When she turned into the parking spot at her apartment, Pam assumed Jim was going to wait in his car as she took her stuff in really quick. Instead, she saw him jogging up to her as she opened the hatch back.
"Those are heavy!" he yelled out to her. "I think you need a man to carry them in for you."
She gave him a sarcastic smile in return. "Unfortunately, all I have is you."
"You wound me greatly, but I'll let that slide for tonight," he replied, reaching for her light-weight paintings.
Pam opened the door for him and told him to just put everything down in the corner of her living room where she had set up a drop cloth and a table to put her art supplies.
"I'm going to run to the bathroom real quick and then I'll be ready to go," she told him.
"OK, no problem." She realized he was trying to sound casual with his answer, but wasn't doing a good job.
She wasn't doing a good job trying to be calm either. The whole reason she was in the bathroom was just an excuse to touch up her lipstick and make sure her hair still looked nice. She looked at her outfit in the mirror again, checking that her shirt wasn't too tight, but tight enough, and her jeans weren't making her look fat.
Pam walked back out to find Jim standing in living room, his hands in his pockets and his back to her as he looked at the pictures hanging above her work space.
"Are you ready?" she said, coming up behind him.
"What?" he replied, his head turning quickly to look at her. "Oh, yeah. I was just looking at these. Very...colory?"
"Colory? I don't think that's a word."
"Probably isn't," he said, turning back to look at the pieces she had taped to the wall. "This is a Warhol, right?"
She smiled. Roy wouldn't have known that. "Yeah. My assignment for class this week is do a pop art piece so I've printed out a few. I like this one the best," she said, reaching past him to pull a Roy Lichtenstein picture off the wall.
"Seems a bit bold for your style."
"Yeah, but that's what makes it challenging."
He looked thoughtfully at the picture for several moments before handing it back to her, a hint of sadness on his face. She wondered what was wrong until she looked down at the piece of paper in her hand and remembered what it said. It was a painting of a woman, tears in her eyes. The little thought bubble above her head read, "That's the way it should have begun. But it's hopeless!"
"Pam?" His voice was almost at a whisper.
"What?" she asked, looking up at him in anticipation.
"This thing between us. It isn't hopeless, right?"
She gently laid the paper back on her desk. "Not anymore," she said, looking up at him.
There was just a moment, a quiet little one between them, when Pam felt like it was just the two of them on Earth and everything else ceased to exist. It was comfortable again, friends back together after so long, just the two of them.
Jim broke the silence first. "Um...you still up for dinner?"
"Yeah, I am. You still up for being my date?"
"Definitely."
She smiled and turned to grab her purse from the counter, feeling his hand graze her shoulder blade as she led him out of the apartment. Pam hoped he didn't see her face because she knew she had the biggest, goofiest smile and she couldn't hide it no matter how hard she tried.
When they got to his car, he opened the door for her first before getting in on his side and turning on the stereo. She was expecting one of the many cool bands he had tried to make her listen to, but instead, The Beatles' White Album came through the speakers.
"Wow, old school."
"Yeah," Jim replied as he pulled out of his spot. "I figured I would go with a classic tonight."
Pam had no idea where he was taking her, but she really didn't care. They were talking in Jim's car like friends again and that was all that mattered to her.
"Oh crap!" Jim said suddenly. "I forgot something at the office that I need this weekend. Do you mind if we swing by?" His question was punctuated by a very apologetic look.
"You want me to go with you to our office on a Friday night?" she asked skeptically.
"Yeah, crazy, right? But I just need to get something."
"OK, but you owe me."
He laughed a little. "No problem. I'll make you dinner."
"Make me dinner?"
"I meant buy. I'll buy you dinner," he replied a little too quickly.
He pulled into the lot and parked the car near the door. "Do you just want me to wait out here for you?" she asked.
"You're really going to make me face the office alone? On a Friday night?" he asked in a pleading tone.
"I guess not," she replied. "Where is this something you need to get?"
"Just on my desk. I promise we don't have to go too far in."
She got out of the car and stood next to him as he unlocked the front door of the building. The elevator was already on the first floor and the doors opened as soon as Jim pressed the "Up" button.
As they shut behind them, Pam couldn't take it anymore. She took her hand and gently turned his face toward her, then kissed him lightly on the lips. It wasn't the intense kiss he gave her a year earlier while she stood at his desk, but it felt just as powerful.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open on their floor. "We're here," Jim said breathlessly as he reached out to hold the door open, gesturing for her to walk out first. He unlocked the doors leading to their space on the floor and grabbed her hand as the last one closed behind them. He led them toward his desk, and then kept walking.
"Um...Jim?"
"Yeah?" he said, leading her toward the kitchen door.
"We just walked past your desk," she replied, sounding a bit confused.
"I know."
She didn't know what he was up to, but she liked this determined version of Jim and decided to go along with it without any more questions.
He opened the door to the kitchen and led her in, grabbing an empty box off the top of the fridge. "I kind of lied about being late tonight."
"What do you mean?"
