“…and I think if we can all remain focused on pushing the 25% rag content to all of our regular customers, we can increase our profit for the 3rd quarter. Is everyone with me?” Josh tended to run his staff meetings like a cool, high school football coach. It was a far cry from what Michael usually did (or attempted to do), but Jim didn’t really feel like being inspired to sell more paper. He didn’t feel inspired to do much these days, truth be told.

The Stamford sales team nodded vigorously in agreement and started closing their meeting folders, ready to head back out to their phones and start making a difference or something.

“Oh, and one more thing. Jim’s documentary has started airing again and apparently that means an influx of fan mail.” Josh gestured down at the small bundle of letters bound together by an industrial rubber band (catalog #RB54321) “Jim, you seem to be pretty popular!”

Jim put his head down, trying to block out the snickers that now echoed through the conference room. Another characteristic that Josh shared with coaches Jim remembered from school was that he liked to “playfully” humiliate members of his squad. Apparently, today Jim was the brunt of the joke.

“Are any of those stamped ‘Federal Penitentiary’, Tuna?” Andy thumped him on the back.

“Ha Ha, Andy. Looking for a date?” He wasn’t going to stick around, though, to exchange barbs with Andy.  He reached out and grabbed the stack from Josh and quickly made his way back to his desk before someone got the brilliant idea to open them and start reading them in front of the group.  

He had just slammed the bundle in his desk drawer, when Karen’s voice assaulted him from behind.

“So, Halpert. You have fans?”

“Apparently, I do. Some people idolize small-town paper salesmen, so you know….” He was trying to keep this light. Karen was known for her wicked sense of humor and he was worried that there were things in those letters he didn’t want people in the office to know.

“Do you get a lot of those letters?”

“Not too many. Most people just write to the network. A few enterprising souls look up our actual work addresses and send things here.  Just wait…you’ll get some. Even Dwight and Angela got some.”

“Those weirdos you told me about? Really.”

“Yup. You’ll never know who will be attracted to what, I guess.”

“So, can I read one?”

“You don’t want to do that. They’re stupid and boring.”

“Hiding something?” In a way he was. Knowing the tone that his fan mail typically took (‘Just tell Pam how you feel, you idiot!’) he was sure that this new stack was full of fallout from Casino Night. He hadn’t told anyone in Stamford about his past life and didn’t want to. He figured he’d appease her in the hopes that she’d back off.

“Meet me in the kitchen in 2 minutes. I don’t want….” He titled his head toward Andy and Karen had enough sense to realize what he meant. He opened the drawer and quickly riffled through the letters. He saw the words Casino Night over and over, but there were a few innocuous (embarrassing, but innocuous) notes he could share with Karen. He picked them up and headed back toward the kitchen.

--------

“Dear Jim!!!!  You are so hot!!! You are like hotter than anyone on TV!!!  Will you date me? Love Amy.” Karen read the note aloud in an excited teeny-bopper voice.  “Awww…she sounds like a winner, Jim. Are you going to write her back?”

“Very funny. Do you see why I didn’t want to share these?”

“I think they’re sweet. Wait. This one is interesting. ‘Dear Jim. You seem like a sensible fellow. I can’t understand why you work so hard in an industry that is depleting our earth’s precious and diminishing forests. Please contact me if you’d like to stage a public protest on your program to teach the world about the folly of paper.’ He called you a fellow!”

“There are a lot of those. People who think I shouldn’t eat white bread or sell paper or drive a non-hybrid car. There are a lot of freaks. Wait until some sort of women’s decency group comes after you for wearing pants. “

“Seriously?”

He just nodded, but he could see that her interest in reading all of his fan mail had waned.

“Well, I still think you should give Amy a chance. She did use all of those exclamation marks!”

“I’ll put her on the top of my stack. Now, should we get back to work, Fillipelli? Those forests won’t deplete themselves, you know.”

-----

Later that evening, after all of the other employees had left for the day, Jim pulled the stack of letters out of his drawer. Something inside of him was curious about what they said about that night last May and the revelation that he had moved to Stamford. Maybe he was looking for vindication…for just one person to tell him that he had done the right thing. He felt pathetic and desperate, but he still shuffled through the stacks of stationary and photos, trying to get a handle on how his actions had been perceived.

Like he’d take advice from someone who couldn’t manage the simple conventions of written English.

He shook his head and chuckled. If he’d follow up on half of these letters, he wouldn’t be lonely for over a month. What on earth did these women see in him? They’d seen how stupid and pathetic he had been…how broken he had become. Who would want to come anywhere near him?

The last letter in the stack caught his attention. It was typed on plain paper and in a plain white envelope. There were no hearts or personalized letterhead and the normal sounding prose made this one stand out from the rest.

Jim looked up from the letter and noticed the darkened sky and the passing of almost an hour on the clock. He head read this particular message several times trying to get a handle on it and who could have possibly written it. Who did this person think he? she? was? How could they presume to know how he was feeling? How could they be so dead on?

It was probably some overly obsessed fan who was trying to score points by trying to sound normal, but there was something about the letter that seemed sincere to him. 

He picked up the stack of letters and carried them over to the shredder, not wanting them to fall into the wrong hands, but he carefully placed the note from his biggest fan in the inside pocket of his messenger bag.

He had a lot to think about.

As the first few episodes of the season started airing, the volume of fan mail started increasing. Jim had been expecting that there would be some mail, but he thought that now that he was at Stamford, he’d get less than he used to back in Scranton. He was wrong. He got letters. His coworkers got letters. Good thing they were in the paper business.

 The volume of letters got to be such a burden that Julie the temp was given the job of collecting them, sorting them and then doling them out once a week so that it wouldn’t distract them all from selling paper.

Jim’s pile was always the largest.  Every Friday, he’d shuffle through his stack not willing to admit to himself that he was looking for another plain white envelope. He mentally kicked himself because he had forgotten to check the postmark on the last one before shredding the envelope. He wondered if maybe…just maybe it was from Scranton, but then chided himself because how pathetic was that? He usually just shoved the stack of letters, unopened, into his bottom desk drawer.

A few of his new Stamford coworkers got smaller piles of correspondence. Karen’s was the largest next to his and that made sense. She was young and pretty and smart. She was the kind of woman young girls looked up to and young men wanted to look down at. He could understand why people would write to her. Andy got a smaller stack and Josh received a few letters here and there. Most of them were from men. Jim didn’t want to try to puzzle that out. 

He knew it was egotistical and somewhat vain, but he wondered if his co-workers' letters mentioned him…mentioned Scranton…mentioned her.

He didn’t have to wonder long, though. One Friday at 4:45, Karen perched herself on the corner of his desk, a pink piece of stationary in her hand.

“Who’s Pam?” He wheeled his chair back a few feet, hoping for an escape.

“What’s that?”

“Pam? Who is she?”

“She’s the um…receptionist at Scranton. Why?” He had practiced sounding non-defensive and nonchalant for so many years, he hoped his skills weren’t rusty.

“It’s just that Penny in Tuscaloosa wants me to tell you that she misses the way that you and Pam used to play pranks on some guy named Dwight. Does that make sense to you?”

