Author’s Note: Just a little non sequitur about the last chapter: While I am from New Jersey and love New York City, I have never actually been to Tavern on the Green. So, if my description of the inside of the restaurant is not accurate, I apologize! It’s just how I imagine it.

These chapters just keep getting longer and longer and for that I apologize! Stay with it! I'm predicting probably one more chapter after this one.

Additional Author’s Note: Chapter title is from the song by Imogen Heap. Also, I think the lyrics of her song “Hide & Seek” represent what our heroes are feeling during this chapter.

Chapter Eight: The Dumbing Down of Love

Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just began to fall
Crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling
Spin me around again and rub my eyes
This can't be happening…

Back in the hotel room, Jim tears through his messenger bag until he finds what he wants. Karen is asleep in the chair by the television, her head tilted onto her shoulder. She’s going to wake up with a sore neck, he thinks absentmindedly. He’s trying to work as quickly as he can without waking her, but his mind and heart are racing and it’s difficult to not just rip the room apart.

Riffling through his bag, Jim finds gum, his MP3 player, a repeat customer card from a bar back in Stamford, a small collection of pens… his sketchpad – one that, until earlier today, had been completely blank. In fact, he’d bought it just a few weeks ago, for no particular reason at all except that perhaps he thought he might need it someday.

“You wanted a career change,” Michael had said. “You were an intern at an architecture firm while you were at the university.” Could that possibly have been true? He certainly didn’t remember doing anything productive during college except occasionally attending a political science class here and there. But why would Michael make something like that up – just for kicks? Michael might be a bit of an ass sometimes, but he’d never actually set out to mess with someone’s head. He just wasn’t manipulative that way.

Finally, his fingers close around what he’s been looking for. There’s a rip in the bottom left corner of his messenger bag, and it had fallen in between the layers of fabric. He pulls out the wrinkled business card and holds it up to the lamp on the nightstand.

Dr. H. G. Mierzwiak, Ph.D

Memory Deletion Specialist

Jim’s eyes fall on the address. Ug, Brooklyn… A glance to the clock tells him that it’s nearly eleven o’clock. Even if he leaves now for the subway, he won’t be in Brooklyn until quarter to twelve. Maybe I should wait until the morning. Maybe my head’ll be clearer then.

He looks at Karen for a moment, feeling bad about leaving her so confused. She’s a nice person and I’ve probably been acting kinda crazy the past few days… I’ll have a long talk with her tomorrow.

He closes his eyes, suddenly feeling dizzy. He thinks about being in the restaurant with this Pam girl, wonders why her presence, her dress, her smile, all had such an effect on him. And why he was suddenly drawing houses, and thinking about grilled cheese sandwiches and poker chips and 33 seconds of silence (he counted) and why everyone seemed to think he should remember her.

“Jim?” Karen stretches her arms over her head, rubs her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Not too late,” Jim replies, sorry that he woke her. “Karen, I… some really weird stuff is going on with me. I know this isn’t what you expected when you came up here.”

She blinks, groggy. “What?”

“I have to run out again,” he says, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “We’ll talk in the morning, I promise. You go back to sleep.”

She lifts herself out of the chair and goes to the bed, pulls the covers over her head, and doesn’t respond. But he thinks he can hear her crying as he grabs his messenger bag and closes the hotel room door behind him.

Once he’s outside, he grabs his cell phone and calls the Brooklyn number that the girl had called him from this morning. God, was that only this morning? This must be the longest day ever.

It’s ringing. Please pick up, he thinks, come on.

“Hello?” It’s a guy’s voice, gruff and a bit suspicious. Jim immediately places him as Pam’s “admirer,” and knowing that this guy is over at her house makes the muscles in his arms tense.

Jim tries for the high road. “Is Pam there, please?” He can almost hear the other guy’s teeth grinding.

“Who is that?” he hears in the background, and then Pam’s on the phone.

“Hello?”

“Pam.”

“Hi,” she says, her voice brightening noticeably. “I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again.”

I guess that’s why he’s there, huh? Jim wants to say, and he’s surprised by the bitterness in his voice. Why does he care?

“Yeah, I… I’m sorry about before. I kinda… freaked out a little. Look, I think I might be able to explain why we’ve both been having such weird weeks.”

“Really?” She sounds intrigued. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, I can’t explain, exactly, but I know someone who can.” He feels her hesitating; he imagines she’s worried about the other guy. “Look, I have a car here. I can come get you, that way he won’t be able to follow. Where do you live?”