He handed the box to her and smiled. "I wasn't late because I was trying on a bunch of outfits. I had decided what I was going to wear on my drive to wherever the hell in Pennsylvania I went last night to pick up...you know." He pulled out two cold Cokes from the refrigerator door and put them in the box Pam was holding. "I actually was late for other reasons," he said, opening up the toaster and pulling out two square packages wrapped in tin foil. "Nice! Still warm." Then he opened the cupboard door above the coffee maker, took a bag of Sun Chips and some paper plates from the second shelf, and dropped them in the box.
"What other reasons?" Pam asked.
He took the box from her hands and simply said "Follow me."
She walked with him through the other kitchen door until they got to the ladder that went to the roof. "Ladies first," he told her.
"I'm glad I decided not to wear my skirt tonight."
"Don't tease me, Beesly. Just be careful with those heels on the steps."
She climbed up to the roof and looked out toward downtown Scranton. That's when she noticed the blanket laid out in front of her with four candles anchoring the corners.
"Oh good. I was a little worried it was going to blow away," she heard Jim say from behind her. "C'mon." He walked past her and put the box down in the middle of it.
She knew he told her to move, but she was frozen in place.
"Pam?"
"This was where we had our first date."
He gave her a skeptic look. "Our what?"
"Our first date," she repeated. "The night Michael made us stay late and you made me grilled cheese and there were some crappy fireworks and we danced."
"I thought you said it wasn't a date and swaying isn't dancing."
"I lied."
He smiled at her from the blanket. "Well, then I guess we'll just have to make this our second first date." He gestured his head toward the blanket. "Come sit down."
She walked over and did as she was told, folding her legs underneath her as Jim handed her a plate and a napkin. Then he unwrapped one of the tin foil squares and put a warm grilled cheese sandwich on her plate. "I forgot to get some ham for these," he said.
"That's OK," she whispered.
He gave her a handful of chips, then opened the can of Coke and placed it next to her on the blanket. "Thanks," she said nervously. She didn't know why she was nervous all of a sudden, but it seemed to suddenly dawn on her that she was sitting on the roof with Jim -- again -- and she really liked the way it felt.
She watched Jim prepare his own plate and noticed his hands were shaking a bit. He must have been just as nervous so she figured it would be good to reassure him. "You did a really great job on this," she told him.
"Thanks," he said. "Oh wait, totally forgot!" He got up and pulled a book of matches out of his jacket pocket as he walked over to light the first candle. "I bought these at that candle store at the mall we always make fun of," he explained, putting the lit candle back on the blanket. "I know most of the people who buy stuff there are soccer moms, but I figured if I bought the candles there, they would smell nice and be inside glass jaws so I didn't light the blanket on fire."
"Gotcha," she said. "Yeah, you don't want to be like Ryan, do you?"
"No, I don't for so many reasons," he said, picking up another candle.
Pam took a bite out of her grilled cheese sandwich. "Your grilled cheese is very good," she told him with her mouth half-full.
"Thanks," he said, lighting the last candle before sitting down across from her.
"So about Ryan...well, I guess Karen. When...um...I mean, what happened yesterday? In New York?"
He took a huge bite of his sandwich and Pam could tell he was stalling. "I just..." He took a deep breath and swallowed before looking up at her. "I thought that's what I wanted, you know? Promotion, New York, girlfriend, and I...I realized that it was all really a lie. The whole transfer to Stamford and Karen and trying to get this job at corporate."
"So what changed?"
"Your yogurt lid."
She smiled. "Really?"
"Really," he said, smiling back. "It fell out of my paperwork as David was asking me what I liked about Scranton."
"You like Scranton's yogurt? Because you know they do have yogurt in New York, too," Pam replied jokingly.
"New York does indeed have yogurt," Jim said, "but it just doesn't have you and really...I wanted you more than anything." He looked down at his plate and started poking at his chips. "It's always been that way."
Pam could feel a lump forming in her throat. "Me too," she said before taking a sip of Coke to try and calm her down. "You know, if it was the yogurt lid that did you in, you'll have to thank Karen for that."
"Why is that?" Jim asked surprisingly.
"She asked me to make copies of your sales reports for the interviews. I just kind of slipped it in."
Jim looked back down at his plate. "Oh," he said. "She told me she would take care of those copies to help me out."
"Yeah, well, she did, sort of." Pam tried not to sound too bitter about it.
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, his voice nearly at a whisper.
Pam took another bite of her sandwich and looked over at him. "Listen, that's behind us now, OK?"
"I guess," he replied. "I just feel like we've wasted so much time though."
"We're not wasting time now, are we?"
His smile was big and broad and lit us his eyes when he looked back at her. "No, we are not."
"Good," she answered matter-of-factly. "Now start eating your grilled cheese before it gets cold. I know the chef and I can assure you he's the best grilled cheese guy in Scranton."
"Just Scranton?"
"Well, I haven't tried it much outside of the city," she said, smiling at him.
"Well, I have and believe me, this is still the best," he said, taking another bite of his culinary concoction.
She looked at him, her smile fading a bit. "You're definitely the best," she said.
"You, too."
Chapter End Notes:
