Good King Wenceslas looked out

On the Feast of Stephen

When the snow lay roundabout

Deep and crisp and even…

 

Pam wanted to smash the radio. Over Michael’s head, for preference, but by hour three of the all-Christmas-carol marathon on the station he had started playing that morning, she would settle for smashing it anywhere, on anything, as long as it would stop playing. Unfortunately, right after Michael had started the music up, he had dragged Dwight and Jim out with him for some unexplained and probably inexplicable errand that just had to be done now now now right now, and locked the door to his office, where the controls were. And since he’d taken Dwight, the spare keys were gone too.

 

And since he’d taken Jim, Pam’s mind continued without her permission, she actually cared. Now that she’d let herself acknowledge the thought, it took over. If her best friend Jim were still here, he’d be cracking jokes about the songs, and that would make it bearable. “When is the Feast of Stephen, anyway?” he’d ask, with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. “And what is it? Are they eating some guy named Stephen? Pretty gruesome, if you ask me. No wonder the third verse talks about ‘bring me flesh.’ He can’t say what the flesh is because it’s a cannibal story!” Then they’d collapse into giggles—or at least she would. Jim always laughed, but he never seemed to feel the need to fall over like she did. He’d just stay there, perched against the edge of her desk, and twinkle at her as she giggled, and that would make her giggle more, and before she knew it whatever stupid plans Michael had for the Friday before Christmas would be over and she could go home.

 

To an empty house. That thought had the audacity to both stop the pleasant imaginings of Jim that had finally allowed her to stop consciously hearing the insidious Christmas music and to remind her that unlike Michael, Roy’s boss/best friend Darryl had had the good grace to actually give them the week leading into Christmas weekend off like he’d promised, instead of yanking the rug out from under them the week before. And her fiancé, being the man he was—“he’s wonderful,” she reminded herself, “you love him. You’re getting married…someday. He’s just a little thoughtless sometimes”—had, instead of staying in Scranton with her, gone on the two-week vacation they’d planned to the Poconos, taking his brother Kenny along. So not only had she had to work this week, but she’d had to drive herself in every day, and come home to a cold, empty house where she had to do everything herself. Not, she reflected, that this was all that different from when Roy was home, but at least he usually drove in the mornings. And she got to see him and hear from him—which just reminded her that she’d had a grand total of one non-drunk phone call from Roy the entire week. That wasn’t to say they hadn’t talked. He’d woken her up three times—once at one, once at two-thirty, and once at four a.m.—to tell her how much he loved her…and more importantly, how he wanted to show it. But they’d barely spoken when he was sober, and she’d had to go into work every day knowing he and Kenny were whooping it up without her on a vacation she’d spent three weeks planning. Roy hadn’t been interested in booking hotels or ski times, but he sure as hell was interested in using them now, she thought. Oh well, at least there was some peace and quiet here, when Roy wasn’t calling at least, and she’d actually gotten a little painting done—a watercolor of a tree, which she was starting to decorate with little splashes of color for ornaments.

 

She sighed as the radio droned on about “heat” and “sod.” Roy had half-heartedly suggested she drive up that afternoon to join him and Kenny, but she could already tell that if she did all she’d get to do for the next week was watch him and his brother ski. Just like whenever they went on any family vacation, really. She’d hoped for some one-on-one time with Roy to rekindle whatever it was in the relationship was worth rekindling, but that opportunity had gone out the window when Michael Scott bubbled up a week before and told everyone in what he thought was an apologetic voice that they’d all have to come into work the next week, because they hadn’t made the December sales goals.

 

Why he thought they’d magically acquire any more orders on a week everyone else was taking off was beyond her, but that was Michael.

 

She’d tried to make the best of it—they all had, even Michael. She’d replaced the jellybeans on her desk with candy canes, and she and Phyllis had festooned the front of the office space with green and red streamers (although when they’d tried to move to the back area Angela had stopped them with a raised eyebrow and a reminder that green was a whore color, “and she was sure the little Christ child had not been swaddled in any such thing”). The streamers made it feel a little bit festive, she thought, no matter what Angela thought, and the candy canes had the unexpected but honestly welcome effect that Jim had to stay up and chat with her longer than normal so he could lick his way through one per visit.

 

And if she sometimes got distracted by the visuals, that was hardly her fault. Not that it meant anything, anyway. Jim was her best friend, and she’d gotten more than a hint that he and that purse girl—what was her name? Kady? Katy? Kathy? OK, she knew it was Katy, but it was nice to pretend she didn’t sometimes—were possibly becoming an item. But anyway, the candy canes had done nicely, thank you very much, and even Angela had snuck one once, when she thought Pam couldn’t see.

 

Some of the efforts to make the week bearable were less effective, however. Michael had made a lot of noise about a tree, but Pam had seen neither hide nor hair (twig nor branch? Damn it, where was Jim when you needed him? He’d know the proper expression for a tree) of one. Anyway, there wouldn’t have been presents under it, because they’d already done the office Secret Santa, precisely because Michael had originally told them they wouldn’t be working that week. They had had a Christmas party, awful as that had been. They shouldn’t be here now.

 

Involuntarily, her eyes glanced to the break room and the little teapot on its shelf in the cupboard. She’d found herself leaving that cabinet the tiniest bit ajar whenever she could so she could look right in and see it whenever the door to the break room was open—as it now was—and it still made her smile. OK, so the Christmas party hadn’t been entirely awful.

 

Though she was pretty sure there wasn’t an iPod waiting for her back home under the little artificial tree she’d put up. Nor was there one in the Poconos—and if there was, Kenny was probably filling it up with all his awful tunes. Wasn’t it a bit sad, she thought, that the best chance of her getting the gift Roy had dangled in front of her was if she let his brother have it first?

 

She didn’t want to think any more about that, so she wrenched her mind back to the topic at hand: Michael’s attempts to make everyone feel better about the lost week of vacation. On top of the non-existent tree, he’d promised a second, better, more awesome Christmas party, and insisted that today everyone had to bring ugly sweaters in for an Ugly Sweater Party—but that since he couldn’t tell them when this surprise Second Better Christmas would be, they couldn’t just wear them in on the day. No, he’d insisted they stash ugly sweaters under their desks to be worn on command. Pam hadn’t had anything better to do, so she’d brought in a sweater Roy’s mom had made for him back in high school—it didn’t fit her, but who cared?—with Santa dressed like a football player on it. Roy always wore it when watching football on Christmas, but apparently he’d forgotten it in the back of the closet when he packed for the Poconos. That made it Pam’s one chance to make fun of it without him getting mad, so she’d stuffed it under the reception desk. It had the added benefit of being huge on her, which meant she could slide it over her head without disturbing the rest of her clothing.

 

She wondered how many others had actually followed Michael’s instructions. Dwight, obviously, and because Dwight probably Angela, if she was willing to admit any of her sweaters were ugly that is. She’d seen Jim stick a plastic bag with what looked like a sweater in it under his desk but he’d flat out refused to show her, saying it was too mind-blowingly awesome to be put on display at anything but a real ugly sweater party. Creed had worn the same ugly reindeer sweater for the whole week, but Pam couldn’t tell if he was preparing for the party or just hadn’t changed clothes. Or if he even knew Christmas was coming, since he’d happily wished her a Happy Canada Day on Tuesday.

 

Pam listened as the music shifted again—she’d managed to distract herself from the end of Good King Wenceslas and most of Grandma getting run over by a reindeer, but now she was aware again of a little drummer boy.

 

Boy, she could really use some pa-rum-pa-pa-RUM right now. One of the downsides of sitting out front where everyone could see her, though, was that that option was not readily available to her. But the only other thing that could relieve the tedium was…well, was chatting with Jim.

 

Which just led her back to her more basic question: where the hell was Jim?

Just as Pam’s head hit the desk for the third time that day—she really needed to get some tips from Jim, she though, on how to do it without hurting her forehead—the object of her thoughts made his way through the door.

 

Backwards.

 

This permitted Pam an excellent opportunity to appreciate a view she all too rarely got to observe freely, and she was almost so distracted by taking full advantage of that opportunity to wonder why it was that Jim was walking into work the wrong way. Almost was an important distinction, she told herself, because it’s not like she was completely and utterly transfixed by the backside of her best friend who was very emphatically not her fiancé. She just had a right and proper appreciation for a pleasant view, like anyone might. The fact that she bristled slightly when she noticed Phyllis leaning over for a similar view was simply a result of her innate dedication to productivity and worker safety. After all, Phyllis had to turn away from her computer and dangle off her chair to get a good look, while Pam…well, it was her job to keep an eye on anyone coming into the office. Two eyes, if possible. Which, it turned out, it was.