* * *

The party had started out small, with Edna and Walter each inviting a few friends. Then, of course, those friends each brought friends, and so on and so forth, and now Edna was offering guests Jell-O shots on Mierzwiak’s mother’s silver tray while Walter, considering Edna a lost cause, was making out with Veronica, Edna’s roommate, in the break room.

Mierzwiak actually lived in the apartment directly below the office, but he and the Mrs. had gone out to dinner and then a show in the city and weren’t expected home until very late. Old Dr. M must have done something really bad, Edna had joked, since he never ventured into the city and even more rarely did something with his wife. It was all the better for his staff, though – since he wasn’t around, they could play music as loudly as they wanted to. Edna had hooked her iPod up to Mierzwiak’s speakers – which they usually used for the memory erase procedure – and she had a pretty good mix going, of everything from Silversun Pickups to Plain White T’s.

Still, the night had definitely reached its crescendo, and Edna was getting cranky. All she really wanted to do at this point in the night was send everyone home and get Walter naked on the couch and have some sex before Mierzwiak came back. He actually had an appointment coming in at two a.m., which wasn’t surprising, since most procedures did take place during the night, so the patient would wake up at a normal time and not suspect anything out of the ordinary.

“Jell-O shots, anyone?” Edna rounds the couch, and the heel of her clunky shoe catches underneath the furniture, nearly knocking her down. “Uf!” Her glasses go flying across the room, and her friends laugh in unison. “Yeah, thanks guys,” she says, without embarrassment. “Hey, have you guys seen Walter?”

Ted and Jake, two of Walter’s dormmates, exchange a knowing glance. “Nope, haven’t seen him,” Ted says finally.

“Hmm. Well, how about Veronica?”

“Nope, haven’t seen her either.”

“Hmmph.” She plops down on the couch in between them and places her chin on her fist.

“So… what’s it like working here?” asks Jake, clearly trying to make conversation. “I mean, isn’t it weird to like… erase people’s memories? Walt doesn’t really talk about it.”

She shrugs. “It’s okay, I guess. Sometimes it’s kinda sad, like when someone dies or there’s a really bad break-up or whatever, and they just can’t get over it on their own. That’s why I’m going to be single forever. It’s just not worth all that shit.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Once in awhile, old Mierzwiak messes up,” she continues. “He’s starting to lose it in his old age, we think. Like sometimes – and it’s really rare – the procedure doesn’t work.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t work? Like, the dude dies?” asks Jake, looking alarmed around a mouthful of Cool Ranch Doritos.

“No, but once or twice people have come back and complain that they’ve started to remember again. Sometimes they’re pretty angry.”

“What does Mierzwiak do then?”

Edna opens her mouth to answer, but she’s interrupted by yet another knock on the door. “Who else could be coming?” she says aloud, eyeing the crowded room and hoping it isn’t more than two or three people. There’s always a chance that the Mierzwiak’s could be home earlier than they’d thought, and while he didn’t mind if they had a few friends over, this was quickly getting out of control.

“Where the hell is Walter?” she mutters, smoothing down the front of her skirt as she walks to the door. “Uhhh… how did you… ummm… Dr. M’s not here right now.”

Jim looks inside the apartment, a bit confused and wondering if he has the right address. It certainly doesn’t look like a doctor’s office – it looks more like college. “I really need to talk to him,” he says. “We really need to talk to him.” Pam peeks out from behind him. “I think we’re patients of his.”

“Are you guys… experiencing side effects?” asks Edna, still not letting them inside. She’s trying to sound professional, but the six Jell-O shots and rum and coke she’s had earlier that evening are making her slur her words. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be talking to each other.”

“Is there any way you can get in touch with him?” Pam asks, running a hand through her curly hair. “This is pretty much, like, an emergency.”

Edna’s temper slips a notch. “Look, guys, he’s not here and we don’t really want him to be here. We’re having a party, if you can’t tell.” She starts to shut the door, but Jim leans into it, stopping her easily.

“We’re sorry to bother you. And we don’t want to bust up your party. But seriously, we’re dying to talk to him. Will he be back soon?”

“Can’t you wait until morning?”

Jim and Pam glance at each other, then back at Edna. “I guess not,” she says.

“Look, what if we went around the corner and grabbed a cup of coffee and then came back in, say, an hour. Would he be back then?”

