“The Office” Fan Fiction

Jump the Hedges First – Chapter 2

[Author’s Note: I thought the following songs would make a great soundtrack to this chapter. It’ll enhance the reading experience.]

Plain White T’s – Hate (I Really Don’t Like You) [all scenes with Karen]

Modest Mouse – Talkin’ Shit About a Pretty Sunset [Jim misses Pam in Ohio]

The Arcade Fire – Lies [Karen betrays Pam]

Red House Painters – Songs for a Blue Guitar [Jim & Pam together]

On Friday morning, Dwight was hard at work creating a miniature replica of his cubicle for Bobblehead Dwight. Deep in concentration, his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth. From across the room, Angela watches him from behind some accounting paperwork. He was in the middle of gluing toothpicks into a mini chair when Michael and Karen exited Michael’s office.

“So,” says Michael, now looking a bit uncomfortable, “Meet your new manager. I think you all know her well. Especially Jim. Karen Fillipelli!”

Dwight’s head snapped up, eyes glistening with surprise. A second later, he was on his feet, palms plastered to his desk.

“Michael, you’re just going to sit idly by and let this charlatan take control of us all?”

Michael looked as if he’d just eaten something rotten. “As I discussed, Dwight, corporate felt that Karen wouldn’t make the same mistakes that Jan and I have … letting our personal lives interfere with our jobs.”

The camera zooms in on Jim, who’s still pretending to be on the phone. He raises an eyebrow, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Yes … thirty orders of the 56 pound recycled paper … I’ve got you down for that. Oh, and what else?”

“She’s going to meet with each of you individually to discuss your progress,” adds Michael. Karen, who has her arms folded across the chest of her gray suit jacket, turns her head and glares at Michael. “Oh, and she has some new initiatives for the whole office that she’d like to discuss with you.”

“Actually, Michael, I’d prefer to meet with everyone one-on-one in my office.”

Michael looks at her, mouthing What office?

Karen motions towards his office. “We discussed this, Michael. You’re going to be sitting out here now, and I’m going to work in your office.”

Michael pauses for a moment, then utters an awkward laugh. “I, uh, thought you were joking about that.”

Andy raises his hand, and Karen acknowledges him impatiently. “Can Michael sit over here with me?”

Michael rolls his eyes. “Well, I—“

“I think that would be a really good idea,” interrupts Karen. “Michael, why don’t you get started in the spare workstation next to Andy, and I’ll get moved in.” Her icy stare focuses on Pam, who’s also still pretending to be on the phone. “Pam, can you stop by when you have a second?”

Pam swallows and hangs up the phone. “Uh, sure, Karen.”

She can feel Jim’s eyes on her back as she slowly makes her way across the room and into Michael’s office. Despite all of Michael’s ridiculousness, his dancing, his inappropriateness, his “PAMPAMPAM!” over the past five years, she can’t imagine the office belonging to anyone else.

She feels her palms begin to sweat as she hesitates outside the door. She peeks her head inside and sees Karen sitting behind the desk, the chair swirled around to face a brand new Ikea bookshelf that the new manager is busily stocking with books. For the first time, Pam realizes that Karen isn’t the liaison between the office and Michael – Michael’s been demoted.

A small sound escapes Pam’s mouth, and Karen turns to face her. “Come in, Pam.” Pam can’t read her tone. Numbly, she folds herself into a chair and tries her best to look at Jim’s barely-ex-girlfriend on the other side of the desk. Clad in a perfectly tailored suit, shiny new shoes and a fashionable, slicked back ponytail, Karen looks the picture of professional intimidation. I’m a complete slob next to her, thinks Pam, feeling very small in her pink cardigan and striped button-down.