 

And besides, it’s not like she didn’t notice the giant tree Jim was carrying. So what if it did take her a good two seconds to register that particular detail? No one was complaining. Jim even thanked her as she bolted upright and grabbed the door for him. No harm, no foul.

 

Well, maybe not no harm—not because of her own momentary distraction, but because of the massive fir that was threatening to strip the paint off the hallway walls and possibly break the glass doors themselves. As Jim stumbled into the office proper she caught a glimpse beyond the branches of Michael and Dwight clinging mightily to the bottom of the tree before Michael’s grip slipped and the trunk slammed sideways into the doorframe.

 

This in turn set off a cacophony of shouts—she was pretty sure she heard Dwight yell something about “time-tested German tree-maneuvering techniques” over Michael’s yelp, which years of experience allowed her to instantly file under “not hurt, just wanting attention”—as well as a literal cascade of paper as a box of reams that had been placed by the door for reasons that now escaped her fell victim to the rolling trunk. The entryway, which had been relatively orderly given the utter absence of clients the Friday before Christmas, was now an unholy mess. And she knew who would be tasked with cleaning it up.

 

“Smart tree.”

 

She looked up from examining the wreckage to find Jim’s eyes on her, and she almost blushed (almost was doing a lot of work for her today, she thought. Or at least in the last two minutes). Instead, she quirked an eyebrow interrogatively.

 

He grinned as their eyes met and continued his thought, gesturing at the tree. “Making a last ditch break for freedom. Someone must have told it where paper comes from.”

 

She giggled, and his grin grew wider. He bent down and whispered in her ear. “Remind me to tell you about Dwight’s farm sometime.”

 

She mock-gasped and covered her mouth with one hand. “Tell me you didn’t go all the way out there.”

 

He nodded. “Apparently he grows more than just beets out there.” A quick glance at the fallen fir. “Or else this is just the most impressive set of beet greens I’ve ever seen.”

 

“Ohmigod. Can you imagine?” Pam giggled again. What was with her today? She never giggled this much at work. OK, maybe sometimes. But something felt different today. She shook it off. There were more important things to think about. “A beet that large…you could practically live in it!”

 

Jim shrugged. “What do you think the farmhouse is made of? Anyway, he said something about how Douglas firs were the only crop worthy of supplanting beets in one of his fields, and Michael apparently convinced him to donate one of his last trees to the office for today’s ugly sweater party.” He clapped a hand over his mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you it’s today.” He winked. “Because of course there are so many other days left before Christmas to choose from.”

 

She grinned. “If he asks, I’ll pretend to be suitably surprised.” Together they lifted the front of the tree again and pulled it inside, as Michael and Dwight seemed to have finally sorted themselves out on the bottom end. At a gesture from Jim they dragged it into the break room—Pam subtly angling the tree so that it didn’t interrupt her view of the teapot cabinet—and left it diagonally draped across the table, as it was much too large to stand up in the confined space.

 

The tree squared away, Michael stood up and brushed himself off—only to have to push Dwight away as his overly enthusiastic lieutenant began to brush him off as well. This would have been bad enough, but for some reason Pam could not figure out Dwight’s hands seemed to stick to Michael’s jacket, and the frantic brushing quickly became reminiscent of a Houdini-style escape act until Michael and Dwight were somehow standing in front of her embracing in a pose she seemed to recall having been photographed in by Roy’s mother before prom.

 

Her confusion was quickly cleared up when Jim turned from the break room sink where he’d been busy doing something, bent down by her ear again and whispered one word: “sap.”

 

She looked up, startled, and realized that Jim was entirely right. A real tree meant real sap, and real sap was sticky. The mystery activity Jim had been doing was washing his hands: Dwight and Michael had neglected that step, and their hands were absolutely covered with the stuff. A glance at the tree itself showed that even the natural possessor of the sap was not immune to its more amusing side-effects: the tree itself was now covered in sticky paper (Natural White, 20lb).

 

Jim noticed the direction of her glance and nudged her shoulder with his. “A gruesome sight.”

 

She grinned up at him. “Extremely.”

 

“Wearing the dead bodies of its friends.” He shook his head and shot his eyes in the direction of Michael and Dwight, who were now stripping off their jackets and shirts in full view of the entire rest of the office. “Some people just have no sense of decency.”

 

This time it wasn’t a giggle—it was a full belly laugh.

“All right, gather around!” Michael had, as Michael always did, shrugged off a degree of embarrassment that would have impeded a lesser mortal, and Pam could see him—now in an old Dunder Mifflin giveaway T-shirt that bore the long-abandoned tagline of their first recycled paper product, “Do the (Re)Write Thing”—gesturing to their colleagues to pay attention to him, as if they hadn’t been doing that in horror for the last five minutes as he and Dwight stripped down in public. She and Jim exchanged a glance and slid out of the break room to make two of the now-gathering crowd.

 

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, now that we have a tree…”

 

“Courtesy of Schrute Farms: Nothing is UnBeetable! Now with Christmas trees.”

 

“Courtesy of Schrute Farms, thank you Dwight, as I was saying, now that we have a tree, it is time for our annual Ugly Sweater Party to commence!”

 

“Excuse me, Michael.” Angela stepped forward gingerly, visibly stepping around the discarded remnants of Michael’s dress shirt on the ground.

 

“Yes, Angela Lansbury!”

 

“If this is a party, shouldn’t the Party Planning Committee have been consulted?”

 

“You were consulted!” Angela raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “When I told everyone about the party…just…now,” Michael ended weakly, but quickly rallied. “I mean, it’s not a party! It’s a…a…a…a competition! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, office-sirs and office-hers, welcome to our annual Ugly Sweater Competition.”

 

“How can it be annual if this is the first time we’ve had one?” Pam looked around, surprised Michael hadn’t reacted to the complaint, only to realize Jim had whispered it sotto voce just to her. She grinned up at him (how was he so tall? It was less obvious at her desk, when he was leaning over for a jellybean or, now, a candy cane, but it was extremely clear at the moment and very distracting. Because her neck had to strain, of course) and whispered back. “I’m afraid it means he’s planning another one next year.”

 

“Hmm…next year is very soon. Maybe he means in two weeks. There is that mystery event he keeps hinting about in the new year.”

 

Pam wondered if Jim was right. Certainly Michael had been throwing around a lot of references to the “most mind-blowing social event of the season” after the Christmas holidays, but she hadn’t put much stock into it. Still, it would be a new low even for Michael to redo a party they’d had only two weeks before…not that she put it past him, given that they were currently redoing the Christmas party from last week.

 

While she was musing Michael had gone on about the rules of the Ugly Sweater Competition, which were definitely more boring than listening to Jim make fun of them would be later, when they got a chance to talk alone. Now he was trying to pump up enthusiasm—even he could notice when no one was smiling, though this seemed to be a selective ability given that he was apparently surprised by the fact—and Pam tuned back into the conversation just in time to hear him flail around in search of someone he could claim was onboard. Fortunately, this time (this time) he didn’t choose her as his target.

 

“Stanley! Stan my man! Stan-nis Baratheon!”

 

“I have no idea who that is.”

 

“Come on Stanley, Game of Thrones? It’s only the hit book for hip young people like you and me!

 

“Michael, does this mean you read my blog post on the errors of medieval history in George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire universe?” Dwight looked like he was going to hyperventilate with excitement.

 

“What? Eww, no, that stuff’s for nerds! Not like me and Stan-iel here!” Michael nudged Stanley’s arm, smudging the crossword he was engaged in, but seeming oblivious to the death glare that this earned him. “Anyway, as I was saying, Stan-ley here is obviously ready and loaded for bear in the Ugly Sweater Competition! Look out everyone, here comes Stanley’s brown-and-red abomination, looking for first place!”

 

Stanley briefly looked up from erasing the smear Michael had caused in the crossword puzzle. “My wife knitted this for me. I happen to like it.” He bent his head back to the clues. “And I am not participating in this travesty.”

 

“Oh…uh…I…a round of applause, everyone, for Teri! She does great work, doesn’t she, folks?” Michael seemed determined to stick the landing, even if it required a full-180-degree twist in the middle of his thoughts. Pam decided it was time to intervene.

 

Before she could, however, Jim slipped around her and clapped a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Michael, my man, why don’t you let everyone here get themselves ready for the contest, while you,” and here Jim squeezed Michael’s shoulder and began steering him back towards Michael’s own private office “go find your sweater so you can wow us all.”

