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He closes the door, the memory of her sudden smile and the light in her eyes still fresh. He crosses the room to his desk and stares at it for several moments, unsure of what he should do next.

“Are you going to answer that?” says Dwight.

“What?”

“Your phone.”

He reaches into his jacket pocket for his cell phone. For a second he worries it’s Karen, but then he recognizes the number. “Hello?”

“Jim! It’s David Wallace. Are you on the road yet?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you driving?”

“No.”

“Great, listen, don’t leave town just yet. We’re having a co-worker of yours, Ryan Howard, come up for a bunch of management training sessions tomorrow and Friday. Now Jim, I understand the timing isn’t right for you now, but I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d attend these sessions with Ryan, and get to know some of the team.”

He is still in a fog from the last few minutes. He doesn’t understand what David is asking him. “Ryan?” he asks, trying to concentrate.

“Yes. He’s accepted the position. We’d really like to cultivate a good working relationship between him and the regional sales managers, and… look, I appreciate that Michael is technically supposed to liaise with Corporate, but Ryan has expressed to me that there is likely to be some tensions there, and, in light of the situation with Jan, I have to say it might be for the best if he was to deal directly with you, at least for the time being. I’ll be communicating this to Michael this afternoon.”

It begins to sink in. “I see. When are the sessions?”

“The first one is tomorrow morning at eight, but we’d love it if you could join us all for dinner this evening to kick things off.”

“That’s not possible,” Jim says. “Sorry, I didn’t get what you were asking before. I’m in Scranton. I’m in the Scranton office.”

“Oh!” A pause. “Okay, Karen said she was staying until a bit later and I just assumed… well, never mind that. How soon can you be back here?”

-----

“You should go,” says Pam, when he tells her. “I mean it.” They are in line at the coffee shop, and he can’t see her face.

“No,” he says.

“Why not?”

He shrugs. “Tonight is more important than any work thing. I’m not going to blow it. I’ve seen this window of opportunity close before.”

She turns around, and takes his hand. “Not this time,” she says. “You should go.”

He hesitates, looking down at her. “I can’t,” he whispers. “It’s all wrong, Pam.”

“Obviously I have to make this more clear to you,” she says. She slides her hands up and around his neck, and her lips brush his, soft and warm. “This is not like before,” she says, her eyes shining up at him. “I won’t let it be.”

Putting his arms around her is the most natural thing in the world; he forgets this is only the second time he’s ever done it. “You’ve partially convinced me,” he says. “Kiss me again and I’ll reluctantly agree to bail on our first date and drive to a different state until the weekend.”

She laughs. “Wait, there’s something fishy about that deal.”

“Kiss me twice, and I’ll throw in forgetting to call you.”

“I’ll only kiss you once, then,” she says, and this time she lingers longer, pulling gently at his bottom lip. “Go,” she says. “Call me from the hotel.”

-----

Pam sounds a little breathless when she answers the phone. “Sorry, I didn’t expect you to call so soon,” she says. “I was in the shower.”

“You saucy wench,” he says, “tell me more.”

She giggles. “I know, it sounds like a big old lie, when in reality I’m sitting here in giant ragged sweatpants eating raw onion or whatever. But seriously, I was in the shower. If it helps the believability, my bathrobe is a hot mess. It’s bright pink terrycloth and way too big for me. The sleeves go past my fingers if I don’t roll them up.”

“Interesting. Why is it so huge?”

“I bought it for the fabric. I was initially planning to cut it up. It made sense at the time. How was dinner?”

“Oh, we were too late for dinner. We met David and some other people for drinks. Ryan’s still there; I begged off early.”

“I still can’t believe Ryan’s going to be the new Jan,” she says. “I had to drive Kelly home after work. She’s pretty upset right now. I’m guessing he’s doing just fine.”

“Yeah, he is. He talked about going to some clubs tomorrow night, now that we’re both single, so I’m guessing his mourning period took place on the drive to New York.”

“So you told him that you and Karen…?”

