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It’s a date.
No ambiguity there.
I turned back to the camera and grinned at Ron’s expression. “I’m sorry…what was the question?”
Ron grinned back at me. “It’s almost five,” he volunteered. “Why don’t we wrap it up—I guess you’ll be wanting to get home.”
“You guess right.” I couldn’t stop smiling. I jumped up and headed for my desk to shut everything down.
“Did I just see Halpert leaving?” Dwight asked as I was pulling on my coat.
Yes, he’s back! He came back! “I thought he was in New York,” I said, slinging my purse over my shoulder.
Dwight frowned. “Still…”
“Maybe you did see him. Or maybe it’s his doppelganger,” I added impulsively, flashing him a grin.
The frown became a scowl. “Very funny, Pam.”
“I’m heading home. Have a good weekend.” I lifted my hand in a merry wave and darted out the door before he could ask any more questions, and flipped my phone open to call Jim as soon as I got in the elevator. What time? Where?
And, most importantly, what happened in New York?
There was a text message waiting for me. Call me when you get off.
I waited until I got into my car to call him back, not wanting anybody to overhear me. He answered after the first ring. “Hello Miss Beesly.”
There was a warmth in his voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. “Hey,” I greeted. I’m on my way home.”
“I was thinking Bella Cucina,” he said. “Is that okay with you?”
“Definitely.” A date with Jim, my Jim…it could have been McDonald’s.
“Good.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “How’s six-thirty? I’ll pick you up.”
“Perfect. Do you have my address?”
The line was silent as we both realized he hadn’t been to my apartment. Who have we become, that you don't know where I live?
“Uh, no,” he admitted finally.
“Four-seven-five Franklin Street, apartment two-oh-seven. It’s the Castile apartments, the ones with the arches. On the, um, southeast corner of Franklin and Grant.”
“Four seven five Franklin…southeast Franklin and Grant…two oh seven…” I could picture him writing it down. “Okay. See you at six thirty then?”
I glanced at the clock. Ten after five. “Be a little late, okay?”
He gave a low chuckle. “You bet.”
********
I have never been so nervous. Even my first date with Roy, when I was a high school sophomore and he was Roy Anderson, a senior, a football player, definitely top ten most popular boy in school…even that was nothing like this.
Second chance. I never thought it would happen. Hoped, yes. But since his return he had been so cold and indifferent. Just as I feared, he hated me. I’d lost not only his love but his friendship, and until that insane moment at the beach I hadn’t even had the courage to fight for it, to tell him what he meant to me.
A date. It’s a date.
Perpetual dilemma: what to wear? I had little time to decide. Hastily I showered and shaved my legs, wrapped my hair in a towel, and stood in front of the closet in an agony of indecision. It had to be something completely different from what he always saw me in at work, but not too dressy; Bella Cucina was a fairly casual little Italian place. After trying on three different outfits I finally settled on black pants and a soft, close-fitting, pink V-neck sweater I’d bought under Kelly’s influence.
He was knocking on the door only five minutes late, a bouquet of yellow daisies in one hand. He’d changed out of his interview suit into khakis and a teal sweater over a white collared shirt, and for a second I just looked at him, taking him in.
“Hello,” he said finally, giving me a crooked little smile.
“Hi.” I opened the door wider. “Sorry! Come in, come in. Are those for me?” I smiled, gesturing to the flowers.
“No,” he said solemnly. “I’m planning on stopping by the cemetery later.”
I grinned. “Creepy, Halpert.” I motioned for him to follow me into the kitchen while I retrieved a vase from under the sink.
“Well, I guess you can have them, then.” With exaggerated reluctance he handed over the spray for me to put in the water.
“Thank you.” I smiled, putting my face into the blooms to inhale their light scent. Daisies, my favorite flower. Jim remembers everything. “They’re beautiful.”
“Like you,” he murmured.
I felt a flush creep into my cheeks and glanced away. Will I ever learn to accept a compliment without being embarrassed? Maybe not.
