May 31, 2009

Pam sat nervously on the couch in their living room. She was expecting Jim to be home any minute now. He had been gone for two weeks – two excruciatingly long weeks. She was nervous about what had happened in his absence. She hadn’t received as many phone calls as she would have liked. He had mentioned very little of Karen, which she both appreciated and hated because she wasn’t certain if he had been hiding anything from her.

Pam kind of felt like she was hiding something from him too, but that would be resolved when he arrived home. All she could do at this point was nervously sit and wait.

***

Jim left for London on a Sunday evening. As he left, Pam begged him one more time not to go. She didn’t actually feel any bad premonitions about the trip; she just didn’t want him going. She didn’t know Karen that well, but Pam had heard stories from Jim about the way she behaved around him. Pam had never been the jealous girlfriend, jealous fiancé or jealous wife, but as a woman, she knew all the signs of an ex-wife trying to get back at an ex-husband. After all of the bad stories that Pam had heard about Karen, she was confident there was no way Jim would so much as touch Karen again – it was Karen’s behavior that Pam was worried about.

Pam received a phone call early, early Monday morning immediately after Jim had arrived at the hotel in London. He had told her that he hadn’t yet seen Karen – they apparently had not taken the same flight – and that he was going to sleep for a couple of hours before his first meeting. He apologized for calling so early and waking her up, told her that he loved her, and that was the last she heard from him for two days.

***

Jim knew that Karen was trying to find a way to bring him down. He had known it since January. The first time she stepped into his office and offered him erroneous advice about his mock-ups for Virgin Mobile, he knew that she was plotting something. However, as time went on, he started to wonder if she was trying to sabotage his job, his marriage or both.

It was their second day in London that he realized it might be both.

The two of them were in meetings almost non-stop throughout their entire trip, and they would have a four day weekend in the middle of the two weeks. The first meeting they had with their clients was a small, private dinner at one of London’s finest restaurants the Monday that they were both supposed to arrive.

Jim waited for Karen at the hotel up until the very last minute. When she didn’t show, he left without her, figuring that she had gone to the restaurant on her own. She wasn’t at the restaurant either and consequently, she didn’t make it to the dinner meeting. It was a poor start.

He half expected for her not to even show up to their meeting on Tuesday – or maybe he just really hoped that she had decided at the last minute not to show up. Truthfully though, Jim needed Karen there with him for business purposes. She was a valuable asset to their company on this trip and Jim desperately hoped that she hadn’t simply decided not to show up without telling him. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do if that was the case.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw her rush down the hallway and she pushed herself through the glass doors leading into the meeting room.

“I’m so sorry, my plane was delayed.” Karen said rushing into the room and throwing her briefcase near an empty seat. “Then once I finally got here, I couldn’t get a cab for whatever reason…” she flashed an evil smile in Jim’s direction. “I’m sorry I’m late.” She fell into the seat next to Jim and released her breath – it sounded like she had been holding it in for the past minute.

Jim looked nervously at the table of businessmen around them, and then looked towards Karen.

“Gentlemen,” he said, shooting a sideways glance towards Karen, “this is my business partner, Karen Filippelli.” He would have thought that would have introduced herself right off the bat.

“Nice to meet you all.” Karen said nodding overenthusiastically.

“So Ms. Filippelli, I trust that you have brought your models with you this morning?” one of the men on the other side of the table asked.

“My what?” Karen asked. Jim immediately shot her a seething glance.

“Your models.” the man replied. Karen only replied with a blank stare. “The models which we are to be discussing this morning.”

“I wasn’t told to have any models with me.” Karen said shaking her head. Her hand immediately went to her chest as if she were shocked by her own actions. Jim knew better. He watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye – all the while cursing himself for not having a back-up plan. He should have seen this coming from a mile away. Karen was the only woman attending their meetings; of course she was going to play the ditzy female in front of everyone else.

His gaze immediately shot to the window when he realized what she had done while her hand was at her chest. As she pulled her hand away, he realized that she had undone two buttons on her blouse, barely putting forth any effort at all. As her hand returned to her lap, the gaze of the man sitting across from her immediately went to her chest.

“Oh god…” Jim thought to himself, making a conscious effort not to roll his eyes at Karen’s pathetic attempts to escape unscathed from this business meeting. He flashed another seething glance towards her and couldn’t help but let his eyes wander down towards the fabric of her shirt that she had pushed apart. And she was wearing a push-up bra…

“She has nothing compared to Pam.” he thought and immediately, he wanted to kick himself in the shins for even thinking about the breasts of his ex-wife sitting next to him.

