June 14, 2007

They had arrived back in New York City around six o’clock the previous evening. Pam had no desire for food; she had no desire for anything but to sleep. The entire flight back she had been wide awake, now it was – as far as she was concerned – midnight. She and Jim took a taxi back to her apartment, where she let herself out, grabbed her luggage and went to her apartment alone. She and Jim had decided to sleep alone in their respective apartments that night. After a week and half, they both thought it might be nice to sleep in their own beds alone for the night.

Jim tossed and turned in his bed that night. Usually he didn’t suffer from jet lag on the return – he wasn’t really certain if this could even be considered jet lag. The diamond ring sat next to his bed on the nightstand. Every hour he would wake up with a start, grope around the empty space next to him where Pam should be, then he would look at the ring, every once in a while a ray of light from the street or the moon would bounce off of the silvery gold or sparkling rock. He had to ask her soon. He would drive himself crazy if he didn’t.

Pam had a hard time sleeping that night too. Maybe it was the different noise the ambulances and police cars made as they drove past her building, maybe it was the different feeling that hovered in the air, but deep down inside, she knew it was Jim. He wasn’t there with her, his protective arm wrapped around her waist and his warm breath softly pulsating against the back of her neck. At four in the morning she woke up for good, the streets were still dark and the city was quiet. She rifled through the things that she still hadn’t unpacked and pulled out her sketchbook and started to flip through the pages. Jim had the actual photos, she had the drawings. She pulled out a large sheet of paper that was an image of the atrium of the Louvre. She admired the strokes of charcoal on the page, she had perfectly captured the sun radiating off of the glass of the pyramid and the way the large crowds of people filed around the area in a harmonious balance. She pinned the piece of paper to her art easel. She was wary about going over charcoals with watercolors, but she had done it the other way around before with good results. She mixed together the paints on a piece of cardboard and filled a couple cups with water and sat down to paint over the picture.

**

He sat as his desk at work. He felt horribly sleep deprived and he started to realize that he had been looking at the diamond ring for far too long. There was a soft knock on his door and his eyes immediately shot up, and he quickly closed the ring box.

“How was Paris?” Ryan asked as he walked through the door. “Better than last time, I hope.”

“Much better than last time,” Jim replied with a sleepy smile.

“Oh man, you look tired,” Ryan said, “what time did you get back?”

“We got back at six, I just couldn’t sleep at all last night,” Jim said rubbing his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger.

“Why not?” Ryan joked, “Trying to figure out how you’re going to ask her to marry you?” Jim shot him a glare that seemed to read, how did you know?

“What?”

“I was kidding…” Ryan said slowly. “I…are you thinking about it?” Jim nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Really? Seriously? Jim Halpert is actually thinking about marrying someone again?” Ryan asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Where’s the ring,” Ryan said with a chuckle, “I’ll only believe it if you let me see the ring.” Jim slowly pulled his hand out from under his desk, and his fingers uncurled from the velvet box that lay in his hand. “Holy fuck, you have a ring.”

“I’ve had a ring for a long time,” Jim said with a sigh.

“Can I…?” Ryan asked picking up the box from Jim’s hand.

“Go for it,” Jim replied with a shrug. “I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever even give it to her.” Ryan opened up the box.

“Come on, man,” Ryan said holding up the ring on the top of his thumb. “Seriously? With the income that you make you get her this?”

“What’s wrong with it?” Jim asked incredulously.

“It’s tiny that’s what it is,” Ryan replied.

“So?”

“What is it, like, a quarter carat?” he asked, twisting the band around his finger.

“It’s a carat and a half,” Jim replied with an annoyed look on his face. “Give it back.” He started to lurch over his desk for the ring when Michael walked into the office.

“Ooh? Fight?” Michael asked, immediately pumping his fists up in front of him. “Who’s fighting who? Huh? Oh, I don’t care!” He playfully punched Ryan in the arm just as Ryan handed the ring back to Jim. The ring slipped through Jim’s fingers and fell onto the carpet.

“Thanks,” Jim said annoyed. Michael immediately dove to the carpet to see what was dropped, when his head popped back up above the desk, he had a look of shock on his face.

“Who’s getting married?” he asked.

“No one, yet,” Jim replied quietly, holding out his hand expectantly for the ring.

“Are you?” Michael asked looking at Jim in shock.

“Not yet,” Jim replied grabbing the ring from Michael and placing it into its box.

“You’re getting married to Pam?” he asked with a huge grin on his face.

“How am I supposed to marry Pam when she doesn’t even know about it yet?” he asked as he stuffed the box into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Why didn’t you ask her in Paris?” Ryan asked.

