Pam let the small cardboard box fall to the floor with a resounding thud, the sound reverberating throughout the tiny studio apartment. Ratty old sketch books and framed family photos peeked out from inside.
“It’s kind of small,” Angela Martin stated, dropping a larger box full of dishes and flatware onto the bare kitchen counter. Her eyes scanned the room, which couldn't have been larger than your average walk-in closet.
”It’s cozy.”
”It’s cramped. And the paint on the walls is chipping,” Kelly Kapoor complained as she made her way into the apartment empty handed.
“It has character,” Pam insisted.
Ok, so Pam knew the apartment was pretty small. And cramped. And hot and stuffy, and she was sweating in places she hadn’t known existed, but she was not about to let any of that discourage her.
Deep inside, Pam loved her newly acquired, single-bedroom apartment. It was on the tenth floor of an old red-brick, gothic-style, 23-story building in the heart of the South Loop of Chicago. And it was hers. The very first residence she could call her own.
She had moved to the city from her parents’ house in the outer West suburbs of Chicago seeking a fresh start.
And she was scared, although she refused to admit it.
At 23, she had finally ventured out onto her own, leaving behind a worrisome mother and father, a younger sister fresh out of high school, her beloved 11-year-old Golden Retriever, Sadie, and Roy Anderson, her high school sweetheart.
Roy was mostly the reason why she needed to get away. After a rocky, on-and-off seven-year relationship, he decided to propose to her over dessert at an Applebee’s restaurant with a white gold ring that in no way could have cost anything over a hundred dollars. The whole proposal was tacky and cheap and ridiculous, and she said no, much to the astonishment of the thirteen people who also happened to be dining there at 4:15 on a Wednesday afternoon.
Roy was upset and confused, and Pam understood. She never gave him an actual reason as to why she couldn’t marry him. Even though she had jotted down an entire list of reasons in her head, she knew none of them would make sense if she told him. She just knew in her heart that she absolutely, positively could not marry Roy Anderson.
(Reason #1: She could not become Pamela Anderson.)
And so she left.
Now, she was enrolled as an art student at Columbia College. School started in just a couple of days, and she was living on campus in a 600-square-foot efficency apartment in a building called The Buckingham. After an unsuccessful 4 year stint at a 2-year community college in Wheaton, Illinois, she finally felt like she was doing something right with her life. Even if her friends thought she was crazy for moving into an air-condition-less apartment in the middle of August in an enormous city all by herself.
“It’s so hot in here, you guys. I’m seriously about to die,” Kelly groaned as she collapsed onto the couch.
That stupid, hideous, faded blue couch with a grotesque floral pattern that had been in Pam’s family for years. Pam’s mother had recently splurged on a nice leather sofa set, relinquishing the unsightly couch to the basement. Now, it was hers. But, it was the only piece of furniture currently occupying her living room, so in a way, she was grateful to have it.
Her parents didn’t understand why Pam had given up a career in medicine to study art. Of course they didn’t. Her father was a pediatrician at a small, wealthy suburban family clinic and her mom was a nurse at Edward Hospital. Her sister, Hannah, aspired to be a surgeon and planned to enter the Pre-Medicine program at Illinois Wesleyan University. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after 68 hours of uninteresting liberal arts courses and nauseating human anatomy classes and nursing labs that Pam realized she wasn’t destined to follow in her parents footsteps like her sister. And maybe, just maybe, her little-known artistic talent could actually take her places, instead of lying hidden in the hundreds of sketchbooks that had accumulated underneath her twin-sized bed since grade school.
”No. Kelly, no lying down! We still have more boxes downstairs,” Angela insisted, pulling at Kelly’s arm as she attempted to lift her off the couch.
”I can’t move. I think I have boob sweat,” Kelly protested.
”That’s disgusting,” Angela said, making a sour face.
Despite all of the complaining, Pam was grateful to have the help of her two closest friends. They had been friends since high school, and couldn’t be more different from one another.
Angela still lived at her parent’s two-story house, a short distance away from Pam’s family in Naperville, Illinois. She was an Accounting major at Lewis University, a Catholic school in Romeoville. She was somewhat cold, judgmental, and uptight, but she was honest, and Pam loved that about her. She could always count on Angela to tell the truth, no matter how much it hurt to hear it.
They had met in ninth grade. Having lived such a short distance from each other, they rode the bus together to school, and being the only two people who strayed away from the rowdy kids in the back of the bus, they eventually started chatting it up and soon became friends. Angela and Pam had been through everything together. Angela helped ease Pam into her first date with Roy, the Varsity quarterback of the All-State Naperville North football team, and Pam saw Angela through the beginning and end of Angela’s bittersweet relationship with Dwight Schrute, a nerdy pop-culture and sci-fi buff who graduated a year before them. Dwight was a Mathlete and President of his Senior class, a know-it-all that didn’t get along with any of Angela’s friends, but he was sweet and caring and he and Angela were completely inseperable. That was until Dwight was accepted into Brown University and that whole long-distance thing just didn’t work out.
Pam knew Angela still had a special place in her heart for Dwight after several failed attempts at dating, including her most recent tumultuous relationship with Andy Bernard, a co-worker of Angela’s who worked in the electronics department at their neighborhood Super Target. They broke up only a couple of weeks ago, but Andy continued to follow Angela around the store and haunted her on her lunch breaks, continuing to ask her out. He was annoying, and Pam couldn’t stand him. It made her miss Dwight.