Jim cleared his throat. “So I’ve never seen your place before,” he commented, wandering out of the kitchen into the living room. “Very nice…very Beesly.”
“Would you like the tour?”
“Absolutely I would.” He threw me a little grin that melted my heart. Jim has the most beautiful smile I know. I’ve missed that smile.
I gave myself a mental shake. “So this is the living room.” I gestured at the couch, the armchair, the TV and fireplace, and blushed a little when he walked over to examine the easel I had set up by the window. “Where I do my living.”
“Very practical.” He studied my sketch of that house on Birch Street with the terraced garden for what seemed a long time, then wandered around the edges of the room, pausing to look over my CD collection, running his fingertips over the backs of the chair and the sofa as he came back to where I stood. “Do you like it? Living alone?” he asked, looking down at me seriously.
“I do, actually. It’s nice to have my own things. R—” I cut myself off instantly. There will be no talk of Roy. “It’s different. But yeah, I do like it.”
“Hmm.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, an amused expression flickering across his face. “I’m proud of you, Pam,” he said suddenly.
I smiled shyly. “Yeah?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”
I felt suddenly and dangerously overwhelmed, and swallowed hard over the emotion that lodged itself like a fist in my throat. “Jim,” I said softly.
He tilted his head a little in response, eyebrows drawing together slightly, waiting for me to go on. But I had no words for everything I was feeling so I just stepped into his space and slipped my arms around his waist, turning my head to press my cheek against his chest. I closed my eyes and breathed him in, inhaling his clean male scent and marveling at his very existence, his presence here in my apartment when all had seemed so lost and broken. It seemed nothing short of a miracle.
His arms encircled me automatically and for a second he just stood there holding me in a loose embrace. But when I tightened my arms around him he snaked his arms up over my back and clutched me tightly against his chest, his lips in my hair, his hands warm and possessive on my shoulderblades. “Pam,” he murmured.
We stood like that for what seemed a very long time but was probably only a minute or two, and then I felt his chest expand slightly under my cheek as he took a deep breath and stepped back just enough to look down into my face. His expression was so warm and full and for the first time in a long time I felt the promise of hope as I saw a glimpse of my future.
He smiled. “Come on, let’s get going.”
I took his hand. His long fingers closed around mine in a warm, firm grip that felt utterly natural. It was hard to let go even to lock the deadbolt.
********
It was Friday night and the restaurant was crowded, but Jim had made a reservation and we had a cozy, intimate table for two next to the front window. We ordered a bottle of Chianti and sat in a companionable silence for a little while, taking it all in I suppose; at least, that’s what I was doing.
It was still a little hard to believe we were here, on a date, in the open; that I was allowed to look at him and not feel I was cheating on Roy; that he could reach across the table to take my hand, and look back at me without a trace of the humor that had always kept the safe wall between us.
He’s not the same man. I turned him down, and he moved away and started another life, one that didn’t include me. He put me out of his heart, out of his life. There’s a sadness about him, a solemnity, that wasn’t there before he left. Or maybe it was and I didn’t want to see it.
“I think we should maybe take it slow,” he said cautiously, avoiding my eyes as he swirled the wine in his glass.
“Slow,” I echoed.
He was probably right, but after the wasted last year, I found myself impatient. And full of regrets. The tears in his eyes when I told him no will haunt me forever. Why didn’t I call him in Connecticut after I broke it off with Roy? Would he have answered me if I’d called him, written to him? I should have tried, months before that stupid text message I sent him at the Diwali thing. I should have told him how I felt, how much I missed him; I should have begged him to come back, and offered up my heart unconditionally as he had done...but I had been too afraid, too certain it was too late.
No more. He came back. A second chance! I’ll not let this one pass.
He looked up to meet my gaze, and I caught my breath at the beauty of his changeable eyes, deep green in this light, filled with hope and trepidation and earnest intention. How many times had he looked at me as he did now, with a thousand unspoken thoughts brimming in his eyes?
