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She closes the door behind her and stands there expectantly, waiting.
“I came out to get the WD40 for that closet door,” I explain. I don’t – no – I can’t tell her yet. I’m a coward and I know it. I try to keep the defeat out of my voice, but of course, I can’t.
“Oh.” She takes in the fact I’m looking at her sketchbook and I can see the cogs turning in her head as she’s trying to read me. Then a horrible thing happens. Her eyes widen and she comes forward on her toes like she does when she’s excited about something. And I realize she thinks I may be messing with her – pretending things didn’t go well so I can surprise her with good news.
I can actually feel my insides twist as she stares at me and slowly figures out that I’m not kidding and her smile droops when she realizes things have not gone well. The truth settles down over her face, and I have to turn away. She doesn’t say it, though, and she walks over to me and puts her hand on my shoulder and I swear, it almost hurts when she touches me.
“Jim?” She’s surprised. “Your shirt is soaked. You’re shivering!” She’s really concerned. And she’s right about the shivering. I hadn’t noticed, but my teeth give a chatter to remind me that I’m shaking. I guess it’s from the cold.
“Daniel’s car was out there s- so I pulled it in.” I avoid her eyes and my teeth chatter a little more.
“Jim.” She tugs gently at my shoulder. “Come on. Come inside, sweetie.” There’s nothing but kindness in her voice and it breaks my heart. I don’t move so she runs her hand down my shirt sleeve and grasps my hand and guides me up and toward the door. I tuck the sketchbook under my arm to take it inside, and then I notice the oil on the shelf by the door - so I hold back until I get it, too. Stepping out the door, I flip off the light and we leave Pam’s supplies to sit in the freezing space.
She leads me straight up to our bedroom so I drop her sketch book on the bed and head toward the squeaky closet door with the oil.
“That can wait, Jim, you need to get out of those wet clothes now.”
“Lemme do this.” It will take maybe a minute and I need to fix this.
“You can oil it later,” she insists. “You’re freezing. You need to get warm first.”
I already know I’m cold – I don’t need her to remind me and my answer comes out snappish and rough. “I will in a minute. I’m going to do this first, though.”
Her voice rises, too, and she counters with a shrill, “Just TAKE the wet clothes off.” When I start to back toward the closet door anyway, she adds an exasperated, “We can’t afford for you to get sick!” Her words hang in the quiet for several seconds as we both wonder what they mean.
Then I recover and I yank my arm away from her. “I’m just going to oil the damn door, Pam! Jesus, you’re the one who’s been complaining about it! I want to do this, okay? Will two minutes really make any difference?” I’m nearly shouting by the end.
I finish oiling the door, and she looks stunned when I turn back to her. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. I mean it for a lot of things. “The door doesn’t squeak now.” Wow, I’ve really fixed things, haven’t I?
“I didn’t mean…” she doesn’t finish but she bites on her lower lip, and I know.
I point to the bathroom and say almost in a whisper “I’ll just go in here…and take a hot shower.” And I escape without waiting for her reply.
I’m still shivering as I pull off my wet clothes and I turn on the water in the shower as hot as I can stand it. I step in and let the spray assault my back, but I still feel cold. I wrap my arms around my sides, trying to hold it all in. I bow my head and lean the top of it against the shower wall while the water stings my shoulders. It hurts, but it doesn’t hurt enough. I just stand here, alone, under the scalding water, as long as I can stand it.
I realize that I have to go out there and tell Pam. Say the words. All this time I’ve been telling her – reassuring her - that it will be okay, that it will all work out. She’s believed me. Christ, she believed me this morning. I turn off the water and wait as it drips off of me. She believed in me. I thought I was telling her the truth. Well… I’m not sure anymore. Maybe I’m going to keep disappointing her.
When I go out to the closet to get some dry clothes, she’s gone. I can hear her downstairs in the kitchen so I pull on some jeans and a hoody and head down the hall.
I pass Daniel’s room - it’s dark and quiet. I glance in and see the playhouse I made for him out of those appliance boxes from the kitchen remodeling. He really likes it and Pam was amazed at how well it turned out.
I wish Daniel was here. He’s a happy little boy and when I make him laugh, all of this goes away for awhile. Pam says I’m a good father. I know there’s not much laughter on the agenda tonight as I shuffle down the stairs.