“We can let it go this time, Ms. Filippelli,” the man said, his eyes barely rising above Karen’s neckline, “but we expect that you’ll have your models ready to show up by tomorrow evening.”

“Not a problem, sir.” she said with a nod and an obviously fake smile.

The men seated around the table continued to discuss what they could without the materials Karen was supposed to bring and Jim silently fumed, tuning out most of the conversation surrounding him.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jim hissed without regard to what was being said around him.

“I told you, my flight was delayed.” Karen whispered.

“Yeah, did you delay it?” he scoffed.

“No, it was actually delayed.” she said.

“And the models?” he asked under his breath.

“Just trust me.” she replied.

***

Trusting Karen was the last thing that Jim was going to do. He held his own through most the rest of the week. Amazingly, Karen did come through with the models that she was supposed to provide that Tuesday, and she had even been somewhat charming during a casual dinner meeting that they had on Wednesday night. Just when he was about to let his guard down around her on Thursday, she presented every opportunity for him to throw it back up.

The day started out fine. She was professional, she was prepared, she even supported all of the ideas that Jim presented to the businessmen. When the evening rolled around though, she had taken it upon herself to invite people to a dinner – no business involved. Unfortunately for Jim, he didn’t realize that he had been the only person invited until it was too late.

He met her in a small French restaurant in a trendy part of the city. He was dressed casually for the first time all week and when he couldn’t find her at the restaurant, he opted for a seat at the bar and waited for her to arrive.

He knew from having been married to her that she was usually late. Sometimes fashionably late, sometimes just late; this evening, she was late. He had already finished his second pint of beer when he felt two small hands on his shoulders and warm breath against the back of his neck.

“Sorry I’m so late.” she purred against his ear. He jolted forward, nearly knocking over his glass and twisted around to meet her gaze.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked.

“What do you mean everyone else?” she asked in reply.

“I mean…” he stopped himself and his eyes briefly glanced toward the ceiling. He exhaled in a frustrated sigh and quietly realized, “There is no one else, is there?”

“Nope.” she said shaking her head. “Come on, I reserved a table for us earlier.”

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked.

“I’m always fashionably late,” she replied, “you know that, Halpert.”

“This isn’t fashionable.” he said curtly. “You’re just late.”

They walked towards the dining room and the host from the door led them to the table that Karen had reserved. It was a dimly lit dining room – quite intimate, really. The area was sectioned off by dark blue glass, and the only light throughout the room was the flickering candlelight on the tabletops and the very dim glow of a starlight motif on the ceiling.

“This is my favorite restaurant in London.” she said as she opened her menu and leaned forward slightly. The collar of her low-cut dress dropped forward, giving Jim a picture-perfect view of her cleavage. He cleared his throat nervously and his eyes dropped down to his own menu.

“Why did you only ask me to dinner?” he asked, squinting his eyes to get a better look at the menu in front of him.

“Why do you think, Halpert?” she asked happily.

“I…I really have no idea.” he replied.

“I thought it might be nice to just have a casual dinner with you.” she said, shrugging.

“You’re not really dressed casually.” he said quietly, avoiding eye contact with any part of her body.

“You like my dress?” she asked sitting up straight and pushing out her chest slightly.

“It’s lovely.” he replied, not looking up.

“This is the restaurant where Kevin and I had our first date.” she said wistfully, reaching her hand across the table and running her fingers against Jim’s. He quickly pulled his hand into his lap and flashed a dangerous glance towards her.

“So this is where you first cheated on me then.” he said.

“No, no, this was where we had our first date.” she said, “I did other things…before…never mind.” Jim’s breath was quick and he could feel his face becoming hot.

“So how is Kevin?” Jim asked, trying to keep the conversation as innocent as possible.

“I don’t know,” Karen replied with a shrug, “we’ve been separated for about a month now.”

“What?” Jim asked, looking up suddenly.

“Well that certainly caught your attention.” Karen said with a wry smile.

“I just…I didn’t know.” Jim stammered.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m not sure if we’re actually going to get a divorce but…I wanted to have a little bit of fun.”

“With me.” Jim stated.

“You’re so much more attractive than he is, Jim.” she said.

“I’m also married,” he said, “quite happily, unlike you are – or were.”

“I was thinking,” she said, ignoring his previous statement, “since we have this four day weekend and Paris is only a few hours away…”

“No.” Jim said firmly.

“I think we should go.” Karen said quietly, leaning forward again.

“No.” Jim said again.