“I miss you, Pam,” he said finally.
I nodded, my throat tight with emotion.
“You’re not the same person you were when I left,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—they’re good changes—but, it’s almost like I don’t know you anymore.”
“You, too,” I murmured.
“Yeah.” He stared down at our hands, linked together in the middle of the table.
“You want to tell me what happened in New York?” I prompted gently. We hadn’t talked about Karen at all.
He was silent for a long moment, but his fingers tightened around mine. Still, he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
At last he said quietly, “I came back.”
I couldn't speak for a full minute over the lump in my throat.
I hated to ask, but I had to know. If we were going to do this—be more than that—it was best to lay it all out in the open, no secrets, no silences. “Karen…” I began.
“I broke up with her,” he said abruptly. He cleared his throat, still avoiding my eyes. “Okay. What happened is, I was in the interview, and…” He hesitated. “I kind of had a revelation. About…what I wanted. And what I want…isn’t in New York.”
More welcome words I’ve never heard. “It’s not.”
“No.” He looked from our hands up to my face. “I still want you,” he said simply.
I actually felt tears sting my eyes. I blinked and glanced away—very bad form to cry on a first date.
Second date, actually, if we counted that rooftop dinner two years ago.
The truth is, I don’t even know when I fell in love with Jim. A long time ago. A long time, even, before he told me he loved me. We’d been dancing around each other so long, wasted so much time avoiding the truth.
All those years I spent with Roy, living out a life I no
longer wanted because I didn’t know who I was without Roy in my life; because I couldn’t bear to face what it would mean to start over.
All those times Jim looked at me with his heart in his eyes and I found myself holding my breath, waiting, waiting, for something, for words that never came, words he swallowed and passed off with a half-smile and a joke.
The secret thrill of hearing he had a crush on me, and then the wave of disappointment when he said he was “totally over it” and I wept in grief and confusion about why that should hurt so much.
And then he poured out his heart to me and I was afraid, so afraid of what he was asking of me, of what it would mean if the last ten years of my life were just a giant mistake. So afraid that I lied and pretended I didn’t know what we really were to each other.
Misinterpreted. A bald lie. I wanted to tell him that I lived for his low warm laugh and his speaking glances and the arresting smile that always seemed so private, just for me. That I was always happiest when I was with him. That he made me feel beautiful and clever and funny and special. That I was addicted to seeing the best parts of myself reflected by the affection in his eyes.
That I was in love with him, too.
But I didn’t say any of those things. I choked on my uncertainty and panic and let him slip out of my hands, out of my life.
And then the way he disappeared, so suddenly, without a word, and didn’t tell me where he was going, never wrote to me or called me… I just knew he must hate me to leave without saying goodbye. And I hated him too, a little, for leaving like that, for shaking my world to its core and then vanishing without a trace.
So many mistakes, so many regrets, and just when I thought that all was really lost this time, here he was, and he still loved me.
“That’s good to know,” I said finally, managing a smile.
He pressed his lips together in a small, thoughtful smile of his own, and cast his eyes down again at our hands.
“Jim,” I began hesitantly. “I’ve wanted to say…to say how sorry I am. I made so many stupid decisions—”
He shook his head, cutting me off. “Don’t. You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do. I do,” I insisted. “I feel so terrible. So sorry. You didn’t misinterpret anything. I was just—afraid. I can’t expect you to understand, but I was with him for so long and-—and you had told me you were over it and I just—” I broke off, shook my head. “I lied to you, and then I was so—so—and I couldn’t even call you—and I’m so sorry. I should have done everything differently. I thought you must hate me but I was too chicken to just tell you I was scared and…and I hurt you…you, my best friend,” my voice cracked as I reached up to take his other hand in mine. The last person on earth I’d ever want to hurt, my Jim.
“Broke my heart,” he murmured, staring at our hands.
I nodded. “Broke your heart,” I whispered.
He gazed at me for a long, quiet moment, holding my hands in a gentle grip. “Well,” he said finally, his expression grave. “Don’t do it again.”