Karen’s staring her down. Pam thinks back to her years at McKinley High, back before Roy, when the rich girls used to do that to her as she entered the cafeteria. They wouldn’t say anything; they just enjoyed watching her squirm as she looked for a place to sit. Her hands would start to shake, sometimes so badly that the jello on her lunch tray would wobble like something out of Jurassic Park. She’d clench onto that tray as if her life depended on it, promising herself that she’d never drop it; she’d never let it fall.

And so she continued to stare right back into Karen’s eyes. For a moment; then she looks down. In her lap, her hands wrestle with each other like clammy white snakes.

“You have a lot of books.”

Karen blinks. “Yeah, I guess I do. I don’t really read them,” she adds with a soft snort. “I mean, they’re all business books. They look good on the shelf, don’t you think?”

“Sure.”

There’s a long pause. Finally, Pam speaks. “Look, Karen, I’m really sorry –“

Karen holds up a manicured hand to stop her. “No need, Pam. Let’s keep this professional, okay?”

Pam nods. “Okay.”

“So Cassandra – the new intern – is starting tomorrow.”

Pam relaxes; Karen’s going to ask her to train the girl, that’s all. “Oh, okay.”

“Now, originally, one of the things we were going to ask her to do was to design a new Dunder Mifflin website.” Karen turns her computer monitor towards Pam, and a white screen with “Dunder Mifflin Paper Co.” in black appears. “This is the current website.”

“Oh.”

“It’s awful, right?” Karen smiles. “So corporate made it an initiative for us to design a new, more visually appealing site.” She pauses, folds her hands on the desk. “Pam, I don’t think Michael was really utilizing your talents. Clearly you have an interest in art. I was thinking maybe, if you didn’t feel like you already had too much on your plate, if you would mind working on it.”

Pam is speechless. I can’t believe this, she thinks. By all rights, she should hate me! She does hate me! Yet for some reason she’s giving me this big project… unbelievable.

“Um… me? Really? I mean, I could draw something … but I don’t know much about websites,” she says.

“That’s okay. If you have questions about the program, you can ask Cassandra. I’m sure she’ll be happy to help you. I mean, we can’t pay you extra for the project, but it would still be good experience. So, what do you think?”

“I think… I think I could definitely do that.”

“Great.” Pam is halfway out of the room before Karen smiles, but the smile doesn’t touch her eyes.

Pam bounds out of the office and back to her seat. What she really wants to do is throw her arms around Jim and tell him all about the new project, but she quickly realizes that she can’t do that. She watches nervously as Karen comes out of her office and talks to Jim in a low voice. He nods. She strains her ears, but can’t hear their conversation. After a moment, Karen returns to her office, leaving the door open.

The camera follows Karen inside the office, where she reaches across her desk and picks up Michael’s “World’s Best Boss” coffee mug. She looks at it for a moment, then drops it into the trash can.

Pam casts her eyes down, wondering what was going on. Did she want him back? What if he wanted her back, too?

“Pam.” She looks up, and it’s Jim standing on the other side of her desk, nervously zipping and unzipping his hoodie.

Before she responds, she glances around the room to check that Karen wasn’t watching them. Looks safe. “Hi, Jim.”

“I, uh, can’t hang out after work today,” he says, reaching into the candy dish on her desk.

“Oh. Why?”

Jim sighs, suddenly looking upset. “Karen’s, well, she’s sending me on a sales call in Philadelphia.”

“On a weekend?” she whispers, raising an eyebrow. “And isn’t Philadelphia Dwight’s territory?”

Jim shrugs, a shrug which says: She’s not exactly my greatest fan right now.

“Is she doing this on purpose?” Pam asks, whispering even more quietly now.

“Probably,” Jim says with a sigh. “I was really looking forward to hanging out with you this weekend.”

Unable to stop herself, Pam smiles and blushes at the same time. “Well … when do you get back?”

“Probably Sunday night, I guess.”

Pam’s smile hasn’t faded. “Well, don’t make any plans for Sunday night. Why don’t you come to my apartment when you get back. I’ll make dinner.”

