October 18, 2006

It was far too late in the night for her to still be awake. She thought of all the times while living in Scranton that she had wished for moments like this. She had always yearned to go to art school; she wanted to be given assignments where she was supposed to create something magnificent. She usually hadn’t been one to enjoy being judged when it came to her artwork, but she loved getting high grades for pieces of art that she put thought and time into.

She would be graduating in the spring. Since she had already gone through two years of college, she had all of the general education requirements out of the way and she had been able to focus solely on her art classes. She took the ones that she didn’t want to take first – that was last year. Now this year, she was in special technique classes, classes where she could more or less work with any medium that she wanted, as long as the final product fit the assignment at hand. Her favorite and most difficult class of the semester was her “Portraiture” class – the class where she learned how to draw lifelike human faces. She had drawn people in the past – children playing in the park, couples sitting on park benches, and other things of that nature, but the people she drew or painted never really came out looking like realistic human beings. They had the basic human body shape, but as far as being realistic and lifelike, she had always fallen short.

Throughout the semester, she was to draw faces of people. It could be any person. People on the subway, people in the park, friends, family, recreating photos of celebrities was even fair game. Every couple of weeks, she turned in a new charcoal sketch of a different person. This evening, she was working on a portrait of Dwight. He hadn’t been her first choice – her first choice had been Jim, but she had decided at the last minute that she would save him for her final exam.

Dwight was a good subject, she saw him a lot because she spent a lot of her time working at the restaurant. He was also a good candidate because his face had so many different facets. She also learned shortly after starting the project that he could sit with a straight face for a long time. He didn’t speak to her very much while she drew. Most of the time, she would lump all of her break time into one sitting and she would sit at the bar and sketch his features while he polished glasses.

She had at least ten rough sketches that she had compiled of him over the past couple of weeks. She even had a photo which she realized the more that she looked over her sketches she might not even need. Even so, as she sat at the end of her bed with her easel propped up in front of her; she had drawn nothing more than an oval for his head on the sheet of paper in front of her.

She fumbled around for her cell phone. She hadn’t wanted to disturb Jim this late at night. She knew that he was going through a lot of issues with his ex-wife right now, and she hadn’t spoken to him in a couple of days. She missed hearing his voice though, and she knew from previous late-night assignment issues that he was a great help when it came to getting the creative juices flowing inside of her mind.

She dialed his phone number fluidly; she rarely ever searched through her contacts anymore to find his name. Something about dialing his number was therapeutic.

“Hello?” his groggy voice answered.

“I’m sorry I’m calling so late,” she immediately said in an apologetic voice.

“No, it’s fine,” he said and she could hear him turning in his sheets, “Having homework assignment issues again?”

“You know me too well, Halpert,” she said as she turned her neck to hold the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

“Well, I would have preferred that you called me for some late-night loving, but I guess this is okay too,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, apologetically again, “I should have called you a couple of days ago. I’ve just been swamped with work and school…midterms and all.”

“No, that’s fine, it’s been a crazy week for me too,” he said with a yawn, “work and…well, never mind.” She didn’t want to say ex-wife, but she knew that was exactly what “never mind” meant.

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” she said quietly, not wanting to come off mean-spirited or demanding.

“I know, it’s just…I feel weird about it, and I really don’t want to drag you down into it,” he said.

“I don’t know how you’d be dragging me down into it,” she said with a shrug, “but whatever you want. I’m not going to say anything more on the subject.”

“Okay, sounds good,” he said. “Now what is the problem with your homework?”

“I don’t know, I think I just need to hear something more than my own thoughts or memories of angry customers yelling at me and telling me that they need more sour cream or ranch dressing,” she replied. He chucked at the comment and she could hear him shift a bit from the covers of his bed.

“So what are you drawing?” he asked.

“Dwight.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all, he’s actually a very inspiring subject.”

“Inspiring to what? Vomit?” Pam laughed loudly and picked up the charcoal in her hands, ready to draw.

“No, he’s a really good subject. He sits still and draws up nicely.”

“He does have a lot of interesting features…”

“That he does.”

“You realize your professor is going to scream in horror when she gets to your picture.” Pam laughed loudly again, imagining the scene play out in her mind.

