“Pam! Pam!”

She inwardly groaned but forced on a blank expression on her face. Michael always became more unbearable than normal before the holidays. He came in bursting with energy, new nicknames, and a short fuse for anyone who dared to burst his bubble of holiday spirit.

“Or…Mrs. Anderson, if you’re nasty.” Michael giggled. “Get it, Pam? Like Pam Anderson, the Babewatch babe?” He cast a knowing glance at the camera and cupped his hands over imaginary breasts. Imaginary large breasts.

“I get it, Michael.”

Michael deflated instantly at her unenthused demeanor. “I don’t think you do,” he said with a nervous laugh. “But that’s okay. You don’t have to be the smartest bulb in the office. Just the hottest. Right Kev?”

She didn’t have to look at Kevin to know he was nodding in solemn agreement. Her eyes automatically shifted to where Jim should have been so they could commiserate privately over their bosses obnoxious antics with only a shared look.

She could practically hear the cameras zooming in on her saddened features as Michael began to run in slo-mo toward his office, shaking his non-existent strands of hair behind him while laughing hysterically.

“Did you want something, Michael?”

He straightened and returned to her desk, bending over so that only she could hear what he was about to say.

“Will you let me know when my girlfriend calls?”

He said it loudly, despite his supposed intentions. Pam smiled thinly and agreed, just as she had been doing for the past six months. She knew it was just an excuse for him to announce to the office that he indeed did have a girlfriend, just so everyone would know. She didn’t fully blame him. The very thought was hard for even him to believe.

Michael returned to his office and the rest of the office went back to their work while Pam sat there, listening to the sounds that had become the background of her life. The water cooler bubbling, the air conditioner kicking on, the furious clacking of fingers on keyboards.

Going into work everyday had become an exercise in futility. Everyday the same. Not even countless conference room meetings or sudden parties to boost office morale could change that if she had no one to share it with. Or complain with. Or laugh with.

It was as though she were starting over at Dunder Mifflin from scratch. During the first weeks, she’d dealt with it by drafting email after email with things she would share with him. Just a quick message telling him of Dwight’s latest investigation or the way Jan was making Michael’s life a living hell for spurning her. Something to break the ice. A way to know that they were okay. That she hadn’t truly lost him.

She was being selfish, she knew. Wanting to hold on to his friendship even after witnessing the utter devastation he went through when she broke his heart.

It would have killed him to see her marry Roy. To start a family with him. To grow old with another man.

But she was beginning to think life without Jim would kill her first.

Her calendar was spread across her desk and she doodled carelessly in the empty date boxes until her pen ran out of ink. She scratched the tip across the paper, knowing it would soon drag and tear the paper, but she almost wanted to hear the sound of something different.

Only ten minutes had passed.

She was being slowly driven insane, she mused. Was that covered under the Dunder Mifflin health plan? Her lips started to curl slightly before she even heard his voice in her head.

I thought you said you were making up diseases? That’s spontaneous dentalhydroplosion.

She bit her lip hard between her teeth. Stop it. He left. You got married. That’s how it is. That’s what you chose.

Thinking of life any other way wasn’t fair to anyone. Not to Roy, not to Jim, not to herself. She was just going to have to find a way to make things go back to normal. Or as normal as possible.

A new normal.

It was just going to take some time to get over losing her best friend, she rationalized. He had been the one she went to when she needed to talk or vent. He had been the one she went to when she was happy or made up a new word. He was the one…

“Pam?”

The tentative voice called out to her, breaking into her thoughts. She looked up and saw Phyllis smiling at her.

“I’m expecting a fax. Would you let me know when it gets here?”

“Sure.” Pam tilted her head. “You never get faxes.”

Phyllis blushed a deep pink, leading Pam to believe her boyfriend Bob Vance (from Vance Refrigeration) was going to be sending her an illicit memo disguised as office business. She found herself brimming with jealousy.

Even though she’d be mortified with a lusty love letter from Roy, it would at least be something.

She didn’t know how many times she had told him while they were dating that she didn’t need expensive flowers or a pricey shopping spree or a romantic vacation, not that those were options anyway. All she needed was an email telling her that he loved her. A flower hand picked out of the rose bush on the ground floor of their complex. And sure, maybe a dirty fax, just to keep things spicy.

