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He’s just messing with me now.
We were in the conference room suffering through yet another of Michael’s brainstorming events when he did it again. Gave me that look and began in that slow, serious voice, “You know what would energize me? If you…Pamela Morgan Beesly…”
“Don’t. Don’t. If you propose to me in a Michael meeting I will say no,” I hissed.
“Well it’s too late, because I am proposing…that you get me a cup of coffee,” he said wickedly. “Which will… energize me greatly…” he gave a nod to the dry-erase board where Michael had written the theme of the meeting in big block letters, “…make me the happiest man in the world.”
“You…” I shook my head, pinching his arm, but I couldn’t help grinning. Do you hear me, Halpert? I’m going to say yes. Just ask already.
His eyes danced.
I hate this man.
********
Jim told me later that he felt like it was his fault, and I assured him it wasn’t really, but the truth is that if he hadn’t been needling Andy maybe it wouldn’t have happened. It was Jim who threw out “urban” as a possible “energizing” theme and when Michael seized upon “urban” he naturally (?!) looked to Stanley. “Come on Stanley, put your game away, join the group…”
“No.”
For a few seconds the escalating war of wills between Michael’s relentless prodding and Stanley’s disdain for all conference-room meetings was amusing; it had all happened so many times before. But then Stanley bellowed “Did I stutter?” and the blunt rudeness of his tone was enough to shock even the most jaded among us.
The silence that followed was like a living, breathing thing.
Michael stammered something about needing a drink of water and left the conference room.
Nobody moved a muscle…except Stanley, who went back to his crossword as though nothing had happened.
Five minutes passed. Michael emerged from the kitchen and went straight to his office, shutting the door.
Another minute ticked by. At last Jim stood up. “Um, meeting adjourned, I guess,” he said uneasily.
We all went back to our desks. Jim gave me a look of what was that?
I shrugged, staring at Michael’s closed door. The very air seemed heavier. Nobody had ever disrespected him so openly. Part of me was almost glad—I mean, he really can be so rude and oblivious, and I felt a little vindicated from all those mean remarks he’d made about my glasses. It’s not nice when somebody hurts your feelings, is it? But as offensive and thoughtless as he’d ever been, I didn’t have it in me to call him on it so openly.
For one thing, he’s the boss. But he’s also Michael… generally harmless and well-meaning, if not always (ever) tactful.
Kevin’s remark about all his girlfriends having glasses and his “librarian” fantasy was the last straw. I decided just to do without them. Even though I’m sort of blind. What does a receptionist need with clarity and depth perception anyway?
I should’ve kept them on.
A bad day was about to get worse.
********
Ryan breezed in shortly after lunch, but instead of ignoring me as he usually did he paused at my desk. “Hey Pam,” he greeted, smiling in a way I’d call friendly if it were anybody else.
“Hey Ryan.” I shifted my gaze back to my computer. “Michael’s in his office.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I’m not here to see him.” He gave me a cryptic smile. “Will you dial Toby and ask him to meet me in the conference room, please?”
Jim glanced at me questioningly as Ryan brushed past him.
I shrugged. Weird things going on in here today.
********
Not long after he called out to Jim to come into the conference room, Ryan was leaving. Again he paused at my desk, leaning in. “Big plans this weekend, Beesly?”
Beesly? I bristled. Who do you think you are? “Yep.” I glanced up at him for the briefest possible moment that could be considered polite acknowledgement of his existence before turning back to my computer.
He dug through the jellybeans, picking out orange and green ones. “Oh yeah? What are you up to?” he persisted, lifting a skeptical eyebrow.
“Jim and I are going down to Allentown for his nephew’s birthday.”
“Exciting.” He smirked.
Jerk. “Should be great,” I agreed, pretending not to notice his tone. “Jon and Kathy are really fun, and his nephew is so cute.”
“Thought you didn’t like kids.” He popped a jellybean in his mouth, rolling the rest of them around in his palm. There was something unnerving in his eyes. Predatory, almost.
What is he doing?
“I don’t not like kids. They just used to make me nervous. But I don’t know what it is. Jim’s family is different. Nicky’s just adorable and he really likes me.”
“Hmm.” He made a blatant visual sweep of me, up and down. “Well, you have fun then, Pam.” He plucked another jellybean out of his palm and tapped his fingertips on my desk. “See you later.”
If this is what going corporate does to you, thank God Jim turned it down.
Then again, Ryan was never exactly a warm kind of guy.
He’d picked every single green and orange jellybean out of the dish. Jim’s favorites. I wonder if he knew that?
********
Jim emerged from the conference room about ten minutes later and went straight to his desk, glancing at me briefly with a kind of blank, stunned expression. “Hey,” I called softly. “What happened, what did Ryan want?”
