The drive down had never seemed so short and he acknowledged that it was probably because he had been speeding the whole way, pushing eighty and daring a cop to pull him over. It was reckless of him, he knew that, and a normal person that was avoiding something probably would have drawn the trip out for as long as possible. But Jim had never really been one for normal and for some reason he just wanted to get there. That was the first step of his plan: Get to Scranton. Of course the plan ended right there, and as he stood just outside the office he was starting to wish that he had developed it a little more.
And it wasn’t just because of Pam being in there, just beyond the door. It was the whole aspect of returning to Scranton, returning to Dunder-Mifflin. That part of his life had been over for three years now, and he didn’t want to reopen a chapter that had already been closed. He’d have to see all his old coworkers, people that he had kind of liked at the time, and that was probably only because they all had the same thing in common. Now they were just strangers. Some people he had known for a few years, none of them special enough to keep in touch with after he was gone.
But maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Maybe there was one that was special enough, and even that hadn’t worked out how it was supposed to.
Pam. What would happen when he saw her? How much can three years change a person? He had a sudden image in his mind of waltzing through the door and pulling her towards him, grabbing her hand and never letting go. Ridiculous. He was so ridiculous. Things were different between them and for some reason he just couldn’t accept that. She obviously didn’t care for him, because how hard was it to send an e-mail every now and then? Things could have been different between them. But she didn’t want that. Obviously.
God, why was he having such a hard time walking through the stupid door? It would be embarrassing if someone were to come out and see him standing there, staring at it like an idiot. He took a deep breath and felt like hitting himself for being such a pansy.
“Jim,” a voice said behind him.
He turned around to see Ryan standing before him, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, and suddenly Jim felt overdressed in his suit and tie. Ryan looked the same, except maybe a little older, his face a little leaner.
They didn’t know each other well enough to hug, so Jim held out his hand and shook Ryan’s in greeting.
“How’s it going?” he asked, and Ryan raised his eyebrows and patted the back of his head absently.
“Okay. I just can’t believe I’m back here.”
“You and me both,” Jim said, sighing tiredly.
An awkward silence followed and Jim wondered why it always came to that with these people.
Ryan glanced tentatively at the door. “So…” he began slowly, “Are you going in?”
“Um, just trying to prepare myself.”
Ryan reached for the handle, “Yeah, I did that in the car. Well, I’ll see you in there, man.”
And the door slammed behind him, leaving Jim alone in the hallway once again. Maybe he could turn around and just drive back to Stamford. Call Greg Phillips and apologize and say he was just unable to get the time off from work.
But even as he thought about it he knew it would never work. Ryan had already seen him. He was probably in there right now telling everyone about Jim-the-coward, alone in the hall, too scared to even walk into the office.
It took every ounce of strength he had, but he closed his eyes, made a determined face, and walked through the door.
Everything was the same. Of course everything was the same. He didn’t know why he had been expecting everything to be different. A part of him wanted things to be different, for the desks to be rearranged, the walls painted a different color, anything at all. And the only thing different was his old desk and the middle-aged man sitting there, squinting at something on the computer screen.
As the door swung shut behind him, everyone glanced up from where they stood fawning over Ryan. They moved towards him as he held up a hand awkwardly in greeting.
The next five minutes were a series of hugs and handshakes, a fake grin plastered to his face. And the whole time he couldn’t help glancing around, trying to spot Pam, but still dreading the moment that he would. But she wasn’t anywhere, and he was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe she didn’t work there anymore. Why hadn’t that crossed his mind earlier? Maybe she had moved on to bigger and better things, and all his anxiety about seeing her was for nothing. Of course, the camera crew had beckoned him and Ryan there, so wouldn’t they get her to come back as well? His mind was swimming in confusion, and that confusion heightened when he was suddenly hugged around the middle by a very pregnant Kelly.
“Oh my god, Jim! Look at you, what are they feeding you up there? You’re so thin, and me, I’m a cow for crying out loud!” She was smiling brightly at him, and he couldn’t help looking from her bulging belly to Ryan and back again. Surely he would have mentioned something…
“Look at you,” Jim said, his voice strained. “What’s this all about?”
“Oh, well, nothing really except I got married!” She held her hand out and he nodded politely at her large diamond ring. “And oh my god,” she continued, “You will never believe it, he’s a doctor! We’ve been married for a year now!” He tried not to wince. Surely her voice hadn’t been that shrill when he had been working there?
He looked at Ryan out of the corner of his eye and saw him eyeing Kelly, an unreadable expression on his face. Jim had just assumed…there was that romantic in him again, assuming that Ryan and Kelly had ended up together, but of course they hadn’t. They were so wrong for each other, he had been miserable when they were “together”. But as horrible as they were for each other, Jim had thought that underneath there had always been a mutual affection.
Obviously, that wasn’t the case, as Kelly stood before him going on about Lamaze classes and birthing methods and whether or not she would take the drugs.
And suddenly Kelly was pushed aside as Michael came lunging through the crowd, enveloping Jim in a bone crushing hug and shouting gleefully, “Jimmy!”
Jim’s body tightened and he awkwardly patted Michael on the back, looking over the man’s head and rolling his eyes at the crowd. Michael, of course, held on to him a few seconds longer than necessary (like the hug was at all necessary), before pulling away, his eyes glistening with tears. Tears? Seriously? Jim thought. He couldn’t help feeling a little bad for the guy.
“Well,” Michael said shakily, “What a day. Truly a best of sorts, our old friends reunited. I feel how Mike Brady must have felt during one of their many reunion shows.”
“Isn’t he gay?” Kevin asked, and Jim couldn’t help grinning.
“What?” Michael asked, a puzzled expression on his face. “No, I was just—”
Jim hid his smile and asked innocently, “So basically you’re saying you feel gay, Michael? Good for you, but I have to say, we always kind of had an inkling.”
“Listen, there’s only one gay person in here and I think we all know who it is,” Michael said angrily, and Jim widened his eyes in surprise.
“Uh, Michael is not gay,” Dwight interjected, stepping beside Michael, his hands on his hips. “Believe me, I would know.”
“That’s true,” Jim said in agreement.
Dwight turned to Michael then, and said in a loud whisper, “You aren’t, right, I mean, you’d tell me if you were?”
Michael glared at Dwight, crossed his arms and snapped, “Listen, I was just saying how great it is to have everyone back!”
“Well,” Jim began, “I for one am glad to be here, and I’m sure we’ll have a gay old time.”
The group snickered, and Michael’s frown deepened as he began to lecture on appropriate office behavior. Jim tuned him out when he said something about don’t ask don’t tell, and his eyes moved about the office once more, trying to find Pam.
All these years he had thought that she was here in Scranton, working reception like she always had. That thought had always brought comfort to him, that some things may have changed between them, but not every thing. If he knew that she was there, working reception, then it was so much easier to visualize himself there as well, joking and talking, tormenting Dwight. Part of him was saddened by the thought that they were both gone from the office.
But the other part of him, the larger part, was happy—so happy that she had gotten out.
Michael was beckoning them all into the conference room for an impromptu meeting about the “reunion special” with the camera crew. As Jim sat down in a chair, he felt someone slide into the seat next to him.
And an all too familiar voice asked, “So what’d I miss?”
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali
© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali