*********
Jim was quiet on the drive home, but I had a good idea what was on his mind. He gets very quiet when he’s upset. He seems to think this is a good cover for his darker emotions but in reality it’s a dead giveaway, since it’s the polar opposite of Happy Jim.
We’ve worked very hard on saying what we mean and not hedging or holding back, so I wasn’t going to let this go altogether, but I also didn’t want to get into it immediately. So instead as we hit the highway and he turned on the radio to break the silence, I said, with perfect truth, “I love your family.”
This elicited a genuine smile, and he glanced over at me warmly. “They love you too.”
I don’t think he truly appreciated how nervous I’d been, what a relief it was to find everyone so gracious and warm and apparently glad to meet me. I fell immediately in love with Kathy, Jim’s sister-in-law. She was smart and funny and hilariously witty in describing her pregnancy discomforts. She and Jon had a way of finishing each other’s sentences and speaking to each other with their eyes that was eerily like the way Jim and I communicated. And their little boy was adorable.
Jim’s father addressed me like I was already part of the family, but it was his mom, Larissa, I’d been most afraid to meet. She sat down with me when the guys got into their basketball game in the driveway, and watched me watching Jim as she quizzed me about my classes and life at Dunder-Mifflin and was it true, all the things she’d heard about Dwight over the years?
And I was surprised at how easy she was to talk to. Funny and sharp and friendly. I wasn’t unaware that she was observing me, judging me; but she was so kind about it, with genuine curiosity, like she just wanted to know me. I saw a lot of Jim in her eyes, her smile, her sense of humor, that same innate kindness that sought to put me at ease. As we watched them falling all over each other in the driveway she told me a tale about Jim, literally tripping over his own feet and taking down two of his teammates during his first high-school basketball game, that had me laughing so hard Jim shot a suspicious glance over at us.
It had been a good day.
“This is gonna suck for the fireworks,” he sighed finally, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and squinting harder at the road as the rain picked up in intensity.
“It’ll blow over,” I said.
He made a sound like hmph. “You think?”
I glanced at him pointedly. “Absolutely. It’s just a little storm. Not enough to ruin our weekend.”
He met my eyes for a second and smiled, but didn’t say anything.
********
It did clear up, just before sunset. We’d planned on going to the park for the fireworks, but my tiny balcony actually had a good, unbroken view of the southern skyline toward Nay Aug, and when I suggested we stay home and open a bottle of wine Jim agreed immediately, seemingly relieved.
“We should bring the big chair out there,” Jim suggested, thoughtfully eyeing the oversized armchair in my living room. “Think it’ll fit?”
“If we bring everything else inside, maybe.” It was a very small balcony, just large enough for a folding chair and a tiny little table that was really designed to be a plant holder. “Let’s give it a try.”
It turned into an adventure of forceful shoving, removing the cushions, and experimenting with different angles, but we were just able to squeeze it through the door. I went for a blanket and Jim got the wine, and we settled in as the first of the fireworks lit the sky. The chair was only big enough for both of us if I sat half in his lap, but even that wasn’t close enough; he pulled me completely on top of him and tightened his arm around my shoulders.
We were quiet for a while, sipping wine and watching the show. I was thinking about that night on the roof when we were watching Dwight and Kevin narrowly avoid going up in flames when Jim sighed. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he said quietly. “I’m an ass.”
“No, you’re not.”
He sighed again, tracing small circles on my shoulder with his thumb. “Tell me the story.”
I lifted my head off his chest and looked up at him, puzzled. “What?”
“Tell me how you learned to throw a football. I don’t know that story.” He squeezed me briefly. “I need to know all your stories, Beesly, and that’s ten years of your life, so—”
“Nine.”
“What?”
“Nine years,” I corrected.
He smiled. “Okay, nine years of your life, and it would be pretty stupid if we just, you know, never talked about anything that happened in all that time, so...tell me the story of Pam Beesly, age…?”
“Eighteen,” I supplied.
He whole expression softened as he stared down at me for a long minute. “Pam Beesly, age eighteen,” he murmured.
I shook my head sadly. “I most definitely did not sit at the cool table.”
“No, you were miss artsy-fartsy.” He trailed his fingertip along the hem of my sleeve. “How did you ever get together with him?” he asked, his voice soft, curious, still a little disbelieving.
