A short train ride into the Sydney downtown (was there a term for that? He vaguely recalled from a class presentation in middle school that the English called their big shopping area the high street, but he wasn’t sure if that applied to the whole downtown or just a literal main street, and he knew that Australia was founded by English people but didn’t know if they kept the terms) and Jim was stumbling into his hostel, dead on his feet. His brain had turned to mush somewhere between the airport and the seat on the train, and all he was capable of was thanking providence that Australians spoke English so he didn’t have to make himself understood in an actual foreign language, different as their accents and slang might be. They found his reservation, gave him a room key, and before he knew anything else he was dead to the world.

Australian beds might not be the most comfortable in the world, but they did exist, and that was the most important part.

The fifteen minutes when he was utterly incapable of thinking of anything but a bed were the longest he had not thought about Pam Beesly in over a month.

**

It didn’t seem fair, Pam thought, that so much of the effort came after the decision was made. In a just world (one she was understandably certain she did not live in even before this, but which she nevertheless aspired to) once she made the life-altering decisions, they ought to unroll themselves with the clockwork precision of a movie montage, accompanied by ticking clocks or falling calendar leaves. But no. Every major choice she’d made this last month had been accompanied by ugly, hard, annoying work.

Don’t let yourself get swept up in the emotions of Casino Night. Go back to Roy. Be an adult. What do you get? Hours of conversations and regrets and apologies and effort, all resulting in bupkis except for a renewed sense of self-direction and empowerment. Which yes, was very nice, but still a lot of work and angst and pain (especially about Jim) for nothing but a realization that you controlled your own life. Which in turn led to:

Decide to leave Roy. Have a real, meaningful conversation about it in which you don’t let yourself get sidetracked or distracted or convinced to change your mind. Be an adult. What do you get? Moving expenses, choices of hotel, dividing up your items, calling every single person on your damn guest list until you worry you’ll run out of minutes on the chunky cell phone you still use because the hotel phone line won’t connect to a long-distance number even if you pay and Roy can’t be bothered to call anyone on his side of the wedding (which in turn means you also get to explain to his 87-year-old grandma who’s hard of hearing that her Royboy won’t be marrying that nice Pam Beesly after all. At least Grandma Anderson spent that whole conversation thinking she was Roy’s mother, not Pam, or else it would have been even worse). This in turn led to:

Have the hard conversation with your mother and with Roy’s about how you two are going in different directions. OK, this one was actually pretty reasonable, since Mrs. Anderson (as opposed to Grandma Anderson) was surprisingly understanding (perhaps the fact that she could literally see Roy duck out of the room to avoid having a hard talk contributed something to that). But the emotional labor involved…whew. It knocked you out. Which meant that you missed Jim Halpert even more than you had for the last  when you got back to the hotel you clicked on an ad for CHEAPOAIR and bought a ticket leaving in 12 hours for Sydney, Australia. Which in turn led to:

Packing again and having to call your mother and Izzy and explain again that actually your plans had changed again and could someone very nicely drop you off at the airport and actually you meant JFK in New York and yes, Izzy, you would definitely pay for those new pumps that she’d been ogling in the online store of Saks 5th Avenue but in the real store when you got back if she’d do you this one huge favor—and then a three hour drive with Izzy in which she continually and pointedly did not ask you if you were sure about flying halfway around the world for this Jim fellow because she already knew the answer.

It was almost enough to make a girl glad to be sitting on a hard chair by a gate at JFK with nothing to read because you forgot to bring the bag with your book and it was sitting in Izzy’s trunk on the way back to Scranton.

Almost.

What was enough to make her glad was the realization that, if she could manage it, in twenty-four hours she’d be in the same city as Jim Halpert again. Assuming she could find him. And assuming he still wanted to talk to her.

She’d really hoped that making the not-so-adult choice, the impulsive choice, the crazy-mixed-up choice would mean there was less work ahead, not more.