~~~~~
"Pam! Could you come in here, please?"
She didn't acknowledge Michael, and continued to refine the handle of her mug in the sketch she was making of the top of her desk. She was thinking of it as more a landscape than a still-life. She could add a rising sun or a bird, soaring above the candy dish. Perhaps she should enter a surrealist period.
"Pamarama?" His voice was thinner, brighter. Pam was sure she could make him cry. The thought made her uncomfortable. Too much power for fourteen dollars an hour, plus benefits.
She carefully capped and laid her good pen aside, separate from the ones she had taken from the supply shelf, then picked up her notebook.
Jim was seated in the chair opposite Michael's desk, slouching slightly, his feet set wide apart. She thought, as she often did when she looked at him, that he didn't wear his height very well, seeming almost apologetic about it at times. He glanced up and smiled at her when she stepped into the room. She smiled back as she turned to a clean page. "What's up?"
"Jim was just telling me that you've expressed an interest in learning about sales." Michael's hands were folded neatly on his desk, his eyes bright, his condescension and delight inextricably intertwined.
She glanced quickly back at Jim, who was now tilting his head back as far as he could, still smiling up at her. His eyes were wondering when she'd catch what was happening. She stared at the line of his exposed throat, watched his adam's apple shift as he swallowed. He was so radiant with mischief that only Michael could have missed it.
The arch of his eyebrow was giving clear instructions, so she said, "Oh! Oh, yeah! We were just talking about it the other day and -"
She was gearing up to spin some sort of story about wanting to advance professionally or better understand the company or something, anything that would make Jim choke on a laugh then tease her later, when Michael, bless him, interrupted. "Great! Jim has an afternoon full of sales calls and he has graciously offered to take you along, show you the ropes." Michael's smile was wide, almost frightening. "Exciting stuff!"
She stole another look at Jim. He had lowered his head and was biting on his bottom lip, nodding almost rhythmically as he looked at Michael. His eyes were bright and he seemed to be firmly ordering himself not to look at her.
"That sounds great."
"Then it's settled," Michael held his palms up, helpless in the face of such a perfect plan. "Get out of here. Go to lunch. Have a nice afternoon." He clapped his hands once. Pam turned, Jim rose to follow her out of the room, and Michael called, "Now you be gentle with her, Halpert! It's her first time!" after them. Phyllis lifted her head and watched them pass.
The color in his cheeks was high when he approached her desk, jacket on, bag slung over his shoulder. As she switched the phone over to automatic forwarding, she said, "I'm sure you wouldn't hurt an innocent little thing like me."
"He just - can't help it, can he?"
They waited for the elevator in silence. Once they were inside, he grinned at her and leaned against the wall. "Lesson one - always make sure that the customer thinks it was his idea."
"Right." Pam felt the elevator drop beneath her feet. Her insides hopped. "Now, really, where are we going?"
~~~~~
She pointed across the mini-golf course to the only other people on it, a pair of high school students four holes ahead. "Shouldn't they be in school?" They were dressed in skinny jeans, ragged t-shirts, and appeared to have split a bottle of cheap black hair dye. They were alternating between making out and loudly, gleefully criticizing each others' games. He kept tugging her belt loops as she lined up a shot and she would dig her fingers into his ribcage as he did the same.
"Shouldn't you be at work?" Jim had undone two buttons on his shirt and she could see a couple of inches of his undershirt. He was squinting in the mid-May sun and the breeze was arranging his hair at odd angles. She told herself that it was just a fact that he was quite handsome; it meant nothing that she noticed it.
"Hey," she leaned on her club, trying to affect a jaunty air, while he placed his green ball on the second tee, "I'm on a sales call, I'll have you know."
Without looking up, he said, "You have chocolate milkshake on your blouse."
"And dipping your fries in mayo is disgusting."
"It's very European."
"Why do you hate America so much, Jim?"
"God, where to begin?" His ball bounced off of the first set of concrete bumpers between him and the hole.
There was an indignant yell a few yards away and Pam and Jim watched as the black-haired girl threatened to drop her boyfriend's ball into a water hazard. They had tremendous smiles on their faces.
