“Hey…you coming down?”
Jim asked bending over slightly to tie his shoe.“Yeah…I’m just forwarding the phones.” Pam said, trying not to be obvious in the fact that her eyes kept drifting towards him. She had never seen him in casual clothes before and it was not helping the fact that she was trying her hardest to not be attracted to him. Despite the constant talks that she had given herself over the past few months since she started working at Dunder Mifflin, she still couldn’t help but notice the way that his blue t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and the firm muscles in his legs.
“Are you going to wish me luck?”
“Yeah, you’ll need it.” Pam said turning to log off her computer.
“Whoa! Is that trash talk? From Pam?” Jim said surprised.
“I’m just saying…you don’t really seem like the competitive type and I don’t really want to risk my free Saturday working because you lost the game for us.” Pam said with a smile.
“Ouch. That hurt Pam. That really hurt. Just so you know…I am competitive and I don’t want to work Saturday anymore than you do. So no need to worry…you will get your free Saturday. Then you will owe me…big time.”
“Got big plans this Saturday that you can’t risk by losing to the warehouse guys?”
“Oh yeah…I am going to the outlet mall.”
“The outlet mall? Wow…would hate for you to miss that.”
“Oh yeah. So when we win and if you feel like saving big on brand names…you should feel free to come along.”
Pam felt her heart skip a beat and knew that her face had flushed slightly. She knew that it didn’t mean anything. It was just playful banter; it was part of the joking, friendly relationship that they had quickly begun to perfect. Jim had become her closest friend in the office; in fact he was her only friend in the office. Some of the others were nice enough, but the drudgery of the days had apparently stolen any spark of life from them, at least from 9-5. They were mostly okay outside of work. They had all gone out for drinks one Friday after work. Pam had kind of hoped that it would be an opportunity to meet the woman that had captured Jim’s heart, but she was even happier when he had shown up alone. He had sat next to her at the table and they spent the evening laughing over beers and trying to throw peanuts in Dwight’s glass when he wasn’t looking. She had gone home that night giddy with an excitement that was soon replaced by the realization that what she felt for Jim could never progress to anything more. She was just going to have to be happy being his friend. She went to put her keys in her purse and her hand brushed against something soft. She pulled it out and laughed when she saw that it was a cocktail napkin from the bar, on which Jim had drawn a rough caricature of Dwight holding a light saber. She traced her fingers carefully over the drawing before pulling open the drawer on her nightstand. She placed the napkin inside the drawer, on top of a small yellow post-it note and then went to bed.
Now she was sitting on a folding chair next to Angela watching the basketball game and when Jim ran past her, his sweaty hair sticking to his forehead and smiled, she knew that she was in trouble.
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Jim finished tying his tie, zipped up his red gym bag and then running a hand through his hair, opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the office. He walked over to his desk and threw his bag next to the basketball that was underneath. He sat down and stretched his arms over his head. Other than Michael succumbing to the intimidation by the warehouse guys which led to the office having to work on Saturday, he thought the game had gone well. He had played basketball in high school and college and enjoyed it whenever he got to play. He was fiddling absentmindedly with a pencil when a ding on his computer signaled an instant message.
PBeesly: Trying to think of a way to get out of working tomorrow?
Jim glanced over at Pam and smiled. They had been exchanging IMs since soon after Pam started working at Dunder Mifflin. He realized that he had begun to look forward to that exchange between them. Jim was sometimes surprised at how quickly they had become friends. Pam was really nice and funny. Plus, she was the only other one in the office that saw the humor in what went on every day and was willing to help him play on that. He leaned forward in his chair and began to type.
JHalpert: Yeah, but for once I am drawing a blank.
PBeesly: Looks like the mall is just going to have to wait another day.
JHalpert: Looks that way. Maybe Michael will forget by the time we leave today. You know he isn’t credited for having a huge attention span.
PBeesly: I don’t know. I think those warehouse guys might have put the fear in him.
JHalpert: True. I think we are stuck here tomorrow.
PBeesly: Well we might have to think of a “way” to pass to the time.