Jim grins in his bashful way. “That sounds really great, Pam.” He leans a bit closer, and Pam can smell his shampoo. “I really want to kiss you right now, but that would probably be super-inappropriate, right?”

At that moment, Dwight starts howling in pain. “Okay, I should go,” Jim says, lifting his messenger bag over his head and raising a hand in goodbye to Pam.

“Bye Jim … good luck.” Pam’strying to make her voice sound as normal as possible, trying to keep all her feelings from showing. She’s good at that.

She looks over to see what’s happened with Dwight and has to stifle a laugh. Apparently when Michael made his announcement and Dwight jumped up, he knocked over the container of glue he was using on his toothpick chair, and now his hands were glued to his desk.

Michael is clearly done setting up his workspace and pokes his head into Karen’s office. “Hey, Karen, have you seen my coffee mug? I need that.”

“No, I haven’t – sorry, Michael,” Karen says without looking up from her BlackBerry.

Shoulders slumped, Michael returns to his new seat and starts playing solitaire – the first game, he assumes, of many.

* * *

Jim gets a phone call on Sunday afternoon from Karen that she needs him to make a few more sales visits. He balks, but doesn’t want to start in on anything personal, so he agrees to continue onto Cincinnati and Canton, Ohio, with the promise that he’ll be back on Thursday. He called Pam to raincheck their dinner date.

You’re going to be traveling a lot more, Karen had said.

As Assistant Regional Manager, it’s your responsibility to support all the company’s clients. And when you got the job in Stamford, you’d said you wanted to travel. Didn’t want to stay in the same place for too long.

He hates Philadelphia. The streets are like sewers and people are unfriendly and he can constantly hear police sirens screaming from nearby Camden. The motel is near the Philly airport, and as he sits at the cheap wooden table on Tuesday night, swiping away the thin gauze of curtain, he watches the planes land … take off. Land … take off, against a rapidly darkening pink sky.

There’s a half-empty glass of beer in his left hand, and as he puts it back down on the table, he stares into it, realizing the irony in the half-drunk glass. It’s how his life is at the moment. Life is half-full, because Pam was now in it in a way he never could have dreamed of. And half-empty because Karen now controlled his career, and possibly worse, controlled how frequently he’d be away from Scranton, away from Pam.

He glances at his cell phone, just out of reach across the table. He thinks about calling Karen and just quitting on the spot. Sure, he’d have to find another job pretty quickly if he intended to pay rent, and it might be harder to get a job with a gap in employment, but did he really even care about his career?

He picks up the phone and dials. Rings once. Twice.

“Hey.”

“Hey Pam.” He feels very sad, very distant. Now he knows what she meant, all that time ago, when she’d said that they felt very far apart. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” she says. “Today was a pretty good day. I sketched out this whole … idea for the new website. Cassandra’s teaching me how to actually put it together. You use this program called Dreamweaver. I now know how to update a website.”

“That’s good if you ever decide to work on your homemade porn website. Seriously, that’s awesome, though. You sound really excited about it.” His voice sounds hollow, though he isn’t sure why.

“Thanks, I am. I like it. I have a lot to learn, though.”

You and me both, Jim thinks. Suddenly he feels incredibly angry at himself. What has he been doing the past five years, just floating along at the same company, happy with practical joke playing and Pam’s friendship and nothing more than a steady income? When he’d joined Dunder Mifflin, fresh out of Scranton U, he’d had no clue what he wanted to do with his life. But he’d thought at the time that while he worked and earned some money, he’d figure it all out. Fast-forward four years later and he still hadn’t the slightest clue.

“Jim? Are you there?”

He laughs nervously. “Sorry, Pam. Still here.”

“I miss you,” she says. “It’s not the same in the office without you.”

“I miss you, too.” He pauses. “So has Karen been nice to you? She hasn’t said anything nasty to you, right?”

