He's so cocky, thinks Pam. He's probably slept with the entire clarinet section, even the guys, and half the flutes.

Especially the guys.

Ok so there are only two male clarinet players in the entire band, but they freakin' worship him even more than the girls do, so… clearly, Jim Halpert has gotten around. It can't be the way he noodles idly before rehearsals, three times a week, sliding up and down blues scales in all twelve keys like they're his best friends, darkly honking out arpeggios like he's a duck and they're his ducklings. She doesn't know if that makes sense, not that she cares because she doesn't feel sensible right now so, whatever.

Anyway, she thinks, it can't be that, because he's not even the best saxophone player in the band. He's not first chair, she comforts herself. He can't be the best. Alright so he's first chair in jazz band, but that's only like 20 people. Also it's jazz, so uh yeah. Who cares? Obviously he's not the best, so there must be something beyond like musical talent that makes everyone else just love him. Her? She doesn't see it. She's the best oboist, best musician in the band frankly, and she just… doesn't… get him. So clearly, it's gotta be the sex.

She's always been the best oboist. Everyone knows the best bands don't need more than two. This band, Symphonic  Band, is the best band on campus and only has one. And she'd beat out ten others for the spot this year. To say she wasn't surprised was putting it mildly. She's been playing since she was seven, making her own reeds since she was nine. She probably could have gotten into Juilliard, if she was into performance and had applied there. Not that she was or did because she just plays for enjoyment at this point in her life. Purdue doesn't even offer a music major, that's not why she's here. Still, everywhere she's ever gone, she's always been the best.

She decides to say hi to Oscar while everyone is warming up. He's the bassoonist and sits in the third row and he's her best friend. They became friends by default freshman year. She guesses double reeds have to stick together, yada yada, all that jazz. 

Jazz? Ugh.

Then she'd found out that Oscar liked a lot of the same things as her, so he's an actual friend now. Funny how that works, she thinks. Ha. Ok, maybe not funny, but odd. Life is odd. She wonders if maybe there's some kind of cosmic balance that requires double reed players to be quirky, she doesn't know. Really she hasn't met all that many. Not many people are interested in the oboe or bassoon in the first place, and most of those don't even make it past renting an instrument in middle school. Her parents had bought her a professional oboe in sixth grade, at a professional price, because they knew she was serious about it. And thank god for that, because she'd improved twofold immediately and only got better since.

On the way to Oscar she'll have to pass Jim, who's improvising now in the second row like it's second nature. Like his saxophone is an extension of his arms, it's just… part of him. She could almost be impressed because she really does respect musical talent and ability. If only he wasn't doing it so, just… ostentatiously, the way he does everything. He doesn't look up as she walks toward him, doesn't pause for a second. She rolls her eyes.

She hates him.

Ok, so she can admit he's tall. He could conceivably be attractive in that long straight spaghetti noodle kind of way. He's six foot whatever, she doesn't know, and maybe still growing. She's not sure, she just thinks she heard somewhere that guys sometimes keep growing through their early twenties. But seriously, who does he think he is, freakin' John Coltrane or something? I mean ok, she thinks, John Coltrane was a tenor and Jim plays alto. But she doesn't know any famous altos. Kenny G plays the soprano and he's more pop than jazz anyway. John Coltrane is the only other saxophonist she's really aware of, so it makes perfect sense in her mind. He obviously thinks he's John Coltrane, which kind of makes her want to vomit into the bell of his saxophone. Instead, she presses her lips together disapprovingly and steps silently past him.

She hates noodles too.

Oscar is great. She guesses it makes sense that they'd be friends, even if they weren't the only double reeds in the band, because he's geeky and so is she. She wears pajama pants to class and she has a permanent indent in her hair from all the messy ponytails and she wears glasses. She likes them. They go to Anime Club every week at the Stewart Center, and she doesn't apologize for any of that.

Her mom urged her to try contacts for a few months in her teens. But screw touching her own eyeballs. Gross. If she was supposed to touch her own eyeballs, well… she doesn't exactly know where she's going with that train of thought. Just, it's clear to her that the human finger is so not meant to touch the human eyeball.

