Every Sunday, Stanley Hudson went to 11 o'clock Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows. Teri liked the priest there. Stanley thought he was a windbag.

This week's homily was about fraternal correction, or "tough love." Now this was a subject Stanley could get behind. He thought the whole world needed some tough love.

Still, Stanley's attention drifted in and out. Until, at one point, he heard the priest saying:

"Maybe it's a co-worker who's treating somebody badly ..."

At this, Stanley stirred.

* * *

It took three days for Jim Halpert to lose the dazed expression he had taken on that night at the beach. It was the endless replay of her words in his head, and his unforgiving analysis of them, that finally did the trick. She never said she loved me, he told himself. She just wants things to be the way they were. She just wants to be friends.

By Monday morning, he was back to normal. He was friendly toward Pam when he came in. But he acted like nothing had happened. She fell into forced cheerfulness, and resignation. Not that he noticed; he couldn't let himself notice.

Late that morning, he walked into the break room, where Stanley sat doing his crossword puzzle.

"That was some speech," Stanley said, not looking up.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she told the whole office she was in love with you."

Jim frowned. "That's not what she said. We're just friends."

Stanley put down his puzzle, paused, and looked at Jim.

"How stupid are you?"

"Excuse me?"

Stanley repeated it slowly, like he was talking to a child. "How - stupid - are - you?"

Jim's mouth fell open.

"You flirt with her all the time. She kisses you on the lips in front of everybody. She dumps her fiancee for you. And then you go off and come back with this" - here he spat out the words - "hot thing. And you flaunt it in front of her every day in the office."

Stanley stood up. "If somebody did that to my little girl, I'd kick his ass."

Jim had had enough. He snapped, "Stanley, did it ever occur to you that maybe you don't know everything there is to know about me and Pam?"

Stanley stared at him impassively. "You can think what you want. But I was married when you were in short pants. And I have seen a lot of men and women together in my day." He began to walk out.

But Jim stopped him. "Stanley," he said quietly. "Do you really think she ..." His words trailed off; he couldn't finish the sentence.

Stanley looked at Jim like he was a Martian and said, "How dumb are you?" Then he walked out.

* * *

It was only 11 o'clock, but Jim had to get out of the office. He had to calm himself. He had to think. He fled past reception and toward the door, until Pam called after him.

"Jim, where are you going?"

"I'm just going to take an early lunch."

"Do you want me to tell Karen?"

Jim turned. For the first time that day, he smiled warmly at Pam. "No," he said.

As Jim practically ran out the door, Pam knew that something had happened to shake him up. But what? It wasn't her, she knew that. He had almost completely ignored her that morning - until he flashed her that smile.

The rest of the day, he was ... well, weird. It wasn't like the old days. But it wasn't like the past few months, either. Every so often, she even thought he might be staring at her, although she couldn't tell for sure.

Pam could definitely tell, though, that Karen was not a happy camper. She, too, must have noticed that something was wrong with Jim, because she kept walking over to his desk, rubbing his back, and trying to engage him in conversation. None of which seemed to be working all that well.

What was going on, Pam wondered?

* * *

On Tuesday morning, Pam chatted with Phyllis in the ladies' room.

"Did you notice anything wrong with Jim yesterday?"

"Why? Was he upset?"

"He looked like it."

"I can't imagine why that would be," Phyllis said sweetly. Pam fidgeted.

"You know, though," said Phyllis, "I did see him and Stanley in the break room yesterday morning. It looked like they were arguing about something."

Pam was beyond curious.

She walked past the break room several times that day, hoping to bump into Stanley. In the mid-afternoon, he was there. But so were Karen and Kelly.

* * *

The next day, Pam made the copies of the sales figures that Karen had requested for the interviews in New York. Before returning to her desk, she walked into the break room to grab a Coke.

There sat Stanley, sitting alone, working a crossword puzzle.

"How are you doing with your puzzles these days?" she asked.

"I keep getting older. And they keep getting harder." He looked up and smiled. "But you seem to be doing pretty good with the Sudoku."

"I try," she said. "I'm faster than I used to be."

For the longest time she stood there, screwing up her courage. Finally, she blurted out:

"So what did you tell Jim the other day to make him so upset?"

Stanley thought for a moment. Then he said:

"I told him to stop being such a damn fool and ask you out."

"Stanley!" she exclaimed disbelievingly, in mock horror. "You did not!"

"I did."

Pam turned red as a beet. "What did he say?"

"He said I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him he was an idiot. Then he got all googley-eyed on me and asked if I thought you were in love with him. And I told him again he was an idiot."

Pam was completely unnerved. "Are you serious?"

Stanley was nonplussed. "Do I not look serious?"

"What do you think I should do now?" she asked.

"I think you should let me finish my puzzle," he said.

As Pam walked toward the door, having completely forgotten about the Coke, Stanley drawled: "Would you like me to pass him a note after recess?"

Pam looked down at the copies she was holding. She looked back at Stanley. And then she smiled.

"No, thank you. I think I can do that myself."

"Would you like me to pass him a note after recess?"

When Stanley said this, the blood stopped pounding in Pam's head, and the wheels started turning. There was no way she was going to write Jim Halpert a love letter. She was too shy for that sort of thing. The closest she came to such intimacy was in her sketchbook, which nobody ever saw.

But if Jim still didn't know how she felt, even after the beach - my goodness, she thought fleetingly, maybe Stanley's right, maybe he is an idiot! - she could at least nudge him in the right direction.

It was now or never. She grabbed a piece of paper from her message pad, reached into a box she kept in her desk drawer, and pulled out an old yogurt lid.

* * *

Two days later, on Friday, Kevin, Oscar and Stanley were eating lunch in the break room.

"Yesterday Jim came back," said Kevin. "Without Karen. He went straight to the conference room. To talk to Pam."

Oscar shrugged. "They talk all the time." Stanley ate his potato chips and read the paper.

Kevin pressed on. "Today Jim had the day off. Pam called in sick. Dwight drove to her apartment to see if she was really sick."

"Michael should not let Dwight do that," said Oscar. "It's intrusive."

Kevin swelled with excitement.

"He saw Jim's car!"

"It's Dwight," said Stanley, peering at his newspaper. "He probably saw Elvis, too."

"Don't you see?" Kevin said, frustrated. "They are totally hooking up!"

Oscar gave an arch look. "Kevin, even if that were true, it would be none of our business."

"But Jim and Pam are doing the deed!"

Stanley threw his newspaper down onto the table. He growled, "And this is my problem how?" He got up, picked up his trash, and walked away.

* * *

On Monday, Jim and Pam were back at work. Karen was there in the morning. When she yelled at Jim in the break room, you could hear it all the way from Vance Refrigeration. She was gone by noon.

In the mid-afternoon, Stanley came back to his desk after break. On his chair, he found a steaming, hot pretzel. And a note, which read,

From your secret admirer.

Stanley bit eagerly into the pretzel.

***

The End.