Edna looks at her watch. They do look sincere, these two. And she guesses they’ve been through a lot to come here in the middle of the night. “I’d say there’s a good chance that he’d be back. He has a patient coming in in a few hours, so he’ll probably show up early to prep.”

Pam takes a relieved breath, and Jim smiles at her gratefully. “Thank you,” they both say. “I really appreciate it,” Jim adds. “Now, where can we get a decent cup of coffee around here?”

* * *

Jim’s shocked that the diner they find around the corner isn’t filled with drunk kids – in fact, the place is deserted except for a pair of old men reading the paper at the counter. “Was it something we said?” he quips, and Pam smiles.

They sit next to the window and then busy themselves with their menus. Pam suddenly feels nervous, but thankfully not as bad as she’d been earlier that night. She can’t help but peek over the top of her grease-stained menu at him; of course, his face is hidden at the moment, but she can see his floppy hair falling across his forehead. Who is this person to me? she can’t help but wonder, for the gazillionth time in the past few days.

“So,” he says, finally sliding his menu down on the table between them. “What are you thinking of getting?”

“Oh, just a coffee,” she replies, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. “I had a big dinner.” It’s a lie, but the nerves fluttering around her stomach prevent her from eating.

“Really?” He raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because I’m going to get pie and French fries, and I’m not known for sharing.”

She laughs, and her nerves lessen a little. “That’s just cruel. No, thanks, I’m good with the coffee.”

As if on cue, the waitress comes and takes their orders and menus, and then they’re left alone again, blinking at each other in the yellow diner-light. Suddenly, the mini-jukebox resting next to their booth flips on; an oldie, Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” comes on. Jim fidgets a bit in his sweater, pulling the sleeves over his hands, as if he’s cold; Pam, who’s wearing her new button-down shirt and jeans, taps her foot against the leg of the table.

“I’m telling you, you’re missing out. Key lime pie is the best,” Jim says with a smirk. “Got to keep up my energy for later.” She snickers, and a blush glows in his cheeks. “Umm, what I meant was… I have no idea what this Mierzwiak guy will tell us, you know? It could be pretty hard.”

That’s what she said dances on the tip of Pam’s tongue, and she’s surprised at herself; who knew her humor could be that perverted? She looks over at Jim, who, according to the sparkle in his eye, is thinking the same thing.

“You do know that’s my foot, right?” Jim says, and Pam draws her foot back in horror.

“Oh God, I’m sorry. I thought it was the table.”

“A common mistake. No problem.”

She nods for an extra minute, trying to fill the empty space. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly, just a little awkward.

“So… what do you think… was going on between us?” Pam asks.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Jim says, and she reaches across the table and swats his arm. “Okay, okay, truce! Of course I’ve been thinking about it. I really don’t know, Pam… all I know is that it was something.”

The waitress comes by with a plate of hot French fries, and Jim immediately slides the place in front of him and covers them with a massive layer of ketchup, tapping the bottom of the bottle to get every drop out.

“Interesting, I would’ve pegged you for the ‘pool and dip’ type.”

“Excuse me?” Jim asks, an eyebrow raised in amusement, bottle still poised over his plate.

“Well, there’s two approaches to applying ketchup to fries.”

“I’m sorry, applying ketchup?”

“Shut up,” she says with a smirk. “You know what I mean. You can either pour the ketchup over everything, trying to get it on every fry; or, you can pour a small ‘pool’ of ketchup on one side of the plate and take the dipping approach.”

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you,” he says. He holds eye contact with her as he lifts up a fry and pops it into his mouth. “These are the absolute best French fries I think I’ve ever eaten. It’s really a shame that you didn’t want any.”

The aroma of the salty fried food is getting to her, but she holds back. She doesn’t want him to win the argument. “I’ll live,” she says. “So… do you remember anything? Things seem to be coming back to me in weird ways… not complete memories, just little scenes, or one sentence. How about you?”

He chomps on a fry and wipes his fingers on a napkin, growing serious. “Yeah, same here. Things are coming back at pretty inopportune times, though… my girlfriend probably thinks I’m insane.”

Pam takes a deep breath. “If we did actually have our… minds erased… and this isn’t some kind of crazy dream, well then, I’m pretty sure I had feelings for you beforehand, because every time you say the word ‘girlfriend’ I feel like I…”

“You what?” asks Jim, looking intently at his fries.

“I… I don’t know,” she finishes, laughing a bit. “Reaching for a pint of Haagen-Daas. Telling you that she’s not good enough for you.” She lowers her eyes. Other things.”