“No, she hasn’t. Which is kinda weird, considering. Maybe she’s just … okay with everything.” She doesn’t say anything for a minute, and he knows she’s deciding whether or not to ask anything about that fateful day in New York. Whether or not Jim had told Karen exactly why he needed to race back to Scranton at 80 miles an hour.

But she decides against bringing it up, because Jim’s been very quiet about what happened that day. She knows about him seeing the yogurt lid metal, and about how he nearly crashed trying to avoid hitting a woodchuck in New Jersey, but not much else.

There’s some static, now. Pam’s saying something, but Jim can’t hear her.

“Pam? You there? You’re breaking up. Don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ll be back in a few days, okay? And I’m coming straight to you.” Nothing but silence; he’s lost her. With a burst of frustration, Jim throws his cell phone across the room, where it hits the peeling yellow wallpaper and rolls behind the bed.

* * *

On Wednesday, Michael dumps a massive pile of papers on Pam’s desk and asks that she make three copies of everything. Briefly, she debates whether or not to ask Cassandra to do it, then remembers how much she hated when people did that to her at some of her other jobs, so she does it herself.

She works on the project for most of the morning, and doesn’t have time to do anything with the website. She eats lunch with Cassandra in the break room, smooshed tuna sandwiches washed down with orange Slice. Cassandra reminds her of a blonde Molly Ringwald; she’s got an asymmetrical haircut, funky, dangly earrings, a long summer dress and tan cowgirl boots.

“I really admire your style,” Pam says, feeling awfully plain in her gray pants and button-down. “I always wanted to dress like that.”

“You can!” Cassandra replies, raising a pierced eyebrow. “I can help you, if you want. We could totally go shopping during lunch tomorrow. There’s a great secondhand store on Cumberland Pike, everything’s really cheap.”

Pam smiles. “Oh, I don’t know if I could carry that off. But I’ll think about it. Thanks.” Wax paper crinkles as she unwraps the other half of her sandwich.

Suddenly looking secretive, Cassandra leans forward. “So like, what’s up with that Creed guy? He said he used to be in a band or something.”

Pam nearly chokes. “Um, yeah, I think so. Why?”

Cassandra shrugs, blushing a bit. “I dunno… he’s old and everything, but he’s kinda hot.”

Pam glances at her watch and quickly throws the rest of her lunch in the trash. “I’ve gotta go. Karen wanted to see me at two.”

* * *

“Hi, Pam. Thanks for stopping by. I was just wondering how the website project was coming.”

“Well, it’s coming along … I didn’t have much time to work on it today – I had a project for Michael – but that should be done soon.”

Karen nods. “Do you feel like you might not have enough time to finish the site before end of day tomorrow?”

Pam raises an eyebrow. “Oh, by tomorrow? I don’t think I could have it done by then, Karen, I’m sorry. End of the month reports are due, and I have to make sure Michael does that, and – I didn’t realize you needed it done so soon.”

“It’s okay, Pam. I was asking you to do something extra – we have people we can pay to design our site. And you’re here primarily for administrative support, so don’t worry about it. I’ll have our offsite web manager, Beverly, finish it up and launch it tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?” Pam asks, feeling sorry about losing the project. “I mean, I could definitely finish it if I had another week…”

“Well,” Karen says, typing away on her BlackBerry, “Ryan and a few other bigwigs from corporate are coming down tomorrow to make sure everything is in place with my new position, and they also want to see the new website. They want it launched by tomorrow. Very important.”

“Gotcha,” Pam says, nodding. “Okay.”

“Thanks for putting so much time into the project, Pam. I really appreciate it.”

* * *

Wednesday, Ryan and his cohorts come into the office like they own the place, and Pam doesn’t even recognize the former intern. Sporting a spotless black Armani suit, he looks as though he’d been preparing for the corporate role for his entire life. He doesn’t say hi to anyone, just walks right through, giving Dwight a dirty look, and disappears into the conference room with Karen for most of the morning.