I smiled, mutely nodding my assent, and to my dismay felt a tear slip down my right cheek. No crying! Hadn’t I done enough of that at home, alone?
He reached up with his left thumb and wiped it away. “Don’t cry, Beesly.”
“Jim…” I began.
He shook his head. “I’ve been a jerk to you for a long time. Avoiding you, not talking to you. Punishing you. You’ve been trying and I haven’t…wanted to hear it.” He swallowed hard, and looked up earnestly, his eyes now turned a clear, crystalline blue. “Can we just…start over? Get to know each other again? You know, just put all the past behind us and start new?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
He sat back in his chair, visibly relaxed. “All right then.”
All right then.
I took a sip of my wine, smiled at him, and suddenly remembered that he didn’t know anything that had happened at work today. “Oh my God!” I gasped. “I didn’t tell you about Dwight taking over! He offered me the position of ‘secret assistant regional manager.’ Or should I say, ‘to the.’ But he was still the assistant regional manager, because he didn’t trust anyone else, although he did make Andy his number two for ‘political’ reasons.” I grinned.
Jim’s whole face lit up with amusement, relief, and a brand of contentment I had never seen before. “Tell me all about it.”
********
We talked long into the night. He asked why Michael’s office was painted black, and I told him of Dwight’s failed effort to motivate the sales staff with his Schrute bucks, and admitted—to his exaggerated horror—that, inexplicably, during my tenure as the “secret assistant” I had seen a side of Dwight that was as endearing as it was maddening.
Over a shared dessert of perfectly delicious tiramisu, he told me in succinct, unwilling language that he had met Karen at a public fountain after leaving his interview, told her he was going back to Scranton, and admitted to her that it was because of me. “Well, she wasn’t happy,” he answered reluctantly to my query.
“I don’t want to be nosy,” I said hastily. He obviously didn’t want to discuss it, and other than determining he no longer had a girlfriend, it wasn’t really my business. “It’s just…was she ‘disappointed’ unhappy or ‘going to slash my tires’ unhappy?”
He gave me an unwilling smile. “She was pretty pissed. I’m an ass,” he said mournfully. “I shouldn’t have—” He broke off with a sigh. “I should have broken up with her a long time ago, or not encouraged her to move to Scranton, or whatever. She said I used her, and I guess I did.” Fiddling with his coffee spoon, he stared out the window for a few seconds, then looked back to me with a sweet and reassuring smile. “But no, she’s not going to slash your tires. She’s not like that. She would slash my tires, if anything.”
I smiled wryly. Karen was funny, and witty, and seemed nice enough; in a different lifetime, I would have liked her. But in the days since the beach incident, she had made a point to hang all over Jim at every opportunity, holding onto his arm in the break room, walking past his desk constantly to touch him or rub his back, all very clearly for my benefit. I knew I deserved it—or, at any rate, I understood why she was doing it—but it wasn’t very subtle. She’d have done better to just pee around his desk.
And, I confess, it was this obvious insecurity that had given me hope that maybe there was still a chance. It was the reason I left the note in with his sales reports. It was my last effort to ask: don’t forget us. And us did not refer to the office.
********
We’d been finished for a while, and the third time the waiter walked past with a baleful eye toward our empty wine glasses, Jim suggested we go. “It’s getting late,” he said reluctantly.
“Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh. I didn’t want the date to be over yet. I missed him, craved him, wanted never to let him out of my sight again. We shouldn’t have had coffee. Now I didn’t even have an excuse to invite him in.
The drive to my apartment was much too short, the walk to my door much too fast. Yet in front of my door he simply took me into his arms and kissed me, without hesitation or preamble or a trace of uncertainty, as natural as though we had done it for years. Warm, soft, tender, exactly as I remembered; I knew in an instant that this was exactly where I was meant to be, and I was filled with such gratitude and joy, I thought my heart would burst. He was here and he still loved me. I could feel it—in the slight trembling of his arms as he pulled me tightly against him, the warmth of his open mouth on mine, his hands strong and sure around my waist. I reached up to touch the soft skin of his freshly shaved cheek, inhaling his spicy/earthy scent, until at last he drew away, resting his forehead against mine as we caught our breath.