JHalpert: By “way” do you mean “prank”?
PBeesly: Why I don’t know what you mean.
Jim looked up from his desk over at Pam and smiled as she winked slyly at him and then ducked her head. She was pretty, very pretty Jim had noticed when she first started. He liked that it wasn’t in an obvious, overpowering way. She has a great smile and pretty eyes, he thought to himself as he saw her smile at something that was on her computer screen. His thoughts were interrupted by his phone ringing. Jim quickly cleared his throat and looked away. He was engaged. He was pretty sure that it was against all rules of seriously dating/being engaged to someone to be thinking about the things you liked about another girl. He turned in his chair slightly so that he couldn’t see her directly and picked up his phone.
“This is Jim”
“Hey…” the voice on the other end said quickly. It was Lauren. Jim turned further in his chair so that his back was all the way to Pam.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Good…good. How is your day going?”
“Kind of crappy. We played ball during lunch and…”
“….Yeah I know…it needs to be faxed before 5.” Jim heard Lauren say and then waited while a voice in the background responded. “Sorry…you were saying.”
“Nothing…I’ve been busy too.” Jim said picking up his pencil and spinning it around in his fingers.
“Great…well I was just calling to see if you’d be okay doing dinner on your own tonight? Amy is in town and wants all the girls to get together for dinner and drinks tonight.”
Jim took a deep breath and said, “Yeah…whatever. That’s fine. I’ll just grab some take out.”
“Why don’t you call Mark? Have a boy’s night or something? I might be out pretty late.”
“Nah. I actually have to come into the office tomorrow, so I’ll probably just relax.”
“Okay…thanks babe. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yeah…okay. Love you.”
“You too.” Lauren said and then the phone went dead. Jim hung up the phone and then turned back to his computer screen. His instant message icon was flashing and he clicked to open it.
PBeesly: Do we have any super glue in the supply closet?
JHalpert: What do you have in mind Beesly?
PBeesly: Picture this…. Super glue and all of Dwight’s pens and pencils.
Jim laughed to himself and glanced over at Pam again, nodding in approval. She flashed him another smile and then turned back to her computer. Later that evening after everyone else had gone home for the day, they sat together on the floor by Dwight’s desk carefully gluing all of his pens and pencils into his pencil cup. Jim smiled as he watched her, brow furrowed in concentration as she applied super glue to the eraser of a pencil and then firmly stuck it to the bottom of the of the cup.
“What do you think he’ll do when he realizes that this whole cup of writing utensils is useless?”
“He might try to use his wizarding mind powers to loosen them.” Jim said taking the tube of glue from Pam. As she handed it to him, her fingers grazed lightly against his and he felt that weird flutter again. Her eyes darted up to meet his and she pulled back quickly.
“Sorry…” she mumbled before turning away to grab another pencil.
“No problem…” Jim said, concentrating more than he should on squeezing a drop of glue out of the tube.
After a few minutes of slightly awkward silence Jim cleared his throat.
“So tell me more about Pam Beesly.” He said firmly sticking another pencil into the cup and then holding it up straight while it dried.
Pam snickered softly. “There isn’t much to tell. I am not exactly the world’s most exciting person.”
“Oh come on…there has to be something. What do you like to do in your free time?”
“Well…I like to be with my family, I read, I draw, and I like to watch movies, I…I don’t know. I am really boring!”
“You draw?”
“Yeah…” Jim noticed that Pam seemed slightly timid when she answered him. “I don’t know. I did some drawing in college and I…I don’t know. I really like to do it.”
“That’s awesome. I can’t draw to save my life.”
“I don’t know about that. You did a pretty nice sketch of Dwight with a light saber.”
Jim laughed, “You remember that?”
This time he was positive that he saw a blush spread across her face.
“Well…it was so lifelike…” she said seriously, but he saw a small smile spread across her face as she looked back down at the pencil cup.
“Did you know that Dwight lives on a beet farm?” Jim said after a few minutes of silence. Pam had been taking a sip from her Coke and almost did the classic movie spit take. She started laughing and coughing at the same time.
