Jim discovered rather belatedly that he was apparently just really bad at following Australians’ directions. Or maybe, he reflected later, it was just not his fate to find the Museum of Sydney. It turned out that the Museum was not actually on Macquarie St., but one block over on Phillip St., down Bridge, but he didn’t know that at the time. It wasn’t the fault of the nice Australian—of either of the nice Australians—who’d given him directions. It was definitely his fault. But however it came about, he was strolling on up Macquarie past a lovely bit of park on his right and a variety of hotels, restaurants, and generally built-up buildings on the left, and he definitely did not turn where he was supposed to because he never hit the Museum of Sydney.

Instead, maybe because he was distracted by the palm trees, maybe because he was just enjoying everyone being out and about on what was a nice winter’s day, but before he knew it he was under an overpass and there was water on his left (beyond the buildings, but tantalizingly present by the sheer absence of buildings behind the streetfront). At one point the crowd actually pushed him onto a path that rose up into what he discovered were the Royal Botanical Gardens, but he decided to push on towards what he still thought would be the Museum and continued on the path that paralleled the street.

The street that was now, somewhat alarmingly, fifteen or so feet below him.

Not that he was hanging off a cliff or anything, but the Royal Botanical Gardens were clearly higher than the surrounding terrain, and not afraid to show it. So he was staring down at the heads of passers by, rather than at their level. He actually made a bit of a game of it: he’d stare down at the people and see if anyone looked up. Very few people did; he realized that if he hadn’t taken the accidental detour, he wouldn’t have either. There was certainly plenty to see at street level! But now he was up high—he snorted to himself, Pam had always told him he was too tall for his own good, but now here was proof—and no one was noticing him at all.

He was so wrapped up, first in the ascent, then in the game, and finally in the bittersweet thoughts of Pam, that he didn’t notice what he was looking at when he actually looked ahead until it was completely and utterly in view.

The Sydney Opera House, in all its glory.

And that did mean all its glory. The Opera House might have been designed to be—probably was designed to be—viewed from this very angle. It was almost night, and someone had decided it was night enough to turn on the lights in and around the Opera House, and the first view of it made him trip and almost took his breath away.

It was a good thing that when they put in the high path, they also put a fence around it to stop stupid tourists like him from falling to their deaths.

He stumbled his way to a park bench and stared at the Opera House, then scrambled up and stood at the fence, just to be a little closer.

It was glorious. Even better, from the angle he was at he could still see all the people in the pedestrian mall in front of the Opera House all taking their own pictures, oohing and aahing over the same sight he was struck by. He was struck by an urge to wave at them, and so he did. As usual, none of them looked up—only a few even looked in his direction at any level, which made sense given the presence of the freaking Opera House the other way—and so none of them waved back.

**

Pam walked determinedly down the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art, past Circular Quay—how was that pronounced, anyway? Kway? Kay? Key? Kwey? She’d never known, but she had a feeling that if she ever asked Jim about it he’d find some way to not only tell her but make her feel OK about not knowing and then turn it all into a prank on Dwight. God she missed him—and then past…

Well not quite past the Manly Fast Ferry, because she couldn’t walk past that sign and not get a brochure. She might never get to show it to Jim, but there had to be something she could do with that and Dwight Schrute on her own, if she had even an ounce of the pranking skill she’d believed she had over the past three-plus years.

She even asked their ticket-seller if someone matching Jim’s description had passed by, but somehow she was unable to express how her tall gangly American tourist was distinct from any other tall gangly American tourist and so the answer was either yes, a dozen of him, or no.

She decided to take no for an answer and keep on walking.

She opted against circling the circular quay—if Jim wasn’t there, he wasn’t there—and headed up Macquarie St. towards the Opera House. She didn’t know if Jim would remember, but one time she’d shown him an old picture she’d drawn of that building, back from before she really consciously knew she wanted to do art—back when she thought maybe she wanted to do engineering, like a good modern woman into the sciences, or architecture like it turned out that Jim’s sister Larissa was into—and while she didn’t for a moment think that he’d really remember that little drawing, the chance that he might at least also have an interest in one of the modern wonders of the world was excuse enough to head that way and take it in for real with her own eyes.

After all, she’d been very very good by not stopping in at the MCA, which he was so clearly not into. She could indulge safely in this way, even if he probably wasn’t there.

What were the odds he’d really remember that one time she’d shown him one piece of art? Yes, he’d said he was in love with her, and she really did believe him about that, but how long had he been in love with her? When had “it’s just a crush, it was a long time ago” morphed into “love” and “now”? And would you really remember just-a-crush’s one random piece of art?

Sure, it had been important to her, and Jim had a knack for remembering what was important to her, but that had also been back when she’d been in even more complete denial of her feelings for him, and so she probably hadn’t really emphasized how important it was. It was important because it was the first piece of art—just a perspective drawing, really—that she’d ever shown to her dad and had him not just say “it’s really pretty, Pammy,” but actually take a second look, peer at it, and tell her with a decided air “this is good.” That was why she’d kept it, unlike so much of her art, and that was why she’d shown it to Jim.

That was why it was sitting back in her hostel room, in her backpack, because she’d packed in a hurry and it had still been there from when she’d packed it away when she’d left Roy.

It was drawn from the south-west, because she’d had a picture book with photos of it from the south-west, and consciously or unconsciously she found herself altering her walk to approach from the same angle, or as close as she could come from on the street available to her. She passed by a fountain and turned a corner into a large pedestrian area that was probably over parking or a buried road or something and there it was.

The Opera House.

Large as life—actually, small as life, in that disappointing way that reality often insists on making really important things that are still far away realistically small—but still just as impressive as it had been when the picture in the book had caught the imagination of a fourteen-year-old girl.

She hugged herself and spun around in a little circle, giddy with joy. It was really here!

And then she stopped and snuck a peek at what she didn’t really believe she’d seen in her spin.

Jim Halpert. Standing twenty feet up in the park above her head.

And waving.