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Disclaimer:All characters the property of... someone else. No infringement, only homage, is intended
    All in all, the interview was going well. David still remembered the night he and Jim had played one –on-one in the backyard of his house, which led into a conversation about Jim’s glory days playing first string varsity in high school. That segued into a jocular tete-a-tete about the merits of the Sixers. David was a Celtics fan, a holdover from his own days at Tufts. Neither of them had much to brag about that season.
    “Hey, do you have your quarterly numbers?" David asked.
   Jim was happy to oblige. This quarter had been good. He was well over his quota. Dwight’s momentary departure had spread the leads round the office, and Jim had picked up the slack left by other members of the sales team. David also wanted the HR questionnaire. It surprised Jim that they asked him to fill one out before he even had the job. Preemptive. A good sign. Jim was looking for all the good signs he could get these days. He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out the folder.
    “Sorry to make you fill that out,” David said.
    “Oh no, absolutely.” Jim brushed it off.
    “Stupid HR formality,” David remarked.
    David kept talking, but something fell out of Jim’s folder, distracting him. A phone message taped to something. A yogurt lid. A yogurt lid? As Jim read the message, you could have knocked him flat: “Don’t forget us when you’re famous. Pam.” Pam. She must have slipped it into his bag yesterday, before he left Scranton with Karen. The note was simple enough to figure out. Just the well-wishing of someone with whom he had worked with for the last several years, someone who had subtly but distinctly encouraged him that he had more within him, that the best parts of himself were being left at the front doors of the Scranton Business Park every time he stepped inside the building.
But the yogurt lid? What did that have to do-?
    “How do you think you function here in New York?” David asked.
    Back to reality, Jim. But reality was distant, and David needed an answer to his question. Jim soldiered ahead with an answer that filled the space in the conversation, but Jim hadn’t the slightest idea what he was saying. The yogurt lid. He tried to place it in some kind of context. Gold. Like a medal. An Olympic Medal. Jim suppressed a smile as he flashed to a day, almost two years ago, when Michael left the office to close escrow on his condo. He took Dwight with him, leaving no one to even try to rule the roost. As with so many other times, a moment of playfulness with Pam grew to include everyone in the office as they played the “Dunder-Mifflin Games.” It was even the day when Phyllis came out of her shell, beating Kevin in that one game, what did Pam call it? Flonkerton! Yes! Phyllis started dating Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration, a week later. They even included Michael in the fun, albeit without his knowledge, when Jim presented him with a gold medal for signing the papers on his condo. Jim’s eyes drifted back down to the note. "Don't forget us when you're famous. Pam"
    “You’ve been at the Scranton branch a long time. What have you liked most about that place?” David asked.
    He was still thinking about the “Dunder-Mifflin Games.” Toby racing Oscar around the office, full coffee cups in hand. Kevin eating as many M&Ms as he could. Learning how to play “hateball” from Oscar and Kevin. Dunderball, the game that Toby and Kelly played. That was a great day.
    "Don't forget us when you're famous. Pam" As much as life at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton was a dull, melancholy toothache in his life, there was no way he would ever forget a day like that.
    “The friendships,” Jim answered. One friendship in particular.
    “Okay. Well, we want the person who takes this position to be here for the long haul. So… Long haul, where do you see yourself in ten years?”
    Jim paused, considering the question. As he answered David's question, Jim knew it was over. He wouldn't get the job. During Jim’s senior year, his high school had made it all the way to the Area finals in basketball. Even though they had led throughout the first half, as the team made their way to the locker room, Jim knew that they were going to lose the game. He just knew it. By the end of the first half, Kennedy High, from Wyalusing, had applied a double team to Bobby Decker, Jim’s teammate and the best player their high school had seen in ten years. Kennedy covered the rest of the floor with a zone defense. They lost the game. All Jim could do was watch it happen. But high school was ten years ago. Jim was much better at dealing with disappointments. As he watched himself go down in flames, Jim didn’t feel all that disappointed.

He left corporate headquarters, feeling the momentary pull to reach for his cell phone. However, he paused when he saw Jeffrey, the director, and the rest of the second unit of the documentary crew across the street. It was strange. Sometimes he was so aware of them that it stiffled his impulses. other times, they were flies on the wall. Jim held onto his phone, but waited until he was out of sight before making the call. It rang twice on the other end before she picked up. “Hey Halpert.”
    “Hey. I just got done.”
    “How’d it go?” Karen asked.   
    “It… Can we meet? I need to talk.”
    “Sure. There’s a Starbucks down on the corner. Let’s meet there.”
    He could hear the joke in her voice. “There’s a Starbucks on every corner of every street in America, Filippelli. Narrow it down.”
    “Liberty and Nassau. There’s one there. It’s closer to you, so save us a seat.”
