went up again. "Oh, yeah?"

Jim remembered those breathy gasps in the dead of night when they were tangled and sweating and laughing together. "Yeah," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "Great in bed. And...and she loves me."

The bartender narrowed her eyes, drank more water. Said nothing, listening.

"I mean, I believe her when she says it. And...and it's really great that she does." Because he loved being loved, craved it, felt like a man dying of thirst who'd just been handed champagne. "She's really great."

Thumps and zings from the stage; Jim glanced in the mirror and saw that the band had arrived. A roly-poly drummer sat behind the drum kit, testing his cymbals. The skinny bass player was tuning his guitar along with the singer/guitarist, who had his back to the audience.

"So do you love her?" the bartender asked.

Jim took a long sip of beer. "I don't know."

"That's a pretty important question, given what she's told you."

"Yeah."

"Another beer? That one's low."

"Yeah."

The bartender moved away, came back with another glass. Jim put a twenty on the bar and she took it. "Keep a tab?"

Jim nodded. The door swung open, brought with it a blast of cold air and a quartet of laughing men and women. The bartender went to serve them, came back, placed a bowl of unshelled roasted peanuts in front of him. Nervously, Jim picked one up and started to shell it.

"So who's the other one?" the bartender asked. She took another pull at her mineral water.

Jim winced. "Wow. Did not know I was so obvious."

"Hey, I got boys of my own, same age as you or a little younger. I know that look. This Karen isn't the only one, is she?"

Jim shook his head. "No. Well, there's ... it's complicated."

The bartender nodded. "Of course it is. That's why you're here, and not with Karen. Excuse me a minute." She moved off down the bar to serve another couple who had just arrived.

Jim stared in the mirror. So why am I not happy with her? Why can't I get past Pam and settle into this bright future with this fantastic woman?

The reasons crowded in on him: Because she nags him to cut his hair; he's fine with it the way it was. Because she got him to change his favorite drink, got him to stop eating grilled cheese sandwiches because they were bad for him. Because she got him to spend more money on clothes than he's comfortable with. He bought a new car, even though he was happy with the old one.

And now she's making remarks about his music. Today in the break room at lunch, she'd pulled his iPod out of his hands. "Don't you ever listen to anything but this indie crap?" she laughed. He did like different kinds of music. He just didn't like the stuff she listens to. Which is why he was here, at the blues bar he used to frequent back when he and Mark were both single, and he'd never met Pam Beesly.

Pam. Shit. The thought of her made him turned on and sick at his stomach at the same time. God, would he never be rid of this? It was like a disease that hung on and on and on, that no medicine could cure. He felt infected with Pam. For life.

The bartender was back, towel on her shoulder. She leaned over the bar and stuck out her hand. "Bennie."

"Jim Halpert." He shook her hand. "Bennie?"

"Short for Benicia. So. What's her name?"

"You're not gonna let me off the hook, are you?" Jim smiled and sipped more beer.

"Nope. I hear all the stories. I want to know if you've got a good twist on this one."

Jim shrugged. So tired of telling this story. Of living it. "Nothing special. I fell in love with this girl at work. Her name is Pam. She was engaged to another guy. I ... I sort of told her how I felt, and she turned me down. I moved away, she broke off with him, and I met Karen. Got transferred back here and Karen came with me. That's it."

"The hell it is," Bennie said. "She was engaged, and broke it off?"

"Yeah." He looked down into the peanut bowl. It still hurt to remember that night. Are you really going to marry him? And her silent nod.

"Because you told her?"

Jim looked up. "What? No, no way. I mean, she never called me, never got in touch. So. Here I am. Moving on." He drank the last of his beer. He wasn't sure why he was opening up to this stranger, but it felt okay. It was dark in here, and he didn't know anyone, and they didn't know him. Tomorrow he'd forget all about this murky blues bar. And this conversation.

A fuzzy bass line hummed through the room with a strong guitar strumming over it, and a smoky voice sang:

She's the one who told me
Everyone must choose
Between the light and darkness
Everyone must choose
No one can refuse
No one can refuse..

Good blues, he thought. Everyone must choose. Damn right. And he'd chosen Karen.

"Why can't I be happy with her?" he muttered to himself.

Bennie nodded. "Because she wasn't the one you wanted."

"But the one I wanted didn't want me." Okay, he thought. Too much beer. Too much honesty. Because that thought hurt so much. What did Roy have that I didn't?

Why couldn't she love me?

The singer's voice carried over the conversations of the growing crowd.

Don't care if you believe it
One thing is surely true
You're never gonna feel it
Chained to the blues.

"So this Karen chick, you're just what, settling?" Bennie leaned on an elbow on the other side of the bar. Her gaze was warm, condoling. "You think that'll make you happy?"

"Isn't that what people do?" Jim burst out. He caught his reflection in the bar mirror: pleading, desperate. He hated that look. He lowered his voice, looked at his hands. "I mean, you have to grow up sometime, right? This is the real world. There's no happily-ever-after, right? Here's this bright, smart, fantastic woman who loves me, who's good in bed, who isn't really all that demanding. She loves me. I should be happy, right? I mean, lots of guys never get it so good."

Bennie shrugged. "Who are you trying to convince with this, Jim? Me or you?"

Jim slumped and put his head in his hands. She was right. It was there every second, bubbling under the surface. If he let his guard down ever so briefly, Pam seeped through his defenses and he would find himself staring at her curls, or thinking about the way her eyes sparkle when she laughs...

