There's a new girl in the office. Its weird.
Pam shakes her head, admonishes herself. It isn't weird, its just...different. And anyway its only temporary, surely. She probably sets up shop at a different office every Friday--payday. Smart girl. And really, its was nice to not have to worry about inappropriate comments from Michael. Or Kevin. Or Creed. Or Dwight. Or occasionally Meredith. Nice. Not weird.
That is until Kevin very bluntly says what Pam is sure everyone in the office is thinking: "she's prettier than you, though." Then it isn't nice or weird but just kind of...ugh.
Yeah. Of course Pam has noticed that Katy looks a lot like an upgraded version of herself. Rather, she looks like the Pam that Pam wishes she had the confidence to be, if that makes any sense. When she tries to curl her hair like Katy's, soft and full and loose, everything winds up being frizzier than when she started. She has a few shirts like the purple one Katy is wearing, but when she wears them she always gets lewd comments from Roy and Kenny and that make her feel gross and kind of humiliated, so they stay in the back of the closet. And the confidence to go office to office and sell purses? Pam could never be able to do that. That was really something.
So, sure, Katy is definitely Pam 6.0. It doesn't take a genius to see that (obviously, because the entire office has seen it). Its...whatever. Its fine.
And maybe not the whole office has seen that, because Jim doesn't seem enamored with Katy. He hasn't seemed to notice her at all, actually. Pam kind of wants to ask him what he thinks, but she also kind of doesn't. So. She doesn't. Instead she texts Roy and asks if he'll come upstairs to eat lunch with her. Some reassurance from the only person whose opinion really mattered is exactly what she needs.
Right?
Right. Who cares if everyone else is obsessed with the "new and improved" Pam as long as she has Roy?
Will you come eat upstairs today?
y
Just feel like eating lunch with you.
i guess
darryl sd a hot grl up there
The sound of her phone snapping shut is loud enough to cause Jim to swing his chair towards her desk. He makes one of his faces, the one that means you seem annoyed, everything okay? Pam rolls her eyes in the way that means I am annoyed, just the usual. Jim nods in understanding, the corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile. She smiles, too.
He cant't help it. When Kevin asks his type, he looks straight at Pam. He did it without even thinking, without even realizing. But she looks at him, too, her eyes wide and questioning, like she's really curious about his answer. Like it matters.
And he can't handle that so he deflects, the way he always does. He covers up emotion with humor and tries to make Pam laugh, tries to put a smile on her face after Roy (yet again) says something stupid to wipe it away. Because it isn't like he can say what hes really thinking, not like he can look Roy straight in his eyes and say, "actually, Kev, I have a very specific type. Curly red hair, green eyes, usually in a cardigan. Likes to draw. Good at puns. Warm and funny and sweet and beautiful. Sitting in between me and her stupid, insensitive, undeserving fiance." He doesn't say that, obviously, because he knows better, but Roy apparently doesn't have that brand of common sense because he immediately says exactly what hes thinking, which is that he'd be "all over that" if not for Pam.
A few moments after Pam walks away in anger (and humiliation, probably, Jim thought) Roy leans towards Jim somewhat conspiratorially. "She always gets like this when she's close to being on the rag."
Jim barks out a harsh laugh that isn't really a laugh, more of an attempt to disguise the derisive sound that is trying to force itself out of his throat. "Yeah. Maybe she just doesn't like her fiance talking about how hot another girl is."
"Nah, I talk like that all the time. Pam doesn't care. And come on, I mean I might be dating Pam but I'm sure as hell not blind."
"Engaged to Pam, you mean." Hes glad the cameras have lost interest and moved somewhere else because hes never been adept at hiding his emotions and he is sure that his face is relaying exactly how he feels. The camera guys had figured that out really quickly, judging by how often he hears the whir of a camera lens zooming towards him. So thank god they're not there, or he'd have to contend with the fact that they know (because of course they do) and try to keep them from knowing more than they know...and that doesn't make sense, really, but he's pissed off and doesn't care.
Roy laughs, a real laugh, not like Jim's from earlier. This is the laugh of a man who doesn't think he's done anything wrong. "Maybe you really are gay, Halpert. You sound just like Pam." He pushes his chair back from the table and it scrapes against the floor with a screech that makes Jim wince. Its fitting, as that's how most of his interactions with Roy end.
He knows Pam well enough to know that if he acknowledges what happened, she'll get flustered and upset and it'll be hard to pull her out of the funk that it seems like only Roy or Michael (more often than not, Roy) are capable of putting her in. And anyway, Pam isn't really one to have a lot of in depth conversations (other than the occasional venting session) and Jim isn't one to do a lot of dancing across the thin little line that he'd laid down between them (other than the more than occasional and slightly more than friendly flirting). Distracting her from the incident that went down at lunch time is his best bet.
And it works. She straightens up, unhunches her shoulders, laughs as he imitates Dwight, leans her head towards him in a conspiratorial way, too, but in a way that doesn’t infuriate Jim the way it did when Roy did it. They're close enough that when she turns her face towards his they're eye level with each other. He can see the freckles across the bridge of her nose, smell the scent of Bath and Body Works lotion she keeps by her keyboard, hear the way that her laugh gets the tiniest bit breathy. When they're like that, doing something like crouching behind the reception desk, it gets easier to pretend. It is torture, the best kind.
