It was really strange, like, really really strange, to walk into The Comedy Roasters and see her own art on the wall. Katy said she should just get used to it, and insisted on taking a selfie with her (a concept Pam would admit theoretical knowledge of, but no practical skills at) in front of the wall where Michael had hung her artwork, then tagging her in it on as many platforms as she could convince Pam to sign up for (“it’s brand management, Pam!”). Izzy, apparently, was still going to the shop too, though she and Pam now tended to meet up at the hipster bar down the street from her apartment, because somehow Pam now had ten-dollar-cocktail money courtesy of Michael’s unfamiliarity with the concept of how the free market worked (not, as Jim repeatedly pointed out when she observed this, that there was a free market in art—or anywhere else, come to that—but the principle was still there). So when they did meet up for not-worth-the-price-but-still-alcohol, her friend mentioned it, and they ended up having what was a surprisingly nice conversation about Pam’s inspiration for it. She’d almost forgotten that she’d conned Izzy into an art minor in college through sheer force of enthusiasm, and that her friend had, in turn, become pretty darn enthusiastic herself.

In fact, Pam reflected, she’d almost forgotten, in the Roy-times, that anyone cared about art.

But they all did. Michael; Katy; Izzy; even Dwight, weird and creepy as he seemed at first, second, and fiftieth glances, had embarked on a long lecture the next time she’d seen him about the “influence of Kandisky on her work” that she’d realized halfway through was not a criticism but actually his way of expressing appreciation.

In return, she didn’t mention that it was Kandinsky.

And of course, Jim. Jim, who somehow managed to have something delightful to say about her art every day that was different every day. It wasn’t deep, learned, esoteric stuff, either. He wasn’t studying color theory or mouthing off about obscure Renaissance techniques that he claimed she’d absorbed through the collective unconscious or any of the things that the boys who’d tried to impress her in college had done (though at the time she’d just been annoyed because she was taken, and Roy’s, now she was annoyed all over again in retrospect that they hadn’t even bothered to have anything interesting to say). He was just, apparently, looking at the art. Every day. Carefully. And then telling her something he’d seen and liked about it. Or even something he’d just seen; he wasn’t shy about asking why she’d made certain choices, and he always listened when she explained, even if she could tell he would have painted differently (in the alternate universe where he also painted, of course). He was respectful and interested and attentive to her work.

It was like the opposite of...no. It wasn’t the opposite of anything.

It was just nice.

It was pleasant.

It was, frankly, something she’d always wanted deep down inside and never let herself admit she wanted, because it had seemed so unlikely she’d ever get it.

The fact that the art discussions were interspersed with some blisteringly hot kisses and a good deal of the best other conversations she’d ever had, dates or no dates (though they were definitely dates) was just a bonus.

Pam was not surprised to find herself happy. That was progress she’d already made before she met Jim; she’d done the work and processed the past and all that jazz to the point where she was capable of understanding that she was capable of happiness, that she deserved happiness, that she was not the sort of person happiness would inevitably avoid, and did not have to be content with contentment.

But she was happy, and while she’d been at the place she’d needed to be before becoming happy, she hadn’t actually been happy before.

It was like...well, she didn’t have a great grand metaphor ready for it, or even a simile, but it was kind of like the time Jim finally coaxed her into trying a tea latte instead of just tea at the shop. She’d known she wanted something at the place that was not just hers (the tea was already hers; not that no one else bought it, but it was definitely there for her) but more than she would have had somewhere else; not just hers, but theirs, unique to both The Comedy Roasters in her experience of coffeehops and The Comedy Roasters’ experience of her, Pam, as a customer. And the tea latte had been it; it had satisfied her and it had surprised her and it had pleased her and she hadn’t had one before (unlike the Bigelow assortment on its own).

And the way her life fit together now was like that. It was like what she’d had before (a tea latte still had tea in it). It was like what everyone expected from her, if they had expectations she cared about at all (a tea latte was a latte, in an espresso joint). And it was amazing.

Being happy was all it was cracked up to be, it turned out—when you were really happy, and not painting yourself into a corner by doing paint by numbers on someone else’s outline of happiness.

Pam Beesly was happy, and there was nothing anyone else was going to do about it, thank you very much.