On Wednesday morning, Pam came in to find another letter on her desk. This situation was getting weirder and weirder. It was now the third day in a row that she’d found a dream girl letter. Someone in the office had to be delivering them. And the only explanation that made sense to her was that it was Jim.

She stuffed the letter in her desk as Michael walked in the door, his arms full of the paperwork he’d insisted on taking home with him. Naturally, her first job of the day would be re-organizing it all so that he could take it home again tonight. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered.

It was close to ten before she even got a chance to read the letter.

Dear Dream Girl,

I’m turning 25 this year. That’s a quarter of a century, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing. I have a crappy job in a lame and boring office selling insurance policies that are basically worthless to the person buying them. I moved back home to live with my parents after Chelsea kicked me out last month. My dating life is basically shot to hell, because really who would want to go out with such a loser? So in essence, my entire existence is pointless.

Okay, I know this is supposed to be about you, not me, so I’ll try to change the subject. As you can tell, you are not Chelsea, the girl I’ve been thinking you were for the past couple of years. In fact, I hope you’re nothing like her.

I’d elaborate, but one of my mom’s rules about these letters is that they have to be clean enough to read to our kids someday, and that definitely would not be the case if I kept talking about a certain person.

But, honestly—“my dreams are too big for you”? What kind of a line is that?

Okay. Moving on now. I promise.

Let’s talk about you. Do you have brothers and sisters? I have two sisters. Tiffany’s 29 and she lives in Boston with her husband, Adam. They just got married last summer. We don’t see them very often, but my Mom’s always calling her just to check in. Larissa’s 20 and going to Penn State. She lives in State College, but she’s home all the time on weekends and stuff, which is great for me because it keeps my parents preoccupied with her.

Living at home is basically the worst possible thing you could be doing at 25, so I really hope your life isn’t sucking as bad as mine is right now.

Dreaming I’ll find you soon,

The Man of Your Dreams

She set the letter down as soon as she finished reading, and looked up at the back of Jim’s neck. He wasn’t serious, was he? Did he honestly think she wasn’t going to figure it out? An older sister named Tiffany and a little sister named Larissa?

She knew Jim had two sisters. And she knew the older one was married. He had to know it wouldn’t be too hard for her to put the pieces together. But…he had seemed so oblivious the first time she had asked him about it. Maybe it was time to ask again.

Whether or not Jim wanted to acknowledge it, something was going on here, and she needed to know what it was.

The rest of the morning passed in a slow haze of watching him, watching Karen, pretending to work, then watching him again. She’d known since Monday that something was going on with Jim and Karen, but now it occurred to her that she hadn’t once seen them joking around in the break room or next to the copy machine. In fact, she hadn’t seen them speak to each other at all.

And then there was the way he’d smiled at her when she left yesterday…

It wouldn’t have seemed out of place a year ago, but now, when it was rare for him to volunteer any signs that would indicate that they were friends, that smile had been so unexpected, she had spent the whole elevator ride reminding herself that he had a girlfriend. Besides, even if he hadn’t had one, the point was, he had still rejected her. He just wasn’t interested in her. He’d made that clear.

Around twelve-thirty, she saw Jim get up for lunch. Pam tried not to be too conspicuous about following him into the kitchen, but she had to talk to him. She waited for him to come out of the restroom, rummaging through the fridge to keep herself occupied.

When he came out, though, he was deep in conversation with Toby and barely acknowledged her when she tried to join in, even after Toby smiled at her and asked her how her day was going. He was like that all through lunch. Later that afternoon, when she finally got up the nerve to go ask him if he had a minute, he wouldn’t even look her in the eye. Instead, he brushed her off, asking if she could wait until he wasn’t so busy.

-----

By Thursday afternoon, Pam was thoroughly stumped. She knew Jim, and she knew he was pretty much incapable of keeping a secret from her for this long. At least, he’d never been able to before. In fact, that was how she’d first started helping him with his pranks. He hadn’t been able to resist telling her all his plans.

That was why she was so confused about these dream girl letters. She knew it had to be him, but she had no idea why he was doing it, or what they really meant. He had left a few minutes ago on a sales call, and she had just decided she would confront him about the letters as soon as he got back, when the phone rang.

