Candy Dish

Pam usually eats at her desk now, but when she goes to the refrigerator to get her lunch, Phyllis pats the seat next to her.

“Have you seen these before?” Phyllis asks, and opens her hand to show Pam a small brown box.

“Yeah, they’re those Harry Potter jellybeans – the ones with the gross flavors.”

Phyllis’s eyes are bright behind her glasses, and although they are the only two in the break room, she cups one hand by her mouth. “Well, I thought you could put some in your candy dish – you know, for Dwight.”

“Phyllis, I don’t know. Someone else might eat one.”

“Pam,” Phyllis says, lightly touching Pam’s hand, “no one else eats the candy now.”

The refrigerator has developed an annoying buzz and it fills the silence, so Pam is confused at first when Phyllis continues, “It’s just been so…quiet lately.”

Pam peels the lid off her yogurt, folds it into quarters, but instead of tossing it she just taps each of the three corners on the table.

She hadn’t thought of how anyone else would feel about Jim’s absence.

Phyllis pulls out her container of salad. Pam thinks of returning to her desk, but remembers the time Phyllis caught Jim pulling a “Phyllis” impression; instead of getting angry, she had done a face right back at him: eyebrows raised, mouth curved down, head tilted.

“Uh, Phyllis? Do the black ones taste bad? Because that’s the only color Dwight eats.”

“I think they’re licorice.”

“He likes licorice.”

“Oh. I guess it won’t work then.” Phyllis starts to slip the box back into her pocket, but stops and asks “What about a Sharpie?”

“A Sharpie?”

Phyllis giggles, hunches her shoulders, whispers, “We can make them black.”

After Phyllis returns from her desk with the pen, they sit, schoolgirl-close, as Pam sorts the beans and Phyllis uses the marker to darken the nastiest-tasting ones. They decide the booger-flavored ones will work best.