“What?” she said when she finally caught her breath.
“He farms beets…in his spare time.”
“I can’t believe you kept that from me!” she said. “I don’t know if I can forgive you for that.”
“I’ll buy you a bag of chips.” Jim said.
Pam thought for a minute, exaggeratedly scratching her head. “French onion?” she asked after a minute.
“Obviously.”
“Okay then. I guess I’ll let it slide. Just this once. The next time you have information on Dwight I better be the first to know.”
Jim looked up and smiled widely at her as their eyes locked for a few moments. He cleared his throat and that seemed to break the trance long enough for Pam to look away. A few minutes later she held the pencil cup up triumphantly.
“Look at that…” Jim said, twisting the cap back on the glue.
“Nice work.” She said laughing as Jim gave her high five. Pam stood up and placed the cup back on Dwight’s desk.
“Tomorrow should be fun.” She said walking back to her desk and grabbing her coat and purse.
“At least we have something to look forward to.” Jim said picking up his messenger bag and nodding his head towards Dwight’s desk.
They walked out to their cars, Pam holding her sides as she laughed at Jim’s impression of Dwight finding his now useless pencil cup. They stood in the parking lot for a few moments, neither quite wanting the evening to end.
“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” Pam asked finally, wondering briefly if Lauren knew where he was.
“Yeah…” Jim said. “Stupid Michael.”
Pam laughed again and then waved slightly before turning and walking towards her car. She waved again as she pulled out of the parking lot, but didn’t look in her mirror to see him still standing in the same place, watching after her.
Jim took a deep breath and made his way to his car. “I’m such an ass” he thought to himself as he realized that he had just spent the evening with another woman and even though it was completely innocent and they were just friends, he hadn’t thought of his fiancé once. He drove home deep in thought and later as he fell asleep it was a pair of green eyes, not the familiar brown ones that he saw in his mind.
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Pam walked into the office right before 9:00 Saturday morning. Almost everyone was already there and Michael was ranting about something. She sighed as she sat down at her desk and bent to put her purse on the floor. The sigh turned into a smile as she straightened up to see a bag of French onion sun chips sitting on her keyboard, along with a post-it note that read,
**He hasn’t figured it out yet. Just give it some time.**
No sooner than five minutes after she read the note, she heard a loud bang and Dwight yell, “Damn it Jim.”
She looked up and stifled a laugh as she saw Dwight holding his cup by the pencils and banging it on the desk to try and dislodge one. Jim was staring intently at his computer screen and after Dwight had disappeared into the kitchen, pencil cup in hand he snuck a look at her and they high fived quickly before Dwight could come back out and catch them.
Unfortunately the pencil prank only provided distraction for a little while and the regular mind-numbing atmosphere had returned. The sound of an IM popping up on her computer screen, caused Pam to realize that she had been staring off blankly into space for who knows how long.
JHalpert: What are you doing?
PBeesly: I think I was just staring into space.
JHalpert: Would you like me to let you get back to that?
PBeesly: Yes, could you please.
JHalpert: Sure thing. Or…we could do something a little more exciting.
PBeesly: More exciting than staring into space? I don’t know how you could beet (that’s right) that, but you can give it a try. Although I don’t know if Dwight’s brain can take two pranks in one day.
JHalpert: Nah…we’ll give Dwight a break (did I just say that??). I was thinking more along the lines of a game.
PBeesly: A game huh? Like hopscotch? Are you really a 9 year old girl at heart?
JHalpert: No smart ass. I was thinking more along the lines of twenty questions…but now I don’t want to play with you. You’re mean.
PBeesly: Oh…are you going to cry? Do you need a tissue?
JHalpert: Next time Michael wants you to do a breath check on him I am not going to save you. You are on your own from now on.
PBeesly: Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. So…20 questions huh? Isn’t like that I spy?
JHalpert: No...twenty questions is just that. We ask each other questions. My brothers and I used to play it on road trips all the time.
PBeesly: That’s not a game.