“Oh…yeah.  I’ve told you about Dwight, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did Penny say anything else?” He phrased as if he were wanting to make a joke…have a laugh at some poor fan’s expense.

“Nope. That’s it.”

“Cool.”

After that, the production company started screening the fan mail that came to the Stamford branch and their stacks got slightly smaller. There had been no explanation or memo, just a day when the little bundles came to them already opened, each letter tucked back into the expertly slit envelope. They claimed they were doing it as a service to them, but Jim figured they couldn’t risk having a fan ruin some future dramatic moment.  He told himself that’s why he hadn’t seen a plain white envelope in months. He told himself he was relieved. He wanted to forget and didn’t need some well-meaning fan dragging up things he was doing his best not to dwell on.

Sometime in the middle of October, though, a plain white envelope was waiting for him, halfway through his weekly stack. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath when he noticed it was postmarked “Albany”.  It was just a well-meaning fan. He told himself that he could just throw it in the drawer with the rest of the unwanted mail, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist it sitting there, calling out to him.  He reluctantly put it in his messenger bag and waited until he was home, safely on his couch before he pulled the paper out of the envelope and began to read.

Dear Jim—

It’s me again. It’s your biggest fan.

I don’t know if you got my last letter or if you even read it, but I’m going to pretend that you did. I like imagining that we’re having this ongoing conversation. Is that okay with you? I hope so.

I can see from the show that Stamford is treating you well. I don’t know if it’s the lighting in your new office or the sea air or what, but you look different…and I mean that in a good way. Your new suits suit you as well. Suits suit…ha ha. I’m glad to see that you’re fitting in and making friends. I was worried about you. I don’t doubt your ability to charm anyone you meet, but I was worried that you’d shut yourself off and just through yourself into your work. It makes me smile to see you pulling pranks the way you used to.

I don’t know if you’re watching your own show. I wonder if you know what’s been going on in Scranton. It’s weird, but things have been pretty much the same (Kelly crises, Michael kissing Oscar, Dwight almost getting fired, bird funerals) but they seem really different without you there. It’s like something is missing. I guess you are, duh…but I don’t know. It’s like somehow your presence in that office made the weirdness a little…less weird? Does that make sense?

Anyway. That brings me to one of the things I wanted to talk to you about in this letter. I thought it would be only fair if I told you why I’m such a fan of yours. You must be wondering, right? Or maybe not. I’ll tell you anyway, okay?

I’m a fairly new fan. I watched all of the first two seasons of yours show over the summer. I had never seen it before and I had a lot of time by myself for the first time in a long time, so I got the DVDs. And of course I’ve been watching the new season. I recently watched the episode about the convention and I think what happened at the end of it sums up why I’m such a huge fan of yours, Jim.

Here's why. No matter how crazy or rude or inappropriate he gets. No matter who he offends or how un-selfaware he is, you are always kind to Michael. You went to his silly party and you drank his girly drinks. When nobody else…not even Dwight was there for him, you stepped up to the plate. I’ve seen it time and time again, too. Going to Hooters, singing with him at your party…Jim, you have a tremendous heart.

You are the kind of person we all want to grow up to be. I know you’re probably shaking your head and making some sort of disparaging comment about paper salesmen right now, but you know what I mean. If we could all treat people the way that you treat Michael…the world would be a much better place. That’s one of the things that made me such a fan of yours.

Of course that tremendous heart of yours has gotten you into trouble too, hasn’t it? I know it’s been broken. Just, Jim…don’t be afraid to let people in. You don’t have to shoulder all of the burden, you know?  It’s okay for people to see the guy behind the pranks and the silly faces. I hope this doesn’t sound creepy, but I think I’ve seen him. He’s gentle and kind and he’d do anything…anything for a friend…even for Michael.

Have I rambled on enough? Are you getting a restraining order yet?

Hopefully not, because I’ll be writing again and I have a lot more to say. Even if you aren’t reading these letters.

Let me close by saying that all that I want…all that your true fans want…is for you to be happy, Jim. Even if that means you aren’t with Pam. And as your biggest fan, I want that for you most of all. I just don’t want you letting your pride and your hurt get in the way of you getting what you want. Think about tha, okay?

‘Til next time,

Your Biggest Fan  

P.S. Have you thought about calling her?

Jim leaned back on the couch and exhaled. He looked down at the Albany postmark and down at his phone.

He thought about Michael and winter cruises and secrets.

He thought about cards and smiles and a look of terror on her face.

He thought about I cant’s and misinterpretations and nods and hands slipping away.

He thought about distance and time and about hearing things he should have heard from her from Kevin.

He tried to think about pride and hurt and happiness.

And then he was too tired to think.

He crumpled the letter into a ball wondered about how low he’d have to be to listen to strangers…to someone who knew him only from television.

He'd have to be a total loser to start taking suggestions from fan letters.

Even if they were right.

She carefully folded the letter in thirds, sharply creasing the edges before slipping it inside of the plain white envelope. She peeled off the address label and affixed it to the front of the letter and slipped it inside of her purse, ready to be mailed first thing in the morning.

For the hundredth time, she wondered why she was doing this. She tried to find an adjective to describe her recent letter writing activity, but all she could come up with were words like desperate, pathetic and cowardly. She knew he didn’t want to hear from her, he had made that clear when he packed up and moved without even a goodbye. She got that, she did.  And she didn’t know what she’d say to him given the chance. How could you fix something as broken as they were? She knew she should move on and be happy with her newfound independence. She knew that.

But….

It was just that she missed him so damn much. She didn’t think anything could hurt more than calling off her wedding to Roy, but she was wrong. She literally ached with how much she missed seeing his smile…hearing his voice…just knowing he was there. The letters helped a little.

She knew he wasn’t reading them. He couldn’t be. She couldn’t bring herself to imagine that he was actually reading them because that would make his almost 6 month silence even more painful. Roz over in Stamford had told her they were censoring the mail there now, so she told herself that he wasn’t even getting the letters. In a way that made her feel bolder in what she wrote.

So why was she doing this? It was like sending a message out in a bottle, talking to your mirror, lighting a candle or tying a wish to a helium balloon. She had to get these things out of her before she went crazy and she couldn’t talk to him anymore. Maybe if all of these ideas were released into the universe, somehow they’d find a way to where they could make a difference. Maybe this would help her heal. Maybe it was like praying. She had a lot of maybe’s but that was better than a lot of never’s.

Because of those maybe’s she continued to put pen to paper.

 It was all she could do…write letters and hope.

-------

Dear Jim—

It’s me again. I hope that you are well. I’ve been wondering what you think about these letters that I’ve been sending you. I bet you wonder why I bother…why I care. You probably get a lot of letters like mine, bundled together in a little stack. I wonder what you think of them.

It must be so weird to have your life broadcast on television…to be water cooler conversation for thousands and thousands of people (I’ve checked the ratings…you’re doing pretty good). It must be hard trying to navigate a new chapter of your life knowing that people are watching and judging you. It must be more than hard (that’s what she said)…it must suck.