He inhales breath sharply. “Other things, what might those be?”

The waitress comes by with Jim’s pie, which is topped with a cloud of whipped cream. “Here you go,” she says, placing the check underneath the plate. “Want a refill on that coffee?”

“Yes, please,” Pam replies, feeling like her tongue’s made of sandpaper – and like she couldn’t possibly be more awake if someone mainlined crack into her system. Her entire body feels like she’s in the middle of an approaching thunderstorm, right down to her toes and the tips of her fingers.

The waitress fills Pam’s coffee cup and departs.

“Anyway…” Pam says, trying to change the subject before she turns scarlet.

Do you remember anything about glow-in-the-dark stickers? Jim wants to ask her, taking a bite of his pie. It’s good, but he can barely taste it. About planning your dream house together, falling asleep on my shoulder?

But he doesn’t say any of those things, because he’s worried he’ll make her feel bad, or weird, if she can’t remember. So instead, he stays silent and eats his pie.

“Seems like it’s going to be a long night,” Pam says finally. “I hope Dr. Mierzwiak doesn’t catch those kids having a party.”

Smiling, she leans across the table, and for a breathless second he thinks she might kiss him. Instead, though, she reaches forward with her fork and snags a piece of his pie. She does it without even thinking.

“So,” he says, “you told me before that you were an artist. Tell me about what kind of stuff you do.”

As she talks, he reaches over and hands her a napkin without her asking. He ends up pushing the plate of pie to the middle of the table, and they share the rest. He doesn’t even realize until later that he left her the whipped cream, knowing without her telling him that it’s her favorite part of the pie.

* * *

When they return an hour later, the party’s over. Edna lets them in, and Pam thinks immediately that the girl looks as though she’s been crying; her glasses are off and mascara and jet-black eyeliner is smeared across her face, which is red and blotchy.

“Are you okay?” Pam asks, and the girl shakes her head no, then turns her back on them and walks into the apartment.

Mierzwiak is sitting behind his desk, his head in his hands, a huge pile of stuffed file folders in front of him. His other assistant, a young man, is sitting in the corner of the couch, looking guilty.

The doctor doesn’t look up and address them, so Pam and Jim stand there for a long moment, unsure of what to do. Jim steps behind her and helps slip her coat off. There’s no way I’m leaving here without answers, he thinks, so we might as well stay awhile.

“Thanks,” Pam murmurs, and finally Mierzwiak looks up. He looks tired, worried, and very old.

“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the couch. The young assistant gets up to make room for them, and starts to walk over to where the girl is, but she leaves the room as he approaches. I wonder what’s going on there, Jim wonders, sitting down next to Pam.

When Jim thinks that Mierzwiak can’t possibly remain silent for another second, he finally speaks. He lets out a long sigh.

“You both should know just how disappointed I am with this whole… situation,” he says finally, without looking at them. “I’ve been doing this for seven years, and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“Like what?” Jim asks, but Pam flutters a hand at him: Be quiet. She wants to hear what the doctor says.

“I just… can’t believe this has happened. Again. I just don’t understand it.” Frustration bleeds into the man’s voice.

“So we are patients of yours,” Pam ventures in a small voice.

The doctor gets up and paces back and forth by the windows. “Pam,” he says, sounding almost sad, “you have both been patients of mine for a long time.”

Her mouth drops open. “Wha… how long, exactly?”

“Here,” Mierzwiak says, picking up two of the file folders from his desk and dropping one on Pam’s lap, one in Jim’s.

Pam looks gingerly at the side of the folder: it reads Beesley, Pamela, in blue ink. Underneath her name, it reads: 12-15-01. Her heart pounding, she opens the folder, and next to her Jim does the same thing with his own folder.

Date: Dec 15, 2001

Age: 21

Area of Memory Erase: Jim Halpert

Doctor’s Notes: Patient is in good physical health, but emotionally in turmoil…

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” Pam manages. “This was seven years ago.”

“Yeah,” Jim agrees, his voice sounding soft and unsteady. “I was still in college. So… does this mean I’ve lost the past seven years of my life?”

“No…” Mierzwiak reaches under his desk and comes out with a flask, which he takes a long swig from. “Don’t you understand?”

“Understand what?” Jim says, his voice rising. “I’m totally lost.”

The doctor shakes his head. “You two have known each other for approximately seven years. Pam, you met him when you were designing your house with your fiancé, Roy.”