 

Michael let himself be led away, though not before Dwight insisted it was his responsibility as “assistant regional manager” to help Michael into his sweater, pushing Jim out of the way. Pam caught Jim’s eye as he mouthed “to the” but let Dwight take over, and he jerked his head towards her desk. They met up there, Pam sliding into her chair and Jim leaning over the desk with a candy cane in his hand. For a moment she was distracted by the ease with which he tore the plastic off the miniature cane and slid it into his mouth, and then she raised her eyes to his—which were, of course, already watching her. She fought the blush that threatened to rise above her collar and popped an eyebrow, waiting for him to speak.

 

He took his time about it, sliding the cane around until she leaned her head on her hand and cocked her head at him. When he finally did speak, it was far more banal than whatever it was she had expected him to say—not that she knew what that was, actually, but it definitely wasn’t “So, do you and Roy have new plans for the holiday? In town this time, maybe?”

 

She tried to remember what she’d already told him about their Christmas plans, then remembered that in the joyous conversation after she’d gone through the little “bonus gifts” in her teapot—a quick glance above Jim’s ear confirmed the teapot’s presence in the break room—she had gushed about the upcoming skiing trip to the Poconos, and put two and two together. Obviously, he knew she was not in the Poconos because she was here. But he had to know Roy wasn’t around—he hadn’t been upstairs to visit her all week.

 

It was a depressing moment when she realized there was no reason Jim would take that to mean Roy was out of town. He barely visited anymore when he was around (though when he did he had the worst timing—like when he gushed about the video iPod, or that time he blew up over nothing when she and Jim had just been celebrating pranking Dwight). So of course Jim would think she and Roy were on the same page. How would he know otherwise?

 

She must have taken too long to answer, because his eyes were searching hers insistently now. It was so easy to get lost in his eyes when he did this, because in the act of looking into hers it was like his lost any filters, any protection they might have had against her looking back. Not that she thought Jim had or needed protection from her  or anything…it was just that he seemed so open, so vulnerable at times like this. When he was searching her eyes she could almost see what it was that made Roy so jealous—but of course that was silly. Jim wasn’t interested in her, and she wasn’t interested in him. He was just her good friend, her best friend, and he was concerned about her because she still hadn’t answered him.

 

Oh god, she still hadn’t answered him.

 

“Um…no, we haven’t exactly made new plans,” she spat out. “He’s…uh, he’s up in the Poconos right now, so it’s kind of hard…”

 

She trailed off, but Jim picked up the conversational slack, although he headed in a direction she would definitely not have chosen for herself—not that he didn’t follow her own thoughts exactly. “Wait, he’s in the Poconos? Weren’t you two going together? Why didn’t he wait for you?”

 

“He…took his brother. Kenny. They’re up there now.”

 

Jim rolled his eyes, and Pam felt two contradictory feelings well up inside her. On the one hand, she wanted to be angry at Jim: what right did he have to judge Roy? To tell her…well, he hadn’t actually told her anything out loud, but his body language right now was screaming that Roy shouldn’t have done that. That Roy owed her more than that. Or maybe that was just her reading too much into it, because on the other hand she wanted nothing more than to take a picture of Jim’s face right now, send it to Roy somehow (did they have fax machines in the Poconos?) and then call him and yell “THAT! THAT! THAT’S HOW I FEEL ABOUT YOU GOING ON OUR VACATION WITHOUT ME.”  

 

It was easier to let the angry part win, because it would have been very hard to explain the other part to anyone. Except maybe Jim, but she definitely couldn’t explain it to Jim. Because she was pretty sure if she did his only response would be a cocked eyebrow that would tell her, with perfect silent clarity, that he understood. That whatever it was that was going on with Roy wasn’t just normal relationship stuff you worked through but stupid, terrible stuff you broke up over. That Roy’s inattention, his self-absorption, wasn’t “just a guy thing” but a Roy thing, and that she…couldn’t finish that sentence.

 

So instead she got mad at Jim.

 

Unfortunately, before she could apologize to him and get things back to normal—whatever that was anyway—Michael bounded back into the room with a light-up Home Alone II promotional sweater on (did the man own any clothes besides a suit that weren’t free promotional items? Except that on second thought he clearly had paid money for this particular monstrosity, because there was no way that was given away for free) and swept them all into his particular brand of inane insanity, giving Jim the perfect opportunity to slide away from her desk, avoiding her eyes.

 

“Pam! Pamaramala! Pam-in-a-can!”

 

“Yes, Michael?” She really didn’t have time for this. She needed to apologize to Jim. Who was…who had just snuck out the double doors while she turned around to answer Michael, her well-honed Jim-senses informed her. Before she had time to follow him, or to ask herself why she had well-honed Jim-senses that told her where he was at all times, Michael was right up in her face.

 

“Do you like my sweater?!?” he asked, pressing a little button on the hem of his sweater.

 

Oh god, it wasn’t just light-up. It had an audio component as well.

 

“Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal!” crowed the shirt.

 

“Merry Christmas, Michael. Sure, I like the sweater fine,” she said, as she squatted down behind the counter (she knew better than to bend over with Michael right there) and retrieved her own ugly sweater. “Really gets the spirit of Christmas.”

 

“See Dwight! Pam likes it. I swear, sometimes she’s the only one of you who has a lick of Christmas spirit.” And Michael was off again, leaving her to her own devices. And her own thoughts.

 

Great.

Pam wasn’t sure exactly how she got through the rest of the day. It wasn’t that Jim’s absence was distressing quite; certainly it wasn’t that she missed him like she missed, oh, let’s say, Roy, just to pick someone at random. It wasn’t an ache like the year she was at summer camp and wanted oh so desperately to come home—or like the year, four years later, when her parents told her they couldn’t afford to send her back to the same camp. It wasn’t sudden and surprising like the disappointment she’d felt when Roy had forgotten her at the hockey game, or jagged and sharp like the frustration when he’d put off their wedding for the first time. It was more subtle. Like when you walk into your childhood bedroom and your parents have clearly been using it while you were away, and only just now hastily rearranged it to be a bedroom for you again, so the dresser’s a few inches off from where it used to be and the bed isn’t against the right wall and there’s someone else’s coats in the closet next to your old things. Nothing felt wrong exactly; it was just the absence of things being right in a way that set her teeth on edge and distracted her from everything else.

 

She told herself it was stress, but actually it was one of the easier days she’d had that week. Michael’s fixation on the Ugly Sweater Competition meant he didn’t have the time to make her do anything more difficult than stand there in her sweater and clap when Michael awarded himself first prize. Usually she’d have complained but…talking Macaulay Culkin sweaters really did take the cake (an expression she avoided, since there was no cake and Michael might have gotten confused) so she couldn’t be too annoyed even though he was obviously favoring himself.

 

 By four-thirty everyone else had cleared out, leaving Pam to clean up the mess that the party and the tree had made. She made herself a pot of tea, squeezing around the tree to access the cupboard, sink, and microwave, and set to work. There was something soothing about the act of filing: this paper back in the supply closet, that paper in the recycling bin, this ream on Jim’s desk, this one on Dwight’s (plus three additional sheets: after Dwight had bragged on Monday that he could tell whether a ream of paper was correctly filled just by sight—“it’s what real salesmen do, Jim”—Jim had shown her how to surreptitiously open the package and reseal it so no one could tell, and they’d been arbitrarily inserting or removing a few sheets from every ream he looked at all week).

 

The job done, she sat back and drank the last of her tea in peace, pondering the idea of returning to an empty apartment with only more cleaning to do.

 

The thought did not appeal to her.

 

On impulse, she turned her computer back on and Googled “things to do in Scranton today.” Most of the events were family- or couple-oriented: not a surprise for the Christmas season, but she hardly needed a reminder that Roy wasn’t there and her parents lived hours away. Some were singles-themed—even worse—or just excuses for people to down large amounts of alcohol—worst yet, since, she had to admit, she’d probably have been dragged to one if Roy were in town (part of the reason she’d wanted to go to the Poconos was to avoid this sort of thing. And great, now she was thinking about that again). Frustrated with herself, she scrolled down to the bottom of the first page of results and was about to close the browser in disgust—nothing good ever comes of the second page of Google results, after all—when her eye caught on the last result on the page.