After nine years, they could use some spice.

But after nine years of getting nothing, she just stopped fighting it. It wasn’t worth it to have the same fight over and over and over again.

So instead she’d been given an engagement ring that she didn’t love but learned over time to like quite a bit. A trip to the Poconos when she didn’t even like to ski. The best sex of her life when all she wanted was a simple valentine. Or at least the best sex of her life rather than him grunting and grabbing and rolling over fifteen minutes later, when he was done.

“Just let me know when it gets here. It’s kind of important.”

“Okay. Will do.”

Pam couldn’t believe her curiosity had been effectively piqued by Phyllis’s love life.

She began to feel guilty for complaining about Roy’s less than romantic side. Mainly because while listing all the many ways he’d let her down, she couldn’t help but compare him to another man who had always come through. One who knew that she didn’t need a last minute promise of incredible sex. Sometimes all it took was a bag of her favorite chips.

Or knowing her favorite chips.

Her wedding photo glared up at her from her desktop as if to remind her that she got what she wanted. She looked happy, she thought with a critical eye. She looked at it often, just to make sure in case one day, her true emotions that day were to suddenly appear for all to see.

But as long as her smile was big and her cheek was pressed up against his, she knew her secret would be safe.

Roy looked so handsome, she remembered fondly, touching his deeply dimpled cheek through the glass.

Just like the night of their senior prom.

He’d grabbed her ass that night too. All these years later, he still thought it was funny.

All these years later, she still didn’t.

“Has my girlfriend called yet?”

“No, Michael.”

“No what?”

Pause. “No, your girlfriend hasn’t called yet.”

“Thank you.”

***

She remembered the first time she realized how much she loved to draw and that she was actually good at it. It was the summer she turned 14 and her family took a vacation to Florida to visit family. They stayed at a beautiful beach house on the shore and she fell in love with the sunsets that seemed to sink right into the water and melt away.

High school started that fall and she didn’t get much attention from the boys. She was short and gawky, with frizzy hair and wire-rimmed glasses and a mouthful of rubber bands and metal.

But she wasn’t that interested in them either. She had her sketchbook and her watercolors and she had her dreams. And that was all she needed.

When she met Roy, all of that changed. Her life became football games and parties and losing her virginity and falling in love for the first time and feeling like maybe she didn’t need dreams if she just had someone to love her. Because there was no feeling in the world like being in love for the first time and being kissed and being held. She just wanted to hold onto it as long and as hard as she could.

The closest she came to ending things with him had come during her sophomore year of college. He had already dropped out and began working at Dunder Mifflin and she went back to Florida for a family reunion.

She looked out over the water from the terrace and watched as the waves reached up as if to embrace the drifting sun. It was the first time she felt her heart break for what she’d lost.

For what she’d given up.

She had gone home and shown him the drawing that she’d made when she was 14 years old and filled with promise and dreams and asked him what he thought.

He never took his eyes off the TV as he said, “It’s nice.”

***

The day went by slower than normal, if that was possible. Her time was consumed with answering phones, attempting to learn how to play hearts on the computer, and humoring Michael.

She tried not to get lost in how things used to be, in how things could have been, in how things should have been.

Her mind kept wandering back to that night, when she could have changed everything. The taste of his kiss, the heat of his body, the feel of the backs of her thighs pressed up against the desk in the darkened room.

You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.

Me too.


The rapid beeping of the fax machine broke her out of her reverie. She unconsciously fanned her face with her hands and swiveled around to reach for the paper feeding through the machine.

It was addressed to Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, c/o Phyllis Lapin.

She hadn’t intended on reading over it first, but it didn’t have the Vance Refrigeration seal that normally accompanied his faxes into the office.

Her heart nearly stopped when she saw who it was from.

Phyllis

Here is a copy of my flight plan. My plane should get in on time tomorrow. Thanks for picking us up.

Jim

***

Pam clocked out five minutes after five, then pulled her jacket over her arms. The blustery November winds were colder than normal and the heat was out in Roy’s truck.

“Did my fax ever get in?” Phyllis asked nervously from her desk.

Pam stared at her, not even thinking. “No. No fax.”