~~~~~
Pam was up by a stroke and Jim had just finished going on in an increasingly absurd fashion about the legendary miniature golf courses of the Scottish highlands when he gestured toward the twelfth hole, the dreaded windmill. "Oh, that is such an amateur move." The boy had wrapped his arms around his date, his hands on hers and his mouth near her ear, as she considered her shot.
"What, is he ripping off your game, Halpert?" The easy, happy way in which he took her abuse was one of the several dozen things Pam really liked about Jim.
"Please. Women are helpless - helpless - in the face of my charms."
She couldn't stop the bark of a laugh that escaped her chest. "Oh, really?"
"Really."
She dropped her chin and twisted her mouth, kind of wanting to ask him for specifics. They never talked about those things. It was a remote and interesting part of him. Jim on a date, flirting, kissing... she couldn't picture it. It wasn't that he seemed sexless, like male friends she had in the past, but it was as if that part of him was carefully closed off, definitely not for her. There was something old-fashioned and polite about it that she appreciated, even respected. "Right." She tilted her head toward the other pair of golfers. "Anyway, they're cute." Pam turned her attention to her game while Jim began trying to bounce his ball on the side of his putter. When she had taken her shot, she added, "They remind me of Roy and me." Still concentrating on the task he had invented for himself, he didn't look up, just nodded. Pam had hoped that he would ask about her and Roy, that he wanted to know more about her than what he was able to learn at work. For the past couple of months, she had been contending with a weird impulse to tell him everything about herself. She wanted to see how he would respond to the mundane details of her life - childhood pets, stories about her family, things she did in high school, all of it.
The girl laughed and shoved her date behind the windmill, where they disappeared from view for several minutes.
~~~~~
When she took her turn at the twelfth, Jim wrapped his arms around her and, right near her ear, with a smirk and a tone in his voice she wasn't familiar with, said, "This is a tough one. Let me show you how it works."
She could feel that he was going to back away, so she rearranged her fingers, getting a better grip, hooking her pinky with his. He settled his hands more firmly over hers. "You suck."
"I told you that this was a lame move, didn't I?" He didn't let her go, though, and she tried to ignore the goosebumps on her arms and legs. "I'm supposed to be teaching you something this afternoon, right? So let's talk about the windmill. Lesson two - It's all about timing."
"Cheesy business metaphors? Really?" His arms were long enough that there was space between her back and his chest. She looked down at their hands, admiring his fingers and neatly trimmed nails.
"Do you want to be able to put this on the company credit card or not?"
"You'll never get it past Angela."
"Shh. The windmill," he whispered as if they were about to sneak up on it and a small tremor hummed beneath her skin.
"I've played miniature golf before. The windmill and I have met."
He ignored her, making a gesture with his head that she could just see out of the corner of her eye. "Watch the red panel."
She concentrated on the rotating blades while Jim rearranged his feet, pressing his chest lightly into her back. She swung the club and his hands followed. The ball rolled away and through the windmill. She could hear him breathing, feel his warmth through the thin fabric of their dress shirts. She redistributed more of her weight to her heels and let herself be held for a moment, just a little, hoping that he wouldn't think it was weird. He was staring at her; she could feel it, and maybe he did think she was weird. There was a distant, plastic click when the ball found the cup. She smiled. "Hole in one."
He gave her hands a small squeeze before he let go. "Well done."
~~~~~
"Who won?"
She was sitting at a picnic table, tallying their scores, when Jim came back from returning their clubs. They were alone on the course; the kids having left in a beat-up car with a loud, lousy stereo a half hour ago.
"Um... you did, by five strokes."
"We should have been playing for cash. Fifty cents a hole."
She turned to face him. "We can next time."
"Next time?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm obviously hustling you here, Halpert. Just let it happen."
He laughed and shook his head. "No, you really aren't. Unless having to get the nice man with the net to fish your ball out of the little pond - twice - was all part of your elaborate plan."
Pam's jaw dropped and she threw the golf pencil. It hit Jim in the center of his chest and he caught it before it fell and tossed it back to her. She stood, handed him the scorecard, and tucked the pencil behind her ear. His eyes followed her hand and she said, simply, "souvenir." He nodded and slipped the card into his back pocket.