    “You want me to order for you?”
    “Sure. The usual.”
    Jim arrived first, ordering a grande regular for himself, and a Venti iced mocha for Karen. He sat at a table near the front of the store. Privacy was nice, but this conversation needed to be as public as possible.
    Karen arrived with a smile he had seen before. It was an anticipatory smile, the same smile she’d used when he picked her up for their first date.
    “You got me the iced mocha,” she said, surprised.
    “Yeah,” Jim said.
    “I usually get the hot version.”
    “Really? I could get you another one.” He knew that she never got the iced mocha. If she were going to throw the drink in his face based on what he was about to tell her, he’d prefer it to be cold.
    “Nah, it’s okay. So how’d it go?” she asked.
    “I… don’t think I’m going to get the job. And since Michael’s our only competition,” he paused, “You should expect David’s call.”
    Genuine sorrow and disappointment crossed Karen’s face. This surprised him. “Damn,” she said, “I thought you’d be a lock.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, I mean, you’re a great salesman. You and David totally hit it off when the two of you met. You got the look down. If there’d been money riding on this, I woulda bet on Halpert. I woulda taken odds.”
    Jim remembered the day when he and Pam, and Daryl from the warehouse, had talked Michael off the roof of the building. Karen lost a lot of money that day. She would have lost more today.
    He forced the smile off his face and looked at her. The disappointment was still there, wondering what had all gone wrong. Jim realized this was not a standard-issue reinforcement talk from the girlfriend. She honestly thought he was going to get the job. Her pronouncements about a congratulations party for herself, pronouncements that had annoyed him so much on the drive down and, for him at least, killed what was supposed to be a fun night in New York, were just that: talk. Just a lot of smack talk, like when he and Mark would play one-on-one at the YMCA on Tuesday nights. Even if Karen had a flawed, ironic way of expressing it, she really did believe in him. It was one of the things that attracted him to her.
    Realizing this made breaking up with Karen much more difficult. Jim drew a deep breath and let it out. He felt helpless, wishing he could say what was true but paradoxically unable to say it, because the truth had become cliche, scripted, and absolutely unable to believe. Karen was a great person. She would find someone else. It wasn’t her; it was Jim. She deserved someone better for her. All these things were true, and there was no way she was going to believe any of them because they had been used to death since… whenever. He hated everyone who had ever used a line like that without meaning it, himself included.
There were so many things about Karen that fanned his attraction to her, but Jim couldn’t escape the foundation of that attraction. Those things all reminded him of Pam.
    “Jim, what happened at the interview?”
    “I realized I didn’t want this. Any of it.”
    “It’s a great job, Jim. It gets us both out of Scranton.”
    Jim took another deep breath and tacked in another direction. He asked, “Did David ask you the ‘ten year’ question?”   
    “’Where do I see myself in ten years?’ Yeah, he asked me.”
    She seemed about to say more, but Jim was making a point here. He needed to get this done. “Karen, I can’t do this anymore,” he said.
    “Do what?”
    Here we go. “This.” Jim paused.  “Us.”
    The disappointment melted off her face the way the faces of all those Nazis melted at the end of the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Terror remained, of the arrival of the inevitable. “When David asked me the question,” he trailed off before continuing, “I don’t really know where I saw myself, but it was… not here. I wasn’t in New York working at corporate. And I was with Pam.”
    She looked off and then up, avoiding eye contact. Jim worried that she would cry. That would be worse than pouring her mocha on his head. Or in his lap. He wasn't sure why it would be worse. It just would. He saw sadness creeping in around the corners of her eyes, but somehow he could tell it wasn't a prelude to tears. Karen wasn't the kind to cry. At least, she wasn't the kind to cry in front of people. She simply said, "Pam."
    "Yeah."
    "The elephant in the room," she added.
    Karen eyes still refused to look at Jim, and the silence between them became almost Pinter-esque. Jim wanted to say something, but like a Mirandised suspect on Law and Order, he remained silent, thinking it best to let her drive the conversation. She reached for her mocha, and in the moment before she took a sip, Jim wondered if dry-cleaners could get coffee out of a suit, how much that would cost, and would it just be easier to write off the loss and make another trip to the Men's Warehouse. Karen finally said, "I should have broken up with you a long time ago."
    Jim said nothing. Their eyes finally met. He should have felt more hurt by what she said. After all, women had told him that before, using those exact words. However there was something in those clear, pretty eyes of hers that lacked malice or anger. She was simply stating the facts.
    "I knew you had feelings for her," she continued, "I mean, God, I asked you point blank. And you admitted it." She read the confusion on his face and clarified, "That one day, the day Oscar came back."
    "Yeah." Agreement seemed like a safe option.