She turns from the kitchen counter to look at me and I take a deep breath and I just say it. “Pam, I don’t think I got the job today. I blew the interview.“ I look down at my tattered house shoes. “I’m sorry.” I pause and then add, “I shouldn’t. . .have yelled at you.” If I could disappear, I would.
She tilts her head and her eyes are sad. “I didn’t mean it like that, you know,” she says, and I nod. We both know we’re frustrated, but everything still feels stiff and scripted.
“Hey,” she says, and smiles up sideways at me, “I got us a six pack of beer and Taco Bell. Woohoo! And I rented Robin Hood – it was only a buck fifty.” We cancelled the cable long ago, so renting is a real treat. She rubs her hand in a little circle on my stomach and I understand she needs to have a good time tonight in spite of all this. I’ll do whatever she wants, but we’ve got to figure out a few things first – we’d been putting off decisions about the bills thinking I’d get this job. And I told her I would, didn’t I?
“Let’s go through the bills and figure this out,” I suggest. “And then we’ll party, okay?” I try my best to give her a smile that looks genuine.
So we sit down and put the bills in order of what needs to be paid first all the way back to the less urgent ones. We’ll pay as many as we can as far as the money goes. I tell her I’m going to apply for that Best Buy job. It only pays about half of what we really need, but if I get it and we sell the house, we’ll be able to make ends meet in an apartment, at least. She looks like she’d like to protest, but she can’t. We’re out of options. It’s depressing work, but we finally get through the stack.
“Okay, we’ve talked about it,” she says, clearly intending to put our troubles on the shelf for the evening. I take another deep breath and resolve to at least do this for her.
We have a couple of beers and she tells me about her coworkers. They’re kind of crazy, but not in the entertaining, original way of a Dwight Schrute. She says she even misses being called “Mrs. Tuna,” and I laugh. Then there’s a space and I can tell she’s wondering whether or not I’m going to talk about my day. The last thing I want to do right now is remind her about that. She’s been smiling and I like that. No need to bring her down.
We reheat the burritos in our fancy new microwave. I haven’t had Taco Bell in a long time – Daniel won’t touch Mexican food - and I have to admit it tastes really good, but the beer just makes me tired.
“I wonder what Daniel thinks about all this ice?” I ask, trying to keep things light. So we talk about him for awhile and then she says, “Want to watch the movie?”
“Would you rather draw?” I ask.
“No, let’s do something together,” she says. I wish she would draw.
“Guess...” she says brightly and she goes over to our shiny “state of the art” fridge,”...what I got!” She opens the freezer and holds up a pint of Haagen Dazs vanilla.
“Wow, you did splurge.” It’s my favorite, but I don’t want any right now. I will make nice for Pam, but I don’t really feel like celebrating. “I’ll wait.” I say, and she gives me a puzzled look, but I prefer not to notice. “Go ahead though.” Her face falls and I know I’ve made a mistake - that she thought she was doing something special for me, so I scramble. “Go get the movie started, I’ll get us a couple of bowls,” I say.
“No, no, let’s wait,” she insists, and I know I’ve managed to damage the moment.
We end up watching the movie lying on the couch, heads at alternating ends. My body is stretched behind hers in the opposite direction. We situate the old wool throw over both of us, and I rub her feet and she sighs. It’s a good sigh.
Pam loves to have her feet rubbed. I started doing it for her when she was pregnant, and I think it’s right below having sex on her pleasant sensation list. Speaking of sex, I think about the fact that we haven’t made love much in the last couple of months. We’re constantly tired, we have weird schedules and in the back of our minds, we know that we have no idea how Daniel happened. It’s way too obvious to us both that getting pregnant again right now would be a financial disaster of epic proportions. So we just...don’t.
Halfway through the movie, I start to nod and I look over and she’s sound asleep. Her curls are falling over her cheeks, and the worry is gone from her face. She’s beautiful, my wife. Daniel has her mouth and her nose. I carefully lift myself over the back of the couch so I don’t disturb her, and she doesn’t stir. I cover her with the throw and turn off the TV and lights and sneak up to the bedroom.
I slide under the chilly covers in our bed, and end up curled up on my side, facing the edge. I’m dead tired but the day keeps replaying in my head. I can’t turn it off.