 

Ice-skating: open skate for all ages and all skill levels. Perfect. She didn’t really remember how to ice-skate, but she loved watching other people do it, and it was definitively the sort of thing Roy would on no account have let her out…have accompanied her to go do. She didn’t even need to buy skates or put them on. She could just go, sit in the bleachers, watch the children and maybe even some adults have fun, and soak in the Christmas spirit. It would be fun. It would be unique. Maybe it would even come with hot cocoa—she looked down at her empty mug of tea, wondering when she’d found time to drain it and wishing for another hot drink—or some Christmas cookies for sale or something.

 

She puttered the last few things away, carefully cleaning the teapot and replacing it in its visible location in the cabinet before whisking herself away in Roy’s monster of a truck—and thank God Kenny had volunteered his truck for the trip to the Poconos so that she hadn’t had to rely on someone else to get her to work—and heading out. It felt like a load had lifted off her shoulders when she turned left towards the skating instead of right towards home, and she almost skipped up to the door of the rink when she pulled into the last available parking space.

 

Then her cell phone in her purse began to ring.

 

Roy.

 

She picked up on the fourth ring. “Hi Roy.”

 

“Hiya Pammy. You still at work? Old Man Scott got you guys workin’ hard?”

 

“No, Roy, I’m…” But the question wasn’t a real question apparently, because Roy was still talking.

 

“You’re missing a hell of a trip out here, Pammy, the slopes have been great! Kenny and I raced this couple of guys from Pittsburgh, and they’ve invited us out for a week in the summer. They say there’s real great fishing out in some of the lakes out west.”

 

“That sounds great, Roy, I…”

 

“So Kenny’s real pumped about that, he’s always loved the rolling hills out there. Anyway, he and I are just heading out to the mountain-view lodge out here for dinner. Thanks for making the reservations! It’s steak night tonight, got a special and everything. They asked if I wanted to change it for some reason—can you imagine?—but Kenny and I are going to have a blast.”

 

She’d made that reservation for the two of them, a romantic evening, she’d hoped, that would help them reconnect, rekindle…re-everything. And they’d called to ask if he wanted to reschedule because she’d asked him to reschedule: if she was actually going to go up next week, she’d wanted to have that mountain-view, candlelit dinner with him when she was actually there. But apparently he’d forgotten, so the call about rescheduling had come as a surprise, and he’d turned it down. Great.

 

“Oh, Pammy, Kenny wants to know if you’re coming down next week, or if he can stay up here with me.”

 

Apparently that was finally a real question, because Roy actually paused and let her say something. Of course, right then and there she didn’t have much nice to say, so she let the silence stretch out for a moment. Too long apparently, because Roy started talking again.

 

“Anyway, you don’t have to let me know right away, but it would be nice to know by the end of the weekend so that Kenny can clear his schedule for next week too. Oh, he’s found us seats by the bar—they’re showing the Eagles game from last week on replay tonight. Gotta go. Love ya, Pammy.”

 

“Love you too.” And Roy was gone.

 

Pam automatically put her phone back in her purse and walked up the steps to the ice rink. She was suddenly a lot less excited for the skating, but she was already here, wasn’t she? Better to just go in. Better to keep on going.

 

That was what she was best at, anyway. Going on.

Ice-skating was not the balm for her soul that she’d hoped. Or rather, watching ice-skating wasn’t, and she wasn’t about to venture out on the ice in front of all those strangers. She was—barely—able to put her phone call with Roy out of her mind as she watched a couple of tow-headed little rascals spinning themselves across the ice by sheer force of will, but then their parents took them in hand and all she could do was silently agree with their little pouting faces as they started back up on the basic skating routines they were apparently there to practice. The rest of the time she just let her eyes glaze over and watched the pretty swirling shape of the people on the ice: a galaxy, she thought, whirling across a blank white sky, or a Jackson Pollock on a tilt-a-whirl. She identified patterns in the motion, spots where little kids tripped themselves up consistently, or where the most talented skaters would burst into motion, spinning or leaping before rejoining the throng. Actual competition jumps were prohibited during the free skate, but this didn’t seem to include all movements that lifted the skater off the ice, only those with a high probability of falling. She noticed knots of people form and reform as children sought out their friends and more adult partners paired, split up, and repaired again. An older couple skated by, drawing her specific attention by the sheer slowness of their progression down the ice: she with her head resting on his shoulder, he with a fearsome face of concentration steering them both around the occasional stationary child or panting amateur taking a breather by the rail. The poise of his body reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on who: not Roy, although the tenderness and care for his partner he evinced by a single crook of his arm around her sent a thrill of longing through her, wishing her fiancé would be that unthinkingly considerate. She watched them closely until they chose to exit the ice, the gentleman—for so she now thought of him—gesturing his lady before him with a low bow, and she in turn accepting with an almost regal nod of her head.

 

As her eyes returned to the ice, they were caught by a spinning figure towards the center of the rink, with one leg extended gracefully behind: as Pam watched, the figure reached impossibly back and grasped the edge of the skate, drawing their leg up behind them and intensifying the spin, sending their red hair spiraling out. A moment later and she—for it was undoubtedly a woman—was out of her spin and sliding languidly along, a picture of controlled perfection. Pam felt a pang of envy for the ease with which she moved and the self-confidence which allowed her to show it off in public. Then she felt an additional pang as the skater’s hair whipped back and allowed her a clear view of the woman’s face: it was Katy. Worse, it seemed she was taking the moment of her glide to look up into the stands, because their eyes locked in the moment before Pam was able to tear her own away.

 

Cheeks burning, she desperately looked around the rink for something else to focus on, and found herself eagerly perusing the list of upcoming hockey games. Just what she needed: a reminder of her most embarrassing dating moment at this exact moment. She burrowed deeper into her coat and sighed. This was definitely a waste of a day.

 

Or something worse. A hand reached out and touched her coat, and she almost jumped out of her skin before turning and meeting a pair of blue eyes looking down on her with innocent simplicity.

 

“Pam? I thought it was you!” Katy squealed before sliding down onto the bleacher beside her. “I thought you were in the Poconos? That’s what Jim said, anyway.” She pulled Pam into a side hug, still encumbered by her skates. “It’s so good to see you! Jim talks about you all the time.” She released Pam, but only momentarily before sliding an arm inside hers and sidling up like they were long-lost buddies. “You have to let me pick your brain about him. He’s soooo difficult to figure out. It’s like, don’t get me wrong, when we’re together he’s the absolute best, and you know, soooo cute, but then sometimes I worry he doesn’t even think of me at all. I’ve been trying to get him to go out this weekend but he said something about a rec league basketball tournament at the Y—do you know anything about that?—and then visiting his parents…do you think he’s planning to invite me to see his parents? That would be amazing.”

 

Pam was extremely used to dealing with this kind of one-sided conversation from her friendship with Kelly, so she had ample time to process her own feelings about what Katy had to say, though at times in Katy’s breathless exhortation she wished she hadn’t. She began by wondering when Katy and Jim had last talked, since Jim had known for a full week that she wasn’t in the Poconos with Roy—then she wondered why Jim had even been mentioning her and Roy’s plans to Katy, before detouring to ponder how it was possible that Jim was hard to figure out. Jim was simple, straightforward, easy: he was the best. Roy could be difficult and frustrating and annoying, but Jim was understanding and kind and thoughtful. If he said he had a Y rec league he probably had one; and if he wanted to invite Katy home for Christmas (a thought that gave her a distinct twinge that she very deliberately chose not to investigate further, not for any reason, just because she didn’t want to thank you very much) he would tell her. She said as much, and that unleashed another set of exclamations on how confusing men were, which hadn’t been her point, but which she found herself agreeing with—again, not with reference to Jim, but to Roy. Maybe this was just what men were like in relationships, she said, and Katy agreed vociferously, before giving her another hug and telling her not to be a stranger and to tell Jim if she saw him that she was totally free all weekend, then rushing back down to the ice.

 

Pam was left with the general sense that a very kind tornado had blown through her afternoon: but again, she was friends with Kelly, so she knew how to rebuild. She sat there in blessed silence for a few moments, collecting her thoughts. She was still uncertain why Jim talked to Katy about her—she so rarely talked to Roy about Jim, after all, and wasn’t that a bit strange now that you thought about it, given how much time she spent thinking about Jim in a given day?—and she wasn’t sure what to do with the conflicting information she’d just gotten about his and Katy’s relationship. Not that she meant to pry or anything, but he was her best friend: shouldn’t she know how he felt about Katy? No wonder Katy thought she’d have some insight into the situation. But she didn’t. She had no idea whether Jim Halpert wanted her to come over for Christmas—Katy-her, not Pam-her, she quickly clarified in her head—but why was it that Jim had suddenly come over all hot and cold on Katy? They didn’t seem to have had a real talk in at least the last week, because if they had Katy would have had to know that Pam was in the office, if Jim really talked about her as often as Katy implied; but they’d also talked about his plans for the weekend, which suggested otherwise. It really wasn’t any of her business, but…she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Which was a bad sign, because she was about to go home to an empty house and an empty fridge with nothing but her own frustrations with Roy to distract her from thinking about this all night.

