Jim raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Waffles?”
Pam shrugged, not lifting her head off his shoulder.
“My grandparents owned this diner in the Poconos when I was a kid,” she said. “I used to go help out there during the summers. My grandfather - he passed when I was in college - he did most of the cooking, but my grandmother made the waffles.”
Jim grinned. “I love a good waffle.”
Ironic statement, he thought, since waffling was all he seemed to be doing for the past… he didn’t even know how long. Sitting on the floor in the stairwell, his arm around a teary Pam, talking about breakfast foods, he felt the most familiar with himself that he had in months.
How was it, he wondered, that he could spent months, literally months, convincing himself that he had changed, had “evolved,” that everything that had gone down last year and in the years prior simply didn’t matter anymore, and then in a moment Pam could lean her head on his shoulder and say “waffles,” and it was like he’d been smacked in the face.
“Oh yeah,” a voice in his head seemed to say, “this is who Jim Halpert is. This is who you are.”
“She’d make strawberry waffles sometimes,” Pam said , her voice trailing off. “Just puree berries in the blender and stir the right into the waffle mix. They were amazing.”
It didn’t really matter what he drank. And he probably ought to concentrate at work, or find something he actually wanted to do.
He wasn’t the guy who pretended not to feel his best friend’s eyes on him. She was still his best friend even if he’d done nothing to earn the title of being hers lately. And he wasn’t the guy who strung a perfectly wonderful woman along because he was too afraid to be shot down again.
He needed to talk to Karen. And this time, he needed to do the talking.
But not now. For now, he needed to listen to Pam talk about her grandmother and waffles. He needed to sit, with his arm around her shoulder, and listen to her talk.
Because that’s who he was. He was the guy who could make the girl laugh, but he was also the one who listened. And god, he hadn’t been listening to Pam at all lately. She hadn’t been talking much, but he wasn’t that good a liar to actually believe she hadn’t been saying an awful lot.
And he was the guy who would put his arm around the girl and let her rest her head on his shoulder.
“I learned to ride a two-wheeler in the parking lot,” she was saying. “I have a scar on my shin from falling off one time when my grandfather let go without telling me first. I…”
“Tried to turn around to see what was happening behind you?” Jim finished.
He felt her laugh. “You too?”
Jim scooted away from her just enough to make her lift her head. He ducked his down, pulling the hair along his left temple back.
“See there?” he said. “My dad let go, I looked back, flipped over the handlebars in my parents’ driveway. Look close.”
She did and sure enough, there was a faint scar along his hairline.
“Ouch,” she murmured. He nodded.
“Yeah.”
Pam played with a thread on the bottom of her skirt. He moved his fingernail almost imperceptibly along the seam on her shoulder.
“I learned how to make sugar cookies there,” she said softly.
Jim smiled. “You do make good sugar cookies, Beesly.”
“When I was six I took it upon myself to draw a mural on the wall by one of the booths. I used every color in my 64 Crayola box.”
He guffawed. “Bet your grandparents loved that.”
“They sold the place when I was 17,” she said proudly, “with the wall still colored. My grandfather told the buyer if he wanted white walls, he could paint them himself.”
Jim nodded. “Go Mr. Beesly.”
“Mr. Sweetow, actually,” Pam corrected. “My mom’s parents. Papa Joe.” He could feel her smiling.
“Papa Joe sounds cool.”
“He was,” she agreed. “They both were.”
Pam got quiet and he slewed his eyes sideways, looking at her, and he knew she could feel him looking because he could always feel her looking at him.
He moved so he was right next to her again, pulling slightly.
“I had my first kiss there,” she said, almost under her breath, but Jim heard.
He smiled, twisting his body toward her. “Interesting, Beesly,” he intoned. “Very interesting.”
She blushed.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Pam remembers her past. Jim remembers who he is.
Chapter End Notes:
Watching the E! Oscars fashion police. So funny.
