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Reflections
Pam stood at the foot of her bed, looking over the crumpled contents of her wardrobe, and was sure the right choice lay there among the wrinkled rejects. She didn’t have many clothes that weren’t work clothes, save for a few she had ordered online a few months back. And now they stared back at her, reminding her how utterly hopeless she was at this sort of thing. She couldn’t remember exactly when it was that she had stopped trying. How many neglected kisses and clumsy shovings of bodies it had taken before she no longer made the extra effort. To look different than herself, or better, she wasn’t sure.
She ran her hands over the lavender lace of the blouse she had chosen, and turned her attention to her hair. It, at least, was complying for once, taking notice of the anti-frizz serum she had worked through it after her shower to lay now in smooth waves down her back. She was just getting ready to tackle the question of shoes when three light taps echoed from the living room. A light sweat sprang up over her body, and she quickly put an extra swipe of Secret under each arm before moving to the door.
* * * * *
Jim stared at the roses in his hand and silently cursed the flower stand for having run out of daisies the day before. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if it were better to give her the pungent flowers in his hand or nothing at all. Looking down at them, he couldn’t get over their commonness, nothing at all like the unique, quirky woman who would soon receive them. They mocked him back, peeking out from their green foil wrapper as if this were just another date, ordinary, pointless. He had just decided on holding the flowers down at his waist rather than straight out in front of him when the door opened.
She filled his vision, and her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brighter even than when he pictured them in his mind at home on a Sunday afternoon. Vaguely, he noticed that she didn’t have much makeup on, and God knew she didn’t need it. She was incredible.
Belatedly, she smiled, and he realized that he too had simply been staring. He smiled back, and for the first time in over a year, it made him happy to do so.
“Hi.”
* * * * *
“Hey.”
As the word left his lips, she was momentarily in the office, a day when Jinx had gone from a game to something more, something that disturbed her in a way she wouldn’t let herself examine too closely. They hadn’t talked all day, and by the end, she had felt hollow, sick, wrong, and had finally bought the coke herself. To get rid of the guilt, she had told herself. So he could speak again. They hadn’t spoken for too long.
* * * * *
So long, he thought as he watched her smile grow. It’s been so long. As she stepped aside to let him in, the scent of powder and vanilla brushed his nose, and he closed his eyes at the loveliness of it. By the time she shut the door behind him and turned around, he had opened them again, but his smile remained.
“We’re not stomping our own wine grapes you know, Beesly.” He flicked his gaze to her bare feet before adding, “And where we’re going, who knows. They may even serve it to us. Possibly in glasses.”
“Well, you know, I find it best to play it safe in new situations. Be prepared for the worst…or fail to survive, as Dwight says.” She grinned at him.
“Pam, how many times do I have to tell you? This is a private space, a happy space, and as such, it’s inappropriate, rude even, to bring Dwight into it.” God, I’ve missed this.
Her giggles eventually subsided, and his grin faded, and as they stared at each other he swore she was echoing his thoughts, but then she went to get her shoes and he held the door open as they left the apartment.
He had made reservations at the new French restaurant, because he had heard that there were reproduction paintings from the Louvre up on the walls, but as he began to drive he worried that he had made a bad choice, too fancy and fussy and too much pressure for a first date and oh my God this is a date. She said yes and she looks incredible and it’s Pam and dear sweet God don’t let me mess this up and I should tell her…tell her…
* * * * *
“You look beautiful.”
The light was turning green. As she looked up, Jim accelerated, and she could see his emotions playing out over his face. He was mad at himself, his eyes rounder than usual and his lips compressed in a thin line. She knew he was kicking himself over all the other things he wanted to say, because she felt them too. They had both been stupid, scared, and she had never been more terrified or felt more absolutely complete than she did at that moment. She noticed a stray curl trapped under his collar, realized how wonderful it smelled inside his car, even though it didn’t really smell like anything at all except how it felt on the rare occasion when Jim would fold her up in his arms. It had been over a year.
She reached across the seat and took his right hand from the steering wheel, placed it on the seat between them. She stared at their linked hands, marveled at how such a small amount of contact could warm her whole body, and as she looked up she saw they were stopped at another red light, and that his eyes mirrored hers. Staring at their hands. And then, at her.
* * * * *
“God, I’m nervous.” For a second, she just stared at him, and he was so sure that he’d blown it, read too much into things, found signs where there were none, and this was just dinner. And she still wasn’t his. But then she laughed, threw her head down until her hair tickled their laced fingers and they were Jim and Pam again, more than that and only themselves. Everything he had wanted for the past year, and so long before that.
