Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was. That savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter- death is hardly more severe! But to retell the good discovered there, I’ll also tell the other things I saw.
~The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto I
Jim Halpert slammed the door shut with enough ferocity to shake the plates on the dining room shelf. Stepping into the darkened space he called home, he stared into the grainy wooden paneling, feeling lost as one could be in their own skin, in their own living space. How the hell could Josh do that to us? To me? After all, he had it together in Stamford. He had a job that paid well, a sweet little apartment with a view of the Atlantic Ocean, and he was finally getting a chance to socialize a bit now that he was secure in his job. The best part was, he thought he’d finally found someone who could take his mind off Pam…at least for a few hours a night, he thought with a chuckle.
Karen Filippelli was sort of an anti-Pam Beesly. Sure, she was gorgeous, smart and funny, but unlike Pam, she was a high achiever, and she was the sort who could push him to want to better his own life, he thought. She was always impeccably dressed, composed and not afraid to speak her mind. They’d gone out on their first date a few weeks after his arrival in Stamford. She showed him around the town…they dined at the 122 Pizza Bistro downtown, took a walk on the beach at Cove Island Park, and finished the night off with a few drinks at the Thirsty Turtle. Then he took her home and as they stood on her front stoop, she leaned down from her perch on the top step and planted a firm, yet warm kiss on him. He was stunned…he’d never had a woman initiate the first kiss with him. But that was Karen, in essence. She’d asked him out, she’d been the first one to refer to him as her "boyfriend," she’d been the first to say "I love you." She’d been so patient with him, as though she could sense his heartbreak and word unspoken, be the security blanket to allay his fears. He felt like such a girl to admit it, but her strength and willingness to just admit whatever she felt was a welcome reprieve in in the sea of uncertainty that was his current situation.
Josh had shattered that façade earlier that day. You can’t blame a guy for taking a better offer, he thought as he flipped on the TV, but that wretch used us as his bargaining chip. He can rot in hell, for all I care. Most of the rest of the afternoon was awash in mystery. Would they get a new regional manager and still absorb some of Scranton? Would they just shut both branches down? He couldn’t imagine Jan would want Michael in charge of any more potential lawsuits than he already was. In the back of his mind, he just knew fate would push him back into the path of the Scranton (or was it Reading? He always did love Monopoly) railroad. When Jan had broken the news and given him the option to be the Assistant Regional Manager back in Scranton, he felt all the air drain from his lungs. Unable to give a real reason not to take it on the spot, he’d hemmed and hawwed enough that Jan had let him off the hook. Nonetheless, she’d want an answer by the end of the week in case she needed to go elsewhere to find Michael's number two, so time was running short to make a decision. Leaning back on the sofa, he tuned out the Sixers-Knicks game and rubbed his eyes in the vain hope that it would provide some him with a moment of clarity.
The insistent chattering of his cell phone on the glass tabletop provided him with a respite from his thoughts. Karen. Like a gift from above…she’d been so great to that point, surely she could provide him with some kind of perspective. He flipped the top…."Hey there, beautiful. What‘s up?"
"Hi Jim," came the reply from the other side of the phone. It sounded cold, surgical…he wondered if maybe she’d come down with something since he talked to her just a few hours earlier. "Can we talk?"
"Umm…well, usually that’s the point of a telephone, Filipelli. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t invent them all that time ago so we could just listen to each other’s TV in the background." The nervous sounding, not too convincing chuckle coming back at him told him that this was not a time to be joking. "Okay, sure. What’s on your mind?" He wasn’t used to Karen sounding so…unnerved, so unsure.
"I thought about what you said earlier."
"Oh, yeah?"
He remembered their brief conversation that afternoon. She’d asked him about going back to Scranton…he tried to give her the stock answer…"I really don't know"...but she was his girlfriend. Didn't she deserve to know more? Seeing her non-believing glare he knew he’d have to switch gears or risk divulging the deep, dark secret from his not-that-distant past. So he did what he was used to doing…he turned the subject to her plans. Lord knows, she was usually prepared for everything. He remembered her sounding a little uneasy as she wondered aloud about her job status. He’d made a suggestion that she move to New York, but behind it was his silent pleading….WE should move to New York…WE have nothing to do in Scranton. He knew that he wasn’t ready to take the big plunge and fully commit after only 5 months, but he also knew that he was slowly falling for Karen, and if he had a few more months, maybe he’d be ready then.
"You were right, Jim." He let the breath that had caught in his throat out slowly so as not to sound too excited. She GOT it. He could feel himself falling a little more for her by the moment. In fact, he should have saved it for what was coming next.
"Cool…so should we go apartment seeking this weekend then? I can tell Jan…."
"We?"
"Yeah, we. What’s going on here, Karen?" He was starting to get concerned about the direction of this conversation. He grabbed his glass of Coke and let one of the ice cubes roll onto his tongue, pretending to be nonchalant, as though she could see him through the telephone signals.
"Jim…you told me…" He thought he could hear a little bit of a choke as she tried to hold back a tear. Oh my God…she misinterpreted what I said. I’ve got to let her know what I meant.
"Karen, listen, I care about you and I wasn’t really excited about moving back to Scranton. I was hoping you’d know I meant that you and I could move to New York. Jan seems to like me…maybe I could find a place in corporate until I can find somewhere else to work and…" He knew he sounded a little desperate, but he needed Karen to know that he needed her.