Then I hear Pam’s footsteps in the hall. I pretend to be asleep as she changes into her pajamas and crawls into bed on the other side. She settles in and I can tell without looking that she’s lying on her side, facing me. She moves her hand toward me under the covers and almost reaches my waist, but she pulls it back. Then she says, “I know you’re awake,” and I groan inwardly. Not tonight. Not…but instead she says, “I have something to say.”
“Pam…” I start, but she interrupts.
“No, hear me out first?” she asks gently. “Please?”
Now she’s scaring me a little, but I murmur, “Okay.” I’m not sure what to expect.
“I don’t like the way we are right now, Jim,” she starts, and my heart races. Oh God.
“I can’t do this…like…this. I can live with the penny pinching, with moving – with all of this - but only if it’s happening to us and not to me and you separately. Jim, you’ve stopped talking to me and since Thanksgiving you’ve...I don’t know...you’ve…”
“Pam...” I try to interrupt. I sure as hell don’t want to talk about Thanksgiving.
“Just let me finish, please?” she asks simply. So I shut up.
“I know you said you didn’t want to talk about Thanksgiving, but…” she hesitates a little and then finishes with a deep edge of anger in her voice. “Pete was an absolute jerk.”
I cringe just thinking about that whole scene.
“It’s not that it wasn’t a nice gesture for him to offer to help us out, but Jesus, in front of everybody like that - when he knew you hadn’t told your folks everything?” With Dad’s heart and all, we didn’t want him to worry too much. “And what he said? My God, what an idiot and so totally out of line. He doesn’t know shit about what I think!”
She has to be referring to Pete’s statement that “We can’t let Halpert women worry about being homeless, can we?” I know he was going for comic relief, but even Tom knew it wasn’t funny. What a day that was.
Aaand Pam’s not done yet. “So now – now you had a crappy day today, but you won’t tell me about it, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Why is that, Jim? Your stupid brother? I get that you want to take care of me and Daniel – that you want to provide for us and that’s…sweet...and, and...good… but...” She makes a little exasperated noise and I feel her hand touch my back.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was your friend before I was your wife. You’ve always been there for me – even when I was still with Roy, you were there. When I quit art school? During my parents’ divorce? Remember?” She gives my ribs a soft little rub for emphasis. God, she was a mess when her parents got divorced. But that was different.
“You’re going to say it’s not the same, but it sooo is. I’m here, Jim. Talk to me. Please?”
I’m...busted. I involuntarily let out a huge sigh and I can hear her smile in the dark.
I roll over on my back, and I don’t look at her, but I talk. “The guy who interviewed right before me was like Todd Packer on steroids,” I start, and she finds that hard to believe and she laughs when I tell her about the zipper thing. Then I tell her about the parking, and the umbrella, and the nice receptionist, and how Harris seemed like an okay guy and how I blew the interview at the end. I tell her about my wet socks and how I want her to have time to draw again. While I’m talking, I feel the knots in my shoulders unbunch a little bit and that suffocating feeling that’s had a hold on me loosens up a fraction.
I keep on talking and she mostly just listens. Sometimes she squeezes my arm with her hand. She’s so...great.
Finally, I’m talked out. She doesn’t say anything, but she slips her arm under my head and pulls me over and I roll on my side toward her so I can rest my head in the crook of her neck. She smells like spring and Taco Bell. She gathers me in her arms, and for the first time today, I’m warm enough. Before I know it, I’m asleep.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The chapter title is taken from the Carole King song (not jazz, but still good).
Thanks to all the readers who left helpful comments on my first chapter, and for sticking with this story.
Thanks also to my fab betas, NanReg and Vampiric Blood. You rock.
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Thanks to all the readers who left helpful comments on my first chapter, and for sticking with this story.
Thanks also to my fab betas, NanReg and Vampiric Blood. You rock.
.
Chapter End Notes:
As always, comments (good or bad) are appreciated if you are so inclined and have the time.
There's one more chapter to go, but it's already written and off into the beta gauntlet, so it should be up before long.
Stay tuned to see what happens to our struggling couple... and thanks for reading.
There's one more chapter to go, but it's already written and off into the beta gauntlet, so it should be up before long.
Stay tuned to see what happens to our struggling couple... and thanks for reading.