“Dunder-Mifflin, this is Pam.”

“Hey, Pam, it’s Jim.”

“Oh--hey.”

“Hey, um, I have a meeting scheduled with a client this afternoon…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Yeah, well, the thing is, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make it back into the office. Could you let Michael know I’ll be gone for the rest of the day?”

What? she thought. What were the chances? “Oh--uh, sure. Yeah, I can do that.”

“Okay, great.”

“Hey, Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“Um, I kind of need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh. Well, can it wait?”

Not really. But don’t worry, it won’t take long. I just need to know if you’re still in love with me. “Well…”

“Sorry, it’s just—I’m supposed to be in there already.”

“Oh, uh, I guess so—I mean, yeah, it can wait.”

“Great. Talk to you later, Beesly.”

Beesly? “Um, okay--bye, Jim!”

The rest of the day passed slowly. Pam was too distracted by her thoughts to pay much attention to the rest of the office. Around four o’clock, she gave up on work entirely and pulled out all of the dream girl letters she still had in her purse. She reread them again, even more certain that they were Jim’s handiwork, but still unsure what they were supposed to mean. Did he want her to ask him about them again? Was he mocking her? No, he wasn’t that cruel.

She felt so confused. She pulled out her pen to begin writing a letter of her own, when she noticed a fax coming in with her name on it.

She shook her head in disbelief as she saw what was on the page. When it finished transmitting she reached over and grabbed the sheet before anyone else could see it.

Dear Dream Girl,

Tomorrow I’ll be 29 years old. I’m writing this now because I know tomorrow’s going to be crazy. Michael, my boss, has this big thing planned at work. Some insane party with a jungle theme. Believe me, you do not want to know. And then later I’m going out to dinner with my roommate and a bunch of our friends. So that should be fun.

I don’t really have much to say. Not a lot has changed for me since I wrote last year.

Um… I haven’t managed to get Dwight fired yet, but I have pulled a few really good prank on him. Including ones that led him to erase all of the files on his computer, jump around like a chicken in the parking lot of our office building, and confess the fact that he is secretly in love with Lois Lane in front of about fifty of our biggest customers. So, all in all, I think I’ve done pretty well for myself this year.

Work’s ridiculous, but I don’t really mind it. I mean, there are worse jobs out there. At least here I have people to laugh at, you know? And someone to laugh with. I like that.

Well, it really is late, so I’d better finish this up.

I love you, dream girl. I might not ever be able to tell you that, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Love,

Your best friend

She sat at her desk, stunned. It had to be him—there was no question. She reread the letter once more, and was surprised to feel the beginnings of tears in her eyes. He loved her. Or he had. Did he still? But he had a girlfriend. What was he doing? This was all too overwhelming.

She forced herself to calm down. All she had to do was make it through the next hour and then she could call him and demand some answers. He couldn’t possibly think that she still didn’t know the letters were from him. Not after that.

On the drive home, she scrolled through her contacts until she found his number. She still had it programmed, even though it had been a long time since she’d considered calling it. Even now, it felt a little weird to actually press the call button. But she had to know what was going on.

“Hello. You have reached the voice mailbox of…” As the voicemail message continued, Pam considered her options. She could leave a message now and try again later, or she could just call back in a little bit. There was also the option of driving over to his apartment right now and banging on the door until he couldn’t ignore her. With a sigh, she waited for the beep. As much as she wanted to know what was going on, she knew she’d never be able to go through with the last option.

“Hey, Jim. It’s Pam. Call me when you get this, okay? I really need to talk to you. Um, okay. Well, I guess I’ll just talk to you later then. Yeah. Um, bye.”

By ten-thirty that night, he still hadn’t called her, and although she had tried calling him again several times, he hadn’t once picked up. She wondered if he was specifically avoiding her calls and what that might mean.

Well, she thought, whatever was going on she’d see him at work tomorrow, and then he’d have to explain everything.

-----

She got to work early to plan her attack. She could tell Jim that she had to discuss a specific assignment with him privately. If he tried to brush her off again, she could always threaten to go to Michael for advice. Yeah. That would work.

