“Holy. Crap.”

His jaw had dropped—literally, it just hung open, like a cartoon character. Pam hadn’t known what reaction to expect, but she hadn’t expected that. She started to wrap her arms around herself, but she stopped. This was a great shirt. This shirt looked great on her. Stop trying to cover up, Pam Beesly, she thought. 

“You look…” He shook his head. She shrugged and tried to laugh, although the sound wasn’t quite right.           

“Thanks, I guess.”           

“Oh, no,” Jim said. “I was going to say you looked like a hussy.”        

She punched him playfully on the arm.

“No, seriously, Pam. You look….”

“You don’t have to finish that sentence if it’s going to be such a struggle.” She felt a little dizzy, a little dangerous. She felt like flirting. “And you are totally not dressed for this.”

“I brought something to change into,” he said, giving her a sly look.

“Oh, please let it be the white suit,” she said, crossing her fingers and closing her eyes.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Sadie came up and pulled Pam away, and Pam watched as Jim slipped out the front door of the house.           

“So,” Sadie said, grabbing Pam’s arm and grinning. “That looked promising.”         

Pam smiled and let herself be led into a small circle of people. She usually hated parties where she didn’t know anyone, but something about Sadie’s encouraging voice and the fact that she was dressed like a different person made Pam feel like she could handle meeting new people right now.

“Everybody, this is Pam,” Sadie announced. Pam found herself in the middle of the circle, being talked at from all sides. It was almost overwhelming, but in a great way. She felt interesting and pretty and happy.            

“Oh, the famous Pam,” Jonathon said.

  “I don’t know about famous,” she said.

“Trust me. Around here, you’re a superstar.”

She blushed, happily, and said, “Happy birthday. Were you surprised?”        

   “Totally. Jim had me going. He took me to this paintball place—”           

“God, I thought he was joking about that!”        

“And I got to meet the infamous Dwight. Man, that’s guy is…something.”       

“I think Dwight’s probably a lot of things,” Pam said. “Did you get to shoot him with a paintball?”        

“Two.” Jonathon laughed and held up his hand for a high five. Pam was a little taken aback for a moment, realizing how much Jonathon and Jim had in common—the same tall, lanky frame, the same hair (although Jonathon’s was shorter and tamer), the same goofy grin. But there was a different feeling to their laidback stance; Jonathon wasn’t as slouchy, wasn’t as wrinkled, wasn’t quite as quick to smile or laugh. Watching him with Sadie, as he threw a relaxed arm around her shoulder and left a lingering kiss on her forehead, Pam had to wonder what Sadie had seen in Jonathon that had convinced her that she was going to marry him.

  Just as Pam had that thought, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see Jim grinning at her. Laughing, she took in the whole crazy look: afro wig, purple sunglasses, gold chains and gaudy medallions.          

  “The white suit!” she squealed, clapping her hands in front of her.

“The very same,” Jim said. “Like it?”

   “Are you kidding? Sadie was going to show me pictures, but this is so much better.”

“Let’s get something to drink,” Jim said, nodding his head toward the back of the room. He took hold of her arm and she let him guide her through the crowd, aware of almost nothing but the feeling of his hand on her skin. Standing in front of the table of drinks, Pam felt him put his hand on the small of her back and almost gasped.

“What’ll you have?” Jim asked, surveying the options. He reached out and grabbed a beer for himself.

  “Um, I think I’ll stick with water for now,” Pam said. She knew suddenly that she needed to stay sober for awhile longer—she could save the drinking for later.

She fiddled with the bottle of water Jim put in her hands for a few minutes, watching him pop the top off of his beer and take a couple of long drinks.         

   “Can we—” she began, just as someone turned up the stereo. Suddenly, she was blasted with “Stayin’ Alive.” Leaning in towards Jim, she yelled in the direction of his ear, “Can we go outside and talk for a minute?”        

  Jim raised his eyebrows but nodded, then grabbed her hand to show her the way outside. This time, Pam forced herself to stop thinking about the fact that he was holding her hand and concentrated instead on what she knew she had to say.           

Pam wished she had thought to bring a jacket outside with her. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

“Here, take my jacket,” Jim said, but she stopped him before he could take it off.

  “No, I’ll be okay.” She didn’t want to get warm. The cold would force her to stop being such a big baby and just tell him already.          

“Okay, but you’re freezing. Let me do something,” he said, running his hands up and down her arms to warm them.        

   She couldn’t speak for a moment, and he took her silence as a reason to stop touching her. He stepped back and put his hands in his pockets.

   This wasn’t working. She didn’t want him to get that look on his face—that guarded, worried look—and she didn’t want him to avoid meeting her eyes. She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment, then finally burst out, “Could you take off the wig? And the glasses? I can’t talk to you when you look like a BeeGee.”          

  He smiled then, just a little, and took off the wig. He slipped the glasses off and held them in his hands, pretending to study them intently.

    “Jim,” she said, a little too slowly. Come on, come on. Say it. “When you left last year, I felt like the worst person in the world. I felt like I had ruined the best thing in my life.” For a moment, she thought he was going to try to interrupt her, but he just drew his lips into a thin line and waited. “And that’s the kind of thing that you’re supposed to talk about with your best friend. They’re supposed to help you figure out how to fix things. But I couldn’t go to my best friend, because you were gone.”         

She was surprised at herself. She had thought that she’d be crying by now.

“I know that I should have said this sooner,” she went on. “But I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I never wanted you to be hurt like that. I never wanted to be someone who could hurt you.”

  He nodded, but his expression didn’t change.           

“So I need to know that you forgive me.”

“Pam, are you kidding?” he said softly.           

She shook her head, never looking away from him.        

  “Yeah. Yes. I mean—God, you don’t think I actually stayed mad at you, do you?”

   “You had every reason to be mad at me.”         

“Trust me, I know. But, come on, Beesly. You should know me better than that. Do I seem like I’m still mad at you?”

   “No, but things still aren’t right with us. I mean, it feels like maybe we really are friends again, and that’s good. But I want—I don’t know, I just want….”

She waited, hoping that maybe she wouldn’t have to finish the sentence. Sometimes it seemed like Jim knew what she was thinking before she said it. Maybe that trick didn’t work if even she didn’t know what she was thinking.        

  “I want to be more than that.”

  Both of them let her words hang in the air for a few seconds. They stared at each other, and Pam wondered how either of them could possibly be as calm as they seemed.    

      Then, Jim took two long steps and was next to her, hugging her. She pushed him away, just slightly, so she could see his face. One thing she had known all along—very clearly—was that this time, she wanted to kiss him first.