I thought that maybe since I know about you from television, I’d tell you a little something about me to even out the playing field. First, let me tell you something that I’ve never told anyone…not even my best friend. When I was in high-school I was really good friends with a girl named Dena. We were inseparable. We were like sisters (oops, now you know that I’m not a guy…that’s okay). We did everything together and assumed that we’d marry guys who were best friends and live next to each other and our kids would play together and you get the picture, right? Well, there was this guy. We both liked him a lot. He was a big deal at our school. He was captain of the football team and everything that goes with that. To make a long story short, I got the guy and I lost my friend. We fought and said a lot of things that we didn’t mean and then never talked to each other again. I’m no longer with that guy but I still miss the friendship I had with Dena. Friends dig out a place inside of you and when you lose them, it’s pretty damn hard to fill it with something new.

Friends fight. It happens, I know. Fights with friends hurt because they mean the most, right? I think what I learned from my experience back in high school is that It’s worth it to risk a little pride to apologize to a friend when you’ve fought because it will hurt even more if they disappear from your life.

I know your situation with Pam isn’t exactly the same because you had more on the line than friendship. But Jim…think about why you are keeping up this separation with Pam. Try to work up the courage to call her back again or drop her a line. I really believe you have something worth saving there. And yeah, I know it’s easy for me to say that to you and I realize that I could probably be giving the same little pep talk to Pam (…and how do you know that I haven’t?) but just think about it okay?

Here’s something else about me that I’ll share with you. I’ve recently made some huge changes in my life just like you.  I let go of a lot of things from my past that I was hanging onto just to hang onto. I moved. I started doing things I wanted to do and Jim…it’s amazing. I’m really, really proud of myself, Jim. I’m a different person than I was even six months ago. I had to go through some really crappy stuff to get to this place, but in a way, I’m glad for the bad times because they helped me get to where I am today.

Why am I telling you this? Do I expect you to say, “Good job, Biggest Fan. Way to go!” No, not exactly. Just, Jim…Pam’s been through some changes in her life too and I can bet she’s not the same girl you left last May. I’m wondering if things that she couldn’t do then are now things she can.

I should let you go. I’ve rambled on long enough. As always, it was great “talking” to you again. Stay well, Jim. Take care of yourself. Be happy.

Your Biggest Fan

P.S.  You could just send her an email. Think about it.

------

He set the letter down, squared it in the center of his desk blotter. Everyone else was gone for the day…off for drinks at some nearby watering hole. He had stayed behind to read his latest installment of white-envelope letters.

The Camden postmark over the stamp only raised more questions. Who the hell was this? A nomad? A gypsy? A whole group of people?

Then there was another question: Why did he care so much?  

He was so confused about why these silly little letters affected him so deeply. Sure, they were friendly and pretty sane. They were well written and a little mysterious. They were, though, just fan letters. He had to think about them that way because if he imagined they came from anyone other than a stranger, he got angry and upset.

The letters seemed like they were from someone who knew him better than someone who just watched him on TV could. They were personal. They were familiar. That’s what bothered him so much. Why couldn’t the author pick up the phone and call him? Why did he have to be the one to initiate something. Why the need for the game? Why the mindfuck?

He needed answers and he needed to get to the bottom of this.

He had a pretty good idea where to start.  He opened up his email program and started typing.

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Question for you

Hey Pam. This might sound kind of silly, but I was wondering if you’ve been sending me some letters. Plain white envelope…no return address?

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: What’s up?

Pam. It was great talking to you on the phone the other night. I really hope I wasn’t interrupting anything. It’s always great to talk to you and I would hope that if there were things that you wanted to say to me, you’d say them to me without putting me through some silly game. I mean the letters are nice and all, but why would you…

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Just Stop It

Pam. This is about the letters. I think they need to stop. I can’t do this anymore and I don’t understand what sort of game you’re playing or why you are even playing it in the first place. You had your chance last May and you made it very clear to me what your intentions were. So, yeah…you don’t get to do this. Understand?

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Pam.Beesly@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: The things you said in the letters….

Did you mean them?

------------------------------

He had a series of draft emails sitting in his outbox. Some of them were finished; some were just fragments of questions, ideas or wishes. He just didn’t know how to do this…how to find out for sure that the letters were coming from Pam. It seemed like they were, but that idea seemed so silly when he thought it out logically. Why would Pam be doing this? What would she hope to gain? They were supposed to be friends…granted friends with a very complicated and unique friendship…and friends could just pick up the phone…send an email.

What if she couldn’t find the right words either? What if this was her way of trying to tell him something? What if she was as scared of him as he was of her?

He told himself that it didn’t matter. He told himself that he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t get wrapped up in the thin fibers of hope that maybe she felt something for him. He had done that once before, but had been strangled by them when it turned out that all they were were strands of misinterpretation.

The tone in each of the unsent emails was different…they ranged from anger to hurt to curiosity. They mirrored his mercurial feelings. One minute he wanted to yell at her…blame her for this situation…tell her she had no right to fuck with him like that. The next minute, though, he wanted to pull her into his arms and let her know that it was going to be okay…that they would be okay.

After two days of indecisiveness and compulsive clicking through the draft messages he had started, he finally deleted them all. He had to find a way to move on and having little fantasies about pieces of fan mail was not going to help him at all. With a steely resolve, he started two new emails and immediately hit send on both of them.

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Rosalind.Nelson@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Request

Roz—

How’s my favorite receptionist? Can you do me a favor? I’m getting weighed down with all of this fan mail. When the next batches come in can you just shred them all for me right away? There’s nothing important in any of them. I’d appreciate it. Thanks!

Jim

From: Jim.Halpert@DunderMifflin.com
To: Karen.Fillipelli@DunderMifflin.com
Subject: Dinner?

Hey. I know I’ve been a snob by refusing to go out to dinner with you guys so far. See, living in Scranton for so long, my culinary palate has just gotten spoiled with all of the haute cuisine dining options. I think, though, I’m ready to try some Stamford fare. Let me take you out to dinner tonight? Just let me know the place and I’ll be there.

Snooty Jim

---------

Three weeks later, when a white envelope arrived in Stamford sporting a Utica postmark and a letter full of hope and advice on the impending merger, it ended up in the trash. He never read:

“…so yeah. I’m excited that you’ll be back in Scranton. It will definitely make the show more interesting (no offense Stamford crew) but more importantly, it will give you a chance to figure out just what it is you want. Jim, you’ve got to put aside your pride and talk to her. You two have got to at least acknowledge what happened last May. I think you’ve both built up your own rationalizations and justifications for what happened after Casino Night. You’ve both got your pride, but I bet that you’ll see how easy it can be to work things out if you just talk.

That’s it for me for now.

Take care, Jim.

Your Biggest Fan

P.S. When she asks you out for coffee (and I’m betting she will) don’t be afraid to say “yes”.

Postmark Akron

When she was in middle school, she kept a diary on a fairly religious basis. She’d record every happening in her life in curly penmanship complete with heart-dotted i’s. She filled pages with her hopes and dreams and scribbled illustrations in the margins. She felt like words had power…that by writing something, she could make it happen. She remembered writing phrases like “I know I’ll get into advanced art next year” and “I wish that Roy Anderson would notice that I’m alive”.

