Jim and Pam spent the next hour while waiting for Larissa to arrive doing something they had both missed doing: talking. It wasn’t about anything particularly consequential, or earth-shattering. There were no exchanges of deep emotion or rejection, no wounds dramatically dealt or healed. It was just a conversation, the kind you have with someone you truly care about and understand, with whom you have a shared history and expect to have a shared future as well. They touched on doings at work, the vagaries of apartment renting, the strange habits of Jim’s family dog when he was growing up, and a million other nothings that all together added up to something very important: comfort. The two of them were comfortable with each other in a way that, they each realized, they had never really been before. There had always been the specter of Roy hanging over them, while Jim had always had his unrequited love drifting about in the back of his mind, and Pam had been in constant denial. So now they could actually just be themselves, and it was glorious.
Larissa’s arrival did not bring a halt to this conversation, but it did move it into a slightly more consequential mode. Jim had to ask, now that they were all three together again, how exactly it was that his sister had gone from, as he put it, “my side to Pam’s,” or as Larissa corrected him “from your side to your side, but also Pam’s.” This led to a whole rehash of the previous three days, with much giggling and side-poking between the two ladies and a great deal of bemusement on Jim’s part. Ultimately, however, they both agreed that the search for the relaxation room had really cemented their friendship—which in turn meant that Jim, newly licensed for wheelchair use, had to call the nurse and get permission to be shown the room himself.
After hunting Julia down and receiving permission to show Jim around (“the Relaxation Room is for relaxing, and that’s what you’re in this ward for—but don’t overdo it”), they wheeled him up and around. The trip was more direct this time, even though they could not follow the same path as before (Jim having moved from the ICU, which turned Pam around entirely) because Jim was (as he mockingly pointed out several times until Larissa and Pam jointly told him to “suck it”) quite good at finding and reading the directional signs the hospital had conveniently placed at every intersection. They found themselves once again alone in the room, this time with the blazing sunlight streaming through the picture window in a glorious fashion that made Pam instinctively reach for her sketchbook. Larissa and Jim calmly waited until she had finished—or at least as calmly as Jim was capable of, which was fairly calm once Pam assured him he’d get to see what she did after she did it, but which Larissa compared to a hyperactive monkey before he received that assurance.
What Pam drew was an intentional mirror of her earlier sketch. The window was one again the backdrop for the entire picture, but this time the table was clear of scribblings and the reflection in the window was all three of them, with Jim in the center and his arms around them both. The sun was shining in it, and above the table, where the crumpled paper had sat, there was the open landscape of the park sitting invitingly. When Jim laughingly pointed out that the three of them were not, in fact, in the position Pam had drawn, she and Larissa simply slid under his arms and made faces at him in the window.
It was a delightful time, and the three of them chowed down on Cugino’s in the sunlight happily. The one slightly discordant note was struck by Larissa, who insisted on hearing about Jim and Pam’s day and then raised an eyebrow at her new friend.
“So, Pam, I’m just wondering…”
“Don’t let her fool you, Beesly, whenever Larissa is ‘just wondering’ something big is coming down the pike.” He grinned, and Larissa stuck out her tongue.
“I think she could figure that out on her own, big bro. Anyway, Pam, I was wondering…it seems like everyone can call you, right? Your mom, me, your work…”
“Yeah?” Pam wasn’t sure where she was going with this, so she took a bite of her calzone to give her time to figure it out.
“So where’s this ex-fiancé of yours? Didn’t you, like, leave him at the altar last week or something? Why hasn’t he called? Shouldn’t he be, you know, trying to get you back?”
Jim shot Larissa a hard look, which she utterly ignored, while Pam tried to figure out how to answer this unexpected question. She decided to tell the truth, but in her own particular way.
“What makes you think he isn’t?” She smiled at the look of horror that crossed Jim’s face. “I mean, I’m a pretty hot commodity; you can ask your brother here.”
Jim practically choked on his calzone, trying to figure out how to respond. “I mean, uh, yeah, but um, really Pam? Roy?”
Larissa was clearly enjoying the effect this was having on Jim, and gave Pam a wink—which in its own way confused her more. “I mean, I know that, and obviously if half the stuff Jim told me about Roy was true there’s like zero way you should be getting in touch with him at all, but I was just wondering…why haven’t we had to like throw your phone in the toilet or something to stop it from ringing?”
Jim was probably going to have a heart attack, which was probably not medically indicated as good for his current condition. “Larissa! We don’t need to…Pam doesn’t want to talk about Roy.”
Larissa winked again, and Pam started to realize what she was up to. She was right—this was the one thing she and Jim hadn’t really talked about. They’d talked about the two of them, about how they felt about each other, but they hadn’t fully expunged the ghost of Roy, and until it was banished there was always the possibility that it would rear its ugly head later, maybe in Jim’s psyche—maybe in hers. So she decided to cut to the chase. She shrugged. “We can talk about him, if you want.”
Larissa grinned. Jim goggled. Larissa spoke first, possibly because Jim wasn’t quite capable of it. “OK. So, what’s the deal there? Why hasn’t he called?”
Pam shrugged again. “He might have.”
Larissa just quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Pam grinned. “I wouldn’t know. I blocked his number after the night I got my stuff out of the house.” The grin faded. “Not the best way to end a ten-year relationship, I know, but I could see it was over. He couldn’t, and he was calling like twice an hour. I had to do something.”
Larissa nodded sympathetically. “That sucks.”
Pam grimaced. “It does. But you know, life has to go on. And I’m glad it went on this way.” She patted Jim’s leg. “You OK there, Halpert?”
She could see a whole range of emotions run across his face in an instant as she touched him and as he digested what she’d said. She was immensely relieved when she saw the gleam in his eye return, and heard his response. “I don’t know. I just heard my girlfriend say she was glad I got in a car accident, so I’m not sure exactly how to feel about that.”
Larissa flicked him on the back of the head. “You feel grateful, idiot.” She looked over his head at Pam. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t know how Mom and Dad screwed up so much with him. My apologies on behalf of the whole Halpert clan. Sometimes he doesn’t know when he has a good thing going.”
Pam smiled at her and then also down at Jim. “Oh, I think he might have a good idea.” Their fingers intertwined. “And if he doesn’t, I think I can help him figure it out.”