“Oh, we were just talking about…bureaucratic stuff." He smiled tightly.
“Oh, ‘cause you’re so important,” I teased.
“Yeah,” he chuckled, but averted his eyes immediately, focusing on his monitor and reaching for the mouse.
I peered at him thoughtfully.
Something’s wrong.
********
Every single accusation Stanley roared at Michael about his idiocy, his immaturity, his ridiculousness, was completely true and yet I know I wasn’t the only one cringing to hear it all spilled out like that. And when Michael finally snapped and shouted for us all to get out, nobody hesitated for an instant. I set the phones to voicemail and squinted to see where I’d put my glasses. I thought I’d left them right by the keyboard, but…
“Let’s go,” Jim said quietly, grabbing his coat off the rack. Half the office had already filed past.
“I can’t find my glasses,” I said desperately.
His voice was low, urgent. “Okay, you know what, why don’t you take my hand, and leave them, and let’s get out of here.” He reached out for me, clasping his hand around mine in a tight, protective grasp.
“Okay.” I yanked my purse strap up on my shoulder as he led us out of the suite and down the hall. Before we reached the elevator, he turned abruptly and pushed open the doorway to the stairs, ushering me in first with a hand on my back. “Come on.”
I grabbed the railing and found the top step, descending cautiously. “Jim, what’s going on?” I found myself whispering even though we were alone in the stairwell.
“Well, it’s starting to look like he might actually try to fire Stanley now.” He was using his joking/ deflecting voice but something was really wrong. A knot of fear lodged in my throat.
“No, I mean with you. What happened with Ryan?” I clutched onto his offered arm and let him guide me as we hurried down the stairs.
“Not here,” he said quietly.
Oh my God. It’s bad. What happened? Michael’s finally getting fired, isn’t he?
Normally I’d never let it go at that; I’d prod until he gave me something, just a hint. But there was something in his voice that told me to just go with him and not ask questions until we were in a safe place. He hustled me to the car and opened my door for me before sliding in behind the wheel and kicking on the engine like we couldn’t escape fast enough.
I waited until we pulled out of the parking lot before trying again. “What’s going on?” I asked softly, a little afraid of the answer.
He pressed his lips together, staring straight ahead. Tell me, I prayed, because Jim always gets so quiet when he’s upset and it can sometimes be nigh-impossible to get him to tell me what he’s thinking. I’m done letting things go unsaid, though. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask again, and again until he told me, when he finally spoke.
“Ryan wants me fired.”
“What?” I gasped. Okay, that had not been on the list of possible scenarios I had imagined.
“I was given a ‘formal warning’ regarding my job performance.”
“Are you serious?”
“Do I not sound serious, Pam?” he snapped. Then, immediately, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said automatically. “So…what is it he says you’re not doing? Your numbers are better than anybody but Dwight, and—”
“Officially it’s because I spend too much time goofing off and apparently it’s well known that I don’t take my job seriously. ” He smiled sardonically. “But of course it’s really because I talked to Wallace about the website and Ryan thinks I’m trying to undermine him or something.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe, but…you know Dwight filed a zillion complaints against me over the years?”
“Oh, no…”
“Yeah.” He pulled into my parking lot and shut off the engine, glancing over at me for the first time since we’d gotten in the car. “Toby never bothered to send any of them to corporate, but he informed me today that he can no longer ‘protect’ me with his ‘friendship.’ He did give me some advice, though. Suggested I stop hanging around reception with you.”
Oh, my God.
“So…Toby’s in love with you,” Jim’s voice, last week, echoed in my memory. No, no, I’d insisted. It was an accident, or maybe just a little crush…he didn’t mean to fondle me right in front of Jim that night, he just…
That devious little snake.
I liked him. I actually felt bad for him.
In an instant, I was furious. "Ryan can’t fire you,” I said.
“Yes, he can.” A muscle in his jaw clenched and relaxed, over and over as he stared down at his knees.
“Jim—”
He slammed his palm on the steering wheel and I jumped. He so rarely gets really angry. He looked up at me with glimmering eyes and an expression of panic and frustration that tore at my heart. “I have plans, Pam! This isn’t…fuck, this is not what I need right now,” he choked, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.
I have plans.
“Jim, listen,” I said strongly. “He can’t just fire you. Same way Michael can’t just fire Stanley even if he wants to. There are…procedures. Verbal warnings, written warnings…there’s a whole trail of paperwork, everything has to be documented.”
He turned his head to look at me with one eye. “You don’t think a box of complaints from Dwight qualifies?”
“No,” I insisted. “A complaint is not a warning. Toby might even get in trouble for never filing them in the first place.”
