She hung the yogurt lid on the rearview mirror. She didn’t know why. She only knew that what little strength she hadn’t already gained from starting out on her own was being drawn from that crinkled aluminum lid. As it spun tiny pinpricks of golden light floated around her head on the wall of the car, reminding her of a miniature golden disco ball. A smile graced her face as she thought of how he would respond to that particular thought if she ever told him (if she ever got the chance to play the Who Can Entertain The Other The Most With The Most Random Observation game with him again). He would tell her they should start up a company providing lighting for very small 1970’s throwback parties. 

Writing his words in her head did nothing but solidify her need to see him. The need had driven her out of her comfortable Friday evening routine of Chinese takeout and reruns of CSI. The need had her waiting to pull out of a gas station in a small town between Scranton and Stamford, her car filled with bags of nuts, candy bars and an assortment of the most unhealthy drinks she could find. The need had driven her out of a doomed marriage, her own apartment, and into her freedom.

Along highways, back roads, and intersections she attempted to see herself through his eyes. Breaking the engagement, art classes, friends that understood her on a level that didn’t include football party cheese dip or her receptionist abilities. She knew that if he got past her intentional misinterpretation, the long looks across a conference room, and all the vocal and silent “I cant’s”, he’d be proud. Simply because she was starting to see herself the way she had always thought he had viewed her. Strong. Funny. Creative. Powerful.

So now with her ring finger a few grams lighter and her mind far less weighed down she had set off toward him. The way she looked at it, three things could happen tonight.

He could tell her that she was too late. That he would always love her in his angst ridden way, but they could never be together. That he would be broken up, but she had had her chance and she blew it.

He could welcome into his warm arms and tell her everything she was dying to here. He could tell her so much, a “I love you” in a darkened parking lot is just the tip of the iceberg. She didn’t let herself think about this one too much, though. It raised the standards too high.

Or he could tell her: “Oh, that? Don’t worry about it. It was a one time thing. Totally over it.” While this one was the least likely, it also scared her the most.

Andy was a little too angry, Karen a little too quiet, and Josh a little too calculating for his taste, but with no purely social connections in the town he’d been living in for two months, Jim decided to take the trio up on their offer of dinner after a particularly long work day. Josh had offered buying everyone a burger at a locally famous diner downtown, and Jim was in no mood to argue.

Moving from Scranton was a quick fix. Jim knew that. As he listened to menus being made up, flower arrangements ordered and hair do critiques  a quick fix was more than he could ask for. Moving across states, cutting off friends, and starting another phase in a job that he had initially kept as a means to get near her had taken not nearly enough intrapersonal debating as it should have. He needed out. The problem was, now that he was out, he didn’t know where to go.

So he settled temporarily for a booth in The Clock Diner sandwiched in between Andy, who was listening off all if the types of burgers he’s had and their star rating (“Hawaiian, three stars. Not enough pineapple. Southwest, one star. The orange sauce was cre-e-e-e-pay. ‘Nough said, right Tuna?”) and Karen who had been a little more friendly as of late (“Prepare to get your ass kicked!” was Karen’s version of “I think we could get along.” when she was in front of a video game). Frankly, he needed some air.    

The clang of the bell on the door faded as the warm evening breeze blew his hair across his forehead. Cars of every color and brand packed the small parking lot. Blue Camry, Green station wagon, white pickup, and a small blue car we just a few of the assortment.           

He stood aimlessly, unwilling to return into the loud diner where merriment was evident in every nook and cranny.

A few minutes ticked by and the church bell rang for eight o’clock. He took it as a sign to head back in, but as he turned to subjugate himself to a greasy burger and tales of Cornell he heard a shout come across the small parking lot.

“Jim!”

She had watched him the entire time, the weight of the coincidence that he had chosen the same diner that she had to eat dinner hanging over her head as if to say “Come On. Lets see you screw this one up Pam. How obvious do you need it to be? Tell him how you feel or order a goddamn milkshake, just do something.”