Kelly was Angela’s polar opposite. She was flirty and outgoing, and she dressed in outfits from Forever 21, clothes Pam was starting to feel much too old to wear. Guys loved Kelly, and she loved them, never seeming to be able to keep a boyfriend for longer than a week. She was currently subletting an apartment from an old Jewish couple on the city’s North side. Pam wasn’t exactly sure how Kelly was able to afford an apartment in such a prestigious area, especially since she only worked as a personal shopper at Bloomingdales, and she never asked.
Kelly gave up on college after her first semester, ultimately deciding it just wasn’t for her, even though she aspired to be queen of the fashion world “just like Rachel Green on Friends”. To be honest, Kelly did have the talent and the know-how to make it up the diamond-encrusted corporate ladder in the fashion industry, and she was about 1/8th of the way there, under her current job title.
“Angela’s right,” Pam said, glancing at her watch. “The truck is due back at four and we still have a bunch of boxes to bring up.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Kelly groaned, heaving herself off the couch in a dramatic fashion as they prepared for a second trip downstairs.
“So do you like it?” Angela asked as they made their way out the door and down the long, narrow hallway towards the elevators. Kelly dragged her feet a couple of paces behind them, her feet shuffling across the faded gray carpet. The hallway was even hotter and stickier than Pam’s apartment, if that were possible. Pam’s pink camisole clung to her skin and she was starting to realize it was a very, very bad idea to be wearing jeans. But she would never be caught dead in the overly-revealing tank top impossibly short track shorts Kelly was wearing.
“Yeah, I do,” Pam said. “I mean, it’s not that bad. I’ll stop by Target. Pick up a couple of things. Abuse your discount.”
“Did you lock your door?” Kelly chimed in from behind them as Pam pressed the button for the elevator. “Because I saw this thing on TV about college guys who sneak into girls’ apartments that are left unlocked, and then the guys rape and murder them.”
”Kelly, I thought we agreed you weren’t going to watch Oprah anymore,” Pam sighed.
”I’m not, it comes on way too early anyway. I saw it on The View,” Kelly replied as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. “Also, I read in Cosmo about this thing they’re calling ‘party rape’-“
”Yeah, I think we got it, Kelly,” Angela said, shooting Kelly a look.
”I left the magazine downstairs. I’ll leave it for you to look at,” Kelly nodded at Pam.
“Ok,” Pam smiled wearily. She was already tired from the heat and the one-hour drive into the city from her parents' house.
Within the next two hours, the rest of the boxes were brought upstairs, the truck returned at the Budget Truck rental place a couple of blocks away, and the girls retreated to the Panera Bread Café located downstairs from Pam’s apartment for dinner.
After polishing off their tuna sandwiches and iced green teas, it was time for Angela and Kelly to go home.
“I guess we’ll be seeing you,” Angela said as they stood just outside the bakery on a bustling street corner. Men and women in business suits maneuvered around them, heading towards their cars or bus stop or train station to begin their long journey home for the day. The sun was slowly beginning to droop in the sky, casting a faint orange glow around them. The ends of Angela’s blonde hair sparkled in the twilight as the wind tossed it around her shoulders.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll see you guys at my birthday party, right?” Kelly asked.
”Yeah, definitely,” Pam nodded, not wanting to acknowledge that Kelly’s birthday was in October, a whole two months away.
”Well, good luck,” Angela smiled warmly, wrapping her arms around Pam. Pam held tightly onto Angela, her fingers sweeping across the back of her long-sleeved satin blouse. Only Angela would wear long-sleeves and satin in the middle of summer.
“Good luck, Pam,” Kelly said, giving her a quick hug goodbye.
”Thanks you guys,” Pam said, crossing her arms across her chest, tears stinging in her eyes as she refused to let them fall. “And thank you for all your help today. It really meant a lot.”
“No problem,” Angela said. “If you need anything, just give me a call.”
”Ok,” Pam smiled.
”Bye,” Angela blew a kiss at Pam, and Pam shyly waved as Kelly and Angela turned and zipped across the street holding each others hands, off to catch their trains back home.
Pam slowly turned and entered her building and stepped inside the elevator, riding the long, slow ride back up to the tenth floor. The elevator dinged upon its arrival and she stepped out, her white Keds softly padding across the floor as she made her way down the long, ill-lit hallway towards room number 1017. She shoved her key inside the lock and opened the door, stepping inside and closing it behind her. She leaned against the door, the smooth, cool metal providing temporary relief to her scorched, sun-burnt skin. She let out a sad sigh and finally allowed a few tears to fall from her eyes as a passing el train rattled the building from overhead, her lights slightly flickering on and off.
She was starting anew. Clean slate. In a brand new home she could call her own.
And she was alone.
Story Notes:
Ok. So I realize I've left my last story unfinished and I should be banished from this fan fiction board forever, but I was somehow inspired to write this story. I start by asking for your forgiveness, as I realize I am not the best storyteller in the world, but with a long winter break ahead of me, I wanted to write and so here I am.
I removed the characters from Scranton because being an Illinois native, Chicago is just so much more familiar to me, although I admit I've had to use Wikipedia more than once as research. :)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters are the property of the author. I am not associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
I removed the characters from Scranton because being an Illinois native, Chicago is just so much more familiar to me, although I admit I've had to use Wikipedia more than once as research. :)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters are the property of the author. I am not associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Pam starts over.
This story takes place in an AU, so please bear with me as a couple of introductions are made, and a little of Pam's back story is told to set everything up. Enjoy!
This story takes place in an AU, so please bear with me as a couple of introductions are made, and a little of Pam's back story is told to set everything up. Enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
Title of this chapter is from The Submarines, "Brighter Discontent" which I think somewhat fits in with the beginning of Pam's story. LOVE The Submarines. :)
