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Pam cashed in her honeymoon tickets for a single round trip ticket to Florence after she called off the wedding. The honeymoon was going to be a surprise, a gift from her to Roy, and when she called the travel agency in the days after she broke off the engagement, they had told her it was too late to get all her money back.
“But you can change the destination,” the woman had suggested.
And Pam had looked at a map, and closed her eyes and pointed.
She was afraid it would be lonely, being in a romantic place all by herself right after her should have been wedding date, but the truth was she was romanced out. She didn’t need any more declarations of love or complicated feelings, guilt mixed with lust and love and confusion, and as soon as the plane lifted off from the tarmac she found herself feeling light and free and no where near lonely.
Jim wasn’t the only one who could run away, and she could see why he did it. It was intoxicating, leaving all her problems behind. She felt marginally guilty about leaving the mess of the wedding for her parents to clean up, but her mother had hugged her and told her to go, they would take care of calling everyone and returning gifts and canceling bands and caterers and reception halls.
It was amazing to Pam how easy it actually was. A wedding which had taken months to plan only took a few phone calls to unravel.
She hadn’t wanted to think about Jim, but she found herself wondering where he was, how he was. She wondered if he had gone to Australia, and if he was flying towards Sydney the same time she was flying towards Florence. She hoped he was. She hoped that he was off having the time of his life. He deserved it.
She hoped he was in Australia, and she hoped that if he was, he was having fun. Somehow she doubted it.
The woman in the travel agency had helped her plan the trip. Pam had gone in to get some brochures on Tuscany, and the whole story had spilled out of her. Jim’s confession and the kiss and how Pam had gone home to Roy and broke up with him the next morning as they were standing brushing their teeth.
“I don’t think we should get married,” was what she had said, and his eyes widened. “I don’t think we’re happy. I don’t think either of us are.” And she had started to cry, the toothbrush clattering to the floor and Roy had stood shell-shocked at the bathroom sink. Sometimes she thought it was the cruelest and most generous thing she had ever done to him.
The travel agent had listened to her whole story, to the part about returning to Dunder Mifflin ready to talk to Jim about how she was mistaken and how she loved him too, only to find an empty desk and an empty chair and a half explanation from Michael about a week off and a transfer.
“Sweetheart, you need to have the time of your life,” the travel agent had said, shoving brochures at her. Florence and the Tuscan countryside, a few days on the Mediterranean, they picked hotels and booked train tickets. Her mother was supportive, her father was worried.
“By yourself?” He had asked skeptically.
“I’ll be okay,” Pam had reassured, and it was only when she stepped out of the plane, map of Florence in hand, did she think that she might really be okay.
She spent the first few days in Florence wandering in and out of museums, amazed at the beauty and the architecture and in awe that she was standing in front of it all.
She bought a postcard in Florence, wrote it out and wrote Jim’s name on it before she realized she no longer had his address.
I’m in Florence and it’s beautiful. I can’t believe I’m here and that I’m seeing all of this. I wish you were here.
She kept it, tucking it away in her guide books, running her fingertip over his name.
She bought another postcard from a small shop in the tiny little town of Sarteano, a picture of a vineyard on the front.
It’s amazing here. We passed fields full of sunflowers, and I couldn’t help but think that it might be a thousand times more amazing if you were here. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough that night. I wish you were here.
The postcards became more honest and brave as she traveled, she wrote each one out and tucked it away in her books and suitcases. She sketched on her hotel balcony, sketches of the countryside and of Italy, and some of Jim.
I miss you. And I wish you would have given me a chance to be brave. I’m angry at you. I needed my best friend and you were gone. I wish you were here.
She changed her mind at the last minute, taking a train north to Venice instead of south to the sea, and after an expensive over seas phone call, her intrepid travel agent got Pam a room by the train station at a little hotel called the Villa Rosa. Pam fell in love with Venice the moment she laid eyes on it, and she considered calling Michael and quitting and moving to Venice to paint and live her life among the quiet canals.
Her last postcard is from Venice, addressed to Jim, with the words,
I’m in love with you and I’m sorry. I wish you were here.
On her last day in Florence, she gets an email from Toby with Jim’s new address and a short email attached.
“I figured you might want to have it,” Toby wrote. And before she can talk herself out of it, Pam finished writing Jim’s address on all of the postcards and drops them in the mailbox. There are fourteen in all. One for each day she was in Italy.
She cried on the way to the airport, back to Scranton and the mess she left behind, and the loneliness and regrets.
Her parents picked her up at the airport, grinning at her as she threw her arms around them. It had only been two weeks, but somehow Pam felt different. She was no longer receptionist Pam who dropped out of college and was engaged to a warehouse worker. She had seen things, had traveled, she had laid eyes on Michelangelo’s David and climbed the Duomo. She had crossed the Bridge of Sighs, and picked grapes off a vine in Tuscany. And she had done it by herself.
She was home for five days before she heard a knock on the door, and opened it to find Jim on the other side, holding a stack of postcards in his hands, bundled together with a paperclip with a yogurt lid dangling off the end.
“Hi, I, uh, got your postcards. And I wish I had been there too,” he said softly, and she launched herself at him, pressing her mouth to his. She could feel his smile against her lips.
“Next time,” she promised.
Story Notes:
I don't know where this came from. Set in the aftermath of Casino Night. I suppose the title could possibly come from the Pink Floyd song.
bashert is the author of 37 other stories.
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