Gary Cooper 

He used to sit next to her at the conference table, hyper-aware of the location of their legs relative to one another. Michael would be saying something like: the paper business is changing, my friends; we’re making history. We’re pioneers. But, you’re in the covered wagons. I’m Gary Cooper, leading the way. On horseback. With a gun. But I only use it when we’re attacked…not by wild Indians, because that’s just ignorant. 

She’d shift restlessly in her seat and he’d feel her knee and his – worse, her thigh and his – move incrementally closer. He’d think, if he let his leg ease over just an inch or two, he could touch hers and it would appear totally inadvertent. Sometimes he’d let it happen, almost as if there were some magnetic force field compelling him. Of course, he’d immediately retreat, pull away as if the contact were unintentional. Or sometimes her knee would fall toward his. She’d instantly pull back as well, but he always wondered if her slip was accidentally-on-purpose too. And what about when she let her leg press against his for a barely perceptible beat too long? Maybe it was just his imagination. Maybe not.

It was complicated. All this not touching. It could be so distracting that he’d miss the entire gist of whatever was being said. He didn’t care.

Now when they sit together in that same stupid deja-vu of a meeting, or even in one where Toby tries to explain something actually useful, like the new medical spending plan (and Michael interrupts incessantly, because this is just the kind of boring nonsense that makes everyone resent Toby and besides, I’ve already asked Dwight to put together a comprehensive manual of special benefits available only to the Scranton branch; Toby’s reply that no such benefits exist just proves Toby’s…oh, some failing or another) it still all turns into background noise. He still loses the thread. But it’s not the same.

He lets his leg relax against hers. He doesn’t recoil or pretend it wasn’t deliberate. Neither does she. When she slides off her shoe and rubs her foot over his ankle, or rests her hand on his thigh under the table, it doesn’t matter where they are.

Michael might actually be Gary Cooper.

Indian Summer   

When he sleeps, the same thick lock of hair continually falls in his eyes. She reaches over and gently pushes it aside, but it just drifts down again. He smiles a little and she thinks he must be dreaming of something good. His lips part and he sighs faintly as he adjusts his position. Even unconscious, he always makes sure that at least one part of him is touching one part of her. His arm drapes across her hip; or his chest presses against her back; or his knee pushes between hers.

Sometimes it’s only their hands. More than once, she’s woken up in the middle of a muggy Indian summer night, when they’ve left space and air between them, to find their fingers intertwined. It’s like they’re walking down a street, holding hands.

She loves that. Just holding his hand. Now she can.

Shiny When Wet  

Truth was, he usually preferred to shower alone. When he was first seeing Karen, she’d routinely join him and well, sometimes it was annoying. It’s not that he never liked her getting in with him. Sometimes he did. For obvious reasons. He never claimed to be Saint Jim of Irish Spring.

But a quick morning shower before work, or on a Saturday afternoon after his basketball game and before their inevitable dinner reservations (what ever happened to grabbing a burger at the diner, or just ordering a pizza and not having to wear his fancy new clothes on a freaking weekend?) That was different. It felt intrusive then, like there was nowhere - not at work, not at home, not even in his own fucking shower - that he could be alone. Funny, given all the things they did together, that ordinary showering somehow felt too personal to share.

He knew he was an ass for thinking like that. She only wanted to be close, only wanted the intimacy he should have been willing to give. His discomfort wasn’t her fault; so many things weren’t her fault.

Karen was not unperceptive, however, and she was clever at work-arounds, both at the office and at home. On the nights they stayed together, she soon began rising early, to give him his space. He was grateful for that, but he knew that’s not what she was after.

****************

Pam drags herself out of bed and groggily follows him into the bathroom. She pulls his t-shirt, which she must have untangled from the sheets at some point during the night, over her head. It lands on top of the hamper of their laundry, already practically overflowing onto the tile. Her eyes aren’t even quite open yet, when she steps in beside him. She slides her arms around his waist, leaning into him so heavily that he thinks if he stepped back an inch she’d fall to the floor. He lets her rest there while she wakes up, her cheek warm against his chest. The hot water hits his shoulders first, then streams down over her back. When she’s fully alert, she rises on her tiptoes and kisses him once quickly, before reaching for the shampoo. Her fingertips work over his scalp in rhythmic swirls. It feels good. So good.

 ‘What?’ she asks.

He only then realizes that he’s staring down at her. It’s the first word they’ve spoken all morning.

‘Nothing. You just look…shiny,’

‘Well, I’m wet,’ she grins, amused. She snatches the washcloth from his hand and lightly flicks him with it for emphasis.