 

A quick visit to Sheetz fixed the middle problem—no need for anything in the fridge if she had a tater tot burrito in her hands! Never mind that the burrito was more than she usually ate in a day and a half, it was warm and inviting and had no complicated questions to ask her about relationships so she was happy with it—but did nothing for the empty house or the head full of questions. She fell asleep that night in front of the TV, watching old Bob Ross re-runs and wishing she had an easel set up somewhere in the house so she could follow along: maybe the act of painting would have distracted her more from her worries. As it was, she couldn’t help but watch Bob draw two friendly little trees “because everyone should have a friend” and think of Jim, or color in a mountaintop with snow without remembering that Roy and Kenny had spent her romantic trip to the mountain-view lodge without her. It was a long time before she fell asleep, and her dreams were troubled.

Pam was not sure exactly what time it was when she was awakened by the scream of her cell phone, but it was well after Bob Ross had faded away and been replaced by a series of robotic pitchmen for some kind of kitchen device that, as best she could tell as she scrambled to grab the phone, was supposed to simultaneously clean your pans, sharpen your knives, and destroy most common household waste. Fumbling with the phone she saw the block numbers screaming out at her: 3:32 (A.M. of course).

 

There was also a name on the caller ID: Roy. Also of course.

 

She debated not picking up, but her memories of the nights she’d turned off her ringer when Roy was out with Kenny were too strong: Roy, slamming the door open downstairs and yelling “PAMMY” loud enough to wake the neighbor’s dog and it barking; her phone blinking with 15 missed calls alternating between weepy and angry; prickly rides to work the next day, if she was lucky, angry ones on average, and one memorable time he’d told her to call someone else for a ride if she wasn’t willing to take his calls the night before. So she picked up.

 

Fortunately, this time he was weepy, not angry. Unfortunately, it seemed, he was weepy about the prospect of “good ol’ Kenny” leaving and going back to work the next week. He kept repeating that he needed to know if she was coming up because if she wasn’t Kenny could still put in for time off; every time she asked if he wanted her to come he started off with “I love you Pammy” then followed it up (sometimes quickly, sometimes after a long rambling detour through other things he loved or other things he felt about her) with a “but.” But Kenny and he were having a great time. But he didn’t want to inconvenience her by making her drive up so far all alone. But he just wanted to know what she wanted. But but but.

 

She got tired of it.

 

She got angry about it.

 

She let him know.

 

He didn’t take it well. Weepy Roy went away and angry Roy came out, and he wasn’t telling her I love you anymore. It felt like talking to Kelly, or to Katy earlier, but instead of a burbling female voice telling her all about their problems with their man, it was Roy telling her how he felt stifled, how she was always ruining things, how he’d been having such a good night until now, how she didn’t appreciate all he did for her, how she was so petty that she was jealous he was having a good time up here with Kenny.

 

That last one stopped her, because it was true, but not in the way he meant. She was jealous he was up there having a good time with Kenny—but not because Kenny got to be there with Roy, or even that Roy got to be there when she had to work. She was jealous because each of them was up there with someone who wanted them to be there, who valued their presence, and who looked out for their best interests. She was jealous because Roy, her own damn fiancé, didn’t think those things about her. Sure, Kenny was family, but she was going to be family too, wasn’t she? She was supposed to be the family he chose, the family he made, and instead here he was acting like her presence on the vacation she’d planned and arranged was a roadblock in his life. Like she was fun to have around sometimes, but not fun enough, not valuable enough, to prioritize. She let him rant and rave at her, but a newfound sense of determination and self-worth washed over her as she listened. She didn’t feel a thousand feet tall—no one would with someone that important to them lecturing them on all their perceived flaws—but she wasn’t willing to feel like the petty, insignificant speck he was trying to make her be. Because she deserved better. Everyone did. And if the person she had been planning to marry, the person who was supposed to love her more than anything else, more than anyone else, was going to treat her like this, she refused to accept that it was a problem with her, because no one deserved that. It was a problem with him. And if it was a problem with him, that meant it didn’t need to be her problem anymore.

 

She cut him off mid-tirade with a simple, clipped statement. “Then tell Kenny he can stay. I won’t be coming up. But when you come back next week, you better go to Kenny’s, because you won’t be welcome here.”

 

Then she hung up and stared at the phone in horror. What had she just said? What had she just done? Even if the pitchmen hadn’t been on—now advertising some kind of soap that would, apparently, remove all her blackheads and also possibly serve as a rat poison if her home was infested—there wasn’t enough Bob Ross in the world to make this evening—or morning, or whatever it was when you were woken up out of too little sleep and broke up with your fiancé over the phone—OK.

 

Dammit, she wanted her easel. Well, if she wasn’t with Roy anymore, why did she care that he’d told her not to set it up where it could “get in the way” of him watching the game? And it wasn’t like she was going to get any sleep now anyway. She burrowed into the garage and came up with her easel, a tarp, and her oil paints and set them up directly in front of the TV (now advertising an engine-cleaning motor oil that maybe also made the best pancakes known to man). She set up her palette and went to work, channeling her emotion, her frustration, her confusion into the canvas.

 

By the time she would normally have woken up—well, not even that, since it was a Saturday, not a work day, but close enough—the painting was almost finished. It looked, at first glance, like what it was: a close imitation from memory of the last Bob Ross painting she could remember from before she fell asleep. A towering mountain in the background, dotted with trees extending down its slopes and into the middle ground of the painting, illuminated by a setting sun (or was it rising?) on the left of the painting. But a closer examination, especially of the foreground, revealed a few key differences from anything Bob had painted. There were the suggestions of a frame around the edges of the canvas, as if the whole scene were a painting-within-a-painting, or the view from a window. Confirming this impression were the fingers just visible on the bottom edge of the frame: a woman’s left hand, bare of any rings, and beside it just the tips of someone’s unidentifiable right hand, as if arrested in motion: whether reaching towards the woman or just having released her hand remained unclear. Even Pam wasn’t certain: the bareness of the ring finger in the painting was an intentional mirror of her own, from which she had removed her engagement ring while washing her hands after mixing the paints, but the other was added at the last minute, in a burst of creative energy she couldn’t yet fully identify. At first she’d thought she was painting Roy’s hand, with her own finally slipping free of it, but in the end she’d decided against giving him such an explicit place in her own self-depiction. But she’d left the fingers there, to compliment her own: after all, she thought, I may not be a tree, but everyone should have a friend.

Jim Halpert upfaked, took a half step on the dribble, and took the shot. Swish. He turned and headed back upcourt, then swiveled as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Grab. A steal of the entry pass. Dribble-drive. Lay-up. A good sequence, if he did say so himself. It wasn’t a real rec-league game (the Saturday before Christmas was a well-known lull in the schedule) but it was a pickup game with most of the same guys he played with every week, and it felt good to be moving, and even better to be dominating. Sure, it was probably because everyone else was just happy to be there, while he had some serious energy to work off, but he would take what he could get.

 

He squared up the guy bringing the ball up—Chris from Starbucks, dribbling this time, not giving Jim the chance to steal the long upcourt pass like on the last play—and tried to keep his focus. It was like this sometimes when he tried not to think about Pam. He’d have a good sequence or two, sometimes even a great twenty minutes at the start of the game, and then he’d start meta-thinking about why he was so focused and it would all fall apart. This time he wasn’t going to let it. She’d gotten mad at him for nothing—OK, so he’d rolled his eyes about Roy, but if she was going to blow up at him for that she shouldn’t have told him about the vacation, or about how excited she was for it, or about how lame-ass Roy was up there with his brother instead of waiting for her—and dammit he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about this at all. He recovered quickly as Chris tried to cross him over (a good idea, given that he’d zoned out for a moment, but not one Chris was quick enough to execute on him even on his worst day) and reached out to prevent the shot that he knew was coming. Chris passed back out instead and Jim concentrated on following him through a pick and back around to the three-point line.  Clang. Someone else tried a long two, one of Jim’s teammates came up with it, and it was back on offense.

 

He wasn’t going to think about Pam. He wasn’t. And then, as if he’d conjured her up, there she was, in the stands. What was she doing there?