When she was in high-school, her diary was put away in a shoebox filled with ribbonned barrettes, plastic ponies and photos of boy-bands cut out of magazines. She didn’t need it any more. She had what she wanted. She was Roy’s girl and she was doing her art (and she was good, her teachers told her she was). She was busy with football games and riding around in the middle seat of Roy’s pickup, his arm protectively around her. She didn’t have to conjure reality out of words or capture fantasies on paper. She was living her dream life. She had it all.

When she left college after a semester and starting working at Dunder Mifflin, she thought about starting a diary again. She had found her old middle-school journal when she and Roy had moved in together. She read through the pages, shaking her head at her foolishness…her immaturity. The life she was living then didn’t need to be documented. It was boring and humdrum. Each day was the same. She thought that maybe sometime in the future, she’d keep a bride’s diary…documenting things like her dress fittings and cake tastings. That would be something worth recording.

When Jim started working at Dunder-Mifflin, they kept a notebook of pranks. It was kind of a like a diary, but it was more than that. It was something that bound them together. They recorded everything they did to Dwight (so as not to repeat anything). They wrote down the preposterous lies they had spun so as not to get caught (Pam’s whole existence as a spy for a secret government agency was chronicled in the pages of that flimsy spiral notebook). It was a record of them…of who they were together.

After Jim left, she actually started writing again. It wasn’t in a diary or anything like that. She’d find herself making lists on scraps of paper, jotting down questions (“Did I do the right thing?”) in the margins of her art assignments. She tried to work through everything she was feeling…his absence…his declaration…her cowardice…her guilt…on paper and it helped. Besides her mom, she didn’t really have anyone to talk to about these things, so her paper scraps became her friends. She trusted them with things she’d never utter out loud. That’s how the letters had started. One night in late August, the need to talk to him again became so urgent that she poured her heart out on a piece of paper. When the letter was finished, in a burst of courage, she had addressed it and devised a plan to send it to him while masking her identity. She began to feel again that her words could have power…even if she wasn’t ready to speak them out loud.

The day Jim came back with someone new…someone he had “kind of started seeing”, she really needed to believe that writing something down could make it so. That evening, instead of sharing a cup of coffee with her best friend and working through the things that were between them like she had wanted, she found herself sipping a glass of wine and wiping the tears out of her eyes as she wrote.

----------

“Hey. What’s this?” Jim looked down at the small stack of letters sitting in the middle of his desk.

“Bait from young fisherwomen hoping to land the Big Tuna, Tuna.” God, Andy was annoying.

Jim silently cursed as he realized that the safety mechanism he had put in place back in Stamford no longer existed. Here, the receptionist didn’t know that he wasn’t accepting any fan mail. Heck, he was barely speaking to the receptionist here. Ever since that scene in the parking lot a few weeks ago when Pam basically let him know that she didn’t care that he was seeing someone…that was the end of it. She had confirmed all of his suspicions…that though she called off her wedding, she didn’t do it for him. She wanted nothing to do with him in a romantic sense.

And he couldn’t go back to being friends. He just couldn’t. It hurt too much. And it hurt too much to think that those early letters had been from her. Being back here in Scranton had just reopened wounds he had thought had built up thick scabs. Seeing her, though, just ripped them right up all over again. He looked down at the stack of letters and noticed a long plain envelope sticking out. He made note of the Akron postmark and blew out a long breath. This wasn’t fucking fair.

His ringing phone gave him something to concentrate on instead of that damn letter.

“Jim Halpert.”

“Hey! It’s me. I just finished my last sales call. Let me tell you, trying to deal with new customers is exhausting! ”

“You could just let me take them.”

“And let you hone in on all of those commissions? No way. So…what are we doing tonight? It’s 4:45…no way I’m coming back to the office.”

He knew this was a golden opportunity to talk loudly and flirtatiously about going out to dinner, to prove to Pam that he had moved on, but the letter on his desk sat in silent accusation. He didn’t have the heart to go through those motions in front of it…in front of her.

“Hey. I was just on my way out. Let me grab my stuff and call you from my cell, okay?”

“You bet.”

He quickly shut off his computer, grabbed his bag and the slid the letter out of the confines of the rubber band. He noticed that Pam wasn’t behind her desk and he figured that was probably for the best. He could avoid another awkward goodbye.

When he was situated behind the wheel of his car, he dialed Karen’s number. The envelope lay next to him, like a precious passenger. He hadn’t decided what to do about it yet.

“Hey…took you long enough. I’m almost home.”

“I’m still at work.”

“Suck-up. So…what do you want to do tonight? Get something to eat? Hang out at your place?” She purred those last few words and Jim knew what she really wanted to do tonight.

“You know. I’m kind of tired.”

“You’ve been kind of tired since we got to Scranton.”

It was true. He and Karen had gone on a couple of dinner dates back in Stamford and shared a few goodnight kisses, but once he had gotten back to Scranton, he found ways to avoid spending time with her. He preferred to spend his nights in front of the television letting the mindless programming and bottles of beer numb him against everything that assaulted him.

He knew he was using Karen…using her as a shield against Pam and he hated himself for that.

“Look, Karen. I’m sorry. This has just been kind of hard…coming back.”

“I thought maybe hanging out with me would help.”

“Karen---“

“Oh shit. You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“You’re going to pull the whole, ‘It’s not you…it’s me’ bullshit on me, aren’t you.” Her voice was sharp and shrill.

“I’m sorry. I’m just not in a place right now where I can….”

All he heard was the sharp click of the line going dead. He felt sick because he was secretly relieved.

He reached over and felt the white envelope, trying to imagine what its contents contained. As he ran his hand over the cool paper, he could almost imagine that he felt a warmth emanating from inside. Against his better judgment, he picked it up and began to read. He was surprised at how short this letter seemed.

Dear Jim—

Yes, it’s me again. Your biggest fan.

That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Fan, I mean. Did you know it comes from fanatic? I bet you did because you’re smart. I went and looked up the word in the dictionary and was a bit surprised at its definition. It means: marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion.

That definition got me to thinking because this week, Jim. I have a really hard time remaining uncritical of some of the things that you’ve done.

I support you, Jim…I do. I’ve tried really hard to understand what you’ve been going through. I’ve tried to understand your actions even when they’ve been hurtful to others.

But Jim, when you’re being a dick…I think it’s only fair to call you out on it. So Jim? You’re being a dick.

I’m sorry if that critical observation disqualifies me from your fan club, but Jim…really? Not even going out to coffee with Pam? Not even seeing how hard she tried to look her best for you the day you came back? Throwing Karen up in her face the first chance you got? And what exactly are you doing with Karen? Are you being fair to her? Have you been honest with her? Something tells me you haven’t been.

I thought you were better than that, Jim. Or maybe I just haven’t thought hard enough about why you are acting the way you are. I don’t get it and I wish to hell I did.

You should consider yourself lucky. My handwritten version of this letter was much longer and much nastier. Typing it up has cooled me off.

My inclination is to say that this will be my last letter, but I really do believe that you should never say never. To be honest, thought, writing these out isn’t helping me feel any better lately.

Take care, Jim.

(Wanting to be) Your biggest fan (again).

P.S. You know what to do.