“Roy?” Pam says, feeling as though she might faint. With just the mention of that name, things make a lot more sense – her admirer… the tattoo…

It occurs to her that the man sitting next to her, nervously shaking his knee – the man who she feels this incredibly strong connection to – she’s never even asked his name. How stupid could I be!?

Her hand reaches out and stops on his knee, steadying it. He looks over at her gratefully and grabs her hand, which is a little sweaty. He doesn’t care.

“You’re Jim, aren’t you?” she whispers, but she doesn’t need to wait for the answer.

“Jim, the reason you first came to me back in `01 was because you fell in love with Pam. The two of you had a brief affair – a one-time thing, as you described it, Jim – but then Pam returned to her fiancé. You were brokenhearted, wanting to forget.”

Oh my God, I did that to him? Pam thinks, afraid to meet Jim’s eyes, knowing he’s right now remembering more. His hand tenses, as if he wants to pull it away, but she holds tight – refusing to let go.

“You’re not… going back to him, are you? Because I think I’d die.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, but she’s not sure if he hears her.

“Pam, you felt so guilty about what happened, that you came to see me shortly after Jim did. And Jim, when you graduated college and left your internship, you were hired to work at a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by a…”

“Michael Scott,” Jim finishes for him. “I told him where I’d worked before, right? But made him promise to never tell me?”

“Yes,” Mierzwiak says, a bit hesitantly. “You’ve already been digging into this, I see.”

“A little.”

The doctor nods. “So imagine my displeasure when Pam’s fiancé gets a job at the same company, and then soon after, gets her a job. Her desk was feet away from yours, Jim.”

“So you keep tabs on your patients after the procedure?” Jim asks.

“Well, I want to make sure you don’t regress. It’s part of an ongoing study. Since the technology is so new we’re not sure exactly what happens to our patients and their memories – after three years, five years, ten… So anyway, since the two of you had already… bonded… it was no surprise that you became fast friends. And then, unfortunately, Jim, you fell in love with her again.”

In his mind’s eye, Jim sees a flash of purple and blue – the colors from the dress Pam had been wearing earlier in the night. He can almost feel the warmth of her hip against his, the softness of her hair… and the way she had, at first, given in to the kiss… and then pushed him away.

“I’m in love with you.”

“I… I can’t.”

This time, Jim does pull his hand away from hers, placing it back on his knee. He remembers, he remembers the pain, the hurt, the bravery it had taken for him to tell her his feelings, and how she’d thrown them back in his face.

“And that’s why I went to Stamford, isn’t it?” Jim says, looking straight ahead. “That’s where I met Karen.” The name makes Pam’s stomach twist.

Then she remembers. She remembers Jim’s phone call, and feeling so far away. She remembers throwing her wedding dress into the back of her closet and defrosting night after night of her wasted wedding dinners, eating them alone in her new, empty apartment. So that’s when I left Roy for good. Yet I was still all alone. That’s what I must have come to New York, and to Mierzwiak.

“So, I suppose that brings you both pretty much up to speed,” the doctor says. “Excuse me, I need to prep for my next appointment now.”

Jim’s head is down, defeated. Now I know what she was to me, he thinks sadly. She was someone I always wanted, someone I could never have.

Pam bolts out of her seat and storms across the room. “Excuse me! You’ve just… dumped this huge bomb of reality on both of us and now you have to… prep for your next appointment? What are we supposed to do now?”

Mierzwiak looks at them both for a long moment. “I’m sorry I had to tell you all of this, but the way things were going I feel like I just saved you both a lot of time and confusion. For some reason the memory erase – the repeated memory erases – just didn’t work. You both would’ve remembered everything eventually.”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” Jim says, standing up and grabbing his coat. “I’m leaving.”

“Jim, wait,” Pam cries, throwing her coat over her shoulder, grabbing both of the files, and rushing out the door after him. Whatever had happened before, whatever mistakes they had made, she knew now that he was the one she wanted – he had always been right, but she’d just been too blind and afraid to see it. “Please wait!”

As the door shuts behind them, Mierzwiak calls to Walter, who’s trying to talk to Edna in the break room.

“What are they going to do, anyway?” Walter asks. “Should I schedule another erase?”

Mierzwiak contemplates, looking out the window, wondering if Pam will catch Jim in time. “You know what? No. Clearly, for some reason, the procedure just doesn’t seem to work on those two.” He shakes his head. “It’s so sad. The two of them, as patients, have been my biggest disappointments.”

* * *

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