It bothers him more than he can say when she comes into work one day in a shirt he doesn’t recognize. It’ s not like she’s cheated on him—it’s not something ridiculous like a guy’s shirt hanging from her shoulders, a walk of shame shirt, nothing like that—it’s just that it’s a visible reminder that she walked out on him a few weeks before their wedding. That she’s not his Pammy anymore and he doesn’t quite know everything about her. Doesn’t get to see every moment of her life anymore.

Up until this point he’s really been able to pretend otherwise. Well, actually, that’s a lie, a nicely crafted one that has been helping him get through the evenings and days and everything alone. But it’s close enough to the truth that it doesn’t entirely feel like a lie, and that’s what makes it effective. Sure, his nights are lonely (well, except for the ones where he’s going to a poker night or a basketball game or a video-game binge, but even those weirdly different now because the guys keep giving him sympathetic looks and he’d swear Darryl actually folded a winning hand to let him win one time). And he doesn’t have a toaster (because she took it, leaving him the coffeemaker, which was only fair because she drinks tea…and why didn’t they have a teakettle, and why didn’t that bother him before?). Or a rocking chair, though he still has the sofa and that’s a relief because he’d finally worn a good butt-crease in the thing. But by and large, he can still pretend.

They still get to eat lunch together—well, maybe not together, but he gets to see her—and they’re actually doing that more than they did before they broke up. He didn’t mean to drop the ball on the caterer, he just got so…out of it that it didn’t seem important, you know? And now he’s glad because it means they eat lunch together most days, and he gets to look at her.

Just looking at her is great. I mean, don’t get him wrong, he’d love to touch her. He misses feeling her in bed beside him on a random night and knowing, just knowing, that everything’s going to be OK. But now he’s starved for a look at her, and the lunches are a good chance for that. She’s so pretty.

But the shirt really throws him for a loop. Because until then he could pretend that this was just another fight, just another time when she made him sleep on the couch or went to her parents’ for a weekend or something. Pretend that she didn’t really call it off (even though June 10 has come and gone and there’s no ring on her finger). Pretend that he’s still with her.

But now she’s going out shopping without him. OK, he didn’t actually go shopping with her when they were together, but now she’s shopping without him…in mind? I mean, it would be flattering to think that she picked the new shirt out for him, but other than the neckline (which he quite enjoys) he can tell she wasn’t thinking about his opinion when she bought it because…well because of a lot of reasons he can’t quite put his finger on. Or rather, he can, but each one individually wouldn’t be convincing—and yet he’s certain of them all combined.

First, the color. Don’t get him wrong, it looks good on her! But…it’s not a color he’d have chosen. Olives and greens and grays and that sort of thing—he liked her in those. Blue wasn’t a bad color. But this was like a red-purple thing that he would have sworn Pammy didn’t even know existed, much less was willing to wear.

Then there’s the style. He’s not really up on women’s fashions (he doesn’t pretend to be—why would he?) but there’s something in the swoop and the fit of this that just doesn’t fit in with the rest of her wardrobe as he remembers it. Something almost provocative. Not like he’s complaining—just like the neckline, it’s a good look for her—but he knows she didn’t wear that kind of thing around him before. It almost makes him worry she’s found someone else, but who could it be? There’s no one. Halpert’s disappeared (some kind of scandal there, he’ll bet. Maybe embezzlement or something) and he doesn’t think she has the time for finding guys outside of work. Not that he really knows what she’s doing with her time, but every time he asks her out she’s busy, so there’s something.

And finally, he overhears her whispering with one of the other upstairs people (Kelly, he thinks) about the price. And that’s when he knows she’s really moved on in a way he hadn’t expected. Because the Pammy he knows never spent much of anything on her clothes. She still looked nice, of course she did, but he’s never heard of her spending this much on a shirt in her life. Not that he was paying all that close attention to their receipts or anything, but still. Something’s different.

He doesn’t like different. But, he supposes, that’s her right. She can be different. She’s earned it. And when she finally realizes that this fancy new Pammy still needs her Roy—he’ll be here. And he’ll even have nice things to say about her new shirt.