“Seriously, Pam, it’s so nice to meet you.” Pam would have been lying if she’d said that she hadn’t worried at least a little bit about meeting Jim’s mom. Not a real worry, but that kind of light worry that might attend any important occasion, even if you didn’t have any particular reason to suspect it would go wrong. Plus, if she was honest, a little extra, because for all that she’d put the whole Roy thing in the rearview mirror, it was the entirety of her track record for meeting her boyfriend’s parents, if you didn’t count little Timmy Moscowitz’s parents when they’d declared themselves boyfriend and girlfriend in second grade on the playground until his mom came to pick him up (the next day he’d decided that Dolores Garcia’s dolls were better than Pam’s, and that had been the end of that). And so it couldn’t help but color her anticipation of meeting Jim’s.

But despite any jitters she might have had, Betsy was lovely, and—perhaps even more importantly—her presence didn’t seem to inhibit Jim around her in the least. Their banter was still their banter; if anything, Betsy contributed. It was clear where Jim had gotten both his quick sense of humor and his anti-capitalist sensibilities from, as Betsy had apparently been working for the Teamsters since graduating college herself in the late 70s, “right about when everyone had given up on Jimmy Hoffa.” She and Pam bonded over lamenting the difficulty of unionizing freelancers—or rather, the institutional barriers to doing it, since Pam was quick to point out that if she could get a union to set rates for her work, she would, but the National Labor Relations Board was unlikely to certify a class for ‘anyone with a computer who might decide to edit a website’ and there weren’t strong barriers to entry in her field to define who was and who wasn’t a web designer—and the importance of benefits. Betsy was very smug when she pointed out that she’d been the one to tell Michael in no uncertain terms that he had to offer those for anyone working at The Comedy Roasters. “It’s the least he can do, honestly, after becoming a capitalist,” Betsy sniffed. “Such a betrayal.”

“Is that why you’re the only employee here, Jim?” Pam nudged her boyfriend in the shoulder. “Can’t afford any more full-time workers?”

Betsy snorted. “Is that what he’s been telling you?”

“Mooooom.” Jim whined and Pam cracked up.

Betsy rolled her eyes at her son. “Michael’s happy to bring on more workers, but my son here refuses to move into a managerial role, and Michael won’t expand if he doesn’t.”

“Mom, you know managers are on the side of capital.” Jim stuck out his tongue, and for some reason it was cute instead of childish. Or maybe both; Pam wasn’t too picky where Jim was concerned, and she knew that about herself but didn’t mind. And besides, it wasn’t the kind of childish that was going to lead to pulling pigtails or fighting on the playground. “You raised me better than that.”

“Managers can be labor too, as long as they don’t get alienated from the workforce,” Betsy insisted. “You wouldn’t stop being a barista just because you made sure everyone else clocked in. Think of it as a union foreman—you can have responsibility and still be on the side of the angels.”

“I thought Marx was an atheist? Religion as the opiate of the masses, and all that?” Pam inquired, and Jim grinned at her and then turned to his mother.

“See? Pam gets it.”

“Metaphorical angels, James.” But Betsy was clearly amused as well. “I can see the two of you are well-matched.”

“Mom!”

“Thank you, Betsy.” Pam knew she was a little pink, but she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t like hearing good things from Jim’s mother.

“Don’t mention it, dear.” Betsy patted her hand. “It’s nice to see him happy.” She turned to her son. “Now, if you’re so insistent that you’re a laboring man, do some labor and get us both refills.”

“Sure, Mom.” Jim rolled his eyes but stood up. “Your usual?”

“Of course, dear.”

“And you, Beesly?” He reached for her cup. “This doesn’t look like your usual tea.”

“It’s not. It’s a tea latte.” She handed it over and grinned up at him.

“A tea latte? Really?” He made a shocked face and it was her turn to roll her eyes. “Don’t tell me Pam Beesly has given up on a plain, ordinary cup of tea all of a sudden?”

She winked at Betsy and shrugged. “But of course, Jim.” She fought down the smirk that was forming at the edges of her mouth and faced her boyfriend with the most innocent face she could muster. “You’ve convinced me that I couldn’t possibly have a normal cup of tea and date a Marxist like you. After all, you told me yourself when we first met: I’m non-violent, and proper tea is murder.”