Once, when they were in the warehouse walking between all the stacks of paper, she had told him that it reminded her of a story. The one about a little girl who had cancer and tried to make ten thousand paper cranes so she would be granted a wish, just one. Jim knew the story already, but he didn’t say anything because he liked it when she talked.
“We probably have more than enough paper here to do it, you know,” she had said.
Now Jim only has one paper crane crumpled up somewhere in his carry-on, the one she made for the mock Olympics, the one that’s sort of more of a dove. He wonders if it’s enough for a wish, just one (it probably isn’t).
The little girl dies at the end of the story, he remembers. She never finishes the cranes and never gets her wish.
-
They make him take off his shoes at the metal detectors. The floor is cold and the announcer speaks of delayed flights and waiting rooms. No one catches him at the gate (but he pauses, just for a second, just in case).
Onboard there is plastic cutlery that breaks as soon as you look at it and an in-flight movie about a plane crash. He gives the guy next to him the window because he doesn’t think he can stand to look at the view.
-
The thing is, he always knew it was a long shot. All he had was the hours nine-to-five, J. C. Penny work ware, and shared misery. The other guy had a ring and ten years.
(But Jim also had her full smile, the one with teeth and bright eyes. He had Jellybeans and Solitaire and stapler gags that were old before you even did them the first time. He thought he maybe had a chance.
And he was maybe horribly wrong.)
Shakespeare invented the word star-crossed, and even though he’s probably the best writer in the history of the world, Jim kind of hates him a little. Just for that.
-
He makes it maybe two minutes into the in-flight movie before thinking about her: what he’s taken to be the heroine has curly hair that isn’t even the right colour and he’s all kinds of pathetic.
Because Pam’s getting married, and the sick part is he can picture it perfectly. He can picture it perfectly because he was there when she picked out the place settings online, and he was the one who told her that low centerpieces encouraged cross-table conversation and that no, he wasn’t Martha Stewart: he would have made makeshift knives and not ponchos when in jail, for one thing.
He was there for all of it, and now he can see it as soon as he closes his eyes, like it’s burned onto the inside of his eyelids. He can picture exactly what she will look like in the silk dress with the scoop neck, even though she really wanted the one with the bow. He knows how she will wear her hair (he wonders if Roy does too).
The hardest part, probably, is knowing that her name is never going to be Beesly again. He remembers how he used to like to call her that sometimes, as a sort of reminder that it wasn’t over yet (because engaged really isn’t married). It’s what had given him the courage to tell her that he loved her, to kiss her in the dark office against his desk, beside his phone.
But now, now his own personal fat lady is singing. Because she had closed her eyes and said words like ‘mistake’ and ‘misinterpretation’.
The curly-haired girl dies fifteen minutes into the movie, in a plane crash that he watches silently because he hasn’t bothered to put on his headphones, and he feels a bit like crying.
-
The day before he left, she had come into work wearing blue stripes and a frown. She didn’t glace his way, not once, and he spent the entire day empathizing with invisible men and chameleons. Dwight celebrated his departure by learning a jig off the internet, step by step.
At 4:45 PM and seven seconds, he caught her coming out of the women’s washroom. He couldn’t look at her face so he had stared at the white stick-figure on the door.
He had wanted to say: ‘I love you and please, please don’t marry him, please, run away with me like they do in made-for-TV movies and sitcoms,’ or, simply ‘Can I kiss you one more time?’
He had said: ‘I hope it all goes well at the wedding. Dance one for me.’ And he had thought, maybe, if he stared at the figure on the door enough then he could pretend he didn’t see the way her eyes were a little bit red, her cheeks a little bit damp.
At the time, he had thought he was salvaging his dignity. (Now, onboard the plane, he cries alone in the stainless steal bathroom and supposes that he was wrong).
-
The first thing that happens when Jim gets to Australia is Michel, calling his cell (he had made the very grave mistake of telling Kelly his arrival time). Solemnly, Michel tells him that his phone has very loud speakers, and, if Jim wants, he can hold it up in the church so that when the priest says ‘speak now’ Jim can, from all the way across oceans.
After four stunned seconds of silence, Jim politely declines and not-so-politely hangs up.
The second thing that happens when Jim gets to Australia is his discovery of Australian beer (he discovers it in alarmingly large quantities).
-
On June 10th he is drunk before noon. He calls Mark from the hotel phone, because that’s what friends do, they check in, and also, okay, because he’s kind of hoping to hear some news about the wedding. Mark’s asleep when Jim calls because, oh yeah, the time difference, and he hangs up when Jim starts talking about Pam’s eyes.
Jim sits on the bed with the phone in his hands and thinks about the time difference, wonders if Scranton is ahead or behind. Wonders if it means that Pam is already married.
He turns on the hotel television and is surprised to find a classic American movie playing on channel 3. Somehow he thought Australia would only have shows about kangaroos and guys catching snakes saying ‘oh, she’s a beauty, she is’ (and he’s too drunk to worry about how ignorant that makes him sound).
He watches it the whole way through with the phone cradled in his hands, and when he whispers the last line with Clark Gable –
“…don’t give a damn.”
– he tries to mean it. He does.
