“Come with me.”

When Dwight grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the exit of the warehouse, she wasn’t sure what was happening. Despite her hissed whispers and half-hearted attempts to twist her arm free, he held on until he hurled them both into the office.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Dwight wheeled on her. “It wasn’t PMS, was it?”

She couldn’t decide whether to dash back to the warehouse or dive for her keys and make her escape for the day. Instead, she blinked at him. “What?”

“It wasn’t PMS.” Dwight nearly pounced on his own desk, throwing open the top drawer and extracting the walkie-talkies he’d received at the Christmas party. His urgency would have surprised her if Dwight didn’t often move with such compelling force. “It took me a little while to realize it, but it dawned on me when I saw you in there, looking at Jim and Karen. I’d say he’s not worth your time, but you can’t tell fools in love anything.”

“Dwight, it’s--” She paused, watching him pry open the clamshell packaging. “It’s complicated.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said, loading batteries into each radio. “It’s not easy, but it’s simple. God, Pam, sometimes you’re as boneheaded as Jim, although I expect more from you.”

Dwight clipped one radio to his belt and set the other on Jim’s desk. Without explanation, he crouched by Jim’s bottom drawer, slowly opening it, careful not to disturb its contents.

Pam stood beside him and leaned down for a closer look. Curiosity gave rise to racing questions, obscuring her moral compass. What is he doing? Did he find out about a prank Jim was planning? Did he plant something in there? What does this have to do with me? She asked only the first: “What are you doing?”

“Jim thinks he’s so clever, with his pranks and tricks,” he said. “Well. He’s not the sly fox he thinks he is.”

He didn’t exactly answer her question, but another concern had hijacked her attention as he spoke. She realized they had never checked the office, never checked for onlookers or eavesdroppers, and she stood tall and rigid as she scanned the office for the top of a head, the wet sheen of spying eyes, out-of-place shadows. It wouldn’t be the first time someone saw something they shouldn’t have. And, although some in the office were capable of keeping secrets, she couldn’t count on anyone’s discretion. She crossed the room with silent feet and checked the break room, bathrooms, annex--every corner--before returning to where Dwight still kneeled at Jim’s desk.

Like an archeologist uncovering an artifact, Dwight shifted papers with deliberate precision, inching toward the bottom. “What a slob,” he murmured. “No wonder he can’t get anything done. There’s probably more paper in here than he sells in a month.”

“Dwight.”

“Look at this,” he said, inviting her to survey the drawer. “This drawer has obviously never been cleaned. I bet I can find his onboarding paperwork in here.”

“Dwight,” she said, her teeth clenched and jaw tense. “Can you get to the point?”

“Right.”

From the bottom of the drawer, Dwight unearthed a brown, suede-covered notebook, smaller than a photograph. He rose from his knees and offered it to her. “In the course of planning retaliations against Jim, I came across this. I believe that you would be interested in its contents.”

Pam stared at the notebook, then met Dwight’s eyes as she extended her hand. Dwight slapped the book against her palm.

“I’m going back to the warehouse,” he said. “If anyone makes a move toward the exit, I’ll radio you with this.” He clutched the walkie at his belt. “If you hear the signal, put the book back at the very bottom of the pile, upside down, the spine flush against the right wall.”

“What’s the signal?”

“The chickens have flown.”

Pam smirked. “You don’t think people are going to notice if you suddenly blurt out ‘the chickens have flown’?”

He scoffed. “You think anyone listens around here? Their ears are just wasted funnels of cartilage, hearing only what they want to hear.”

Pam instantly sobered. Those words had applied to her for years. A barbed, thorny balloon of shame and regret burst in her chest as she recalled countless moments of her own self-deception. She had repeated the same lie. He’s like a brother to me. We’re, like, best friends in the office. With different words. Just because two people are hanging out, it doesn’t mean that they’re together. Over and over. He’s one of my closest friends. Until she’d buried the truth alive.

She’d hurt herself. Hurt Jim. Pushed him out of love with her and into the arms of someone else.

Dwight called to her from the door, recapturing her attention. “You’ll probably have five or ten minutes, so don’t dilly-dally. If anyone asks, I’ll say you’re having woman problems.”

“No, Dwight--” But she stopped herself. Coming from Dwight, ‘woman problems’ would raise exactly zero questions. “Actually, that’s fine.”

When the door closed, she slowly opened Jim’s notebook.

Jim’s handwriting slanted across the page. He’d noted the year in the corner, but hadn’t recorded specific dates. She read the first several bullet points, all jotted on a page marked 2001.