“Hmph,” he grunted skeptically. But he was listening.
“Ryan knows all this too. He’s just…trying to scare you. Was it just a verbal or did he make you sign anything?”
“No. Nothing written," he said slowly, his tone a little less dismal.
Heaving a sigh of relief, I bumped his shoulder with mine. “So, you’ve had your first verbal warning for being a slacker. Not bad, considering.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “Et tu, Brute?”
I wanted so badly to tease him, make him smile, anything to lighten his heart. Because even if he did somehow get fired, he wasn’t alone. He knew that...right? “We both know this isn’t where you want to spend your life, so…why do you care what anyone thinks now? You never did before.”
“I don’t appreciate that arrogant little twerp threatening me,” he said darkly. “Just because I haven’t …figured it all out yet doesn’t mean I can lose my job…not right now,” he mumbled this last kind of under his breath.
Don’t ask don’t ask don’t ask…but I couldn’t help myself. “What…plans…?” I ventured.
He jerked up and stared at me with an expression akin to horror. “Pam…don’t. Please.”
“Jim,” I said softly. “What are you waiting for? Just…just ask me.”
He pressed his lips together in a tight line. “Here. Now. In the car. When I’ve just basically been threatened with unemployment. You cannot be serious.”
I reached over and took the hand he kept clenching into a fist, slipping my fingers between his. “I don’t know who you think I am, that I need fireworks and clowns and ponies or skywriting or whatever it is you’ve got…planned. But I’m a pretty simple girl, Halpert. Just ask me.”
Success! He’d cracked a smile somewhere around clowns and ponies. He glanced down at our hands, pulled in a deep breath, let it out in a long sigh. “Pam…?” His voice was husky, hesitant.
Holy crap. I actually talked him into it. Oh my God…
“…I am absolutely not going to propose to you in the car, in front of your apartment,” he finished. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”
I let out a frustrated squeak and smacked his arm. “I hate you!”
“I know.” He leaned over the gearshift and kissed me, palming my cheek in his big hand. “I have a plan, Beesly, and it is considerably more sophisticated than…this,” he gestured to our surroundings, and suddenly grinned. “Clowns and ponies?”
“Nicky’s birthday party?” I asked hopefully.
“Maybe.” He smiled. “I’m not telling you. Them’s the rules.”
“Since when do you ever pay attention to rules,” I grumbled.
“I guess I better start.” He sighed. “Pam, would you marry me even if I was unemployed?”
“Maybe,” I replied archly. “You do not get to ask hypothetical questions about marriage. Them’s the rules.”
“That’s not really hypothetical though. What if it happens?” He wasn’t joking anymore.
“Then I’ll divorce you and take you for everything you’ve got. Which I guess would be the Saab,” I said dryly. “Fine, all in your own time, whatever…can we go inside now so I can put in my contacts and, like, see you?”
In an instant, he released my hand and got out, darting around to my side to get my door, even though I’ve told him dozens of times that I don’t need such chivalry. (He just kept doing it until I apparently got conditioned to expect it and stopped protesting.) He took my hand as I climbed out, and then wrapped his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tight as we walked up to my door. “You said divorce,” he said happily.
I tilted my head up and quirked an eyebrow at him, wondering how he was interpreting that as a good thing.
“We’d have to be married to get divorced,” he pointed out patiently.
“You’re going to have to ask for us to get married,” I retorted. “Besides, who knows, maybe my patience is wearing thin. I wonder if anybody else around here would marry me. Hey, Mr. Langley!” I called to my elderly downstairs neighbor, who was smoking out on his porch.
“Hello Pam, Jim,” he nodded with a smile. He’s been fond of us ever since we gave him a ride to and from the dealership when his car broke down last November.
“Mr. Langley, would you marry a girl like me?” I asked gaily.
“In a heartbeat, sweetie, if I was about forty years younger,” he winked one leathery eyelid. “This tall fella hasn’t asked you yet? What are you waiting for, boy?” he demanded.
“I have a plan!” Jim exclaimed.
“I’d get on it if I were you,” Mr. Langley nodded sagely.
“Oh my God,” Jim sighed. “Nobody appreciates romance anymore.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Inspired by, and obviously, spoilers for, Did I Stutter?
Same disclaimers apply. I don't own any characters you recognize. Although I do think girl7 is the unofficial owner of Jon, Jim's brother.
Same disclaimers apply. I don't own any characters you recognize. Although I do think girl7 is the unofficial owner of Jon, Jim's brother.
Chapter End Notes:
Ah, Jim. What might you have planned?
Thanks for reading, and thanks to all who have left such wonderfully positive comments!
Thanks for reading, and thanks to all who have left such wonderfully positive comments!
