June 8th 2006, 9:36pm

“Oh, look how cute you are here.”

Pam leaned down to look at the photo in her mom’s hand. She scrunched up her nose and grabbed it away, “Ew. Mom. That’s horrible.”

“I think you look nice.”

“I was in seventh grade. No one looks nice in seventh grade.”

“Let me see. Let me see.”

“No.”

“Oh come on. I want to make fun of you too.”

Emily reached out and snatched the picture away, glanced down at it and burst into laughter. “Oh my God. Are you wearing kulots?”

Pam rolled her eyes at her mom, “You suck.”

Her mom shrugged and picked up another picture, “I thought you looked nice.”

Emily giggled again and threw the photo back in Pam’s direction, “And to think, Roy still wants to marry you.”

“Shut up.”

“Girls.” Lynn Beesley shook her head, “I thought you were too old for this.”

The two sisters stuck their tongues out at each other, “Apparently not.”

“You’re just mad because I’m making you wear a dress this weekend.”

“A pink dress! You know I hate pink.”

“I like pink.”

“You’re such a girl.”

“I am a girl.”

“You’re a dork.”

Pam sat back against the couch and eyed her younger sister’s dark eyeliner and messy hair. The two really were as different as night and day. Pam was the older, quiet, responsible sister. Emily was nineteen, still loved to rebel and refused to be told what to do.

“Just promise me you’ll at least brush your hair for Saturday.”

Emily tossed her long locks, “I like my hair. My friends call it sex hair.”

Pam snorted and Lynn glared at her youngest daughter, “Emily!”

“What?” Emily shrugged and pushed aside the box of pictures she was looking through, “I’m tired.”

Lynn looked at her watch, “Hmm, yeah I guess we should probably get going.” She leaned over and cupped Pam’s chin, “You should probably get some sleep too. You look exhausted.”

Pam bit her lip and shrugged away from her mom, “Oh. You don’t have to go yet. It’s not really that late… You can stay…”

But her mom and sister were already standing up and gathering their things. She looked up at them and swallowed.

She didn’t want to be alone.

It was too quiet when she was alone.

There was too much time to think when she was alone.

“We’ve got some things to take care of anyway. But I’ll call you in the morning.” Her mom lingered in the doorway, “And seriously sweetie, get some sleep.”

Pam nodded.

“Bye Hammy.”

She smiled at her sister’s pet name for her, “Bye Em.”

The door shut with a faint click and Pam was left alone in the middle of the living room surrounded by pictures.

Emily and her mom had come over earlier in the evening for dinner and a chance to relax before wedding events really began the next day. After dinner her mom had insisted on taking the obligatory trip down memory lane.

Pam hated it and with each photo the throbbing in the back of her head intensified and the more she felt like screaming at the top of her lungs.

But like the good bride- to- be that she was, she plastered a smile on her face and pretended to be having a good time.

The smile was gone now. Replaced by an empty apartment that was much too quiet and the realization that Roy probably wouldn’t be back from his bachelor party for hours.

She really wished that his brothers hadn’t insisted on throwing the party only two nights before the wedding.

Knowing they were involved didn’t exactly bode well for Roy’s promise that he would stay sober for the weekend and she was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be home until well after midnight with cigar stench permeating his clothes and alcohol on his breath

She sighed and grabbed a photo off the top of the nearest stack. It was the one of her and Roy dressed up for her high school prom. They were both grinning widely and looking at each other like they didn’t even notice the camera.

Pam ran her finger over the glossy finish. Trying to remember what it felt like to smile like that.

Tossing the picture aside she leaned her head back on the couch and wondered briefly how long the flight was to Australia.

A loud vibrating startled her and she looked up to see her cell phone about to fall off the coffee table. She launched herself at it before it hit the ground.

Recognizing the number she smiled and flipped it open, “Hey.”

“Oh my God, you answered your phone! I thought you’d be all busy with wedding stuff right now.”

“Oh, yeah. Not tonight. Roy’s got his bachelor party and my mom and Emily just came over for dinner. They just left. Why are you screaming?”

The voice on the other line laughed, “Sorry, it’s kind of loud out here. I’m at a beach barbeque.”

“Where?”

“You’ll never believe. California! It’s crazy right? I’m in London with a bunch of friends and we run into this other group who say they’re all the way from California. Obviously we all hit it off because at least it’s not another person who’s going to make fun us for being American.”