But she found herself unable to move as he stepped out. His long lanky frame leaned on the pillar on the porch with an air of nonchalance that Pam had always found endearing. Even while his forehead was scrunched up, his eyes squinting as if he were doing some very complicated long division, and his hands fidgeting (though they were always moving, really) his poise managed to leave the impression, that, yes, he did belong there.

He wasn’t unchanged though, his loss of a few pounds was evident around the now more chiseled chin, her suits were darker and better tailored, and his hair was a good deal longer.

She knew now was her chance, a chance leap out of the car and go all in. A chance to undo all the wrong that she had done last May. But something held her back. For some inexplicable reason, she enjoyed this outsider’s view of him. Now he wasn’t trying to make her laugh, attempting to come up with new and better ways to annoy Dwight within the law, or trying to make her see that he was the one, not Roy that would make her happy. She thought maybe she could take a clue from what he did at this moment in the diner parking lot as to how to act. She though that-

All unexplainable puzzling and stalling was cut shot as he turned around to re-enter the diner, so Pam did the first thing she could think of. She yelled.

“Jim!”

He hadn’t been gone near long enough to forget that voice, even in a key that he had never heard it in.

He knew who it was as the doorknob rested in the palm of f his hand, but as he turned around her was still surprised to see her. Dressed in dark blue jeans and a violet sleeveless top with her hair completely down, she made up a version of herself that he had never been witness to. This was a Pam who got what she wanted. This was a Pam who called off her wedding. This was a Pam who traveled across states for an unknown reason to shout his name across a parking lot.

He stood still as she strode looking determined and purposeful, feeling completely numb to her presence. She might not even have been real. She could have been a mirage that too much paper and lonely nights had produced, a specter come to remind him what he couldn’t have.

About three feet away from him she stopped. Looking at her feet she mumbled, “Hey.”

No response.

“Just thought since I was in the neighborhood I should maybe….stop….by.”

Lame attempt at humor. No response.

“I wasn’t in the neighborhood.” She didn’t glance up at him as she kicked a piece of gravel  “It took three hours to get me in the neighborhood. God, I sound like Mr. Rogers…..”

No response.

“Yea I expected that. This is hard. But I didn’t drive for three hours for nothing. So, here it goes.” She inhaled. “ Last May you said the best thing and the worst thing you could have said. I don’t know how you ever believed me when I told you that I was going to marry him after that. I mean I do-its just. I didn’t. Well I guess you knew that. But, that’s not the point.” She stops to glance up at his neck and rethink her last statement “Well, that is the point. I didn’t marry him. And I think that means something. I mean obviously that means something. But, what I trying to say it that you didn’t misinterpret. You read it all right, but I couldn’t make up my mind. I know that sounds lame and overly dramatic, but it is true. But I thought maybe you’d understand. You always understand, which is why you leaving made….you leaving so hard. There was no one there who understood. You left and there was no one to tell me that everything was okay. Because it wasn’t. Because it was never okay with us.”

With all the revelations and boldness in her statements, there was still no eye contact. No response.

“Because after all the pranks, all the jokes, and all the jellybeans, it always felt wrong to go home without you. So, I am up here, three hours away from home saying that I don’t ever want to go home without you.” Pause “That did not come out the way I wanted to. What I wanted to say was, I love you.”

And he was gone.

There was no resisting after that.

The haze that has entrapped him as she approached as now replaced with a sense of clarity that he never experienced.

Without any of his prior hesitation or defiance he pulled her to him, needing to feel that his was real. That this was happening. Her tears soaked through his shirt and his mingled with her curls. He didn’t need to say it back. She knew. They were here finally here.

The next morning as he rode to her right, complaining of the limited leg room of her car she retrieved the yogurt lid from the middle compartment. He shot her a amusedly puzzled look.

She gave him a grin and said “It’s like tiny disco ball.”