It was a good first date.

Pam didn’t usually say things like that, even in her head. Not that she’d been on a lot of dates recently, or really at all. She’d been swept off her feet at sixteen by a high school football player (the star linebacker, in point of fact) actually stopping by her locker and aw-shucksing his way into asking her out, and asking her about the picture she’d had tacked up inside the door. She’d later found out that he’d asked because he was afraid the guy in the picture was already her boyfriend, not because he’d liked the picture—which was doubly insulting because it was her grandfather and she hadn’t made him look that young. But at the time she’d been charmed and flattered and all the other things girls were when Roy Anderson flashed his dimples at them and had shaved specially for the occasion.

She’d gone on dates then, of course. That was what dating couples did in high school, and they’d been going steady (as she put it) and hanging out pretty often (as Roy did) throughout. He’d even brought her flowers a couple of times unasked, and not just for prom either. They’d gone on dates and he’d picked her up in his car and he’d even taken her to the museum a couple of times because he knew she’d like that. He’d spent the whole time looking around for dirty art—the first time in the whole museum and the second time in a special Georgia O’Keefe exhibit because ‘he’d heard she did naughty drawings, and you like that kind of painting anyway, right Pammy?’—but the thought counted, right? Or at least the thought-adjacent-thing.

And she did like Georgia O’Keefe, so there.

But after they’d kept dating into college, the dates had gotten fewer, and when they’d moved in together they’d basically stopped altogether, unless you counted Sunday Night Football and boxed mac’n’cheese every week as ‘their special time together’ as she’d been somewhat horrified to find Roy did when they were yelling at each other during the breakup.

And after Roy there really hadn’t been anyone, except a few really bad blind dates. The worst had been with the cousin an acquaintance of her mothers’. Mrs. Bernard was a perfectly nice woman, but her cousin (her husband’s cousin, she’d insisted, and Pam had only paid attention to that detail too late) had been the kind of man who somehow thought that the college he’d gone to was the most important and interesting thing about him.

She had met the kind of guy who peaked in college, but at least they’d mostly thought that what they’d done in college had been the key. Call-me-Andy Bernard had just thought that saying the word “Cornell” would be the key to unlocking her heart. “It’s in the Ivy League” indeed.

At least if he’d said “Brown” that would have been a color, and she was an artist, so maybe they could have made something out of that.

But whatever they would have made would not have been a Rainbow Connection, no matter how he’d serenaded her with that dreadful song. At least he hadn’t gone into Pig Latin (that would have had her looking around for the candid camera) though he had messed up the lyrics once badly enough that she’d been afraid he was going to.

So she’d packed him back up north to his Ivy League cow college and thanked her lucky stars that she was perfectly fine being single. Really. Totally. Completely.

She’d gotten, in fact, to the point where she’d almost forgotten about it, because she was trying so hard to convince herself she hadn’t actually gone on any dates since Roy. It was better to let herself imagine Roy had ruined dating for her than to remember how much of a trainwreck she’d made.

But now she didn’t have to do that. She could think about dating after Roy without cringing because she’d actually found someone she liked who liked her back and shared mutual interests without being creepily into her (there was another blind date to forget with a guy who’d clearly Facebook-stalked her really badly because he’d kept coming up with nonsequitur reasons to mention the late 90s bands she’d still been into when she’d made her page. The fact that she’d just not updated her  “Favorite Music” since 2006 hadn’t discouraged him, as he’d just moved on to her “Favorite Quotes”—which unfortunately for him were not only equally old but put up by Roy and not her due to a laptop mixup she’d never corrected because it struck her as romantic then and funny now).

No, the date with Jim was just..good. No, not just good. Excellent. Top drawer.

And better yet, he seemed to think so too.

It was really a shame that her mother had to interrupt that by calling. With her voice. Like some kind of Boomer (though, to be fair…she was).

That sort of thing ought to be reserved for emergencies and extended car warranties, she told Jim in a sad voice after hanging up with her mom, and she felt a little warm glow of happiness when he laughed and agreed.

But unfortunately her mom had gotten it into her head that she needed the stuff out of the hallway for some reason (which Pam had completely forgotten about) so she needed Pam to come back and finish with her room. She was shocked to realize it was only 7:30—a date starting at 6 had a way of leaving the night free—and she was genuinely sad when she had to tell Jim her mother wanted her home.

He cracked a curfew joke, as she’d known he would, and to her relief had asked when he could see her again.

She’d been so afraid she’d botched it (or her mother had) that she just blurted out “anytime. Literally anytime” and then hid her head in her hands.

“I’ll hold you to that, Beesly.”

The next thing she knew, she was being kissed.

It was a pretty good way to end the night, even if it was super early.