Pam woke up with a hangover, not remembering much from the night before. She remembered it was the Dundies, and that Roy left early. She also remembered Angela driving her home, and the faint sound of criticism ringing in her hears. “You really shouldn’t drink that much. It’s embarrassing”, Angela had told her. Or maybe it was the Wicked Witch of the West. They sounded pretty much the same last night. What Pam couldn’t remember was what actually happened in between those two moments.
She got up out of bed, barely able to keep her balance while heading to the bathroom. On the counter she saw something that began to trigger her memory. It was her Dundie award from the previous night. She remembered the fight with Roy, about how he and Daryl wanted to go to Poor Richard’s, and being pissed that he hadn’t even so much as consulted her about it. She looked over in the bed and saw Roy wasn’t there. He apparently didn’t even bother to come home last night to check on her.
Pam couldn’t take it anymore. It was a constant struggle every day just to be happy. It hadn’t always been like this. She could think back to a happier time when she was in love with Roy. He was pretty damn attractive after all, and could be quite the charmer when he actually tried. However, whatever chemistry used to exist in their relationship fizzled a long time ago. Now it was just a long series of fights or unhappy moments punctuated by very few times where she genuinely enjoyed his company. There were only so many times he could just tickle her to make everything go away.
As Pam stood in the bathroom trying to regain her composure, memories of the previous night began to fill her head. She remembered Dwight making annoying noises with his recorder, Michael doing racist impressions, and Meredith threatening to kill her. Pam wasn’t sure how that last one came about. Finally, it came to her. She had spent the whole evening with…
Jim Halpert was busy with insomnia. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night, but couldn’t really pinpoint what the problem was. He’d been out all night at Michael’s stupid awards show, although he had to admit it was a much better night than usual, even if he did unfortunately see Dwight topless. Yikes. Nobody deserves that.
Try as he might, Jim could not deny what was really going on. He spent the whole evening with Pam, and yes he had a huge crush on her, although he would never admit it. He scored a small personal victory by successfully convincing Michael to eliminate the embarrassing Longest Engagement award, and the result was seeing his best friend perhaps the happiest she has ever been. It thrilled him to be able to do something like that for her, even though she’d probably never know about it.
His latest attempt to go to sleep was interrupted by a phone call. Looking over at the alarm clock, Jim noticed it was 8:30 in the morning. Who could possibly be calling him this early? “Hello?” Jim barely mumbled into the phone.
“Oh, hi. Sorry, did I wake you?” Pam immediately regretted calling him. What was she thinking?
This certainly wasn‘t who Jim expected. “Pam?”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have called. Were you sleeping?
“Oh no, not at all. Trust me.”
“You sounded so surprised that I called.”
“Well, I’m mostly surprised that you’re still alive,” Jim teased.
“Oh really? You didn’t seem too concerned that I could possibly be dead.”
“Oh trust me, Beesley. I would’ve gone to your funeral, cried, maybe even performed a song.”
Pam giggled. “You sing? Now that I have to hear.”
“No, that was a joke. Believe me, you’ll never hear it.”
She could not be dissuaded now. “I’m gonna tell Michael. That way you can perform at next year’s Dundies!”
“Oh you will be dead if that happens!”
Eventually their laughing subsided and there was a bit of an awkward pause between then. “You know, I barely remember what happened last night.”
“Yeah, that’s not a surprise Beesley. You were pretty far gone.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well, you stole drinks from everyone, except Meredith.”
“That figures. What else?”
“Well, Michael made a fool out of himself as usual.”
This next award goes to somebody, who really, lights up the office. Somebody, who I think a lot of us, cannot keep, from checking out. The "Hottest in the Office" award goes to … Ryan the temp!
And the "Tight Ass" award goes to Angela. Not only because she is everybody's favorite stickler, but because she has, a great caboose. So come on down!
No.
Pam laughed. “I can’t believe he thought Angela would like that.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe he thinks anyone likes the Dundies. Though I must admit, this was one of the better ones. Watching you get drunk was pretty entertaining.”
I think those might be empty.
No, no, ’cause the ice melts and then it's like second drink!
Second drink?