Before Karen heads in, she asks Pam to make them coffee. Pam ignores the impulse to add salt instead of sugar. Be the bigger person.

Michael comes by her desk around 11:30, wearing a wrinkled suit (the pants are about two inches too short) and looking disconsolate.

“Michael,” Pam whispers, “you’ve got to get your job back.”

He sighs. “I don’t know if I can. Jan’s wearing me out with so much sex every night, I’m just too exhausted.”

Pam recoils, wrinkling her nose.

“But Pam, check this out. Now that I’m not a manager anymore, I can put people’s staplers in jello. And I don’t have to wear suits anymore.”

“Michael, you are wearing a suit.”

“Well I know that Pam, but I don’t have to. And guess what – I did a Jim Halpert.”

“What?”

“I played an awesome practical joke on Toby.”

Pam can’t help but crack a smile at the mention of Jim’s name. “What’d you do?”

“I left him a voicemail pretending to be his ex-wife wanting to get back together.”

Pam doesn’t even have time to respond, because her line’s ringing – from inside the office.

“Dunder-Mifflin, this is-“

“Hi Pam. It’s Ryan. We were discussing the new website, and … maybe Karen should talk to you.”

Pam gulps, suddenly worried. All these guys from corporate, what did they want with her?

“Hi Pam. Could you send us the link to the new website? I wanted to show everyone all the progress you’ve made.”

“Well, I… there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Pam says uneasily.

“I thought the site was ready to be launched,” Karen says, her voice instantly turning cold. “I thought you’d taken care of this, Pam.”

Pam is utterly speechless; she’d said no such thing. “I…. I’m sorry. I can send you the link, but I thought—“

Click. They’d hung up. Shaken, Pam places the phone back in the receiver and stares at it for a long moment. Karen had told her that the site was no longer her responsibility, and now she was making it look like – ah, it all makes sense now, Pam realizes. Karen had never been looking out for her best interests, to indulge her interest in art. She wanted to ruin her.

* * *

You absolutely can’t quit, Jim’s dad had said. You’ll never get another job. And besides, all this traveling is going to look excellent. Even if you don’t stay with the company, any sales position is going to require extensive travel. Maybe you’ll even end up working for one of the clients you’re visiting.

Dad, he’d wanted to say, I don’t think I’m cut out for sales. I don’t even know if I’m cut out for the whole “corporate life.”

But he wouldn’t listen to that. Any son of the great salesman Bob Halpert was going to follow in his footsteps, if he didn’t want to be a disappointment.

The last sales meeting was held at the Embassy Suites in Canton over newspapers filled with unimportant local news, oily croissants and equally oily coffee. When it ended around 10, Jim hopped back in the car, eager to get home. He missed the peace and quiet of home, of not having to be “on” all the time. He missed his bed, and he missed Pam in it – how her hair curled ever so slightly as it met the curve of her neck, her slightly bony ankles clanking against his.

That was it. Despite what his dad said, he was going to march right in to Ms. Fillipelli’s office and give his two weeks. It would be fine. Pam could stay there, under the radar, until she found a better job, maybe something in art. They could move in together. Okay, so maybe it was fast, but if the decision was between moving the relationship too fast or ending up homeless, well …

Trees, houses, half-deserted strip malls blurred as Jim drives, faster and faster, back towards Scranton. Balancing a blue raspberry slushee in one hand and his cell phone in the other, he texts “see you soon” to Pam. He has a long six hours ahead of him.

* * *

He’s never seen her with her hair down before – never this way, anyway. She’s sitting out on the front steps of her apartment building, wearing an old concert t-shirt and terry cloth shorts. Her cheeks and forehead are free of makeup, and her face shines in the light cast from the streetlamp on the corner. Occasionally, she swats a mosquito.

She’s got a sketchbook resting across her knees, and as Jim pulls into the parking lot she stops drawing and stands up. The book slides onto the ground, and she nearly trips over it as she walks over to his car. She’s almost there before the engine’s even off.