“Obviously.”

“Anyway, so two days before we’re supposed to leave they ask us if we want to come back to So. Cal. with them. Of course we say yes, because hell, it’s California and they have a beach house and how often do a bunch of east coasters get the chance to stay in a beach house right on the Pacific Ocean? So we trade in our tickets, spend a butt load more money and now here I am!”

Pam laughed, “You are insane.”

“I know right? And guess what?”

“You met a guy?”

“How did you know?”

“Jenny, every time you start a sentence with, ‘guess what’, it always ends with ‘I met a guy.’”

Jenny laughed, “You know me too well.”

“So, what’s his name?”

“John. And Pam, you’re going to love him. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Because the greatest thing is he’s from New York too. We like live in the same neighborhood or something. How crazy is that? I’m sitting in this café in Paris and I hear this guy with a New York accent, introduce myself and it turns out that we went to the same junior high.”

“Small world.”

“I know! That’s what I said. Anyway, he’s been traveling all around Europe like me and he’s on his way home too. We’re going to be working like down the street from each other!”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah. Oh, God but Pam. The reason I called… since I’m in California I’m not going to be able to make the wedding.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“I am so sorry. Really, I am. I know we promised we would be at each other’s weddings. But I couldn’t pass it up. Seriously.”

“No. I understand. God, I’m jealous that I’m not there with you.”

The line went quiet for a moment and Pam thought she had lost the connection, “Hello?”

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“You’re just sorta quiet.”

“Jenny, I think you talk enough for the both of us.”

“That’s so not true. And seriously, you’re about to get married. Shouldn’t you be all like bubbly and giggly and shit?”

Pam snorted, “Have I ever been?”

“Yeah, when you’re really excited about something. Or drunk. I don’t think you’re quite the downer you think you are.”

“Jenny….”

“You know, I’m going looking for a roommate in New York. This thing with John’s great but I don’t really think we’re in that ‘hey lets move in together’ place yet. And you know I can’t live alone.”

“Um…” Pam shook her head in confusion.

“It would be fun. Old roommates back together again. And you could get a job here. Something with art. I could ask around.”

“Jenny, you do realize that I’m getting married in two days? I don’t think Roy would be too thrilled if his wife suddenly decided to move to New York.”

“Yeah, I know… it was just an offer. Keep it in mind. Okay?”

There was something in her voice that Pam wasn’t ready to recognize.

“Okay…”

“Listen, Pam, I gotta go. My cell phone bill is going to be ginormous. But umm… what exactly do you say to someone about to get married? Happy Wedding?”

Pam giggled, “I think congratulations works.”

“Okay. Congratulations. And I want to see pictures when I get back.”

“You too.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Pam snapped the phone shut and set it down on the floor. She shook her head and smiled.

Jenny was a force of nature that she could never quite figure out.

When the two had been paired to live with each other in the freshman dorms Pam had been pretty sure that it was going to be a disaster. But somehow it worked. Their varying personalities played well off each other. And she liked the way she felt when she was with Jenny. Like it was okay to be a little crazy.

Kind like the way she felt when she was with…

She shook her head and tried to imagine being on a warm beach in California with the sand in between her toes and the sun beating down on her skin. Tried to imagine being any place but Scranton.

It was hard.

The apartment was too cold and she had long since given up the dream of ever getting too far away from this place.

When she was younger she had always talked about traveling. Going to Europe, Asia, traveling the world, blah, blah, blah…

In the end that’s all it was anyway, a bunch of talk.

Because the chance had been there. When Jenny and a couple of other friends left for Europe she was supposed to go with them. She was supposed to get on that plane and finally do something other than talk.

At the last moment though she had decided to stay with Roy. Move in with Roy. Get engaged to Roy. Live Roy’s life.

Three years ago that had been fine. But now…

Pam wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.

I’m fine with my choices

The real problem was that the dreams were coming back and suddenly she wasn’t so fine with all her choices.

She was beginning to resent the things that held her back.

Roy.

The man she loved. Loved. Loved.

Nine years isn’t something that can just be thrown away. Nine years of dates and fights and kisses and make-ups. Nine years of comfort and consistency.

He was her first in everything. He was her everything

And for a long while she had managed to convince herself that nothing else mattered.