“Let’s hope not.” She started to scribble out a couple of features – mimicking the same techniques that she had used for the rough sketches.

“So what seems to be your problem with this picture?”

“I don’t really even know to be honest,” she said as she looked down at some of the previous sketches she had drawn, “I mean, I have all of these drawings that I’ve already done of him. Good ones too, and I just can’t seem to actually pull myself into drawing the final product here.”

“Is it because he’s not sitting in front of you droning on about his family’s beet farm?”

“Oh my god, he’s told you those stories too?”

“Are you kidding me, Pam? He tells everyone that will listen for five seconds those stories.”

“Oh man, what about the one where he talked about his brother losing a toe to frostbite while tending the fields as a kid?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think that one is quite as good as the story of him fighting off a bear as a teenager because he was afraid of the bear ruining the beet crops for the season.” Pam giggled as she started to feel more and more inspired to draw Dwight’s portrait.

“Do bears even like beets?”

“I don’t think so…then again, one time while I was camping with my family as a kid, there was a bear that got into our garbage and probably ate about half of it. So I guess I wouldn’t put it past them.” Pam laughed softly as her charcoal scratched out some rough features of Dwight’s face. “How often does he tell you stories?”

“Depends,” she said with a shrug, “sometimes I hear a new story every day. Other times…not so much. In the past, I’ve gone about a month without saying much to him.”

“A whole month! Not even I can go a whole month.”

“You were in China for a month.”

“And you know what? That Dwight, he called me every single day.” Pam giggled, cradling both her phone and her stick of charcoal in her hand while she reached down next to the side of her bed for a glass of water she had placed their earlier.

“I would have never guessed you two had such a close relationship.”

“Well guess what? We do. We’re madly in love. I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner.” She giggled even more and turned her attention back to her picture again.

“I really, really hope not.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I was lying,” he said, “So tell me, Pam. Do you get to embellish these portraits at all?”

“What do you mean ‘embellish’?”

“You know, add certain attributes to the pictures, give the viewer an idea of what’s going on inside of the person’s soul…”

“You don’t suggest that I draw a bear attacking a beet field as a background, do you?”

“Oh my god, Pam. Oh my god. You read my mind.”

“Are you serious?”

“I was going to say exactly that.”

“No you weren’t.”

“Yes I was.”

“We’re sad,” she said with a small laugh as she set down the stick of charcoal and fell back into the rumpled covers of her bed. “What’s even sadder is that I’m thinking about my boss, while I’m on the phone with you.”

“Well, to be fair, the portrait is of your boss.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So just how far along are you?”

“I have the rough sketches of a face.”

“When is it due?”

“Friday.”

“Are you finished with your midterms on Friday?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to go out and celebrate when you get out of class?”

“I wish, but I’m working all weekend long.”

“All weekend?”

“All weekend. I’ve been working short shifts this week so I can get everything done on time. I promised Dwight that I would work some extra time this weekend because of it.”

“Damn.”

“Sorry.”

“No, that’s okay,” she heard a reserved sigh on the other end of the phone. “I just…I kind of miss you. I haven’t seen you since last Friday.”

“I’m sorry, I know.”

“So when do I get to see you again?”

“I don’t know…why don’t we make plans for next weekend? I’ll try and get the evenings off so I can get together with you.”

“A whole other week?”

“I’m really sorry…but hey, I’ll see you when you come in for your lunch meeting.”

“Okay…but don’t be surprised if I randomly show up outside of your apartment some random day during the week. Then you’ll have to let me in.”

“I suppose if I have to, I have to.” She picked up the piece of charcoal again and started to sketch the portrait of Dwight some more.

“But listen, I really should go to sleep. I have an early meeting tomorrow morning with some people from Volkswagen.”

“Volkswagen, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Well, do well in your meeting. Thanks for inspiring me a little bit.”

“Thank you and it was my pleasure.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later.”

She flipped her phone shut and slouched over the end of her bed, staring at the crude sketch of Dwight staring back at her.

“Let’s get you finished,” she mumbled as she picked up the charcoal in her hands and continued to draw.