He rolls the window down with a patented Jim Halpert smile and she leans down to kiss him, but she can’t maneuver herself through the window, and neither of them can reach the other.

“Can I just …unbuckle my seatbelt first?” Jim says, and they both laugh. She waits as he gets one of his suitcases out of the trunk, and he watches as she tries to take the other, heavier one. “Here, I’ve got that one, thanks. I hope you don’t mind if I do my laundry here.” She raises an eyebrow. “Just kidding. We’re not going to be at that stage in a long time. You won’t be folding my underwear for at least two weeks.”

She smiles. “Hah.”

They walk inside, to the smell of garlic. “I made spaghetti,” she says. “Hope that’s okay.”

Jim drops his messenger bag by the door and pulls her close to him. “Pam, I’ve been eating motel food for the past week. Anything is fine, and anything you made is even better.”

She has to stand on her tiptoes and pull herself up with his suit lapels to kiss him. Amazingly, his hair’s grown in the past week, and she somehow finds her hands tangled in it. Suddenly she feels a tension in the room – not an unpleasant one, but one that scares her, just the same. Roy is the only guy she’s ever been with, and suddenly it becomes apparent that being with Jim is going to be different – and that makes her nervous.

“You’re still wearing your suit,” Pam manages, out of breath, her heart pounding.

“I raced home,” he says, looking at her. “I didn’t have time to change.”

She nods. “Maybe you should change for dinner.”

He smiles. “Maybe you should help me. If you want to,” he says, growing serious. “No peer pressure, Pam, honest. If it’s too fast –”

She doesn’t say a word, just leads him by the hand into her bedroom. It most certainly has not been too fast.

By the time they return to the kitchen, the spaghetti sauce is cold. Jim microwaves it (“microSAVES it,” he says), insisting that Pam relax while he cooks, and the two of them eat dinner on the couch in sweats, with Pam’s feet in Jim’s lap, and they watch some silly British comedy. Neither of them talk, or pay much attention to the TV; they’re both replaying the sex back in their heads. Jim thinks it had been alright, but they were both unbearably nervous; both of them still had their tops on, and Pam had flicked the lights off and pulled the covers so tightly around her that he didn't get to see her. 

Jim makes a mental note that the next time they go out, they should actually go out. Like, to a nice restaurant, or maybe dinner on one of those lake cruises Michael took them on a few years ago.

It's hot in the room, and the slow, lazy turns of the overhead fan just aren't doing it. An idea strikes Jim, and he gets up, goes to the kitchen, and returns, a devilish look on his face. 

"What are you doing?" Pam asks, sitting up halfway. She feels a embarrassed and stupid. While the sex hadn't felt bad, she'd felt very bashful, and she was sure he knew it.  

"I'm cooling you off," he says, sitting down on the edge of the couch. She realizes he has a handful of ice cubes, and she smiles dubiously.

"You're kidding, right?"

Jim doesn't respond, just leans over her and touches the ice to her shoulder blade. She shivers and laughs nervously.

"Too cold?"

She shakes her head, and he runs the ice down inside the crook of her arm, then down her leg and behind her knee. Her eyes flash in the dim lamplight, but he thinks she likes it, the warm touch of his hand behind the cold ice.

The ice finally dissolves on the back of her neck, and then it's just his hand there.

"Thanks," she says with a smile, and he just sits on the edge of the couch, watching her watching the TV.  

“I meant to ask you how your day was. Besides, you know, the amazing evening you had between when I got here and when we ate dinner.”

Pam smiles. “It was definitely the highlight of my day.”

Jim inwardly beams. “Oh yeah?” He lifts their plates from the coffee table and walks over to put them in the sink. “So is it okay if I stay here tonight? And I’ll just drive us to work in the morning?”

Pam presses her lips together. “Um… I won’t need a ride in the morning. I was fired.”

* * *