And he did. There was no doubt in his mind any longer that these letters were from her. Their highly personal accusations weren’t just from some insightful fan. They were from someone he had hurt. And though the list of those seemed to be growing by the day, he knew who these were from.

This was especially true because he knew from his weekly perusal of the listings in TV Guide, that the merger episode hadn't aired yet. She was busted. 

Fueled by a combination of indignation, a little bit of hope and a need to explain himself, he pulled his keys from the ignition, got out of the car and walked back up to the empty office. Quitting time had come and gone while he talked with Karen and read this latest missive.

He rebooted the computer and opened Microsoft Word.

He really did know what to do.

It was time someone got a taste of her own medicine.

Pam pushed open her door and dropped her purse and the day’s mail on the small bench in the hallway. Though relieved of her burdens, she still felt like she was carrying a heavy load. Things at work were still tense. She and Jim didn’t speak…didn’t even acknowledge each other. She thought that was probably due to the last letter she had sent. She realized too late that she had jumped the gun…had acted on her actual timetable instead of the show’s airing schedule. She hadn’t been able to intercept the letter and was mortified after she saw Jim holding it after she transferred Karen to his extension yesterday. She knew he had it. She couldn’t tell if he had read it or not.

Something was up between Jim and Karen as well. They weren’t speaking to each other and she noticed a tenseness in Jim’s shoulders every time Karen passed him. She couldn’t tell if they were fighting or tired or just trying to keep their relationship professional in the office. She was getting to the point where she didn’t care…where she couldn’t care anymore.  All she was thinking about was a hot bath and a glass of wine.

She hung her coat on the hook and shuffled through her mail. Bills. Junk. The usual. There was a plain white envelope, though, with her name and address neatly typed on the front. Something about it seemed familiar. Though the letter was stamped, she noticed it wasn’t postmarked. She slid her nail along the crease and slid out the folded paper. As the first words hit her, her knees grew week and she slid down the wall until she was seated on the hallway floor.

f

He was waiting…leaning up against the side of his car, hands obligatorily buried in his pockets. She slowed down and drew out the time it took to pull into a parking space. As her headlights illuminated the darkening space between them, she saw him quickly straighten up and blow out a breath of air. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a half-smile, but even in the dusky twilight she could detect apprehension and nervousness in his posture. The knowledge that she had done this to him…that she had made him unsure and afraid caused tiny bubbles of her own fear to churn up the stream of resolve that had been coursing through her since she left her apartment.  She wanted to tell herself that it was the brightness of her headlights and not the dark uncertainty between them that caused him to look down…caused his gaze to avoid connecting with hers.

As she put her car in park and climbed out to meet him, his whole reticent being was in marked contrast to the forthright and direct presence in which he had written his letter.  She was unsure as well. She had no idea where this night would take them…what doors this talk would open or slam shut, but he had mentioned that he had hope, so she had to try.

-----

She was moving towed him with quick, sure steps and it scared the hell out of him. Though he had asked her to this little “meeting” he still wasn’t sure what was going to happen…what he wanted to happen. He could come up with hundreds of scenarios that could merely begin the conversation he knew they would have. He could accuse her of playing games with him or thank her for helping him to realize some things about himself. He could shout at her with anger-colored curses and demand to know why she couldn’t have just left him alone or he could plead with her in velvet-shaded whispers to tell him exactly what he had heard her say to him time after time in his dreams and fantasies. He could reach out in either hope or in hurt and though he still didn’t know which to run with, he knew either emotion would be an accurate reflection of where he was.

He didn’t know how to start this, so he was glad when she spoke first.

-----

“Hey.”

“Hi. I um….” 

“Listen…Jim….” She had been running on adrenaline since she had finished reading his note and though that surge was fading, she gripped the letter in her hand and drew strength from knowing how hard it had probably been for him to write down what he did.  “I ah…I got your letter. Um…obviously, because that’s why I’m here, I mean I wouldn’t have known you were going to be here if I didn’t….”

“Pam…I don’t…I don’t know what….” His words tripped over his tongue finding out the hard way that it’s easier to say things on paper than in person.

“Just, please, Jim. I need to say this. I wrote the letters because I missed you. I missed you and me. I missed…I missed us. And when I wrote them I could still feel connected to you even though you left. I know I could have called or emailed or even signed my name, but I felt like I didn’t have that right anymore. I was the one who broke what we had. I realize that, I do. I blamed you for most of the summer, but all you did was tell the truth. And I’m sorry if you thought I was playing games with you. I knew you had moved on but I couldn’t let you go. I know it seems silly and pathetic, but I’m sorry if it hurt you. I had no right.” She realized she had been speaking without breathing. The acceleration of her feelings came slamming to a halt.

“Pam.” This time when he spoke her name she was quiet. She had spoken her piece and knew that filling up the space between them with more words than necessary wouldn’t accomplish anything. There were already too many words between them…words that had been spoken and those held hostage in the depths of both of their hearts. She knew he’d speak when he was ready. After a long pause he did…softly.

“When I got the letters, I wanted them to be from you. At the same time, though, I wished they had come from someone else. I needed to hear what you said and it gave me hope, but when I didn’t hear from you in person…when you didn’t call or write? It just hurt less to think they were from some random fan, you know?”

“I’ve hurt you so much.”

“Well, I’m guilty too. I didn’t…I didn’t say goodbye and I cut off contact. I just couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t.”

She caught him looking over at one specific spot in the parking lot. It was a slab of asphalt that haunted her as well. She knew the exact spot where she had been standing…knew the contours of the cracks and bumps from looking down at them. On most days, she could see ghosts of themselves still clad in shiny blue dresses and dress-sweaters haunting that spot, reluctant to leave until the events of that night were put right. She hoped that talking about things that they had avoided for months would set their ghosts free.

“I know. I get it.  Everything changed that night. My whole world got turned upside down and knowing how it felt I had no right to do that to you with my letters. You’re with Karen now and it was wrong of me to even hope that….”

“I’m not with Karen.”

“Oh? I thought….”

 “Let’s just say that she is no longer one of my fans.”

They both chuckled and for the first time that night, the darkness lost a little of its weight.  

“It was for the best. It wasn’t right.”

She wanted to tell him that she was sorry, but she was tired of lying.

“Then it was for the best.”

“Hey, how did you…how did you get the letters to me from all of those different places?”

“You didn’t figure it out?”

“Should I have?”

“Halpert, you’ve let me down!  I thought you were better than that. I used inter-office mail. Albany, Camden, Utica, Akron?  I thought for sure you’d figure out the connection.”

“I guess I need to bone up on my corporate directory. Wait, they had postmarks! How did you…?”

“You just put it in a brown envelope with a post-it note on it asking the receptionist to stick it in their outgoing mail.  We’ve done it before for each other.”

“Wow. I did not realize receptionists needed to send a lot of covert mail.”

“Well, Jasmine in Camden doesn’t want her crazy ex to find her, so we do it for her sometimes and Marva in Nashua does all of these mail-in contests and she can send in more entries…why are you laughing?”

“I just didn’t know we’ve had access to back-ops receptionists all of this time. We can use this system to pull something on Dwight. I’m sure of it.”