"Jim, there’s someone else."
He froze. He felt like the proverbial deer in the headlights and he was glad that they weren’t doing this face to face, because he was certain the look of sheer terror in his features would have scared her away right then. He thought for a second about feigning ignorance, but decided a partial truth in this situation would be proper. "No, Karen, that was a long time ago, before you, and I’m *totally* over her, and now I have you, and..."
"No Jim, I mean that *I* found someone else." The briefest silence that followed was splintered by the sound of his glass clanking off the hardwood floor. Thankfully he’d been down to just ice, but the tinkling of the cubes off the sides of the cylinder pounded inside his ears like the beating of a war drum. He couldn’t even speak…he was still stammering when she interjected. "I know this isn’t the best timing Jim, but I figured you deserved to know what was going on. I just can’t do this anymore." The hint of emotion was now gone…the idea that she sounded so matter-of-fact about throwing away the last five months of their lives stirred the bitterness in his next statement.
"So, I suppose I was just some sort of fun distraction…someone you figured you could throw away once you found someone better?" He was really trying not to raise his voice, but failing.
"No, I mean I loved you, but you never seemed to let me in. Frank and I met at yoga class and we hit it off and…"
His anger overflowed, spilling into his voice. "Karen, spare me your damn love story, alright? Frank? How the hell old is this guy? No one our age has that name!"
"That’s none of your business, Jim!" Karen yelled back. "He may be a few years older, but at least he has GOALS, Jim! He wants a life, and he wants a great career, and he wants ME, Jim! Which is more than I can say for you, lately." The solemn realization with which she made the final statement cut him to the core….further than any yelling or screaming could, because he knew it was true. He wasn’t going to win any "Boyfriend of the Year" awards…hell, it’d been two weeks since they last had sex, even.
He responded in the only way he could think. "Yeah, well at least I’m not running away, Karen!" Despite the irony of the statement in his mind, he was glad he said it. It didn’t help the matter at hand though…it served to set off a firestorm of insults, curses and obscenities before he finally had it and slammed the phone down on the floor, cracking it and rendering it useless. At least I won’t have to hear from her ever again though, he thought.
He looked at the clock on the microwave….9:23. He’d been arguing with Karen for nearly three hours. Warming up some leftover lasagna, he sat down at the table in exhausted silence. In the span of about 12 hours, he’d gone from feeling like his life had turned a corner to the bottom of the pits…he wondered aloud who he’d pissed off enough to deserve this.
His moment of self-pity was interrupted by the tinny ringing of the kitchen phone. Only one person ever called him on his home phone.
"Hey Mom," he said thoughtlessly.
"Hi honey. Are you busy? If Karen is there, I can call back later…" His instinct was correct.
"No, umm, she’s at her place tonight." He hoped she’d leave it at that.
"Okay. Jim, I’m just calling to tell you…that your father’s biopsy results came back today. The tumor they removed was cancerous." This must be the body blow after all of today’s jabs in the eye, he thought. Can it get any worse?
"How, I mean…what’s the prognosis?" was all he could muster.
"They said they think the surgery got all of it, but he’s going to have to undergo chemo and radiation. He didn‘t want to tell your brother, sister or you yet because of Jon’s med school exams this week, but he went to bed already and I‘m so scared." He could hear the struggle in his mother’s voice as she tried not to cry.
After a few minutes of questions and a few tears shed on both sides, they said goodbye and Jim turned his attention back to the physical mess he’d put off cleaning in the sink for a few days. He stood against the counter, cleaning up the leftover dishes and pondering when his life had ever been so screwed up…briefly he let his mind dance on thoughts of letting the knife he was washing slice its way through his wrist…letting go and giving in, telling the universe that it in fact had conquered his soul and put him to the ultimate shame. Thankfully, the negativity quickly dissipated and he knew that he’d have to really give this return to Scranton some thought now.
He grabbed two beers from the fridge, stepped out onto the balcony and breathed in the crisp November night. It was normally chilly this time of year, but a warming breeze off the ocean tempered both the air and his spirit. As he curled himself into the oversized lounge chair he and Karen had pushed out sometime over the summer, he thought of his surroundings…chic, bright, glamorous and quick in pace…the kind of place everyone would want to be. Surely his excellent numbers with Stamford would count for something , and he could find another sales job pretty quickly. He was comfortable with sales, and darned good at it when he wanted to be. He’d outsold Dwight the last quarter, something he’d never done when he was in Scranton. His thoughts turned to his hometown…it was a slower place, comforting and warm…he’d be closer to his parents, which was important now especially, and to his brother and sister, whom he hadn’t seen since he moved. Scranton was like a sibling to him…he picked on it sometimes, but deep down he loved it and missed it greatly when he was away from it. But Scranton was also where Pam was…and he knew the risks of falling back into things with her. Sure, she’d called her wedding off, but it obviously wasn’t about him. She’d made that clear enough on casino night when she rejected him…twice. Plus, now she was going on dates again…he’d be lucky if she’d remember their friendship at all when…if….he went back. Wearily, he leaned back into the chair and allowed himself to drift off, gazing into the ocean before him, stretching out endlessly toward the stars.