    "Tell me something, Jim," she began, "What's she got that I don't?"
    It was a good question. Jim wanted to have an answer, a laundry list of reasons why he and Pam were a better fit. That she was warm and welcoming, funny, laughed at his jokes, joined him in pranks against Dwight and Michael, encouraged him to reach beyond himself, challenged him to not settle, thought he was brilliant, wanted the best for him. All of these things were true about Pam, but they seemed to be after the fact. In certain ways and certain contexts, they were just as true about Karen. What it came to was that he loved Pam, because she was Pam. And he was Jim. It was  as simple and uncomplicated as it was in junior high, when you carved your initials into the trunk of a tree. JH hearts PB. Like sodium and chlorine, they simply came together in such a way that something new and wonderful was the result. Jim rejected the idea of soulmates, one person for one another, and all that garbage, but this was how the universe had chosen to organize itself. Sodium and chlorine. Jim and Pam. No wonder they called it "chemistry."
    "I don't know," he told her. "I think you and I make it work. But it feels like it should be easier than this. And I don't know how to explain it except that she's who I want. I was wrong to string you along all these months, to put you in the middle of my... situation. And I'm sorry."
    "I almost fell in love with you Halpert," she said with a crooked smile, but without accusation. She said it as though it was something that she would have enjoyed but never got the chance to do, the way someone mourns not going to Europe after college.
    "Same here."
    "See, now you're just trying to make me feel better."
    He had to concede the point. "I hope you find someone, Karen. And of course you will. You are far too great to spend your life alone."
    The tears began to form, and she dabbed her eyes. "Shit. I hate doing this," she said.
Jim reached in his pockets for something, but came up short. He didn't know why he bothered. He didn't carry Kleenex or anything like it. Still, it felt like the chivalrous thing to do.
    "Jim, can you do me a favor?"
    "Sure."
    Karen stood up. She said, "I'm going to the bathroom. I'd really like it if you weren't here to see me like this when I come back."
    He gave her one last look before saying, "Yeah. Absolutely."
    "Thanks," she said as she grabbed her purse and walked towards the back of the store.
Jim remained in his seat for a few moments before realizing that she might not be that long. So he stood, cleared his part of the empty cups and used napkins, and left.   
It was time to return to Scranton.
 
    Years later, when the documentary miniseries finally aired, the producers chose to cut between Jim's interview and a conversation between Jim and Pam on the shore of Lake Scranton, after Pam had poured out her heart following a walk across a pit of burning coals. Jim could see why the producers had made such a choice. It suggested that the conversation was playing out in Jim's mind during the interview. The only problem was that it wasn't true. He never thought of that conversation during the interview. However, he thought of nothing else for the entire drive home, replaying it over and over again like a favorite song in the jukebox of his mind. One moment in particular. After confessing to Pam that he had felt like he had never really returned to Scranton, she simply said, "Well, I wish you would."
    As he sat in early rush hour traffic, all he could think about was "Well, I wish you would."
    He thought about it when the traffic cleared, just after he got on I-80. "Well, I wish you would."
    He was still thinking about it as, overwhelmed with hunger, he stopped at a diner outside Stroudsberg and was barely able to give his order to the waitress. "Well, I wish you would." He told the waitress about the last year, about dating Karen, Pam's invitation to coffee, the prank that prompted Andy to put his fist thorugh the wall, how she left with Roy at Phyllis's wedding, their conversation in the break room after Roy had tried to deck him, her heartfelt declaration that she missed him, their conversation at the water, and "Well, I wish you would." Wiping a tear from her eye, the waitress thought it was as close to a green light as a woman could give without posting a message on the Jumbotron at a Phillies game. Jim took that to heart. She wished him luck and gave him free fries. He tipped fifty percent.
    "Well, I wish you would." Jim arrived at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton just before four. He bounded up the stairs, two, three at a time, wanting the answer, wanting it as soon as possible. It was a question that he had been asking himself off and on for... well, since the day he met Pam for the first time. Most of the time he had asked it, the answer had been, "probably not." Certainly at times over the last year, he hadn't cared about the answer, though he was sure on one of those occasions that the answer would have been "yes." Now, for the first time that he could actually think of, he wanted the answer that he thought he was going to get. It thrilled him.
    She wasn't at reception when he walked in. Instead he saw Ryan, who looked up at him with a smile as he walked in. Two things disoriented Jim. First, where was Pam? Second, why was Ryan smiling? It wasn't like Ryan to smile at work. Ryan hated working at reception almost as much as he hated dating Kelly. Maybe that was it. Ryan got an afternoon off from listening to Kelly hold court about everything. An afternoon away from Kelly would have made Jim smile. The day that Michael took over Jim's desk while Daryl and Roy ripped out the carpet in Michael's office had dislocated Jim to the desk next to Kelly for the entire day. It was the longest day of Jim's life. Dating her must have required Herculean effort, and Jim often didn't know whether to admire Ryan for his patience or pity him for lacking the courage to break up with her. Or put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. For just a moment he disliked that he thought that about Kelly. She had the softest heart of anyone Jim knew. It was just that more often than not, it was turned in towards itself like a black hole of benign narcissism. She wasn't very smart, either.