“Ooooh. You’re right. It’s too bad George Lucas doesn’t live in Albany!”

They laughed then and it felt like old times and new times and all times rolled into one.

“I missed this,” he confessed.

“Me too.”

“I missed us.”

“Jim, I know that one of the reasons we’ve gone through all we have is that I’m not the best at words and I sometimes get afraid to ask for what I want. But…I want there to be an ‘us’ again.”

“Me too.”

“I mean, even if it’s just as friends as long as we can talk.” She was doing what she had resolved not to…speaking nervously when she didn’t need to, but her hope was a fragile butterfly and she was afraid to hold it too close for fear of crushing it.

“I told you that I needed more than that, Pam.”

She looked back over at that spot of asphalt and wondered how it had happened that their place of confession, of beginnings and endings was a drab parking lot in an industrial park in Scranton. This wasn’t a romantic restaurant or a sunlight-dappled meadow. There were no fountains or statues or violins. She could smell tar and exhaust and she could hear a forklift backing up somewhere in the distance. This was their spot, though, and she wondered if one day there would be children to bore with descriptions of this place, to bring here and have them stand where they stood while they tried futilely to explain how this was their spot…where they became an us. She knew if that were to happen, though, she’d have to speak.

“Okay.”

He snapped his head up, popped an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“I can do more than that. I need that too. I just don’t know how we get there.” And it was odd to think about it…about how two people went from friends…to nothing…and then to everything.

“ I um…I have an idea.”  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a square white envelope. She could tell that its edges were worn and she thought she saw a small sprig of holly imprinted on one of the corners. He held it out to her without hesitation; his eyes were locked on hers.  

“Actually, I wrote you another letter….”

Pam—

Christmas is the time to tell people how you feel about them. At least that’s what they say. So…I’m sitting here wishing that I could do just that…tell you exactly, and in no uncertain terms just how I feel about you. I’ve kept it a secret for so long that once in a while, I think I’m going crazy.

Sometimes I think that you already know…that you have to know…that I haven’t hidden it very well. I see a look on your face or we share a laugh and I can’t believe that you can’t see it written all over my face. I know it’s there. I know I keep it in check all of the time. I just can’t get up the courage to explain to you…to show you just what “it” is.

This card is the most forward I’ve been and hell, I’ll probably chicken out and not even give it to you. I guess if you are reading this, consider yourself a witness to a miracle.

The reason for this card is that I thought that it would be easier to put things down on paper. I wanted to be able to come up with one simple phrase that would just sweep you off of your feet because you’d just KNOW. But, here I am rambling like an idiot, so maybe I should just wrap this up.

Pam, you are the best thing in my life and I hope that you have a very merry Christmas and that you get everything that you wish for. You are amazing. You deserve to be happy.

As for what I was trying to say here…I’m almost out of space and I can’t do it. I worry too much about losing your friendship or pissing off Roy. I don’t want you to think I claim to know what (or who) is better for you than you do. I’m just a coward.  I will say this, though. If you want to know…if you want to know what I carry around in my heart for you every single day…please ask me.

Meet me halfway, Pam. Ask me how I feel about you and I know I can find the courage to tell you. If you can’t do that, I hope you can pretend that you never read this.

Love,

Jim

She read the card. She read it twice, feeling the weight of his words now held captive in her hands. His uncertainty, his fear and above all…his hope were all laid out before her in his perfectly slanted script. When she finally looked up at him, she saw the very same emotions reflecting directly back at her through a pair of expectant green eyes. A bundle of clichés, she didn’t know whether to laugh with joy for the possibilities that he had just presented her, or cry for the wasted opportunities and years of misspent energy.

She gently closed the card and pressed it to her chest. “This was supposed to be in….in the….”

“With your teapot…yeah.  I took it back.”

“Obviously.”  She turned the card over in her hands again, contemplating the worn edges and the dog-eared corners, wondering how often he had done the same…how often he had kicked himself for not letting his original impulses play out…for better or for worse. “So, why are you giving it to me now?”

“I guess it’s more of an explanation more than anything else. When I…when I told you….” He tilted his head toward the spot…toward their spot. “When I told you that I was in love with you, that wasn’t out of the blue for me.  It was something I had carried around with me for a long time.” He emphasized those last two words and she felt his burden.  “You can see that there in the card.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that for me, I had lived with this thing for so long I was sort of blinded. I didn’t realize that for you, it was a complete surprise. I wrestled with my feelings so often that everything I did…everything we did was colored with them. I looked for signs and signals…I analyzed everything. And then I didn’t give you a chance to wrestle with what you needed to deal with. I learned that from your letters…it just took a while. So, I guess I’m giving you the card to help explain why I left and why I came back the way I did.”

All of this was so foreign to her…Jim telling her how he felt, so openly. He wasn’t blowing it off with a joke, or using his eyes to prompt her to guess what he was feeling. Just hearing him say, “…when I told you that I was in love with you” as a fact, for the first time really acknowledging what had happened between them, made her stomach tighten and twist in a wonderful, tingly way.  His openness was so new to her, but at the same time, his words were familiar…comforting.

“Can I keep it?”

“Definitely. I don’t need it anymore.”

“So. How do you feel?”

He shifted on his feet, tilted his head up to the sky. “Better, I guess. I’m glad I’ve finally got it out in the open.”

“No, you idiot…how do you feel about me? Like in the card. I’m asking you. You said I should ask you how you feel about me and I’m guess what I’m wondering is if anything has changed.”

“Oh, that.” He was smiling now…a giant, lopsided goofy grin covering his face. “Nope. Despite the fact that you just called me an idiot, I am still in love with you.”

Now she was the one smiling. “Good. Because now that I’ve had some time…probably too much time…to think about it, I can honestly say that I’m in love with you too.”  As she spoke, she could have sworn she saw a soft rustle of periwinkle satin and the glint of a single tear fading into oblivion on the other side of the parking lot.  “And I have to say, that your fan letter? Your letters? Are the best ones I’ve ever gotten.”

“Is that a fact, Beesly?”

“Oh absolutely. I think compared to some of my other admirers you just may be my biggest fan.”

“Always.”  The smokiness of his voice caressed her and she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and lose herself in his kiss, but she wanted to be somewhere else when that happened. She longed for the light and for warmth instead of the concrete hardness of this asphalt night.

“That’s good to know. Hey. It’s getting cold. Do you want to come over and see some of my other fan letters? I can make coffee?”

“I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Can I follow you in my car?”

She led the way, her headlights illuminating the path before them.

They left the parking lot in the darkness behind them.

“Okay Beesly, these? These are disturbing!”

They were sitting on her couch, sock-clad feet propped up on her coffee table as they read the stack of fan letters Pam usually kept in a basket on top of her refrigerator.

“Really? I didn’t think they were that bad,” she giggled.

“Not that bad? Are you serious? This guy….” Jim shuffled through the pile and pulled out a letter scrawled on yellow legal paper. “This guy wants you to send him pictures of your feet. Your feet, Pam! And old Gary here….” He indicated a post card showing a seedy area of what appeared to be Amsterdam, “…he wants you to come to work dressed as a milk maid. There are letters here from guys who are interested in diapers, bright red lipstick and introducing you to their “curious” wives. These are way worse than the ones that I get. Seriously, why are you hanging on them?”

