Story Notes:
Jim and Pam post Season 4, so spoilers for the Finale. Hoping I got the travel route from Scranton to Brooklyn correct (thanks to Mapquest), but please help me out if I messed it up.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim and Pam post Season 4, so spoilers for the Finale. Hoping I got the travel route from Scranton to Brooklyn correct (thanks to Mapquest), but please help me out if I messed it up.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
He is on the Scranton Expressway when he tells her how Michael cried again today about her being gone.
“Creed isn't doing such a great job of answering the phones either.”
“Ughh, he is sitting at my desk isn't he?”
“Yep.”
Jim merges onto I-81 and does not tell her how gray things seem these days (the absence of her lips, the rise and fall of her breath, the thrilling sound of her laughter blotting out the summer entirely). He does not tell her how he was so wrong, how two hours is a big deal. It's the distance from a shiny diamond to uncertainty (and he doesn't know why).
She chills a bottle of Chardonnay, and rereads the recipe she found in Food and Wine for Stuffed Chicken breast, and remembers that she is out of red wine vinegar. He is telling her about how he and Phyllis have started working out theories on Dwight and Angela's affair over their lunch breaks. These days he is back to ham and cheese, and Phyllis is back to lean cuisine. On Friday's they have a pudding cup. (This makes her jealous in a silly kind of way).
“. . . then Angela threw down the gauntlet. She is giving the Party Planning committee to Phyllis as long as she keeps her mouth shut.”
“What about Andy?”
“Totally clueless. He spends most of his day making wedding plans.”
“This can only end badly.”
“Yeah.”
They laugh, their longing crinkling the edges, and she doesn't tell him how far away Brooklyn is. Not from Scranton really, or Dunder Mifflin even, but from fireworks in the parking lot and the scent of his clothes and his sheets and his warm hands on her waist.
He is crossing into New Jersey when he hangs up, hating how far away she sounds even as he draws nearer. He thinks he may never get over this feeling, this distance that he is always traveling to her, even though those miserable days are gone.
His phone rings and she simply says "hurry".
Pam lingers on the peripheral of his vision like a mirage, like a light at the end of this trafficky tunnel, and he thinks: soon her smile will be his (at least for a time) and her voice in his ear the secret language of their history, words that he alone understands. He tells himself that tonight will be the night. That he will get over this temporary funk, because summer is half way over and Pam is half way back home (not that that should matter, but inexplicably it does).
She puts on his favorite shirt, the top two buttons undone. She thinks about how this time she will not let her fingers run over his pockets when she hugs him. She will not cover her disappointment with a smile and a joke. She tells herself that it will happen when he is ready. She tells herself that she will wait to be surprised. She tells herself that her moving here hasn't changed things (even though sometimes she worries it does).
It is just starting to get dark and he can see the light from the window of her studio apartment. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, his backpack heavy on his shoulder, the black box still in its spot in the front zipper.
She lights another candle, the table with its uneven legs, making the wine glasses shimmy. Her sketchbook lays open on the coffee table waiting to share its treasures with him.
"I love you", he says when she opens the door, the words tumbling out faster than he can think them, and he thinks maybe tonight will be the night.
andromeda is the author of 12 other stories.
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