~~~~~
They lingered in the arcade and took the long way home. They didn't talk much as he drove. She flipped through his CD wallet, changing the selection in the stereo three or four times, which drove Roy nuts when she did it. Jim didn't comment, just sang along with some songs under his breath. He glanced over at her occasionally and smiled.
It was after six by the time he brought her back to the office. He pulled into the spot next to where she had parked and turned off the car, getting out when she did. Over the roof, she asked, "How on earth do we trick Michael into letting us do that again?"
He crossed over to her and leaned against the side of his car as she dug for her keys. "What? Did you think you could master the complex world of sales after one afternoon? You might have to go with me all summer, if you really want to learn the finer points."
"I don't know if miniature golfing in work clothes in August sounds like all that much fun."
He shrugged. "I don't care. I like spending time with you."
She didn't know how to react. There was a lot she wanted to say to him, but she didn't trust any of it. Finally, when it seemed like too much time had passed and she really had to respond somehow, she murmured a "thank you," which felt insufficient.
"You're welcome."
"I'll see you Monday?"
"Yup."
She said "good night" as she was stepping toward him, getting up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek, something she had never done before, but had been meaning to try. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he wrapped one arm low around her back, helping her compensate for their height difference. It was easy and comfortable to be held by him like that.
As she pulled away, they both turned their heads, and their cheeks, then the corners of their mouths, brushed, but just barely. The contact surprised her. She was finding her breath and balance as he turned his head further and gently stole a kiss. He pulled away after a bare second, before she could really process what was happening, hearing the quiet snap as their mouths parted, intimate and a little strange. In the moment, Pam was too stunned to feel guilty; to think about Roy. She realized that her hand had come to rest on his cheek, which was soft and rough at the same time. He smelled good, tasted better, and she either wanted to forget that immediately or keep it at the very front of her mind for a long time.
He closed his eyes and she moved her hand back to his shoulder, trailing her fingers down his cheek, feeling him lean slightly into her touch. His eyes were sad and wide and worried when he finally opened them again. It was insane, but she was thinking about kissing him, to see if she could find out what the look in his eyes had to do with her, when he blinked, seemed to snap out of it, and quietly said, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. An accident." Her voice was too light, unconvincing. She was staring at his mouth and he seemed to notice. They weren't letting each other go and she pretended not to notice.
"I think - I -" he sighed. "Yeah. An accident."
She laid her palm on his chest and said, "Okay, it's a really dorky thing to say, but do you know that you're my best friend?" Even as she said it, Pam knew that it wasn't the whole truth, but more accurate words failed her.
He smiled with one side of his mouth, but there was that same sadness in his eyes. "Am I?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad to hear it. So you don't have to be dorky alone, I'll say that you're definitely mine." He pressed his open, flat palm lightly into her lower back and she tilted forward on her toes a little. She reached into her hair and pulled the golf pencil from behind her ear. He studied her face as she dropped the pencil into his shirt pocket. She leaned back a little and he let her go. "Monday?"
"Monday." She smiled and looked down at his feet. "Good night."
"Good night."
When she got to work on Monday morning, the scorecard was wedged above home row on her keyboard. A small pink Post-It note was stuck to it, the words "I want a rematch" written neatly in the center. She slipped it into her sketchbook, wondering if it was silly that she hoped he had kept the pencil.
~~~~~
Story Notes:
I started out writing about the golf pencil ("Sales Call") and it kind of got away from me. All apologies for the WIP-ness of this. Know that I'm working on it, and have sections of all of the chapters written.
This is for our tireless champion, NanReg, and for Annabel, as she came back, babe in tow.
This is for our tireless champion, NanReg, and for Annabel, as she came back, babe in tow.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim and Pam play hooky. Takes place before, well, everything.
There are two things, really, driving this:
1. All of the golf pencil talk on the boards as of late and -
2. My decision to mishear Jim's description of his first kiss with Pam in "Goodbye, Toby." I know what he meant, but, meh.
This is for Tink. Everyone clap if you believe in fluff fairies.
There are two things, really, driving this:
1. All of the golf pencil talk on the boards as of late and -
2. My decision to mishear Jim's description of his first kiss with Pam in "Goodbye, Toby." I know what he meant, but, meh.
This is for Tink. Everyone clap if you believe in fluff fairies.
Chapter End Notes:
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.