• Middle name: Morgan
• Birthday: March 25, 1979
• Favorite yogurt: mixed berry
• Valley View HS
• Draws/paints
• Dog person
• Prefers mittens over gloves
• Dislikes country music
• Drinks tea (black and green observed)
• Mario 2 is her favorite Mario (must talk sense into her)
• Favorite season: spring

She smiled softly, but didn’t linger on the page. She skipped a few dozen pages, stopping when her eyes caught a familiar word that sparked a warm memory.

2005

Christmas Gift Ideas

• Coloring book
• Teapot
• Book club membership (she said she wants to get back into reading)

She plunged forward, driven by a desperate need to read more recent notes, seeking confirmation. Possibly closure. She wasn’t sure. She only knew that she was less interested in the past--she’d lived it; she knew that story. She wanted clues about the present, an insight into his mind, his thoughts, his feelings--now.

His entries spanned nearly three-quarters of the book. He had written recently, and hope clawed at her.

2006

• Switched shampoo. Coconut?
• New car.
• Not seeing anyone.

Her eyes hovered over the last bullet point for a moment, then shifted down the page to his last note. As she read it, she raised the book closer to her face and held her breath, hot in her lungs.

2006

“We’re friends. We’ll always be friends.”

She doesn’t want you. Move on.

Jim’s words, scrawled with a heavy hand, watered the seed of hope that her heart had carried for weeks. She’d tried to nurture that seed on her own. She’d tried to warm it in the ambient sunshine of the smiles he’d given to someone else, but without direct encouragement--without his visits to her desk, the inside jokes, the fleeting touches--her hope of rekindling his interest had begun to wither.

Her eyes passed again over the words he’d written--the words that she had spoken to him--and read his disappointment in the weight of his pen strokes, his carelessly shaped letters. She had spent weeks convinced that she’d lost the ability to disappoint him, that any love he had for her died in Stamford. She realized now, as his first day back had drawn to a close, he’d been trying to bait her. He’d cast his line and hooked her with a juicy piece of news, but her play-it-cool attitude had led him to conclude that she wasn’t interested, wasn’t a catch worth keeping.

And he’d been disappointed. And he had scribbled his frustration and dismay across a piece of paper. Ink into the fibers of the page, just as hope seeped now into the deep-reaches of her bones.

As she read his words again, her toes twitched with the impulse to run to the warehouse and pull him behind a tall stack of boxes, to whisper between kisses: You’re wrong. I want you. I miss you. I want you. I want you.

“I could use that to sabotage him, you know.”

Pam gasped as she jerked her gaze from Jim’s book to find Dwight approaching. “Oh, my god. Dwight. Don’t just sneak up like that. That--that’s creepy.” She slammed the book closed. “And we’re not--no. We can’t do that.”

“I didn’t say we. I said I could.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Sure I can. I’m not in love with him.”

“No,” she said--automatic, firm. “Dwight, no. No. No.”

“Why not?” he asked, coming to stand beside her. “I could do it right now. All I have to do is put it in Karen’s desk. Or in her bag. Or on her chair. Or send it to her. Anonymously, of course.”

She considered each scenario in her mind. Every time, the plan was traced back to her. Every time, she was forced to face Jim’s angry, tense face--jaw set, scowl lines pronounced, eyes hard and unforgiving. Even in her imagination, she couldn’t stomach it.

“You better decide,” Dwight said. “Because everyone’s coming back.”

“What?!” She scrambled to replace the notebook. “What happened to ‘the chickens have flown’?!”

“I was already on my way up.”

“Dwight!”

Entirely unfazed, he pointed at the open drawer. “Now remember, upside down--”

“I know! I know!” She followed Dwight’s directions and slammed Jim’s drawer shut before the stack of papers inside had a chance to settle. She moved toward her own desk with hurried, sloppy steps.

“So no sabotage?” Dwight called loudly.

“No!” she whispered, waving frantically, as if shooing away a giant insect. Her eyes darted from Dwight to the door, from the door back to Dwight. “Just--just go to your desk. Get on a call. I don’t care. We just need to pretend like this never happened.”

Voices rose in the hallway as she threw herself into her chair. As Dwight swiped the radio from Jim’s desk, she caught his attention with a sharp whisper. “Dwight.”

He bristled, tensing as though he was preparing to defend against a reprimand.

Shadows swarmed on the other side of the door. With a soft smile, she offered Dwight words he rarely received: “Thank you.”  

His head twitched with a brief, nearly imperceptible nod as the door opened to a drunken rendition of Aloha 'Oe from an off-key chorus.