“It could be just like our honeymoon.” Karen said, running her fingers down her neck and the flat plane of her chest.

“No.”

“You could feed me strawberries.” Karen purred. “You could lick…”

“I can’t take this.” Jim said, quickly closing his menu and placing his palms firmly on the table.

“Oh come on, Halpert!” Karen exclaimed, causing several other people seated in the dining room to look towards the two of them.

“Come on, yourself, Karen.” Jim said. “I hate you and you hate me. It’s no secret. As a matter of fact, I think it’s pretty blatantly obvious. I don’t want to be here with you. I don’t know if you somehow thought that maybe I want to be here, but I can tell you right now without any reservations that I don’t. I did just about everything within my power not to come here, especially with you.” She stared at him wide-eyed.

“Wow, if you were like this back when…” she said.

“And you know what? While I’m being perfectly honest with you here, I hate waking up every day and thinking that Pam is my second wife,” he said, “because as far as I’m concerned, she’s the only woman that I have ever really, really loved. You? Marrying you was just a horrible mistake.” She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out so he continued, “If I could pack up and leave London right now, I would. But since I can’t, I’m going to have a pleasant weekend alone in the United Kingdom, and I’m not going to think about you once.”

“I…” she stammered and watched in silence as Jim pushed himself away from the table and stood.

“I’m leaving.” he said. “I hope you have a nice dinner.”

***

Jim had a very pleasant weekend – alone. He traveled to a few of the major tourist attractions in London, but spent most of the weekend in his hotel room wishing that Pam was there with him – maybe the next time he took a long business trip she might be able to come.

The second week of the trip was a bit awkward, but Karen didn’t make any further moves on Jim and she dressed conservatively during their business meetings. It didn’t seem that she was trying to sabotage him, but she was noticeably colder towards him whenever they were forced to interact with one another for business purposes.

By the end of the week, Jim was ready to return home and completely forget about anything that had to do with advertising. All he wanted to do was curl up with Pam in their bed and fall asleep to the sounds of New York City.

***

Pam lay on the sofa and covered her legs with the afghan that her mother had knit her earlier that winter. She turned on the television and flipped through the stations until she landed on Food Network. She wasn’t wild about a lot of their programming, but the show that was airing kept showing tantalizing images of fresh summer fruit and she couldn’t help herself.

She grabbed the small paper bag from the table and held it close to her chest and her knees bounced. She needed Jim to get home now. He had recently called from the airport, so she knew that he would be home before too long. Still, she hadn’t seen him in two weeks – it felt like two months.

She dozed off somewhere between the show with the summer fruit and a show about a cookie bake-off. She was jolted from her dreamy haze when she heard the door open. She shot up from her reclined position and looked up over the back of the couch.

“You’re home!” she exclaimed, sleepily and happily.

“I am.” he said dropping his bags next to the door and rushing over towards the sofa. He stood at the back of the couch and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and tried to pull her close to him – except the large cushions covering the back of the couch made things a little difficult and he couldn’t pull her as close as he wanted. He pulled away just slightly and brought his lips to hers and she sensed an intensity that she hadn’t felt from him in a while.

“Missed me?” she asked and she slowly pulled away.

“You have no idea.” he replied as he leaned in towards her again and brought his lips against hers again.

She let out a sigh, a giggle, or something in between the two and heard the crinkle of paper in her lap.

“You’re trembling.” he noticed.

“Sorry.” she said meekly.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. He walked around towards the front of the couch and sat on the edge of the coffee table. Pam reclined again, her fist closed tightly around the paper bag in her lap.

“Not really.” she replied. “I don’t think so.”

“What’s in the bag?” he asked nodding towards her hand. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his hand stretched forward to the side of Pam’s face and he softly ran his fingers along Pam’s jaw.

“I missed you so much.” she said in a breathy sigh.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked again.

“Oh, right.” she said. She turned onto her side and gave Jim the crinkled brown bag.

“A present? For me?” he teased.

“Something like that.” she said. Her hand remained over the side of the couch as he took the paper bag from her – her arm was shaking.

“Seriously, are you okay?” he asked, stilling her arm with his hand.

“I will be.” she replied nodding towards the bag. “Open it.”

He smiled and nodded as he peeled open the bag and he froze as he looked inside.

“Really?” he asked nervously.

“Maybe.” she shrugged. “I’ve had this feeling for the past week or so. I just…I wanted to wait until you came home, so you could be here.”

She bit her fingernail and tried to hold back her smile as he pulled the unused pregnancy test that she had purchased earlier in the week from its paper bag.