PAM


She was in a bad mood. Not only did she only get like six hours of sleep the entire weekend, but she had to call a tow truck to come out and jump-start her car. Apparently she had left her lights on when she got home Friday night. She didn’t want to blame herself, so instead she blamed Jim for it. When Pam shuffled into work Monday morning the last thing she wanted was to deal with Michael or Dwight or pretty much anyone.

She settled into her desk and checked the voicemails from over the weekend. She then grabbed the faxes off the machine and flipped her monitor on, already dreading the day ahead. Friday had taken a year’s worth of getting over Jim and thrown it out the window.

When she had left the bar, she fully intended to get to her car as quickly as possible and get home. A feeling, long since boarded up, stopped her though. Something inside her that had always missed him since the day he left. It would not let go of him no matter how hard she tried. So she hesitated, and then he was there, literally bursting through the door to the parking lot.

She was proud of herself that she managed to talk to him without either a) kissing the life out or him or b) beating the life out of him. In fact, things seemed to go just fine. Well until he told her that he didn’t come back for her. In fact he came back in hopes of purposely avoiding her. That’s when she left. Jim Halpert did not deserve to see her cry.

Still, she did nothing but sit in her apartment, watch television, and pick up the phone a dozen times with the intent on getting in touch with him. Or at least finding out how to get in touch with him. The closest she got was his and Mark’s old apartment number, which was no longer in service.

The phone rang and brought Pam out of her self-pity. She briefly considered letting it just go to voicemail. Sighing, she yanked up the receiver and mouthed the same line she always mouthed.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said to her. The air in her lungs froze. God she wished that just the sound of his voice would stop doing that to her.

“Hey yourself,” she replied. Maybe she should just hang the phone up now and go hide in the bathroom all day.

“I have a weird question for you. Well, uh, weird isn’t really the right word. Replace weird with odd,” he said, a hint of humor in his voice.

Pam twirled the phone cord around a finger. What was he up to? “Feel free to ask. I may not answer it though.”

“Fair enough. Um, are you free for dinner tonight?” Pam fumbled the receiver and dropped it with a large thump. That may have been the last thing she was expecting him to say. He can’t be serious? Can he? Does he expect to just waltz back and act like nothing’s happened? She finally got the phone back under control, fully expecting to give him an earful of what she thought.

“Yes,” she said. Wait. That wasn’t what she meant to say. Where did that come from? This time it was her head hitting the desk.

“Great. Then it’s a date,” Jim told her.

The word ‘date’ made her eyes swim. “Let’s not go that far with it. I’m not sure how I feel about you yet.” She cheered at herself in her mind. Just because he was back and asking to see her again did not mean she had to become silly putty in his hands. More like play-dough.

“Ah, yeah, sure. That’s cool. No, you’re right. Look, when I saw you Friday-“ he began.

She cut him off, not wanting to get worked up more than she already was. “Meet me at Chili’s tonight. Seven ok? You owe me thirty bucks by the way.” She allowed herself a little grin when she heard him fumbling on the other end of the phone.

Perplexed, he didn’t say anything for a few seconds. She wondered if she had done something wrong. Maybe the weird ‘thirty bucks’ line was not a good idea after all. She was about to explain her car experience from Saturday morning when she realized he was laughing. She hated to admit it, but she loved to hear him laugh.

“Yeah I can do that Beesly. See you there. Unless they call the police to have you escorted out. Maybe you can be arrested by Dwight.” He paused, chuckling. “And its not that I don’t believe you, but why do I owe you money?”

She tried not to but she giggled. A small part of her was shocked and embarrassed that he could still do that by just using his voice. She called him a dork and chided him for not knowing, even though she knew that he could not possibly have any idea. They said a quick goodbye and hung up. Pam looked down and noticed her hands were not fidgeting at all. She took that as a good sign.