Anyway, she likes her glasses. She does. They're comfortable, they're uncompromising, they're her. Contacts would be a risk, and Pam Beesly does not take risks.

Oscar isn't a risk, she figures as they chat about the heartbreakingness of the Cowboy Bebop season finale, because Oscar is gay. Very, very gay, as he'd explained at the beginning of freshman year. She was relieved to hear it, because he's very, very not her type. Not that she's ever verbalized her type aloud, but he's short and on the chubby side and she's more into tall guys with more muscle than fat. Still, he's a great friend.  

She pulls a new reed out of her pocket and puffs into it, partly needing to break it in, partly as a joke because really, it's hilarious. Oscar pulls the reed off his bassoon and soon they're squawking the Cowboy Bebop theme song together, sounding like they're torturing a murder of crows or something, until she starts laughing so hard she's crying with it and Oscar joins in, and now they're inches away from rolling on the floor. He's the only person she can do this with and she loves it. Even though really, they almost never do it, because it's pretty obnoxious and kind of rude. She gets that. But they almost never do it, so it's not a big deal to be doing it now.

Jim turns around and rolls his eyes at them. "Some of us are trying to practice around here. Do you mind?"

Like everyone in the band who's into penises (everyone but her, apparently), Oscar is just totally enamored with Jim in spite of (or perhaps because of) the cocky so-called hotness and the alleged talent. So of course he turns his laugh off like it's a nozzle on a firehose, apologizes, and puts his reed back on the crook, being all ashamed or sorry or whatever. She briefly considers how, in the limited time she's known Jim, nearly everything she's come to find out is utterly repulsive. She thinks how much she hates him for ruining this. Her giggles transform into a haughty sort of scoff.

"Jim, right? You think you're god's gift to music or whatever?"

These are the first words Pam Beesly has ever said to Jim Halpert. She's a sophomore and she thinks he is too, but he wasn't in band last year, so he might be a freshman. She's not sure. Anyway, he sits behind her and he's not a double reed, so why would they ever interact? They wouldn't, so they haven't. The only time she sees him is in passing before or after rehearsals, and he hasn't spared her so much as a glance yet.

He raises an eyebrow at her now.

She tugs her glasses off with an air of not-at-all-disguised contempt and cleans the lenses on her t-shirt from force of habit. Glaring at the fuzzy spot where she knows his face is, she continues, "If you insist on absolute silence to do your…" She waves one hand dismissively as she shoves her glasses back on with the other. "Your John Coltrane, thing." He narrows his eyes at her, like he's never seen her before. She continues. "You know god invented practice rooms for a reason, right?"

He replies coolly. "My, aren't we… hostile. Princess Priss, isn't it?" He turns around and gets back to noodling in his chair, not moving to a practice room, like she didn't say anything at all.

And now she needs to get away. She jumps out of her chair, her foot catching the edge of Oscar's bassoon case. She almost falls because apparently that's her thing. She's never been particularly graceful, even when she wasn’t emotionally kind of distraught or whatever. Limping a little, she aims for one of the soundproof practice rooms for percussionists. Just to be on the safe side.

Jim doesn't see her leave, doesn't hear her trip, doesn't notice anything untoward until he takes a light potshot to the ribs. Ouch. "What the fuck, Toby?" He massages his gums, the mouthpiece having been knocked rudely and a little painfully from his lips.

"You're an asshole," Toby replies casually.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Oscar hisses from behind.

Jim doesn't get all the ganging up on him, all of a sudden. He turns around and rolls his eyes. "What?" She's gone, he notices. He wonders where'd she go? He looks around the room and doesn't see her.

"Don't call her that," Toby counters. "Ever."

He shrugs and defends himself. "She was acting prissy so I called her on it. So what?"

The third chair chimes in from his other side. "So not cool."

Oscar keeps going. "You need to shut the fuck up now."

All the drummers call her that, he thinks, puzzled. Still, outnumbered on three sides, he shuts up. Because sure, he was trying to be kind of a dick, but he wasn't trying to ruin her life or whatever. He didn't know there was like, a traumatic story behind it.