‘Oh, yeah…right’ he chuckles back, aware that he sounds like an idiot.

They need to hurry or they’ll be late for work again.

The stationery in the hotel room desk has Hyatt embossed across the top. Jim carefully scratches out the yatt and prints alpert above it. He wants to write her a letter. A real one, the old fashioned kind, by hand, on paper. Unlike her handwriting, his isn’t particularly graceful, but it’s his and she always recognizes it.

It feels kind of corny, and he’s not usually like that. At least, not so overtly. It also doesn’t make much sense – he’ll only be gone for two nights and he’s already spoken to her three times today. He’s rundown a list of Michael’s choicest gaffes since arriving at the convention and relayed Dwight’s request for the little boxed shower cap in his hotel bathroom to bring home for Cousin Mose (Jim had said fine, provided he didn’t have to hear why.) She already knows he may have actually made a sale in the midst of all this and that the chicken at dinner was edible, but the desserts were petrified or melted or somehow both. He’s already told her he misses her.

He hasn’t mentioned his flashbacks of last year’s convention in Philadelphia. How he’d cultivated sales prospects, proven himself to the team, been one of the guys. How the only part of it that had seemed real was the knife to his gut when he’d overheard Michael mention her name and date in the same sentence.

Sitting in his underwear on his hotel bed, criminally overpriced mini-bar beer in hand, he stares at the blank page and thinks about the shoebox in the back of his mother’s closet. He’d come across it when he was about twelve, while staving off boredom by conducting an archeological excavation of places in his house he was supposed to keep his nose out of. The box was stuffed with love letters from his father, written early in their marriage when he’d had to travel often for his job. Jim read barely legibly scrawled words he could hardly imagine coming out of his dad’s mouth in real life. Words like want and beautiful and so in love and can’t wait. When he told him about it, his older brother had pronounced it gross (and yeah, it was, kind of. These were his parents, after all.) But there was something else. Jim suddenly became aware of a private universe his parents occupied - that he knew nothing about.

He considers opening his letter with a lame joke about the convention renewing his commitment to paper. But he doesn’t, because they have plenty of jokes already. He wants to tell her things that aren’t funny.

How he didn’t want to leave when he let himself out that morning before she was awake, before the sun even rose. That he’d kneeled down beside her and kissed her forehead, her shoulder, between her breasts, only half covered by the tangled sheets, a reminder of last night’s long goodbye. That despite sheer exhaustion, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep tonight, without her. That he belongs to her and how fucking lucky he is and he hopes she knows he knows that. That he’s so proud of her. That she can do anything. That she doesn’t have to do anything for him but just be.

He thinks Pam would like having a hidden box of love letters. He puts the pen to paper and writes.

********************

An excerpt of the song this scene's title comes from (written way back in 1970, by someone who knew a thing or two about love): 

I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free 

 From All I Want by, Joni Mitchell (Blue album)

That Girlfriend  

Pam likes spicy food. Who’d have thunk it? When she was first seeing Roy, they’d double-dated with his brother at a Mexican restaurant. The type where the bartender was dressed like a Disney version of Pancho Villa and everything, except maybe the margaritas, was buried under melted cheese of mysterious origin. She should have been suspicious when ordering an appetizer involved the boys whispering in the waitress’s disinterested ear.

The hilarity that ensued when the ‘Nuclear Nachos’ arrived sizzling to the table and the girls dove in became the stuff of legend. She still winced at the memory of how painful it was, like third degree burns to her mouth and throat. The humor eluded her, but that was because she needed to lighten up.

And that was pretty much it for her, in terms of hot food. Or so she thought.

The first time she went to a Thai restaurant with Jim, the hostess greeted him warmly at the door. By name. She was young and exotically pretty and seemed inordinately happy to see him. The thought crossed Pam’s mind…No, she wasn’t going to be that girlfriend. Jim casually explained that he used to eat there before he’d moved to Stamford, but hadn’t been back since.

Once they’d been seated, the hostess, who apparently had decided to be their waitress too, came by to take their drink order. She remembered the dishes Jim liked. She suggested specials she knew he’d enjoy. She wouldn’t stop looking so damn lovely. No, she was not going to be that girlfriend.

After the ex-fling of a hostess (no, stop) brought them their Thai beers, they studied the menu. Jim dismissed all the specials, as well as most of his old favorites.

‘They’re really hot …and I know that’s not your thing.’

‘But, you should order what you like…I can just get something less spicy.’