 

Pammmm. Even the sound the ball made as it hit him in the chest was like her name. He recovered quickly, grabbed the ball before it rolled out of bounds, and passed back to Tony, who worked at Aetna and had a remarkably good hook shot—which he proceeded to demonstrate by scoring, and then waved his roommate Mark over to take his place in the lineup.

 

“What’s the matter man? You looked great up there right until you took your eye off the ball.” Mark slapped Jim five and jogged upcourt shaking his head in mockery of his friend, while Jim looked back up to make sure he hadn’t imagined Pam.

 

No, there she was. And now, because he’d tagged out of the game, she was coming down towards him.

 

Well, so much for not thinking about her.

 

 

Pam wasn’t sure why exactly she was there. She’d finished the painting and hung around the house a little, puttering around, torn between packing her bags to go to her parents and holding firm that Roy was the one who was with Kenny when he should have been with her so he could damn well move in with Kenny instead. She’d made French toast with the end of the loaf of challah she’d bought the week before, precisely because Roy always hated French toast (“why are you wasting the eggs on the bread, Pammy? You know I like scrambled eggs with my toast.”) and then called her mom, only to remember the reason she and Roy had planned a Christmas getaway in the first place: her parents were in Florida, revisiting their honeymoon, and her sister Penny was visiting college friends out in Colorado.

 

So she’d found herself with nothing to do and a whole day to do it in. She’d grabbed a blank sketchbook (she had way too many of them, since her parents kept buying them for her and she didn’t have the heart to tell them she wasn’t drawing nearly enough to fill them up) and started making a list in giant letters, titled “Things I Don’t Do Because Of Roy.”

 

It was distressingly long. So long she had to give up on the giant letters halfway through and it still took up more than a page in the massive sketchbook. Some of the things were minor: French toast, floral shampoo, flavored coffee. Some were mid-range: hang out with Jim outside work (she’d written Jim, then crossed it out, then rewritten it and added “talk about Jim instead of generic friends” at the end of the list), go ice-skating, spend Sundays outside instead of on the couch watching the NFL. Some were big (she still wasn’t sure if the Jim one belonged on this list, to be honest): art school, travel. The biggest one she’d written in the largest letters along the side of the rest of the list, all-caps with a bubbly flourish: PUT MYSELF FIRST.

 

She resolved to check off as many of these as she could today, and to at least make a start on the big ones that couldn’t be checked off that simply. She started with checkmarks next to French toast and ice-skating, then lugged the sketchbook out to the truck (oh dear, that was going to have to stay with Roy. She pulled out the book and wrote “a car I actually like” on the list, to make herself feel better about it) and drove around town working on what she could. It had snowed overnight, but she’d heard the plows going by (about when she’d finished the ringless hand in the painting) and it was easy enough to get going. A simple trip to the grocery store solved floral shampoo, flavored coffee, two-ply toilet paper (what was with Roy, she thought, looking at how basic some of the things were on the list. And what had been with her, to let this happen?) and other basics: non-sugary cereal, enough yogurt to actually last her instead of a small enough amount that it didn’t “take over the fridge” from Roy’s beer, a wine she liked instead of one he’d accept. Then she thought about the bigger items. She couldn’t spend Sundays outside until Sunday, and she wasn’t going to travel without checking her bank balance (and figuring out what she could do about disentangling her finances from Roy’s) but she could do something about the art school. They had art classes at the Y, didn’t they? She remembered Jim telling her something about that. Because Jim went to the Y, of course. But she wasn’t going there to see Jim; no, no, she was just going because she had this big list. Sure, once she’d gotten there and checked out the fliers (yes, there was an art class, Sundays at 3 starting mid-January—two birds with one stone there, since it would get her out of the house on Sundays too) she realized that “hang out with Jim” was on the list too, but it wasn’t like that was why she was there in the first place or anything. But now that she was…she might as well swing by and see whether Katy’s story about rec-league basketball had any truth to it.

 

And now that she was sitting in the bleachers, watching him and his friends play, with a sketchbook in her hands and everything, it really would be a shame not to capture Jim’s form in motion, just as she saw it. And see it she did. She’d really been itching to do this ever since the office basketball game—she flipped back to the list and added “draw Jim playing basketball” to the page before triumphantly checking it off—and this was a perfect time to do it, when he wasn’t even aware of her presence. And look, he was posing, like he knew what she was doing…wait, had he seen her? Before she could figure out the answer to that she saw the ball smack him right in the chest. Her hands were over her mouth and her heart in her stomach for a moment before she saw him recover, grab the ball, and then tag out of the game. No question but he’d seen her, because now he was coming over. She quickly flipped the sketchbook closed—it was one thing to resolve to draw Jim, another to show him—and stood up to go talk to him.

 

Was it just her, or had he grown taller since yesterday in the office? Oh god, yesterday…she remembered in a flash that the last time they’d spoken she’d been so angry at him, for no good reason (no, her mind reminded her, worse than that: for feeling the same way on your behalf that you feel right now about Roy) that he’d left the office in a huff. Before she had time to process that thought he was looming right above her, a smile on his face (god, what a face), and she had apparently lost all filter between her brain and her mouth because she was stammering an apology to him, without any context or explanation.

 

He shrugged and grinned. “No need to be sorry, it was my own stupidity.” He rubbed his chest and her eyes followed his hand as it pressed down on the sweaty t-shirt he was wearing. “Teach me to look up in the stands when the game’s going on.”

 

She hurried to correct his misperception. “Oh, no, not about that. About…yesterday. I shouldn’t have…”

 

But he was already shaking his head. “You don’t need to…”

 

“But I do.” She looked him right in the eyes—honestly, it was the only way to stop herself from staring at where his t-shirt clung to him, but it was almost equally mesmerizing. How had she not noticed this feeling before?—and squared her shoulders. “I got mad at you yesterday because you were thinking what I was thinking. And that wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have gotten mad. I should have thanked you for understanding what I was going through.”

 

He quirked an eyebrow. “And what was that?”

 

She sighed. “Roy was being an ass, and I was letting him, and when you rolled your eyes…it was just easier to get mad at you than at myself.”

 

He shrugged and plopped down next to her. “Well, you know me, Beesly, always glad to be of service.”

 

She swiveled around on the bench to face him. “I know. And I wanted to say, in addition to I’m sorry—thanks. For having my back.”

 

“Anytime.”

 

“I know.”

 

They sat in silence for a moment, watching the game, but really just enjoying each others’ silent company. At length, Jim seemed to come to some decision, because he stood up and offered her a hand. “Come on Beesly. I think they can do without me, and you look like a woman on a mission,” he gestured at the grocery bags she had decided she didn’t want to leave in the unprotected back of the truck and had instead brought in with her, “so why don’t we head out?”

 

“That sounds great.” She took his hand—when was the last time Roy had offered her a hand up? Not that she needed it, but it was a nice gesture—and they walked out of the gym together.  Jim stopped to grab his bag and coat, one of the players looked over and Jim made some kind of complicated gesture with his hands, and then they were out of the gym and heading to her…well, Roy’s…truck.

 

Jim helped her toss the groceries in the back and then grinned. “Mark drove me here, so I’m afraid I’m actually going to have to beg you for a ride, Beesly.”

 

“Then beg.” She was astonished at her own boldness, but stood her ground, using the high step of the truck’s cab for leverage to stare down at Jim with a parody of hauteur. He looked surprised for a moment, then knelt in the pristine snow in the next parking space over and clasped his hands together.

 

“Oh please, Beesly, don’t leave me out here all alone! I beg of you, take me with you! Take pity on a poor paper salesman! I abase myself at your feet!” And he lowered himself into the snow, face-first.

 

She giggled. “Come on Jim, get in the truck.”

 

He flipped over on his back and smiled up at her. “Are you sure? I mean, I can manage out here if you’d rather.” He made a snow angel as she smiled down at him. “But if you insist…” She nodded. “I do.”

 

“Then I am, as always, at your service.” He leapt up and walked around the side of the truck as she let herself into the driver’s side.

 

“Where to, Beesly?”

 

She considered. “How about I drop these at home,” she gestured to the back “and then we go grab lunch?”

 

“Sounds great.”

 

And, she thought, it really did. She was too embarrassed to do it in front of Jim, but in her mind she pictured the list and put a big check box next to “hang out with Jim outside of work.” This was going to be fun.