She took the stack of letters from him and placed them back in the basket.  “Two reasons.  I think that for the most part these guys are harmless, but my brother, the lawyer, thinks someone should hang onto them ‘just in case.’ I actually get a lot of really nice ones from women and little girls and even a few sweet guys. My mom has those. She likes to scrapbook and stuff.”

She shifted then, so that she was sitting on the edge of the couch, her knees angled in toward him, her eyes directly on his.  “I guess the other reason is to remind me that there are a lot of pigs, perverts, weirdoes and freaks out there and the next time a good, honest, normal guy comes into my life, I shouldn’t let him get away.”

He blinked, slowly, wondering if he ha misinterpreted what had been happening between them this evening. He could sense the “too late” ready to erupt between them. He was trying to be more direct, though, so he asked his question, unsure if he really wanted to hear her answer.

“The next time?”

Boldness seemed to be in ample supply this evening because she reached out and put her hand over his knee.

“Or…or if one comes back.”

He smiled now…wide and open…truly happy for the first time in months.

“I’m back.”

Now it was her turn to smile.

“Good. Then I guess I’ll let you be my biggest fan.”

“You’ll let me?”

“Provided you don’t have weird fetishes or requests.”

“Well, let’s see…what do you consider to be weird?”

“Just shut up.”

They laughed, but then grew still under the delicious weight of what had just transpired and what was yet to happen. She leaned in and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her snug against his side.

“Jim, I know we’ve been kidding around, but I want you to know…the things I wrote in those letters…I meant them. I never wanted anything for you except for you to be happy…even if that meant….”

“Sssshhhhh….” He cut off her declaration with a kiss…soft and fleeting, barely dancing along the surface of her lips. This was a promise. It was his to give.

“I don’t know if you know this,” she whispered, “but the headquarters of the Jim Halpert  Appreciation Society is right in the next room.”

“Oh, really, Pam? That’s quite a coincidence because I have it on good authority that the FOB would like to use that space for its meetings.”

“FOB?”

“Fans of Beesly, of course.”

“Of course. Do you want to go check it out? See if the space will meet your group’s needs?”

“I’m sure it will be fine, but I’d love to have a look.”

She stood, took his hand and led him into her bedroom.

“Wow. Not what I expected.” Jim looked around at the cozy room taking in the personal touches…the framed drawings, potted violets and patchwork quilts all screamed “Pam!”

“Well, I don’t know what you were expecting…” Her fake indignation didn’t match the smile trying to escape from the corners of her mouth.

“It’s just that this is supposed to be the headquarters of the Jim Halpert Appreciation Society, right? Where’s the shrine where my fans worship me and my…my Halpertness? Where are the posters for adoration? I mean, I didn’t expect a life-sized cut-out or an altar, but I feel a little let down, Pam. I’m sorry to say that. There’s not even a GPS enabled computer to assist in stalking my every movement! What kind of fan club is this?”  During his fake tirade, he had taken several steps toward her and lowered his voice until it was barely a whisper.  “I thought you were supposed to be my biggest fan.”

She put her palms on his chest. “I guess it is a little bare. I’ll just have to show you….”

And then parking lots and declarations, months of separation and desperate letters were forgotten. All that mattered was how they felt about each other. ..how they had always felt about each other. They really were each other’s biggest fan.

Hands and mouths and feet worshiped and adored. There were no posters …they each had the real thing next to…below…above…within. Their touches were benedictions, answered prayers, lit candles and whispered confessions.

They were obsessive, memorizing new territory. They needed no websites or IMDB to learn everything they had wondered. Moles and freckles were cataloged. Ticklish and sensitive spots were charted.  He learned how to make her toes curl and she mastered the art of making him whimper low in his throat.

They stalked each other across the geography of her now unmade bed. They rolled and leapt from one end to the other, each making sure never to let eyes leave the object of desire. They were relentless  in their pursuit of the other’s pleasure…the other’s happiness.

Names were screamed and murmured. One minute it sounded like a Beatles' concert, the next a low hum. They tattooed their admiration on each other’s flesh, drew patterns on the secret expanses of their skin. They were appreciated. They were adored. They were loved.

Their hearts were shrines to one another, open and illuminated with the light of a thousand candles.

They were each other’s biggest fan.

Pam—

I hope I didn’t hide this note too well in your suitcase and that you find it while you’re unpacking. I just wanted to let you know how proud I am of you for taking this chance and accepting the internship. I know that I’m going to miss seeing you every day at work and every night after work, but we’ll have the weekends. I know we talked about this and I don’t want you to worry about what happens after you finish this program. We’ll figure it out together even if it means we don’t work together any more. You are going to be the star of your group and you are just going to blow them away with your talent. Remember that I’m always here rooting for you and if you need any support, I’m just a phone call away.

Love,

Your Biggest Fan

------

Jim—

I’m sending you those note because I want to let you know that I’ve noticed that something is up with you lately. Even though you tell me you’re fine or tired or whatever, I know that you’ve got a lot on your mind. I know that you never planned on selling this paper this long and that you’re afraid you’ll turn into Michael at some point. I worry that maybe me getting out of there and finding a career in a field that I love has made you discontent. I just want you to know that whatever you decide to do, I’m with you 100%. If you want to go back to school or look somewhere else, we can work it out and make it happen. You are so much more than your job, Jim…I hope you know that. I just want to see you happy. We’ll figure it out…together. Just don’t be afraid to talk to me. I’m the biggest supporter you’ve got.

Love,

Your Biggest Fan

-----

“Today, Jim, I join my life to yours, not merely as your wife, but as your friend, your lover, and your confidant. Let me be the shoulder you lean on, the rock on which you rest, the companion of your life, your biggest fan and supporter.  With you I will walk my path from this day forward. “

“Today, Pam, I join my life to yours, not merely as your husband, but as your friend, your lover, and your confidant. Let me be the shoulder you lean on, the rock on which you rest, the companion of your life, your biggest fan and supporter. With you I will walk my path from this day forward.”

-----

Pam—

All I have to say is that you were…you are amazing. I know the last couple of months have been rough and uncomfortable for you, but today you gave me a miracle and quite frankly, I’m at a loss for words. I love you so much. I love our life so much. I love our son so much. I can’t wait to watch him grow into a person and watch you be his mom. I know you’ve had your doubts, but trust me, I can already tell that you were born to be a mother. Thank you for everything, Pam.

Love,

Your Biggest Fan (and Stuart’s biggest fan too)

-----

Jim—

I’m sitting at the dining room table. I’m supposed to be working on my business plan, but I keep getting distracted by the noises coming from the other room. You’re giving Stu and Carly horsey rides and all three of you are laughing. That sound is like music to me. I want to bottle it up and save it forever. They are growing up so fast and they are such wonderful and amazing kids. I have you to thank for that. I know I tell you this all the time, but you are such a natural father. I love watching you with them.  I know that sometimes you wonder if you made the right choice staying at Dunder Mifflin when I got pregnant with Stuart, but you have to know that your greatest achievement is those two little people and how much love there is in our house. This is your legacy, Jim, and I hope you know that.