‘No, don’t be silly,’ he grinned at her. ‘It’s much more fun if we share. I don’t mind. Seriously.’

Just then Miss Thailand came back with some kind of special hors d’oeuvre concoction that was on the house. Placing it on the table apparently required lingering arm touching and entirely too much smiling. That was the last straw.

‘Let’s get the spicy stuff,’ Pam declared.

‘Pam…it’s okay. I swear, I don’t…’

‘I want to Jim,’ she cut him off decisively.

While waiting for the food to arrive, the beer muting her self-censor, she finally spit it out.

‘What’s up with you and her?’ she nodded toward the hostess, who only pretended to be focused on another table; clearly, she was thinking about Jim. Naked.

‘Who?’ He looked momentarily perplexed before visibly registering her implication. ‘Her family owns this place. I think she’s a college student – last time I saw her, she was like sixteen.’

‘Very pretty.’

‘Yeah. So?

‘And exotic.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ he asked, his bemused disbelief evident. ‘Actually, now that you mention it…think you can get home on your own? Because I’m pretty sure making out with her is included in that dinner special she recommended…’

Pam just stared at him.

‘Nothing’s going on,’ he insisted, taking her hand. ‘Not now, not when she was jailbait, not ever.’

The look on his face confirmed just how ridiculous she was being. Okay. She was officially done being that girlfriend.

Everything tasted like mysterious spices and coconut and a little sweet and oddly salty and totally delicious. It was hotter than she was accustomed to, but not to the point of being a near death experience.

‘Dinner isn't supposed to require a stunt double, Pam,’ Jim shook his head and smiled.

Her lips were still tingly when he leaned across the table to kiss her. Then, in the parking lot, her lips and tongue both tingled when he pressed her against the car and kissed her hard and deep and told her she was crazy to ever be jealous again. And later, in the dark, he made her tingle some more. Everywhere.

Cooties

She lifts the hem of his t-shirt and he raises his arms in the air reflexively, almost like a child cooperating with his mother undressing him. As she pulls it over his head, he falls back against the pillows, looking at her through bleary eyes. She’s not used to seeing him this way. She’s relieved him of his shirt like this many times, but in those situations her feelings were anything but maternal. The look in his eyes anything but childish.

Rooting through the jumble of water glasses, iPod chords, discarded throat lozenge wrappers, bottles of cough syrup and Tylenol, paperback novels and an empty tissue box, she finally locates the jar of Vick’s Vapor Rub on the nightstand. It’s half hidden behind a framed photo. He’d taken it last summer, at the lake; she’s staring straight into the camera, nose sun burnt pink, hair wild in the breeze. She’s grinning like there’s nowhere else she’d want to be. Like there’s nowhere else period.

She scoops out some of the ointment and rubs her palms together before laying them flat against his chest. The heat of his skin confirms the febrile glaze of his eyes, as she spreads the goo up towards his neck and shoulders, then back down to where the soft hairs fade into the smooth skin of his stomach. Her hands know this path well, know the texture and contours and feel of all of him.

But this is different. He’s usually the big strapping anchor, the caretaker. A sharp pang shoots through her own chest, as her fingers glide over him and a searing tenderness takes hold. For a moment she’s almost glad he has the flu. Not that he’s sick, of course, but that she gets to be this, to do this. To take care of him.

‘Feels good,’ he murmurs, the rawness of his throat audible in his voice.

She lowers her face to kiss him by his clavicle. A trace of the Vick’s gets on her lips and it makes them feel like they’re vibrating.

‘Careful,’ he warns, ‘you’re going to catch this.’

‘Too late,’ she smiles. ‘Dwight told me all about it today.  He says you’re contagious for a couple of days before you start feeling sick. And…I better quote him: sexual activity is an engraved invitation to germs. No RSVP necessary.’

‘Nice. Poetic.’

‘So, basically I already have your cooties.’

‘Well, it serves you right for always being all over me, Beesly.’

She just rolls her eyes as she wipes the last remnants across his skin and closes the jar.

‘Like a bad coat,’ he smirks.

‘I think your fever is making you delusional.’

‘Shit, my throat,’ he rasps pleadingly. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

The chuckle he can’t quite suppress sounds painful and she feels a little guilty. She goes over to his dresser to look for something clean for him to put on. In the back of his bottom drawer she finds a pair of light blue pajamas. Real pajamas. She holds them up, raising her eyebrows quizzically.

‘Pajamas,’ he states the obvious.

He usually wears boxer shorts to bed. And more often than not, even those don’t last very long, spending most of the night on the floor or tangled in the sheets.