    However, there was something about Ryan's smile that Jim found unsettling, as if he knew something that Jim didn't.
    "Hey," Ryan said, "How'd it go?"
    "The interview? Went alright."
    "You think you'll get it?"
    Jim shrugged. "Maybe I'm just being pessimistic."
    Ryan's brow furrowed. "Where's Karen?"
    "Oh. She stayed behind. Wanted to see some friends while she was in town." Jim felt Ryan's eyes probing him for clues and he wanted to change the subject away from Karen. "Is Pam around?"
    "She's talking to the guys in the Conference room."
    Jim had turned away on the work "conference," almost running into Stanley, who looked at Jim with the barest of awareness and without asking about the interview. The more things change... From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Dwight and Andy (or was he still calling himself Drew?) painting Michael's office. There was probably a story there. He'd find out later. Jim could hear her voice from inside.
    "Pam!" Jim said, shoving the door open. "Sorry," he said when he caught their confused glance of Ken, the director, and Randall, the cameraman. Jim saw a thought pass over Ken's face and had a pretty good guess what was going through his mind, because win or lose, Jim was about to give them a moment of great television. "Um, are you free for dinner tonight?" Jim asked.
    "Yes," she said as though she completely missed the implication of what he was asking and simply answered the question.
    "Alright. Then it's a date." He couldn't help tapping on the door jam, needing to burn off the sudden flood of excitement pouring into him.
Jim closed the door and turned away. He tried to play it cool, avoiding the questioning looks from Kevin and Toby as he made a straight shot to the bathroom. Only when he locked the stall door behind him did he allow the unabashed smile to run riot over his face. He was going on a date with Pam. Jim could barely believe it. This day was never supposed to arrive. Jim was going on a date with Pam.
    "You okay in there?" The voice belonged to Kevin.
    "Yeah, Kev. Never felt better." He wasn't sure if that was true, but he felt better than he had in as long as he could remember.
    "Did you get the job?"
    "I don't know. I don't think so."    
    "Oh. That's too bad," Kevin said, but with a touch of happiness in his voice that Jim found complimentary.
    "Yeah, well, win some, lose some."
    "Is Michael getting it?"
    "I doubt it."
    "Karen?"
    "That would be my guess." The possibility suddenly struck Jim that the woman with whom he just broke up was going to be much higher on the chain of command than he was. If hell truly had no fury like a woman scorned, then this could make life difficult, but Jim pushed the thought out of his mind.
    "Okay," said Kevin. He shuffled out the door, leaving Jim alone once again. He stood there for a moment, hands in pocket, his heart thumping like John Bonham's kick drum. He was going on a date with Pam.
    As he walked back to his desk, he saw Ryan walking back to his desk. Purgatory, thy name is "Kelly." However, Ryan's expression belied where he was going. If pressed for an answer, Jim would have described it as the look of a prisoner who truly believed he was going to make parole. He didn't know why he would have described it that way. It was just a feeling.
    "Hey Jim," Ryan said as they passed.
    "Yeah."
    "I just wanted to say... whoever gets the job, I've enjoyed working with you. And of the three of you, I'd want you to get it."
    "Thanks, man." Jim offered his hand. They shook.
    "Let's get a beer sometime."
"Count on it. If you ever get free of Kelly."   
    "Yeah." Again, there was a tone in Ryan's voice. Jim couldn't get to the bottom of it. Anyhow.
    Jim turned and headed back to his desk, tossing a glance over at reception. She looked up at him. Their eyes met and held. Hers were full of so many emotions. Jim had been in enough wedding parties to recognize that look. It was in the eyes those brides as they walked down the aisle towards the men who were about to become their husbands. Now, Pam was looking at him with that same mixture of hope, happiness, and possibility.
And it didn't scare him. Then she broke into a wide smile that Jim hadn't seen since he returned to Scranton. As a matter of fact, the last time Jim had seen it was during that casino night charity event when Pam took all of Jim's money at Texas Hold 'em. Trip nines were good cards. Usually.   
    When Jim logged in, he saw several emails waiting for him. A couple were from clients and potential clients. One was from David's assistant, thanking Jim for coming in to interview and informing him that David would make a decision in the next couple of days. THe most recent was from Pam.
    It said, "Welcome back."


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