He turned his face to touch his cheek against mine, and I felt him smile. “Oh Pam,” he murmured in a low, husky voice that sent a delicious shiver over my skin.
Don’t let him go yet. More of this.
“Come inside,” I invited.
He pulled back just a little to look into my eyes. “Yeah?” he murmured.
I nodded. Take it slow, indeed! How much more time did we need? “Come in,” I said again, slipping out of his reluctant arms to unlock the door. He followed me inside with his arm around my waist as I shut and locked the door, and pulled me back tightly against him to kiss me. Hungry, possessive, tender. This was the thing I had seen in his eyes all those times. His hands ran down my back and pulled my hips boldly against his, and I pressed myself into him, wanting to feel every inch of his body. For a long time we stood kissing against the door, until he finally drew away with a little gasp and I laid my head on his chest, listening to his heart galloping along with my own.
We should wait. Don’t rush…take it slow, don’t screw this up. Tell him good night. He won’t be mad…it was his idea to go slow, right?
I lifted my head to look at him. His eyes were closed and his lips were pressed into a narrow line; he was trying to pull himself together. He looked ready to say something sensible and responsible, like I should probably go. I cast about for something, anything, to keep him there a little longer.
“Stay,” I said baldly.
He pulled a surprised face for a moment, but then he smiled—a slow, sly, private smile, intimate and revealing, that sent an electric quiver through my body. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely I am.”
He grinned. His eyes sparkled, deep green now. “All right.”
********
Silently he followed me to sit on my bed, bouncing a little on the mattress as I clicked on the nighttable lamp. “Nice bed, Beesly,” he remarked, tracing his fingertips over the flower print of my comforter.
“Thanks.” I sat down beside him. “It’s new.”
“Really.” That seemed to please him, probably for the same reason I’d bought a different bed when I moved into this place: no association with Roy.
“New to me,” I amended. “I found it at the thrift store. See, it’s a little scuffed on the footboard there. But the mattress, it’s new.”
“Pam… are you nervous?” he asked softly, reaching up to smooth a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
“A little,” I admitted. This was a vast understatement.
“We can still…take it slow,” he offered.
“Are you nervous?” I countered, taking his hand, and edging closer until our thighs touched. Touch of any kind had been forbidden for so long—a boundary tacitly understood and inflexibly enforced—that I found myself hesitant.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. A little.” He slipped his arm around my waist and bent to kiss me, shifting his body toward me as I moved into his lap. “But I’ll get over it,” he said huskily.
********
I had dreamed about being with Jim on four distinct occasions, and fantasized plenty more in the last year that I lived alone; but none of my imaginings were anywhere near as sweet as the actuality. I was nervous—I’d never been with anybody but Roy, and I had no idea if my...skills...would be equal to his expectations. Or, for that matter, what to expect from him. But as we came together in a slow and leisurely exploration, I forgot to be shy and gave myself up to the moment, to Jim. The exceptional tenderness with which he treated me, as though I were something fragile and delicate, made me feel so safe and comfortable that it was easy to be bold, to take his hands and put them where I wanted him to touch me.
He seemed to like that.
We made love twice, and afterward, when he curled his body around mine, I had an overwhelming sensation of being utterly protected and loved. I wanted to remember everything about this moment: the musky scent of his sweat, the softness of his chest hair tickling my back, the heavy weight of his leg over my hip. The steady rhythm of his breathing. His arm wrapped around me, his long slender fingers laced through mine. It was the most perfectly content moment I think I’ve ever experienced.
I lay awake long after he fell asleep, afraid that when I woke none of it would be real.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim's not the only one with a closetful of angst and heartbreak.
Disclaimer still applies.
Disclaimer still applies.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading! Comments/reviews are appreciated.