He clears his throat. “I told him that I broke up with Karen. I didn’t tell him about you because we… you and I haven’t really talked about that. Because we haven’t talked about anything, and I didn’t know… sorry, this is kind of a weird thing to work out on the phone….”

“What thing?”

“Well, I’m not sure where we stand, exactly.” He sits down on the edge of the hotel bed, feeling slightly light-headed. “Our first date is rescheduled, so maybe we’re in a kind of pre-relationship limbo. What do you think?”

“I think I’ve spent a large part of my adult life in various kinds of limbo,” she says. “I’m sick of it. What if I just told you what I want, and then you told me, and we see if there’s any overlap?”

“That sounds great,” he says. “And at some point I’m going to want to know what happened to you in the last month that’s made you so… what’s the word?”

“Honest?” she says.

“Yes, that. But for now, I’m just going to say yes to your plan.”

There is silence for a few seconds.

“Okay,” she says. “Here it is. I want that first date, but I’m not really interested in dating. We’re past that, I think. Dating is for teenagers and people who’ve just met. What I’d like is to just see what happens next, and not worry about defining it.”

“That’s what I want,” he says. “Well, that and possibly to hear some more about your shower.”

“Never mind about that,” she says, and he can hear the laughter in her voice. “If you’re going to be frisky, Halpert, there’s got to be give and take. I told you about my enormous sexy bathrobe. Now you have to reciprocate.”

“I see,” he says. “Well, in a bizarre coincidence, I’m wearing an oversized pink robe too.”

“Coward,” she says. “Maybe later, then. Tell me about drinks with David Wallace.”

He switches the phone to his other ear. “No, wait,” he says. “Okay, I am wearing a T-shirt and jeans. If we’re being completely honest, I didn’t want to keep on the suit and tie, and felt weird about calling you in boxers, so I put on these clothes, even though it’s nearly midnight and I’m in a hotel room by myself.”

“Did you think I would hear the near-nakedness in your voice and be all shocked and Victorian?”

“No, but I thought maybe it would throw me off a little. It happened once before. You may be surprised to hear that I’ve actually talked to you when I was completely naked.”

“What? When was this?”

“That time I phoned in sick because I was taking a long weekend camping, and I told you to tell Michael I had flu. I’d showered, but the clothes I was planning on wearing were still in the drier. The fact that I was naked actually didn’t register until after you picked up, and then I felt really strange about it.”

“Hmm,” she says. “I seem to remember a lot of pauses. I thought, at the time, that you were annoyed at me about something.”

“Why?”

She sighs. “I’m always thinking people are annoyed at me. It’s a kind of megalomania. When someone’s acting funny, I never think, Oh, he’s tired, or She’s worried—”

“Or He’s naked and it’s making him uncomfortable.”

“Exactly. I automatically go with I’m annoying and/or boring. As if everything had to do with me.”

“Tell you what,” he says. “It’s pretty stuffy in here. If you like, I’ll take off the jeans, and we’ll see how it goes.”

“An experiment! Though I don’t remember asking you to be pantsless, I was just mocking you for getting dressed to make a phone call.”

“Now who’s the coward? Quick, little Miss Honest, jeans on or off?”

“Off,” she says, “and the T-shirt too. There, don’t you wish you hadn’t tried to call my bluff right then?”

“I’m slightly in awe of you, as a matter of fact,” he says. “I’m going to have to put the phone down for a second to take off the shirt.” He pulls the cotton up over his head, hesitates, and then fumbles with his belt. The jeans join the T-shirt over the back of the nearby armchair. “Okay,” he says. “And now I’m back.”

“You do sound different,” she says.

“In what way?”

“Maybe it’s just in my head, but I think you sound younger, for one thing.”

“That makes sense, somehow,” he says. “I can’t be all mature and urbane sitting around in my underwear.”

“And that’s interesting, too, because I don’t think I’ve every heard you say urbane when you were wearing pants.”

“Yes, I reserve that word for near-naked situations. Also pastiche and tubular.”

“Good to know. You see, this is better than going out for dinner. I’m finding out so much about you this way.”

“Absolutely,” he says. “And now it’s your turn.”