‘What?’ he asks, sounding surprised at her surprise.

‘Nothing. I just didn’t know you had any.’

‘Of course I have pajamas, Pam. What am I, an animal?’ his tone is as indignant as he can manage with his tortured gravelly voice. ‘Never actually wear them, but…’

‘Well, you’re supposed to wear them when you're sick. There’s a protocol here, Jim.’ She tosses them to him. ‘Need help?’

‘That’s okay, Mom. I think I can dress myself.’

 Leaving him to his own devices, she goes to the kitchen to make some tea. When she returns, he’s wearing the pajamas. Sort of. He’s only bothered with a couple of the shirt buttons and those are misaligned. Remote in hand, he’s drowsily flipping around channels, clearly paying no attention to that either. While he drinks the tea, she sits down next to him and corrects the buttons, closing a few more as well. He gives her an abstracted hazy smile, somehow both bemused and grateful. That surge of tenderness wells up and courses through her again.  

She moves up beside him and leans back against the headboard, as he simultaneously repositions himself to rest his head in her lap. She brushes his hair back from his sweaty forehead, and he closes his eyes at her touch.  Soon she hears him snoring lightly.  Maybe when he wakes up she’ll warm some soup for him. Maybe she’ll do anything he wants.

A tickle is beginning to form in the back of her throat and her joints are vaguely achy. His sleepiness is contagious too. Trying not to disturb him, she slides down and spoons up behind him, her hand splayed protectively against his stomach.  He sighs and instinctively presses incrementally back into her. She’s pretty sure she’s coming down with whatever he has.

Score one for Dwight. She doesn’t even mind.

Three in the Morning 

His eyes fly open and he’s suspended somewhere he can’t quite place. The room is completely silent. Disoriented, he could be anywhere. Maybe he’s dreaming.

In that nebulous space between sleep and consciousness, images and sensations ricochet around his mind, tweak his body. They may be memories, or they may be wishful thinking. He’s falling backwards. Rolling. Warm moist breath, soft soft soft skin, a hand, her hand and then oh god, oh god, yeah. Her neck, highlighted in dim pinkish lamplight, a glint like a flickering star at her ear as her head falls back.  Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim dissolving into a moan, a vibration he feels deep in her throat when he drops his face there in the final swell of it.

If this were just a dream, he’d rather not wake up. But, he knows that never works. He’d spent years trying. He’d spent years failing.

The sheet, pushed down and tangled around his legs, shifts slightly as she stirs against him. She sighs. Materializes. It’s not the if only dream after all, but flashes of the previous night. He’s still not sure which of their bedrooms he’s in, but it doesn’t matter. He knows exactly where he is. She’s a place.

He turns towards her. Her hair smells like coconuts and exotic and familiar and Pam. He instantly imagines them somewhere tropical. Maybe Hawaii. She’s always wanted to go there. They can go anywhere now. Just being here proves that.

She moves again and her tiny diamond studs refract the scant light from the quarter-moon.

*******

‘I’m never taking these off,’ she’d beamed when he’d given them to her, fastening them behind her ears.

‘Never?’ he’d smiled. 

‘Nope, gonna be buried in them.’ 

'Wow. That’s either really romantic or really morbid.’ 

‘It’s just the truth,’ she’d replied, pulling her hair back to show him. 

*********

She looks impossibly white, all diffuse velvety curves in the dark, like an old black and white movie still. He hears the wind throttle the windowpane and shivers a little, suddenly aware that there’s nothing between the chilly night air and their exposed skin.  He pushes himself up enough to reach down and untangle them from the bedding. Before pulling the blanket up, he lowers his head to kiss the spot at the small of her back, just above the two tiny dimples that are his undoing. He lets his lips linger there for just a fraction of a second.

‘Jim…is that you?’ she murmurs drowsy, confused, barely emerging from somewhere far away.

‘Why, were you expecting someone else?’ he whisper-laughs, as he tucks the covers snuggly around them.

She doesn’t even open her eyes, just smiles faintly as she moves her cheek back to his chest, into the indelible impression it’s formed there over the last few months. Her small smooth leg slides between his big ungainly ones. She feels so warm and the ache starts to build where her inner thigh has settled against him. In the brief pause while he contemplates whether keeping her awake a little longer would be inconsiderate, she yawns and wraps her arm around his waist. Almost immediately, he hears her lightly snoring again. Too late.

‘Yeah,' he sighs into her coconut hair, closing his arms around her. ‘It’s just me.’