I love you so much,

Your Biggest Fan

-----

Pam—

Congratulations!!!  I am so proud of you. Did you ever think that when you were answering phones at Dunder Mifflin that you’d one day have your own design firm with a staff of 3?  I always knew that you had it in you, you know that, right?

The fact that you already have clients just shows that Halpert Design is going to be ridiculously successful. I know you’re worried that you’ll miss some time with the kids and me as you get this thing off the ground, but that’s where teamwork comes in. I’ve got your back, just like I always know that you’ve got mine.  I want to run out into the street and tell everyone driving by that the little storefront belongs to my wife and that she’s amazing.

I know and have always known that you can achieve anything you want.

Love, Your Biggest Fan

-----

Jim---Or should I say, Mr. Northeast Sales Director? 

Congratulations! We are all so proud of you…me most of all. I think it’s great that you talked corporate into letting you base yourself here in Scranton and I know that they are going to be so happy that they promoted you.  I know this wasn’t your first choice of a career, but Jim, you have to know that you do make a difference in what you do…even if it is “…only selling paper” as you describe it sometimes.  I’m going to say something here and I hope you don’t take offense.  You are going to be a great manager because you know the business, you are a phenomenal salesman, you are a natural leader and motivator, but mostly because you have something in common with Michael Scott, our old boss. Jim, you care about your employees. You care about their lives and that makes a difference.  I love you for your kindness and patience with difficult people. I’ve learned a lot from watching you.  You give so much every day at the office and then you come home and give again to all of us.

 You are my rock and my support and I hope you know that you can always…always lean on me.  So, congratulations again!  Do you want to paint your office?

Love,

Your Biggest Fan

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Stuart—I bet it’s weird getting a letter from your dad, but I’ve noticed that lately you’ve been moping around the house and you only grunt back at me when I ask if something is the matter.  I think I have an idea about what’s going on thanks to your big mouthed sister. Don’t hate her…she’s just worried about you.  According to Carly, there’s this girl that you like that doesn’t like you back.  Trust me, buddy, I know exactly how you are feeling.  That’s not just an old man trying to make you feel better either. I know that it hurts and I know how much you wish you could just stop liking her and how you probably can’t.  I’ve got a heap of advice for you about this.

In a nutshell, you have to keep being yourself. Don’t try to change because you might think she’ll like you better.  You’ve got to stay true to who you are. Besides, trust me, I’ve tried…it’s pretty hard to change into something else.  I’ve also got some advice about just telling her how you feel, but we should probably talk about that in person.  I’m here for you, Stu. You are a great kid and you are going to make some girl very lucky some day. Love has a way of working itself out.

If all of that was a bit too sappy for you, you can burn this letter. I’m free to shoot some hoops whenever you want, okay?

Stuart, I’m your biggest fan and supporter. I hope you know that.

Love, Dad.

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Carly—You just told me 8 times how much you hate me all because I asked you to change your shorts. It seems like we spend a lot of time fighting these days. Angela tells me you’ll grow out of it, and I hope so. I miss talking with you. That’s why I’m sending you this little note.

I know it’s not cool, but I do love you so very much. You are smart and pretty. When you’re not in one of your hormonal rages, you are the kindest, gentlest person I know.  You stand up for what you believe in with passion and I admire your outspokenness.   I’m sorry if you think no boy will ever talk to you if you don’t wear shorts that show off your butt cheeks, but you have to believe me that the kind of boy you want…the kind of boy that will change your life is the kind of boy that won’t care about what you are wearing.  You’ve seen what I wore when I first met your dad (and what he wore for that matter) and even though I wasn’t dressing all “hot” he loved me anyway.  That’s what I want for you, Carly. I want a man to notice who you are on the inside because you are amazing.  I am your biggest fan, Carly, and I will support you in (almost) everything (case in point, these shorts).

Love,

 Mom

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Stuart—

I hope that you can use the things we sent in the care package. Your dad insisted you’d appreciate money more, but I couldn’t help throwing in some household items as well.  I miss you so much and worry about you all the way in San Francisco in your first big job.   Your Uncle Patrick assures me that the firm that you are working at is top notch even though it has a reputation for being a bit cut throat.

That being said, I have to tell you that even though your father and I are insanely proud of you and what’ you’ve accomplished, you don’t have to feel like you have to stay in a situation you don’t like.  I know your ideas about law and justice have changed a little since you started working there and you are wondering if another career path would be a better fit. It’s okay to have doubts and it’s okay to admit that you made a mistake.  You don’t have to feel like your dad and I will be mad if you want to see what Teach for America can offer you in Los Angeles.  We won’t feel like you wasted your time or our money in law school.

  I just love that you want to find a way to help people.  I know there are ways to do that in the legal field, but you need to find what works with you. I know you may think he can’t relate, but you should talk to your Dad about the choices he’s made and why he’s made them.  Regardless of what you decide to do, we will support you and do everything we can to help. We love you and want you to know that you we are such fans of yours and what you have grown into.

Love, Mom and Dad

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Dearest Carly—

You looked so beautiful today walking down the aisle.  You’ve grown into a smart, strong, loving and gracious woman and we couldn’t be more proud. Peter is a wonderful man and we are so happy to have him join our family.

We know first-hand that marriage is a wonderful and scary journey and wanted to impart all sorts of wisdom to you on this special day. We don’t want to sound corny or cheesy, though, so just let us say that the key to making it work is to never, ever forget that you and Peter need to be each other’s biggest fan and strongest supporter. If you remember that, you can deal with anything life throws your way.  Knowing someone is there for you no matter what makes the good times sweeter and the bad times easier. It’s the way we’ve tried to live our lives.

We love you so much and wish you and Peter as much happiness as we’ve had.

Love,Mom and Dad

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Dear Mom and Dad—

Congratulations on your 50th wedding anniversary. Stuart and I wanted to sit down together and write a short letter to you. We know it’s always kind of been your “thing”.   We can’t ever remember a time when there haven’t been little notes of encouragement from you to us. They’ve gotten us through some hard times (I won’t ever forget ShortsGate, Mom) and we don’t think we’ve ever told you how much we appreciated them.  We love you so much.

What we didn’t know, though, was that your letter writing habits didn’t start with us. When we were moving you guys into the condo last year, we stumbled on your box hidden in the back of your closet. Hundreds and hundreds of letters from both of you to each other, bundled up by year. What an amazing treasure.  We have to admit we sat and read them there (though some contained things no child should read about their parents) and were amazed at the fact that letter writing and fan mail was what got you together in the first place.  We’ve always thought it was a little weird that you always mentioned being our “biggest fans” and just chalked it up to it being one of your many quirks.  I think we finally get it, though.  Your life together has been an example for us. What we’ve learned about relationships, we got from watching you and we’ve tried to pass that on to our kids.  You guys have given us a remarkable life full of love and laughter and we couldn’t have asked for better parents.  It’s our turn to say that we are YOUR biggest fans.

While you guys were in Belize we took the opportunity to steal your letters and combine them with our collections and had this scrapbook made. It makes for an amazing story. We hope to continue the tradition.

Love,Stuart and Carly (and families)