“Because it didn’t…it didn’t feel right,” Jim replied. “Sure, there were plenty of great places and great moments, but they just weren’t…right.” Michael nodded, hanging onto his every word.

“So when are you going to ask her?” Michael asked. Jim shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “If I don’t do it soon though, I think I might go crazy.”

**

Pam picked up her phone as soon as it rang.

“Perfect timing,” she said with a smile as she answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I just finished working,” she said.

“What a coincidence! Me too!”

“Wonderful!”

“So did everyone at work pester you for all of the details from Paris?”

“No, not really, they were pretty cool about it,” she replied. “Though Kelly did ask me if I had seen any famous French celebrities and what I bought from the Champs-Elysée.”

“Oh shoot, we didn’t go there!”

“I think that I’m okay with that,” she said with a grin as she stepped outside into the steamy June air.

“I miss you.”

“You just saw me last night,” she said with a giggle.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too, actually.”

“Hey, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Will you meet me at Strawberry Fields as soon as you can?”

“Uh…sure,” she looked around her, she would need to turn the other direction to get to the subway. “Are you there already?”

“No, I’m just walking out of work, but I should be around that area pretty shortly.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll meet you there. Hopefully the subway isn’t too packed,” she said as she switched directions.

“Okay, great, I’ll see you there in a little while.”

**

She had a flutter in her chest when she saw him sitting on a bench, looking in the other direction. It was like she hadn’t seen him in weeks. He was so handsome, so professional and most of all so…Jim. She walked a little faster – he still hadn’t noticed her, his attention seemed to be aimed towards a father, his small daughter and a dog off in the distance.

“Hey,” she said, stopping just short of his knees. He jumped and his face towards her. “Sorry, the subway was packed.”

“Hi, it’s fine, sit,” he said, moving to the side slightly to make a little more room for her.

“I haven’t been here in a while,” she said as she looked around.

“Yeah, I think the last time that I was here was that day that I asked you do that dinner gala,” he said.

“Wow…that was like, what? A year ago?” she asked, thinking back to the sunny spring day that the two of them had sat on this very park bench.

“Something like that, yeah,” he replied with a slow nod as he looked around some more. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but he seemed more nervous than usual, more on edge about something. She secretly hoped that he hadn’t suddenly heard from Karen again – but she was almost positive that everything with that situation was over and done with. She actually vaguely remembered him saying something about her and her husband moving back to London.

“So how was work today?” she asked, she hated to be the one to make small talk, but it didn’t really seem like he was actually in the talking mood right now. There was obviously something on his mind; maybe she’d be able to coax it out of him.

“It was good,” he replied quickly.

“Did you miss a lot while we were gone?” she asked.

“No, no, Michael and Ryan are pretty good at covering for me when I’m out of town,” he replied, his hand slipping into his jacket to make sure the ring box was still in the pocket.

“Are you hot?” she asked, suddenly realizing that she was hot in her short sleeved t-shirt, she couldn’t even imagine how hot he must be in his business suit.

“Eh,” he shrugged, she sighed; she wanted to talk to him. Why was he acting so weird?

“So…Jim,” she said as she looked into his eyes, “I really missed you last night.”

“You did?” he asked, the words seemed to suddenly relax him somehow.

“Yeah,” she replied, “I tossed and turned until like, four in the morning and I just couldn’t sleep so I woke up and painted.”

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Kind of,” she replied with a simple shrug. The two sat in a brief silence until Jim pulled something from his pocket that she couldn’t quite see and he hunched over, placing his elbows on his knees and hands between his legs.

“Listen, Pam,” he said, and her heart froze. She had never received the “listen…” talk in the past, but she had definitely doled it out to Roy when they broke up and she had certainly seen it more times that she could remember on television and movies. He turned to her slightly, “I have a couple of questions for you.”

“Questions?” she squeaked.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to mentally build his confidence. Had he been this nervous in the past when he proposed to Karen? He didn’t think that he had been…then on the other hand, it was kind of a spur of the moment sort of event that just came up out of nowhere.

“Good or bad?” she asked, unsure if she could handle a break-up right now.

“Good,” he replied. “I…I hope.” She took a breath of relief, and her heart started to return to normal a bit.

“Go ahead,” she said with a nod.

“Well,” he began, “I didn’t sleep very well last night either and…well, I think it was because you weren’t there. I kept thinking about Paris and everything that we’ve been through over the past year or so. I kind of came to this realization around six this morning that I want to be around you more often. The days that we go without seeing one another…I hate it, I really hate it. Every day that I don’t see you, when I get home from work the only thing that I want to do is call you and talk to you or see you or just…be with you.”

