"Pam, PAM!"

Sitting up with a jolt, Pam panicked slightly as she struggled to remember where she was. She wasn't surrounded by the blank beige walls of her Florence dorm, nor the soft pastels of her parent's home near Scranton, but rather by rich dark colors lit with string lights and decorated with vintage movie posters.

"Pam, you gotta remember the floor lock, or else you're just asking to get robbed," a woman with curly dark hair said.

"Sorry, sorry, I keep forgetting." Pam replied, trying to straighten out her bed-head hair.

"Yeah, I know, you guys probably still don't lock your doors in Scranton, do ya?"

"Scranton's not that stuck in the past, Grace, but I can honestly say I've never seen more than two locks on a door there." Nor have I ever lived in a place where the living room, bed room, bathroom and kitchen were all one room, but I guess I'm in the big city now, Pam thought. She would living be here in this Brooklyn studio apartment with corporate receptionist, Grace, at least until Christmas.

"Ready for tomorrow?" Grace said, changing out of her clothes and into her pajamas in plain view of Pam. Pam was going to have to get used to this "one room" situation; the only thing that provided any sense on privacy in the apartment was a garage sale screen in front of the bathroom that may have once had a door on it

"You and everyone else keeps asking me that question like I don't know what I'm getting myself into." Tomorrow was Pam's first full day as Jan's assistant. It was part of the deal Pam managed to strike at the Dunder Mifflin corporate office shortly after she came back from Italy; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday working as Jan's assistant, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday down in Marketing as a graphics intern. Last week was devoted to getting Pam familiar with Corporate's phones and computers, as well as Jan's filing system.

Grace headed to the sink to wash her face, "Well, you know Jan's reputation." Pam had been informed that, especially since her divorce, Jan's been going through assistants almost as quickly as her morning latte that needed to be on her desk at 8:30 AM sharp.

"I'll be fine. Remember, I worked with Michael Scott for three years."

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that," Grace said, starting her complicated nightly beauty routine of smearing various soaps, lotions, and facials masks on her already perfectly lovely dark skin. With Grace preoccupied for at least five minutes, Pam pulled her sketch book from Florence of out her last unpacked box. Everything after getting that email from Kelly was such a blur she barely remembered drawing half these sketches. They were sloppy and incomplete anyway, except one; a portrait of a man with floppy hair and smiley eyes.

"Who's that?" Grace asked. Pam instinctively closed the sketchbook, and jumped a little when she saw Grace's face caked with a lavender beauty mask.

"It's just one of the models from a figure class in Italy." It wasn't a complete lie, Pam told herself, there was a figure drawing class offered in the Italy program. Grace didn't have to know Pam didn't take it.

"C'mon, don't be shy," Grace said, sitting next to Pam. Pam reluctantly opened the sketchbook and flipped to the portrait. She drew it from memory, so it doesn't look that much like him, she figured.

"Wow, that's really good!" Grace exclaimed. She smirked, "He's cute, got any sketches of his whole bod?" Grace started to thumb through the pages.

Pam snatched the sketchbook away. "What? No! Why would - "

"This was a figure drawing class, right, aren't they usually naked?"

Pam could feel herself blushing madly. "He was … this was just … portraits, no nudity."

"Man, you're all shades of red, you must have really liked this guy." Grace stood to go to the sink and wash off her mask. "Should have gotten his number."

After setting the sketchbook back on top of the unpacked box, Pam pulled her knees to her chin. "Yeah, maybe, but you know."

"Language barrier?"

Pam gazed down to the floor. "Something like that."

After a good hour perusing the "For Rent" ads in the Times Tribune, Jim put down his newspaper and reached over to rub Casey on the head. It was July 9th, nearly one month since he was supposed to become a happily married man, and exactly three weeks since Pam came back from Italy. He felt guilty for thinking at lot more about that latter fact than he did about the former. It was also eight days since he put the rent check in the mail and determined he either needed a dog-friendly roommate or a dog-friendly smaller apartment before summer was over.

