Pam likes to think she’s nice. She donates money to charity every Christmas, gives candy to the neighbourhood children in an awkward attempt to endear herself to them, listens to Kelly cry about Ryan over cookie dough and beer. She even tells her that things will work out: Ryan will realize what he’s got and he’ll stop leaving her waiting, alone and lonely, by her phone on Saturday nights. This becomes more of a lie every time she says it but she can’t bring herself to stop. Kelly’s devastation is loud and painful; it comes in waves and leaves wet, black trails of mascara down her cheeks. Pam reasons that she’d only hurt Kelly more if she told her what she thinks to be the truth: that Ryan doesn’t care, that on Saturday nights he’s probably out picking up other girls in crowded bars where anonymity is preferred, where possible futures are drowned in alcohol. One morning she sees Ryan being dropped off at work by a slim girl in a Volkswagen and she turns away, drops her eyes to the floor as though she is the one who should be ashamed. When Kelly hovers by her desk later to ask her whether she thinks Ryan looks more like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, Pam almost tells her. The words are in the back of her throat, but she can’t choke them out; she’s too nice.

            Sometimes the cameramen give her looks. They see more than everyone thinks; they’re good at hiding, good at capturing the pauses laden with meaning. Before Jim left, sometimes, when they were walking out of the conference room behind him they’d look at her, just look. They’re observers; they say only the barest minimum but she knows they have opinions. They smother laughter during Dwight’s interviews; sometimes when Michael makes a joke at someone’s expense, bribing the audience with his own dignity and someone else’s for a few scattered laughs, the lapse in their guarded expressions is one of disgust. When they look at her she sees her own reflection in their eyes, in the eye of the camera, thinks about how she must seem to the people watching. Pam knows how Jim feels long before casino night, long before any open confessions. Sometimes, when the camera’s trained on her face, capturing everything she tries to hide, she almost says, I’m engaged. Almost says, I’m keeping my promise, I’m a decent person and I’m doing what I should. Almost says, Stop looking at me like that, I know I’m wrong and it’s killing me.

            But she never does. Instead she just improve her lying skills, learns to turn up the corners of her mouth into something resembling a smile.

            When Jim comes back it’s different. Phyllis says he looks older but it’s not that, Pam knows him better and to her he only looks tired. He’s serious now, more responsible, and she wants to believe it’s just an act, that one morning they’ll walk in and Dwight’s desk will be in a giant bowl of jello and he’ll smile that familiar smile. But the days go by and there’s no sign from the old Jim.

            She figures out pretty quick that the someone he’s seeing is Karen. Toby sits her down in the conference room to ask if she’s alright; she knows he has to but his concern is genuine. Pam assures him she’s fine but all day everyone looks at her strangely, like they think maybe she’ll be the one to explode, come to work carrying a gun one day and end everything. She and Jim have had a bet that it would be Michael for at least two years but she supposes he’s forgotten. Jim seems to have forgotten a lot. Sometimes, late at night, Pam wonders if she could change things if she said something, if she put herself out there like Jim had, turned off the fake smile and given the closest approximation to the truth that she knows. Jim seems happier though, or at least more balanced. He works these days, and after work he and Karen leave together, hunched together against the cold and whispering conspiratorially. Pam wants to be nice, wants to keep herself from ruining any solace he may have found after she’d hurt him. So she stops talking to him at all

            They do Secret Santa again for Christmas this year, although yankee swap is vetoed by the party planning committee. Pam gets Angela and she paints her a picture of a cat sleeping on a doorstep of which Angela seems to approve. When she opens her own gift she finds a mug, light blue with snowflakes.

            “To go with the teapot,” Jim says, his voice unreadable. Pam looks inside it but there is nothing there.

            The next day she notices that the cameramen’s looks have shifted; she reads pity in their impersonal glances, in the lens of their camera.