Pam sat at her desk, mentally ticking off each person who opened the door. Soon, only Jim and Kevin were missing. The door opened and Kevin walked in slowly. This was it, she thought. The next person to open that door would be Jim.

Her nerves were starting to get the better of her, but she knew she couldn’t back down now. She needed to know what was going on with the letters.

Finally at nine-thirty, she lost her patience.

“Michael, have you talked to Jim today?”

“You mean my main man, Jimmy-boy? Yeah, he called me on my cell this morning. Said he’ll be out sick all day.”

“Sick? On a Friday?”

“Well, Pam, I can’t expect you to understand this, but Jim’s job can be very stressful sometimes. He’s probably just feeling overworked.”

“Did he say that?”

“Well, not in those words, but Jim and I are buddies, you know? He doesn’t have to tell me everything. We just have this…connection. When you’re so close there are some things that you just know.”

Pam sighed. If Jim had played the friendship card with Michael, there was nothing she could do.

“Okay. Well, if he calls you again, can you ask him to call me?”

“Sure, sure, Pam. And hey, do you think you can call Jan and ask her about—”

“Why don’t you just call her yourself?” she interrupted. Pam didn’t to sound so testy, but she was so preoccupied with these Dream Girl letters. The last thing she wanted to deal with was Michael’s dysfunctional relationship with Jan.

“Because, I…” Michael sighed. “Never mind, Pam. I’ll just call her myself.”

Great, she thought, retreating to her desk. Jim’s not here, and Michael’s in a mood. What a fabulous day this is going to be.

By lunchtime her day hadn’t improved. Her only consolation was that Karen looked fairly miserable too. Pam felt guilty, but she couldn’t help hoping that Karen was upset because Jim and Karen had finally broken up. That would also explain why Karen had spent a good forty-five minutes in the annex earlier, talking to Toby. But since Kelly had been on her break for most of that time, she couldn’t be sure what they’d talked about.

At four o’clock, she just couldn’t take it anymore. She’d gotten there early that morning, and the office had been quiet all day. Michael was already done with everything he needed to do before the weekend, so really there was no reason to stay.

Quietly, she gathered up her things and turned off her computer, wondering how long it would take before Dwight noticed she was leaving. If Jim really was sick, then he would surely be at home. She couldn’t take more of the suspense. If she left now, she could be at his apartment in fifteen minutes, and then she’d finally know what was going on.

She was in luck. Dwight got up to go to the bathroom only a few minutes later, and when he did, Pam quickly grabbed her coat, said goodbye to Michael and slipped out the door before he could tell her not to leave.

She hurried through the lobby, but slowed as she neared her car. Tucked under one of her windshield wipers was a piece of paper folded in half. She opened her door and set her things on the passenger seat before carefully pulling out the note.

Dear Dream Girl,

It’s not my birthday, but I can’t wait that long to tell you how I feel. I love you, dream girl. I know it might not have seemed like it lately, but I do. Honestly, I’m not sure I could stop loving you no matter how long I tried. And believe me, I’ve tried. Sorry. That’s not really what I wanted to talk about.

All I really wanted to say was, I still love you, Pam, and I’m so sorry about how everything has turned out. I hope you’ll give me a chance to make it up to you.

There’s a lot more we need to talk about, but first I’d like to “come over there and kiss you senseless.” Isn’t that what you said you wanted?

If you’re at all interested in taking me up on this offer, please proceed to your apartment where further instructions await you.

With all my love,

Jim

Pam sank into her driver’s seat and scanned the letter one more time, just to make sure it was real. Halfway home, she realized that the line he’d quoted was from one of the letters she’d written to him a while back and then thrown away.

But—he’d been reading her letters? How did he know about them? How had he found them?

She started to shake a little bit when she realized just how much he might already know.

It would be fine, right? He loved her; that was the important part.

She pulled onto her street, still a little shaky, but doing her best to calm down. If only she could keep her thoughts from racing.

He loves me. I can’t believe he loves me. I can’t believe this is really happening. I can’t believe it’s not too late.