Correspondence with Lisa was short and usually involved very little talking; emails and text messages were mostly what Jim received. They broke the engagement only six weeks ago but his relationship with Lisa was already starting to feel like a distant memory, like one of his college girlfriends he had long lost contact with. Something that was so long term and ended so inexplicably should hurt more than this, he always thought. But it didn't hurt, and Jim figured he shouldn't feel so bad about not feeling bad.

The new receptionist would start tomorrow. Her name was Heather and she was college-aged with cherry red hair and heavy eye makeup. Judging by the horrified look on her face when Michael announced to everyone on Friday that he would be working her long and hard, Jim estimated she'd be gone by the end of the year. Kevin estimated she'd quit by the end of summer and they actually had a little wager going.

Jim's eyes wandered from Casey and the newspaper to a postcard on the coffee table. It arrived about a week after his break up with Lisa; a picture of the sunset in Florence and a few short sentences written in neat handwriting. He picked it up and studied bottom of the postcard, wondering what Pam wrote before scribbling over it to a point past any recognition. It was an appropriate metaphor, really. How many times had things been covered up between them? How many times could Jim tell Pam was holding back, the words in her throat desperate to escape? How many times has Jim stuffed his hands in his pockets, wanting to touch her shoulder, her hand, her cheek?

Jim eyed his cell phone, wondering how many chances to call and ask exactly what was under that scribble had passed him by in the last three weeks. Too many, he determined.

"Hey,"

"Hey, hi, Pam?"

"You've reached Pam. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you soon."

Jim felt his hand get clammy and nearly dropped the phone when the tone sounded to alert him to start his message. "Um, hey, um, it's Jim. Halpert." Duh, dumbass. "From Scranton?" Am I asking or telling? "And um, well, I'm calling to see how you are, and to tell you..." That I haven't gotten a damn thing done since you left, well, other than canceling my wedding. "Well, you probably heard about me and Lisa," Thanks to Kelly Kapoor, I imagine. "Anyway, um, yeah, we should talk." 'We should talk?' I sound like my father. "That is...if you want to talk. If you don't, that's fine. I would just... I'd like to talk." If someone Googled "crash and burn", this message would pop right up. "Um..."

Jim switched his cell to his other hand and accidentally hit the star key. A robotic voice started to speak. "To send your message, press 1 or hang up. To rerecord your message, press 3. To delete your message and hang up, press 5."

Jim pressed '3', "Okay, get it together, Halpert."

"At the tone, please record your message. *BEEP*"

"Hey, Pam, it's Jim. Wow, you would not believe my last message...um."

Jim pressed 'star' and '3' again. New rule, no mention of the first message.

*BEEP*

"Beesly! What's up? ...Fuck."

*BEEP*

"Hey, it's Jim. Listen, um, I'd really like to talk some time, about Italy of course, and what you're up to now, and some other stuff. Um..." Jim glanced down at her postcard. "...I miss you, Beesly."

Jim pulled the cell away from his ear and pressed 'star' again.

"To send your message, press 1. To rerecord your message, press 3. To delete your message and hang up, press 5."

Jim pressed a key and dropped the hand with his cell to his lap.

"Message deleted. Good-bye."

"Pam, someone's calling," Grace yelled over Pam's hair dryer. Pam made the six foot trek from the bathroom to her bed and picked up the vibrating phone. She stared at name on the screen and felt every muscle freeze.

"Pam?" Grace said, knitting her brows.

Pam shook her head. "I just don't recognize the number," she lied.

"Eh, probably some telemarketer, wait and see if they leave a message."

"Yeah, good idea." Pam took the phone back with her to the bathroom and set it on the counter, watching the screen intently as she ran a brush through her hair. Five minutes later the screen was blank; no new messages or calls.

"Nothing?" Grace called.

"Nope, wrong number, I guess." Pam said, wiping her cheeks. She switched her hairdryer on and turned it up to the highest setting, and was grateful for the little bit of privacy that the screen in front of the bathroom and the loud whirl of the hairdryer provided in the tiny apartment.