The rest of the day winds up being fine, if not even better than. Dwight with a purse--no, sorry, mini-briefcase--on his shoulder is enough to make anybody's day. Michael is in top Michael form, which is always entertaining. And towards the end of the afternoon Pam does that thing he loves and sits on the edge of his desk.
The first time she did that, leaned against his desk and stretched her legs out so that they could cross at the ankles next to his chair, it had been summer. That was significant because in the summer, she usually didn't wear hose. He isn't particularly proud of it, but he couldn't help it when his gaze traveled up from her white Keds to the scar below her knee to the hem of her skirt. He'd always been a leg man...and the fact that the legs in question had been attached to the greatest woman in the world, well. It had just been a great day that day.
The days that ended with (or started with, or were interspersed with) Pam bracing the heels of her hands against the edge of his desk and looking down at him were always good days. She only did it when she was in a great mood. Jim wasn't one to toot his own horn or anything, but if Pam was in a great mood at work it was usually because of him. That's maybe the best part of the whole thing. When she looks down at him with that smile and talks with a grin behind every word and he knows that he is the reason they're there? It makes him feel good. Really, really good.
He doesn't think too much about it beyond that. He just knows that he loves it and if she wants to perch among his lamp and phone and keyboard and take up all the free space on his desk every day, well, that he's okay with that.
Its ruined, though, because someone else comes along and makes her laugh, too (a different laugh from the one he likes to think she reserves for him, but still). Being so close as Roy touches her in such an intimate way and knowing that lunchroom transgressions are going to be forgiven with a half-assed apology that isn't even an apology ("I was just kidding, you know I didn't mean it!") is torture, the worst kind.
He gets up from said desk and lets Pam and Roy reconcile at it instead. Three people at one workspace are two too many, or maybe one too many, depending on who they are. He feels a little like his heart is twisted up into a knot that also includes his stomach, but also feels a little (a lot) like...like an idiot.
After he gets back to his desk, he realizes that he can hear her give a talking head: "Jim's a great guy. He's like a brother to me. We're like, best friends, in the office. And I really hope he finds someone." And he feels even more like an idiot. Why the doc crew even feels like they have to ask her feelings on his relationship status...well, whatever. They can do whatever the hell they want, the doc crew and Pam and Roy and whoever else. And so can he, with or without Pam's permission or blessing or wishes for him to find "someone"--
It all clicks into place, very suddenly. He is pathetically pining away, completely in love with a woman who is nothing but his friend, his good friend. Of course she wants him to be happy, just the way that he wants her to be happy. If sometimes that happiness takes place against his desk with her fiance, so be it. Shes just...living her life, and that's fine and they're friends and it's fine and he needs to live his life, too.
And maybe he wants to...make her jealous? No, of course he doesn't. Actually, yes, he does. Whatever. He doesn't know.
He pushes away from his desk and heads into the conference room before he can think too much more about it.
Pam sits on the edge of his desk again later. Twice in one day. Normally it would have been...it would have been something. Now it doesn't matter, doesn't mean anything, because they're just good buddies who want the other to be happy. He has plans for a date with Katy and he tells Pam so. She doesn't stay perched against his desk for much longer after that. He doesn't dwell on it.
Pam sits behind reception, suddenly more aware of how little effort she puts into her appearance at work than she ever has been before. How hard would it be for her to get up ten minutes earlier and fix her hair a little nicer? Maybe brush on some mascara or swipe on some lip gloss? In fact, she's pretty sure she has some lip gloss in her purse, and maybe a compact...
But then the camera guy steps closer and zooms in on her putting it on and she sees her reflection in the lens, upside down and tiny. Its a pretty good representation of how she feels...although she didn't quite know why. Its just been a tiring day, that's all, maybe. And the lip gloss feels weird, kind of gummy and sticky, so she wipes it off with the back of her hand and wills the cameras to find someone else to film.
Ten feet away, Jim is getting ready to leave. Katy is leaning against the edge of his desk at her spot, at Pam's spot, but that's ridiculous because she doesn't have a spot on his desk, so, whatever, it's Katy's spot and that's fine. Her legs go on for miles and the way shes sitting, hands behind her hips and leaned back a little, make her...make her everything look good. Pam watches as Katy laughs at something Jim says, something Pam can't hear. It makes her feel even more upside down and tiny and she can't wait to go home.
They're leaving, Jim and Katy, heading past reception and towards the door--together. Jim taps the top of her desk with his car keys.
"Night, Pam. Have fun moving your cousin this weekend."
"Um, Roy's cousin. But yeah, you too. You guys have a good weekend. Have fun."
The three of them exchange smiles and Pam catches a snippet of conversation as Jim and Katy head out the door. "Any place special you wanna go?"
"No, I'm easy, I'm good with anything!"
As she leaves for the night, Pam is convinced that she had definitely been right, before, about having a new girl in the office. Its weird.