After dropping off the groceries—which Jim insisted on helping with, and Pam couldn’t deny there was a little thrill to having Jim in her kitchen, putting away her coffee and cereal—they turned out of the driveway together in search of lunch. Pam hadn’t had the time to realize it when they were leaving the Y (she was too busy being embarrassed, amused, and enchanted all at once by Jim’s little performance) but she appreciated that Jim let her drive, unlike Roy who always had to be at the wheel. Of course, it was their—her—Roy’s truck, but still…she remembered driving around in high school and even when it was her car Roy had had to be in charge. After a brief swaying dance, where Jim tried to open the door for her only to realize it was her truck so she, not he had the keys and he had to get out of the way, Jim just folded himself into the passenger seat without a complaint.

 

Of course, now that they were on the road she had to address the fact that they hadn’t actually decided on a place to go. They were just…going. Out on the town. “Footloose and fancy-free,” as Jim put it when she pointed this out to him. She laughed, he laughed, it felt good. Somehow, without actually talking about it, she found herself driving to Chick’s Diner, and Jim nodded in approval as she pulled into the parking lot.

 

“I always said you had good taste.” He grinned. “Or maybe I have psychic powers, making you come here. It’s my favorite.” He waggled his fingers and made “ooo” noises at her. She stuck her tongue out as she stepped out of the car, then quickly bent over while he couldn’t see her because of the truck and made a snowball. He was still “ooo”-ing when she stood straight and threw the snowball right in his face.

 

“Did you see that coming, Mr. Psychic?” she crowed, as he wiped snow out of his face.

 

“You are so asking for it, Ms. Sassy.” Pam squealed and ran for the door of the diner. A snowball hit the back of her coat and she wheeled around just in time to take another in the chest.

 

“That’s it!” Before she could finish scooping another snowball a third hit her, this time in the leg, and she glanced up to see Jim scraping more snow out of the back of the truck. No wonder he’d been able to get three off before she could get inside: he wasn’t bending over to gather snow. She flung her last snowball and ducked into the diner as another snowball hit the glass door, and found herself confronting the scowl of the elderly lady behind the counter—a scowl that turned into a bright smile as Jim slipped into the restaurant behind her.

 

“Jim! It’s been too long.”

 

“Hi Tina!” Jim let the woman—Tina, apparently—fold him into a hug and winked at Pam over her shoulder. “Table for two, if you don’t mind. And sorry about your front door.”

 

“It’s snow, Jim, it’ll brush off.” Tina grabbed two menus and then pulled Jim’s arm down to put her mouth to his ear and stage-whispered, loudly enough to be heard over the jukebox in the corner: “Who’s your date?”

 

“Uh…” Jim turned beet red (specifically Schrute Farms #3 beet red—Pam and Jim had spent a good afternoon that week examining Dwight’s product catalog to establish the “beetiest” red, and it was standing Pam in good stead right now) and turned towards Pam.

 

Before he could say anything, Pam surprised herself by taking the bull by the horns. “I’m Pam.” She slipped her arm around the one of Jim’s that Tina wasn’t holding. “And I’m delighted to meet you, Tina. But don’t let this hooligan get away with vandalizing your front door just because he’s got a handsome grin. Put him to work Do you have any heavy boxes to lift, or high shelves to reach?”

 

Tina smiled at Pam, but her next words were addressed to Jim in that same stage-whisper of a voice. “So this is Pam…”

 

Jim coughed. “Uh, yes. Tina, Pam. Pam, Tina, my mom’s best friend from high school. Tina, Pam and I…”

 

“Work together. I know.” Now Tina made eye contact and…yes, definitely winked at Pam. “Good to have you here.” She led them to a little table by the window. “The usual, Jim?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’ll be right back to take your order then.” And she was off.

 

Pam directed her attention to Jim, who was now the color of a ripe plum. “So this is Pam, huh?”

 

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. Tina’s like family, and…well, she likes to pry.” He gestured around. “And, um, I kind of eat here a lot.”

 

Pam’s mind was going a mile a minute. So Tina was like family…and Jim talked about Pam to her? Or to his mother? Or both? Not that she didn’t talk about Jim to her mother—she could see more than a little of her mother’s “so, which one is Jim” in Tina’s “so this is Pam”—but she couldn’t help but wonder what he had to say about her and why.

 

Whatever it was, he was clearly embarrassed by it, because he was still trying to do damage control. “So, uh, when she comes back I can explain that this isn’t a date.” He made a little gesture of deprecation. “She, uh, she likes to jump to conclusions.”

 

Pam pretended to ponder this for a moment. “So you’re saying…this isn’t a date?”

 

Jim looked at her like she had grown a third ear. “What?”

 

She tapped her fingers on the counter. “I suppose you’re right.” He looked ever more confused. “I mean, there was dancing—when you tried to open the car door, which was very sweet, but completely unnecessary. And there’s music,” she gestured towards the jukebox, which was gamely pumping out a rock-and-roll version of “Silent Night,” “that’s two out of three. Though I suppose we haven’t eaten yet, so…you’re right, this isn’t a date.” She picked up her menu and hid behind it in order to give herself a moment to marvel at her own boldness. “So, what’s good here…”

 

Before Jim could speak—he seemed to be stricken dumb for some reason—Tina returned with a giant, steaming hot chocolate in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. “Your usual, Jim. And tea for your date.”

 

Pam looked up at her in shock. How did she…she stole a glance at Jim, who was looking red again, and she knew exactly how. She and Jim were going to have to have a serious talk about this—though of course, by now they’d need to have several serious talks, not least about her own behavior. If she’d realized how much her attempts to cling to her relationship with Roy had been covering up an interest in Jim…let’s just say that the last couple of years would have been very different indeed. Assuming Jim was interested…which the color of his ears definitely suggested was a safe assumption for her to make. Not to mention the presence of the tea in front of her. She decided to let this bold New and Improved Pam keep running things for the time being and smiled up at Tina.

 

“Oh, this isn’t a date.” The other woman looked briefly disappointed before Pam continued. “Jim and I agreed, it doesn’t count as a date until you bring the food. So…” she glanced down at the menu and back up. “Pancakes?”

 

Tina’s answering grin threatened to swallow her face whole. “Sure thing, Pam. The usual, Jim?”

 

“Uh…sure.” Jim looked relieved to have a handle on at least one thing.

 

“I’ll be right back.” And she was gone.

 

Pam smiled at Jim over her tea and gestured to the hot chocolate in front of him. “Your usual, huh?”

 

“Um, yes. Pam…”

 

“Drink up, Jim. There’ll be plenty of time for us to talk after the food arrives.”

 

He picked up the hot chocolate and took a deep sip. “I’m going to hold you to that, you know.”

 

She shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

Pam continued to deflect Jim’s obvious curiosity throughout their meal, mostly because she herself wasn’t exactly sure how to answer him. It was clear to her that her subconscious had been holding out on her, and that, in a sense, Roy had been right: there was a lot more going on with her and Jim than she’d let herself acknowledge. Apparently all it took was the slightest of permissions for her mind to move on entirely from planning a life with Roy to imagining one with Jim: like flowers blooming once the snow cover is gone, or the dots of an Impressionist painting springing into perfect clarity when you took a step back, the very idea of throwing Roy out had created the conditions for her feelings for Jim to become obvious to her. So obvious that it seemed ridiculous to actually put them into words, both because she felt so stupid about the last few months, maybe even years, and because it would be almost impossible to explain the suddenness of her mental transformation without sounding fickle or inconstant. She remembered high school English class, and how she and her fellow classmates had made fun of Shakespeare’s Romeo for pining after Rosalind in one scene and falling at Juliet’s feet the next. Now she realized how he must have felt, only more so. Jim wasn’t just her Juliet, he was her Mercutio, her Benvolio: her best friend as well as the person she suddenly found herself in love with. She looked down at the table. Was she really in love with him? Or was he simply a convenient rebound, an easy target for her to re-attribute the feelings she’d claimed to have for Roy for so many years?

 

In searching for the answer in the tabletop, she found it hovering just above, in Jim’s hands. Jim’s perfect, wonderful hands that, she realized, were attached to the fingers she’d painted on her easel that morning before she’d ever met up with him. There was her answer. It had been literally in front of her the whole time.

 

Before she could act on this resolution, her phone began to ring. She pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. “Ugh, Roy,” she said without thinking, and she felt rather than saw Jim wince across from her. “Sorry, I have to take this.” She owed him that much, even if she was swimming on the realization that she loved Jim. She got up and wandered through the mostly empty diner to the front, where she camped out on in the waiting area, mentally girding her loins for the talk to come.

 

“Hello Roy.”

 

“Hi, Pammy! So, are you coming up, or what?”