I plucked at the blanket and kept my eyes on his chin, not quite able to meet his eyes. “He sat next to me in English senior year. We were reading Romeo and Juliet…”
“And he was Romeo,” Jim smirked.
“No, he was Mercutio.” I gave him a look. He bit his lip, nodded, assumed a more serious expression. “So anyway,” I continued, “I got strep throat about halfway through, and I missed a week of school. And he brought me my homework every night. Not just from English, either; he went around to all my teachers and got all my assignments.”
His skepticism was clear. “Really.”
“Yes,” I said, a little defensively. “He was really sweet. And I couldn’t figure out why he liked me. He was really popular, ever since middle school, and I was…not…” I shrugged. “But it was flattering, you know? He… admired me.”
He frowned. “But how did you keep it going so long? You didn’t have anything in common.”
“We did, though.” I sat up a little. “Not like you and I do, but…we grew up in the same neighborhood. We went to the same church. His dad and my dad knew each other—his dad’s in construction, and my dad’s an electrician, you know, so they sometimes worked on the same job sites, and we were all…the same kind of people, I guess?” I sighed. “I didn’t know it could be… like this.” I gestured at the space between us.
His expression softened into a tiny smile.
“I almost broke up with him when I was in college.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Yeah. He was sure he was going to get a scholarship to Penn State, but then he messed up his knee during senior year and it didn’t happen.” I sighed again, remembering how crushed he’d been, how lost and disappointed, all his plans for the next few years turned upside down. “He got a job at his uncle’s appliance repair shop, and I was going to Marywood, and we only saw each other on weekends. I was actually planning on telling him we should see other people. And I was this close to doing it, at dinner one night, when he told me how much he loved me, and missed being with me, and that he wanted to marry me.” I smiled sadly, wondering, not for the first time, how different everything would be if I’d beaten him to the punch that night. But then I’d never have gotten on at Dunder-Mifflin, and then I’d never have met Jim, so maybe things did happen for a reason?
“He didn’t have a ring yet,” I continued, “but he promised he’d get one as soon as he could save up enough, and after that semester when I came home for the summer, he’d gotten on at Dunder-Mifflin and they had the receptionist job open, and it was just gonna be so… romantic, I guess? for us to work at the same place…” I shook my head. “So I quit school and got the job in the office and we moved in together.”
“So if you’d broken up with him, you and I never would have met,” he said thoughtfully.
“That’s right.”
His expression shifted to something between amused and indignant. “So basically we owe it to Roy that we’re together.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head with a smile full of wonder. “That’s…ironic.”
“Yes it is.” I clinked my glass to his. “Or fate, maybe. Do you believe in fate?”
“Absolutely.” He took a long sip of wine and stared pensively past me, a reflection of fireworks flickering in his eyes. “Mostly I always felt like it was working against me, but lately…” He glanced down at me and smiled. “It seems to have seen fit to throw me a bone.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Nice metaphor, Halpert.”
He gave me a squeeze. “Hey, you never told me the football story.”
“Oh.” I chuckled. “Um…yeah. We were in his back yard and he was showing me how to hold the ball, and standing, you know, really close behind me, and when I cocked my arm back I lost my grip and the ball flew up and hit him in the face.”
He laughed. “Nice.”
“Yeah.” I smiled.
We watched the fireworks in a relaxed silence for a few minutes, and then he said, “Is it wrong that I’m really enjoying that mental picture?”
I laughed and pinched his arm as he twisted away, laughing too, his eyes full of light as he grinned down at me.
Yes, definitely a good day.
**********
Author's Chapter Notes:
My apologies to everyone reading this story for the way I sort of abandoned it! I promised I’d finish it, and I will. I am going to resist the extremely strong urge to go back and do major editing changes, and just pick it up where I left off. I have the rest of it outlined and all the remaining chapters are started; the next three, in fact, are more or less finished. So it should be done in the next few weeks, especially if I keep putting off the reading I’m supposed to be doing for school.
So where were we. Driving home from Jim’s family barbecue? Yes. Let’s go.
So where were we. Driving home from Jim’s family barbecue? Yes. Let’s go.
Chapter End Notes:
If you've bothered to come back to this story, thanks! Any and all comments are more than welcome.