It starts to become clearer for Pam. There were a couple jerks at the bar who started taunting Michael. Then they threw stuff at him. Michael tried to keep his spirits up by giving Kevin an award, but he was clearly dejected. Pam remembers feeling sorry for him (quickly reminding herself that she was drunk at the time), and boosting his spirits by chanting.
Hey, I haven't gotten one yet!
Yes, I have not gotten one either. Keep going.
More Dundies! Dundies! Dundies! Dundies! Dundies!
And this next award is going out to our own little Pam Beesley. I think we all know what award Pam is going to be getting this year. It is the Whitest Sneakers award! Because she always has the whitest tennis shoes on!
Pam realized this is when everything changed and it became a memorable night. Somehow Michael had decided to change the embarrassing Longest Engagement Award to something nicer, and this simple act completely lifted her spirits.
“Then you got up to give a speech,” Jim said.
“Oh no”, Pam said as she finally remembered.
Um, so, finally, I want to thank God. Because God gave me this Dundie. And I feel God in this Chili's tonight. WOOOOO!!!!
“Oh my god, I cannot believe I said that.”
“Yeah it was quite the spectacle. Then later you fell off a bar stool and Dwight tried to give you CPR. And if you don’t remember Dwight taking his shirt off, then I’m jealous.”
Pam started giggling again. “Anything else happen?” Pam was fishing for more.
“Well, Kevin won smelliest bowel movement, but that’s about it.”
However, Pam felt there was something else missing. Something major had happened, and she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. As her hand brushed across her lips, she noticed that her lips felt different. Not bad, but just different, maybe even better. Then in an instant she came to the realization of what she had done.
“So was it good?” she asked.
“Was what good?” Jim replied, having an inkling of what she might be asking, and still hoping he might have a way out of answering it.
“The kiss. When I kissed you. Was it good?”
Jim started to get nervous, and maybe even blushed. Again, not that he would admit it. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”
“Well, some stuff is coming back to me. It’s ok, I’m sure you were a gentleman.”
“Oh yeah, I’m a real gentleman. I let a drunk woman kiss me, and then maybe kissed back a little.”
“You kissed me back?” Pam asked with surprise. She didn’t remember that part.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jim said, mentally kicking himself for blurting that out.
“I’m not necessarily complaining,” Pam slyly replied.
“Are you flirting with me, Beesley? Or are you still drunk?”
“Maybe both? It sounds like we had a fun time.”
“Yeah we did. Just wait until you actually remember it.”
After hanging up with Jim, Pam looked at the award some more. There was one thing she still couldn’t figure out. Why would Michael just randomly change the award this year? It was obviously one of his (and Roy’s) favorite jokes. Suddenly it began to dawn on her. She didn’t know how it happened, but she was pretty sure who was responsible.
“Hello?”
“Hi Jim. Sorry to bother you again.”
“No problem. What’s up?”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
He really didn‘t know what she was getting at this time. “What are you talking about, Beesley?”
“The award. You did something, didn’t you?”
He had never been happier to answer a question in his life. “It was nothing. I just convinced him it wasn‘t the funniest joke anymore.”
“Jim, it’s not nothing,” she replied warmly. “That was very thoughtful of you. Thank You.”
“No problem. And by the way, it was good.”
“What?”
“The kiss. It was very good.” He couldn’t believe he was actually saying this out loud. Jim had trained himself to hide most of his emotions, especially regarding Pam.
“Jim…”, she started to say, but didn’t really know where she was going with the rest of that sentence.
“Yes?” Jim asked with anticipation.
“You sound really tired.”
“Yeah, ” Jim said, a little disappointed. “It was a long night.”
“Yeah it was. I’ll let you get back to sleep. See you at work Monday.”
“Definitely. Looking forward to it.” Jim said, and he meant it.
Jim had been Pam’s best friend for the past two years, making every inane workday seem so much brighter, thanks to the friendly games they always played or the hilarious pranks they pulled on Dwight, but maybe there was something more. After all, she did remember being very jealous when Jim went on a date with Katy. Perhaps there was a future with Jim. She didn’t know what any of this meant or where it was going, but she was certain of what needed to be done next.
“Hi, I was calling to see about the rates on your one bedroom apartments.“
Story Notes:
I don't own anything, especially not Jim, Pam, or any other characters from The Office.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Pam tries to remember what happened the previous night at the Dundies.