But now the wedding was two days away and she was thinking about how much she wanted to draw or just be on a beach in California… or on a plane to Australia…

It was wrong.

She tried to convince herself that it was cold feet. Nerves before the wedding.

Only she had never heard of cold feet being accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of suffocation and pure exhaustion.

Her mom had been right when she said she needed sleep. She hadn’t a gotten a full nights in over two weeks.

At night she would stare, wide eyed, into the darkness of the room. Watching the ceiling, the alarm clock, Roy… thinking, thinking, thinking…

Something was eating at her. Tearing her into little bits and pieces. The walls she had built over the years were falling away and standing in the middle was a scared little girl who had been too afraid to grow up on her own.

Pam hated that little girl.

The silence weighed on her and she gritted her teeth as she tried to force the thoughts out of her head.

Stop it Pam.

Now.

Taking a firm, deep breath she nodded her head. Falling into the same determined resignation.

She flipped on the T.V. so it wouldn’t be so quiet and moved to gather the pictures and put them into their proper boxes. Reaching over she grabbed the pile of pictures that her mom had been looking at from the coffee table. The top one fell off into her lap.

It was one she didn’t remember seeing before and she picked it up to examine more carefully.

The young Pam in the photo was smiling widely at the camera. It was the first day of kindergarten and her mom had snapped the picture at the end of the day. She was wearing a blue and white sailor dress with brand new black Mary Janes and socks with frills at the top. Her curly hair was pulled into a side ponytail, her bangs teased out with hairspray. In her hands was a piece of art that she proudly displayed to her mother.

Pam stared at the photo for a moment, her heart racing, her mind racing, and she jumped to her feet and ran toward the bedroom.

The box of mementos she kept was under the bed and she had to get down on her hands and knees to pull it out.

Kneeling beside the bed she turned the box upside down so the contents spilled all over her lap. Remnants of her life fell everywhere. The flower Roy had given her when he proposed the first time, the playbook from the time she saw Rent, a pin she had gotten in the second grade for reading, an old valentines day card, a broken necklace, an empty tube of superglue, tattered friendship bracelets, a graduation tassel, the acceptance letter to college, a yogurt lid attached to a chain of paperclips… and one folded piece of construction paper.

She tenderly unfolded it and looked over the picture, ran her fingers over the dry crackly paint. It was the same one from the photo. A simple painting of her family: her mom, dad, two older brothers and baby sister, standing amongst a garden of trees and flowers.

The picture had hung on the family refrigerator for years, her mom always proclaiming proudly that it was Pam’s first piece of art. That someday it would be worth something.

She had forgotten.

Looking back at the photo of herself she tried to remember what that little girl seemed to believe so clearly. Tried to remember what it meant to just believe.

She took a deep breath.

And the damn broke.

The walls fell and the little girl crumbled to the ground, surrounded by the leftovers of her life.

None of it meant anything.

Pam curled herself on the floor and finally just let the tears come. Her whole body racked with sobs as she clutched the photo in one hand and the painting of her family in the other.

She cried for hours.

Letting it all flow over her. The memories of her life. The million mistakes and regrets and decisions that were never really made.

Things would have been so different if she had just gone to Europe with her friends, if she had never given up, if she had actually believed in the first place.

Things could still be different…

You gotta take a chance on something, sometime…

It wasn’t over yet.

The tears eventually subsided and she moved so that she was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Her breathing calmed.

It wasn’t over. It wasn’t over. It wasn’t over.

And then it hit her.

All along… she was the one…

For years she had been waiting for the answers. For someone to save her.

But in the end the only person who could do it…

Had been too scared all along.

She had to save herself.

Pam closed her eyes and took two deep breaths. Then sat up and quickly gathered everything up to return to the box. She added the picture and closed the lid, shoving it back under the bed.

Her wedding dress was hanging on the back of the door and she stopped to run her hands over the soft fabric. She smiled.

Returning to the living room, she gathered the rest of the pictures and neatly filed them back in their boxes. Put them back in the hall closet. Moved to turn the television off and make sure that the dishes from dinner were all put away.

When everything was cleaned and vacuumed and swept and polished she settled herself on the couch, folding her legs under her and watching the door.

Her breath caught in her throat when she heard Roy’s key turn in the lock a little after one o’clock and the strong resolve wavered a bit.

“Hey babe. You still up?”

Closing her eyes, she counted to three and began…