He felt his stomach do a slow roll. Stop it, he thought. Stop, stop, stop.

The song ended and there was scattered applause around the room. Bennie tapped the bar in front of him and moved away to serve a customer. Jim shredded another peanut hull.

He heard laughter and looked to his left. A woman, her head thrown back, neck bared, laughed a throaty, sexy laugh. The guy with her grinned like he'd just scored a perfect goal. Which he totally had, Jim thought. Making a woman laugh is almost as good as making a woman moan. And while he could make Karen moan, he couldn't remember the last time he made Pam laugh. And that really, really hurt.

Bennie was back, eyeing his glass. "Jim, I'll be happy to get you another beer, but don't you think you'd better have something in your stomach? We've got a corned beef sandwich on special today."

Jim nodded. "Thanks. Sounds good. Got any fries?"

"Yeah. Ten minutes."

"Beer me when it comes?"

"Done." Bennie moved away and Jim sat thinking about Karen and Pam. His head felt light. The music swam through it, a different song now.

I must be out of what's left of my mind
She's gone, I can't even cry
I'm raving at ravens, it's come down to this
I'm out of what's left of my mind.

Out of his mind. Damn right. She's gone, I can't even cry. He had cried, once, that night when he told Pam. Never since. He wouldn't let himself. He'd resolved to by God move on, and move on he had. Trouble was, he really didn't have any direction to move in. And now he was adrift, being steered into some future not of his choosing by the only woman who loved him. He wondered if it was enough to choose a life with a woman who loved him, even if he didn't really love her.

What a mess.

Bennie came back and put a plate in front of him: corned beef on rye, a pickle, cole slaw and a side of fries. He realized that he was, in fact, very hungry, and grinned at Bennie as he picked up the sandwich. "Thanks."

She smiled back. "You're welcome, Jim. I'll get that beer."

The drummer hit the snare and the singer struck a new chord on the guitar (which Jim thought had a really nice, mellow sound to it, a well-loved instrument) and a new song, slow and soulful, poured through the crowd.

Well I'm tied to the blues if I let you
Take me right out of my spot
And you laugh whenever I tell you girl
I love you in spite of myself
I love you in spite of myself

Yeah. In spite of himself. He thought about Karen, about Pam. His stupid life. Why the hell didn't he just move on to another job, a job where he didn't see Pam every day? A better company, a better future. Move in with Karen, marry, have babies. Settle down. She'd be a pretty good wife, he thought. She'd work, and be a sensible soccer mom, and organize the house like nobody's business. She'd support him in his career, and he'd support her in hers, and they'd be partners. Lots of guys would settle for a life like that.

Settle, my ass. Something in him boiled over. Right life, wrong woman. It's just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He felt himself frowning as he finished the sandwich.

Bennie came back to take his empty plate. Jim hung onto the saucer of fries. "How was it?"

"Great," Jim said. He ate one of the fries. "Thanks for the suggestion."

"So what did you decide?"

Jim raised an eyebrow. "You're persistent."

"I'm curious. I love soap operas. I want to know how this one turns out."

Jim laughed. "I don't know. What do you think I should do?"

Bennie looked thoughtful, then pensive. "You know what? I don't usually give advice. I just listen. But you know? There was a time when I ... well, there was this guy." She looked away, and there was a sad look in her eyes. She looked back at Jim, gazing straight into his eyes. "Ask yourself one question, Jim. At the end of your life, what will you regret the most?"

Jim blinked. "Wow. That's ... intense."

"Maybe," Bennie said, shrugging. "But then, it's only the rest of your life, fellah."

"She turned me down." He clenched his fist. "I told her I loved her and she ..." He couldn't finish. It hurt too much. Still.

"Why did you tell her in the first place?" Bennie asked. "I mean, was that totally out of the blue, or did you think there was something there?"

Jim remembered Pam's"Me, too." And her hands in his hair and the way she swayed against him, just for a moment. He hadn't imagined that. No way he'd imagined that. There had been something there.

Bennie smiled. "Don't answer. I can see it in your face."

The singer came to the end of his song:

I love you in spite of myself
I love you in spite of myself

What would he regret most? He didn't even have to think about the answer to that.

Jim pushed his empty beer glass back across the bar. "I think I'm going home. What do I owe you?"

"Another ten."

Jim fished out a twenty, waved away his change. "Tip jar for the band?"

"Front of the stage."

"Thanks. I really appreciate ... everything."

Bennie nodded. "Don't mention it. Drive safe. And good luck."

The crowd had grown while he'd been sitting at the bar. Jim squeezed through the dancers and found himself right up against the stage. It was about waist high, so he was looking up at the singer...

...Who finished the chorus, fingered something intricate on the frets of his guitar, glanced down, and winked at Jim.

"I'll be damned," Jim said, laughing. He pulled out his wallet and pulled out his last twenty. He found the tip jar near the singer's feet and stuffed the money in it.

The singer leaned down. "Thanks, Jim!" Never missing a beat.

"You're welcome, Creed," Jim said. "See you tomorrow."

"Later, man." Creed turned back to his guitar, nodding his head in time to the music. His fingers danced along the neck of the guitar, spilling blue notes into the crowd. Blissfully in the moment, lost in his music, happy.

Jim pushed through the door into the cold air of the parking lot. He checked his cell phone: there were eight messages from Karen.

And one from Pam.

"No regrets," he muttered, and punched "Call".