“Really?” she asked, a smile lighting up her face.

“Yes, really,” he replied with a quick nod. “So uh…”

Suddenly, Pam’s phone rang in her purse against her leg. Her eyes shot back to Jim’s and she fished through her purse for the phone. She was just going to let it ring, but when she saw the number she jumped up.

“Jim, can you just hang on one second?” she asked. “I really should…I need to take this.” He half-nodded as she quickly walked away from him and answered the phone.

He sat with the velvet box in his hands. He flipped open the top and looked at the ring again. This was the place, he was sure of it, he wasn’t really sure if it was the right moment though, maybe he should start with a different tactic. There was something else that he had been meaning to ask her anyway. He nervously tapped his feet and slipped the box into the pocket of his pants as he watched Pam hang up the phone. When she turned back around to face him, there was a huge smile on her face and she quickly skipped back to the bench.

“You’re never going to believe…” she said quickly as she sat down and grabbed onto his hand. “That was the publishing company that I interviewed with before we went to Paris.”

“I want…” Jim started, but Pam wouldn’t let him finish.

“That was the head of the company,” Pam said quickly, “they loved me, they loved my art, they’re going to let me illustrate for them part-time.”

“What?” Jim asked, suddenly catching what Pam was saying.

“I get to be an illustrator,” she replied happily, a huge smile on her face. “It’s just part-time to start, so I’ll still work at the restaurant, but I can become full time if they really like me.”

“Are you serious?” he asked and she nodded. “Pam! That’s so great!” She immediately threw her arms around his torso and hugged him tightly.

“Okay, okay, but anyway, back to what you were saying,” she said as she pulled away from him and her hand trailed down to his leg.

“Oh right…” he said, just as he realized, that her hand had rest on top of the box in his pocket.

“What do you have in your pocket?” she asked, her face changing to a curious smile.

“Oh uh…” his mind raced. Not now! Not now! Now is not the time! He really was starting to feel hot now. It’s candy! It’s keys to a new car! Oh god, oh god, oh god…

“Jim?” she asked.

“It’s…” he practically sighed in defeat as he pulled the ring box from his pocket, fisted in his hand so she couldn’t see the black velvet. “I don’t know how to do this. Not with you and I have no idea why. I don’t know how I did it before. I’ve had this for the past month…”

“What?” she asked, the smile had disappeared from her face, her own thoughts racing again.

“I wanted to do this in Paris, I wanted to do it on the plane ride there, and I wanted to do it before we left…” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Jim…” she said, her eyes looking deep into his. “You’re going to have to be a little more clear, here.”

“Close your eyes,” he said. Her eyes moved back and forth quickly and she slowly closed her eyes. “Now hold out your hand.” She held her hand in front of her as he opened up the box and set it softly against the skin of her palm. “Okay.”

She slowly opened her eyes and she nearly dropped the box into her lap when she realized what she was holding. Her eyes immediately traveled to his.

“You want to…” she stammered, “you want to marry me?”

“Among many other things, yes,” he said with a weak smile. She took the ring from the box and admired it in the sunlight that surrounded them and the smile that she had held on her face before immediately started to return.

“Jim…” she said as she twirled the ring on her index finger, admiring it. “I don’t even know why you ask me these things.” She slipped the ring onto her finger. “I would have married you a year ago if you had asked me to.” A happy, reassured smile spread across Jim’s face and he pulled her into his arms faster than he could even think. His chin crushed against her shoulder and he held her tight against his body so she didn’t see the few tears that he had shed from joy.

“Wait wait,” Pam said as she quickly pulled away, flicking a couple of tears from her eyelids.

“What?” Jim asked, sounding a bit nervous.

“You said that you had a couple of questions,” she replied. “What else did you want to ask me?”

“Oh,” he said as he searched his mind. What was the other thing he was going to ask her? “I uh…” she nodded and smiled.

“That’s okay,” she said, “I think that I just forgot everything that happened to me today.” She laid her hand flat on her leg and admired the ring that he had picked out for her.

“So you really will marry me?” he asked, as he admired the way the ring caught the light, the way the sun bounced off of her reddish brown curls and the way that there seemed to be this light inside of her that had suddenly exploded.

“Are you kidding?” she asked as she looked back up with a grin on her face, just like the grin he had seen every day in Paris. “I will absolutely marry you.” She linked her hands behind his neck and pulled him close to her face. “And I will love you, and I will…” she thought, “I will love you some more.” She giggled and pressed her lips against his.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips as he closed his eyes.

“I love you too,” she whispered back before she pressed her lips against his once more.