His eyes warmed as he watched her, and it took another second before he could ask, “What’s so funny?” Her eyes were bright and full and happy when she looked up at him and, still laughing, said, “Thank god I’m not the only one.” Before she could say more, a honk from behind let them know that the light had changed, and as he started to drive again, she continued, “I must have stared at my closet for an hour when I got home. And…I brushed my teeth with Neosporin.”
He gaped at her for five full seconds before the meaning of the words truly sunk in. “No way.”
“It was the expensive kind too. I must have wasted half a tube.” The laugh that escaped him felt like childhood, and sex, and a good night’s sleep, and his best friend telling him that he hadn’t screwed everything up.
* * * * *
She awoke as the sunlight filtering through her living room blinds fell across her eyelids. The light was a hazy gray, with a hint of orange threatening to break through, the kind of light that is only visible on an early autumn morning. Pan stretched her limbs as she shifted a little on the sofa and watched the light pour through the window.
It wasn’t until she felt the warmth and rustle of a body breathing behind her that the events of the past twenty-four hours came back to her, drenching her mind like douse on a fire. Slowly, each body part became aware of the neighboring body pressed up against her, larger limbs and torso mirroring her own, an arm thrown around her waist. His breath was a whisper on her neck.
“Hey.”
* * * * *
A jump, just a little one, as she realized that he was awake. Her warmth was a blanket, spreading out over his entire body though she was cradled against only his front half. Awkwardly, they both adjusted until she had turned around to face him. The sofa was smaller than it had seemed last night when they sat, her curled into his side, watching a midnight showing of The Princess Bride on AMC.
“Hi.” Her voice cracked just a little, and he could see faint gray smudges under her eyes where her mascara had rubbed off while she slept. He swallowed, and wished he hadn’t ordered the shrimp scampi for dinner.
Her lips are the first thing I should see every morning, he thought as his own curled in a smile to match hers.
* * * * *
This close, his eyes had a ring of turquoise around each pupil, the blue melding with the green like a drop of dye in water. She was just about to ask if he was hungry, or make a joke about neither of them being able to make it to one in the morning anymore, or tell him how much she had missed his smile, when his face grew serious. He sat up, and before she could ask what was wrong, or really start to panic, his arms had hooked beneath her knees and across her shoulder blades, and she was in the air. His eyes burned a hole through hers from an inch away. Jim carried her through the living room, took a turn at the corridor leading to her bedroom-
And veered into the bathroom. As her bare feet hit the cold tile, she looked up and caught his eyes in the mirror. They were glowing.
His gaze flicked back to their reflected image, and she followed it, stifling a gasp as she finally focused on her own appearance. Her skirt was twisted ninety degrees to the right, her eyes looked more raccoon than human, and her hair. Oh… She raised a tentative hand to the tangled mass atop her head. The sleek waves she had coaxed into submission the night before sat poised for attack, gnarled and angry and at least two inches taller than they ought to be.
Of course.
His low chuckle distracted her from the momentary horror and shock. “I figured we could both use a bathroom moment. I for one sincerely wish I had stayed far away from the garlic last night.” He reached for the mouthwash, pouring a little bit into a disposable plastic cup rather than use the bottle top. After his second mouthful, he leaned over the sink to fill the cup with some water from the tap. His arm paused halfway to the faucet, he glanced up and said, again to her reflection, “You look really cute in the morning, Beesly.”
After rinsing his mouth out one last time, he picked up a hairbrush from the counter, moved behind her, and gently began to detangle her hair. She watched mesmerized as mirror-Jim’s brows drew together, focused on separating her curls without snagging any. His fingers carefully combed through each completed section, checking to make sure he hadn’t missed any knots. It was the softest caress she had ever felt.
Pam stood, watching this man brush her hair, letting his touch and his concentration say through motions the words that had been said nearly a year ago. And without even realizing it- she began to cry.
* * * * *
Jim paused to smile up at Pam’s reflection, but his hands stilled as he caught the shimmer of a glistening streak along her cheek.
“Pam?” He heard the edge of panic as that single syllable disrupted the peaceful silence they had fallen into. He began to move around her, but she slowly turned in his arms until she was facing him. He hadn’t noticed when he’s closed his hands around her shoulders.
But as she tilted her head up, he saw that the tears were falling, faintly, down a face that was positively beaming. This delicate, beautiful, amazing woman, Pam, was standing in his arms and smiling at him even as the tears fell, and her eyes told him everything he had been too afraid to hope for, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry along with her.
And he didn’t realize that he was already doing both.
shortlatte is the author of 2 other stories.
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