JHalpert: Fine…go back to staring into space.
PBeesly: Question 1: What is your favorite color?
JHalpert: Don’t you even want to know the rules?
PBeesly: There are rules? Okay…I guess it is a game.
JHalpert: Thank you. Okay…Rule 1: Questions can range in level personal-ness (Yes, I know that’s not a word), but they have to be about the other person. You can’t ask me why Dwight is so weird…one; because I don’t know and two; because it isn’t about me. Rule 2: The question answerer has the right to opt out of answering said question, but there has to be a consequence that is chosen by the question asker. Those are the official rules. Do you choose to accept?
PBeesly: Wow…very official Mr. Halpert. But I do have a question…how does one win the game?
JHalpert: The person that answers the most…duh. Fair enough. Okay. Here we go. My favorite color. I would say that my favorite color would have to be green.
PBeesly: and….
JHalpert: and what?
PBeesly: My question consisted of 2 parts and you only answered one part.
JHalpert: Oh right. Um…why is green my favorite color? Because if I said pink I’d get my ass kicked. I don’t know why. I guess because it’s earthy….wow…that sounds lame. Rule 3: The question asker can not make fun of or repeat to outside parties the answer given by the question answerer.
PBeesly: Fair enough. Plus, it didn’t sound lame.
JHalpert: Thanks. Okay…my turn. If you could have any superpower what would it be…and in the words of Pam Beesly….why?
PBeesly: That’s a deep question. Luckily this might or might not be the first time that I have thought about it. If I could have any superpower I would definitely want the power to fly. Maybe its just me, but it would seem so freeing to be able to fly…get away from it all…see things in a different perspective.
Jim smiled as he glanced over at Pam. He was beginning to think that there was much, much more to this girl than she let people see.
JHalpert: Nice. That’s an excellent answer.
PBeesly: My turn?
JHalpert. That looks like a question to me. Guess it’s my turn.
PBeesly: Oh suck it. Favorite candy?
JHalpert: Watch the language there. This is a clean, child-friendly environment.
PBeesly: Oh…sorry I must have mistaken this place for the land of ‘That’s What She Said’ and creepy men that like to stare named Creed.
JHalpert: And that isn’t clean and child-friendly? Oh yeah…and my favorite candy is jellybeans.
PBeesly: Jellybeans? Really?
JHalpert: 2 more questions out of turn. Do we need to go over the rules again?
PBeesly: :-P
JHalpert: Yes, jellybeans. When I was a kid we would go visit my grandparents in Maryland. They were really old and died when I was 12, so I really didn’t get to know them. But what I do remember was that my grandma had this big glass jar that sat on her kitchen counter and it was always full of jellybeans. The kind that was all the different flavors. She even had a little paper that said what the flavors were. My brothers and I would take the jar and go sit on the back porch and eat jellybeans, making gross combinations. Every so often my grandpa would come out and sit with us and we’d give him jellybeans and he would try to guess the flavors. We would try to trick him, but somehow he was always right.
Pam looked up at Jim and smiled softly as she caught his eye. She could see by the look on his face that this was clearly a memory that was special to him and she was grateful that Jim would share something that was so personal with her. Unfortunately, their game was detained when Jim got a call from a client. While he was on the phone Michael came out and announced that corporate wasn’t going to be able to spy on them and he was going to stand up for his employees and let them go home. By the time Jim was off the phone the office was empty. He grabbed his coat and bag and walked out to his car. The weekend was uneventful. Jim and Lauren went to her parents house for a BBQ and then got into an argument about the fact that Jim wanted to leave early to watch the Phillies game with his brother. He ended up meeting his brother at Poor Richards and then crashed on the couch when he stumbled in around 1:00 AM. When he walked into the office Monday morning he had a killer headache and groaned when he saw Dwight cleaning out his keyboard with Q-tip and rubbing alcohol. He hung his coat up and turned to walk to his desk. Pam wasn’t at reception, but what he saw there made him stop and smile. On the counter next to the reception plaque was a little plastic container…filled with jellybeans.