 

The shock of it hit her harder than she’d expected. He didn’t remember. He thought they were still together. He was expecting her to come up to the Poconos.

 

“What, Roy, I…”

 

But of course, he didn’t let her finish. “Kenny said something crazy this morning about you not coming up, and I wanted to check in—you’re coming, right?”

 

“No, Roy, I…”

 

“Whatdya mean, no? Pammy, this whole trip was your idea. And now you’re seriously not even coming up here?”

 

He continued in this vein for a few moments, giving Pam some valuable time to think as she listened with half an ear. This was a very different side of Roy than the one she’d heard at 3am that morning, but in a lot of ways that helped: if even this version of Roy, the sober one that wanted her, couldn’t be bothered to let her have a word in edgewise and got mad at her without letting her talk…what was the point? Sure, she could forgive him again, go up to the Poconos like he expected, let his forgetfulness of what happened when he was drinking blot this morning out, but what would come of it? He’d just get drunk again, get forgetful again, get angry again. Better to hold firm to what she had said before; to stay New and Improved Pam and not old Pammy.

 

“Roy.”

 

“Roy.”

 

“Roy.”

 

The third time, it seemed to get through to him and he stopped talking long enough for her to say more than his name. “You called this morning already. I’m not coming up because you asked me not to come. And I told you that, since that was the case, you’d better stay with Kenny when you came back, because we’re through.”

 

“Yes, we’re through. It’s over.”

 

“Sure, you can have the truck, Roy.”

 

“Goodbye, Roy.”

 

And with that, it was over. Oh, not over, not really; they’d have to figure out the apartment and their bank accounts and everything, and that might take a little bit, but over in every sense that really mattered. She’d done it. Again. And this time when he was too awake, too sober to forget again. She hadn’t really paid attention to his anger when she’d told him, except for his vehement insistence that the truck was his and not hers—like she cared. The anger seemed very far away, and she was glad of it. Now she was free.

 

Free to be with Jim…who was sitting over there at a table, knowing only that she’d taken Roy’s call and left him.

 

Correction, who was no longer sitting at that table. Shit.

 

She ran out of the restaurant and caught up with him on the sidewalk.

 

“Jim!”

 

“What, Pam? Do you suddenly need me for something?”

 

Suddenly, inanely, she couldn’t find the words she wanted.

 

“How’s Roy, Pam?”

 

She stood before him in silence. He sighed and ran his hand through the back of his hair. “Pam, you can’t keep doing this to me.” Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. “Forget it.” He started to walk away, back into the restaurant, as if the only reason he’d left it was because she was in it.

 

“It’s over, Jim.”

 

He spun around. “What? Our ‘date’?” He put air-quotes around the words. “I’d say so. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Roy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

“No. Me and Roy. It’s over.”

 

Now he was the one who couldn’t find the words, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish at feeding time. Did I look that silly before? Pam wondered. Probably, she decided, but that wasn’t the point.

 

“That was what the phone call was about.” She shrugged. “He’s pretty pissed.”

 

“At you?”

 

“Yeah. Probably at you, too, as soon as he thinks about it.”

 

“At me?”

 

“Yeah.” She smiled up at him. “I think he knew before I did. I mean, he’s been suspicious of you for years.”

 

He ran forward and grabbed her hand. “Hold that thought. There’s something I need to show you.”

 

She squeezed his hand. “Lead on.” He looked down at their joined hands and gave hers a squeeze. “Hold that thought too. You’re going to need to drive.”

 

They got into the car and Jim directed Pam down a series of turns that led, as she quickly realized, back to the Dunder Mifflin offices. “In here?” she asked. “But isn’t it locked up for the weekend? I thought only Dwight had a key.”

 

“Don’t worry.” He pulled the key out of his pants pocket with a flourish. “Before I left yesterday I took the liberty of liberating it from his desk drawer, while he and Michael were busy.”

 

She looked at him in confusion. “Did you know we would be coming back here?”

 

“We? No. But I knew I would.” He snapped his fingers. “That reminds me…you wouldn’t mind if we doubled up on my showing you this thing and us pranking Dwight, would you? It’s just, we came all this way…”

 

She grinned. “Absolutely I wouldn’t.”

 

“Excellent. Ah, here we are.” He opened the doors. “After you.”

 

“Why thank you, sir.”

 

He led her to his desk and opened one of the drawers, handing her a giant ball of tinsel. “Hold that.”

 

“…OK.”

 

He must have heard the hesitation in her voice because he laughed and patted her arm. “Don’t worry, that’s not what I brought you here for. That’s the prank.” He dug around in the drawer for a moment before withdrawing a small envelope. “Here. Trade you.” He took the tinsel and handed her the envelope. “I’m going to go get a stepladder while you read that.” He wandered off in the direction of the supply closet.

 

Pam looked down at the envelope in her hand. “Pam” was written on it in handwriting that was undeniably Jim’s. Curious, she opened it and read.

 

Dear Pam,

 

Merry Christmas! By now you’ve opened the teapot, and hopefully noticed the bonus gifts inside before you used it to make tea (if not: TAKE THE TEA OUT NOW. OK, crisis averted). But that’s not all I want to give you. I want to give you everything you could possibly want, Pam. I guess what I’m saying is this: Christmas is a time to tell people what they mean to you, and Pam? You mean everything to me.

I love you. I’m in love with you.

 

Merry Christmas,

Jim

 

She looked up through teary eyes to see Jim standing on a stepladder over by Dwight’s desk, stuffing the giant ball of tinsel into the ceiling tile, which he was in turn connecting to a length of fishing line tied to Dwight’s mouse cord.

 

“Jim!” He wobbled on the stepladder and she stepped over to steady it. “That card was with the teapot, wasn’t it?”

 

He tied the last knot, slid the ceiling tile in place, and nodded. “It was.”

 

“Why didn’t you give it to me then?”

 

“You chose the iPod.” He stepped off the ladder.

 

“And then I chose the teapot.” He shrugged, and she could see it on his face. By choosing the iPod, even once, she’d made him doubt she felt the same way. No, she’d made him realize she refused to feel the same way: that she was afraid of what was building between them. Even after she’d taken the teapot, she realized, she’d given him the same signal, talking about how Roy would get her an iPod. Stupid idea. She’d known it was a lie when she’d first heard it, and she’d let it come between them. No more. She stepped in closer to him. “And I choose you.”

 

Now kiss me, she thought as loudly as she could.

 

Fortunately, he heard her—or else his mind was thinking the same thing hers was. The kiss was amazing: everything she’d hoped it would be, everything she’d thought it might be whenever she’d found herself zoning out staring at Jim’s face from across the office. She wanted to indulge herself again, but before she did, there was one loose end she needed to tie up.

 

“What about Katy?”

 

“Hmm? Katy? I’ve been trying to break it off with her for weeks.” He sighed. “We haven’t even been on a date since the party at my house.”

 

“But she said you two talked about Christmas at your parents…”

 

Jim laughed. “You mean I told her I was busy this weekend.”

 

Pam slid her hands behind Jim’s back. “And are you?”

 

“Am I what?”

 

“Busy.”

 

“Does this mean you want me to cancel on my parents? Because I will make that phone call in a heartbeat.” He reached out for the phone on his desk.

 

“Don’t you dare!” Pam held him back with her embrace. “Jim, I’m not going to start this relationship off by disappointing your mother.”

 

“So we’re in a relationship now, are we?”

 

“Well…” she leaned back in his arms and looked up at him. “We are out on a date right now.”

 

“I suppose you’re right.” He bent down and kissed her. “So, a new idea: how would you like to come to the Halperts for Christmas?”

 

“And meet your mother on the fourth date?” She feigned shock, before melting into a grin. “Jim, I’d love to.”

 

“Fourth date?” He quirked an eyebrow down at her.

 

“Well, right now.”

 

“That’s one”

 

“And you’ve just invited me to your parents’ for Christmas.”

 

“That’s two.”

 

“And I was assuming we’d go out tomorrow too.”

 

“That’s three.”

 

She smiled up at him. “Oh, Halpert, what am I going to do with you? We already had our first date, right here.” She pointed up through the ceiling towards the roof. “Or more accurately, right there.”

 

“I suppose you’re right Beesly.”

 

“And what do I get for being right?”

 

“Anything you want.”

 

She looped her arms upwards and drew him down for another kiss. “One Jim Halpert, then, please.”

 

“I’m sorry, Beesly, I can’t do that.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“How can I give you what’s already yours?”

 

“Shut up, Halpert.”