“You're right, we didn't dance. It was more like… swaying.”
Pam shook her head of the previous day and tried to pull herself from bed. After Jim had told her that they had had their first date yesterday she couldn’t shake the aching feeling in her stomach. Pam slipped on her blouse and buttoned it from the bottom. It hadn’t been romantic, it couldn’t have been. And she knew what dancing was and swaying wasn’t even close.
He tried to smirk off her looks. “But, still romantic.”
Moving back and forth in the parking lot with your best friend with one annoying headphone too big for your ear wasn’t romantic either, no matter what Jim said.
Pam shook her head and placed the papers on her desk. “Swaying isn’t dancing.”
The expression on his face was burned into her memory forever and she could feel the hurt coming off him in waves. But he returned fire; which she wasn’t use to him doing. And he had hit the perfect nerve.
Jim shrugged her off, pretending she hadn’t hurt him as much as he felt. “At least I didn't leave you at a high school hockey game.”
Pam barley kissed Roy good bye and grabbed her purse on the way out the door. A few papers had fallen out, which Roy had called her back for, but she couldn’t turn back now. She was walking as fast as she could to her car. She was afraid if she made eye contact with Roy too long Jim’s words would ring in her ears…and she would realize swaying is dancing.
~*~*~*
“Morning Pam.” Jim said quietly.
She barely nodded at him and Jim turned back to his computer. He knew she was still upset with him from yesterday. He remembered he had tried to apologize, but for some reason that was the time he couldn’t blurt words out and she was walking away too quickly. He got up and walked to her slowly, like all of a sudden she was unapproachable.
“Hey…about yesterday…”
She barely moved her head to look at him when he leaned over the counter. He felt like telling her that he had meant ever single world. Screw Roy and his whirl wind courtship that was full of empty promises and drunken lies. He had meant every single word.
Jim shook his head; he was never good at having his heart write transcripts for him. “I was totally joking. It’s not a date if the girl goes home to her fiancé.” He repeated himself from yesterday hoping it was enough of a lie to get her to react.
Her eyes seemed to breach the top of the counter briefly when he added. “Right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
Not the answer he wanted; but it was something.
~*~*~*
“Pamallaaa!” Michael yelled coming out of his office. “I need those papers set up in the conference room before Jan gets here. Big day, big day…” he leaned over the counter and watched her shuffle through her papers. “Big presentation, I’m glad I could trust you to do your job…can you believe Jan? All of a sudden she said I don’t do my job…like, what is that?”
Pam shrugged but wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying. But knowing Michael she wasn’t missing anything he wouldn’t repeat. Where could she have put those papers? Even though Michael usually exaggerated, he was right. Today was a big day or at least important. Jan was coming in with a few suits from corporate and if this meeting didn’t go near perfect, they could be out of jobs.
“You have them Pam?”
She could tell he was getting impatient and she nodded. “Yeah, I‘ll be in there in a few minutes.”
He banged the counter loudly with his hands and made a rude comment that she chose to ignore and he went into the conference room. Pam flipped papers aside frantically. Where were the papers? The documents and grafts she’d spent two days on? She slowed down for a moment and put her hand over her open mouth. The papers that had fallen out of her purse the morning…were the ones she needed for the meeting.
~*~*~*~
Jim followed everyone into the conference room and took a seat farthest to the back. The farther away from Michael and Dwight; the least likely he’d be able to resist the urge to comment on their stupidity. When he saw Pam walk in he made a motion for her to come and sit next to him but she never saw it. She went straight to Michael and whispered something near his ear. That’s when he realized she was upset. Her bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks were a dead give away.
He was about to get up and ask her if she was ok when Michael pulled her out of the conference room and into his office, somewhat slamming the door.
~*~*~
“Pam I thought you took your job more seriously.” Michael shook his head.
Right, because Michael was the role model when it came to doing his job. “I had the papers this morning; they fell out of my purse.” She responded quietly.
“Well I called Jan and she wasn’t too happy either. The meetings canceled and you’ll have to stay back and do the inventory that we would have gone over in the meeting.”
She felt like she was a child again. Like she had broken a vase and her mother was making her write, “I will not throw a ball in the house,” five hundred times.
“There’s thousands of things to count Michael, I can’t possibly do it all by myself.”
Michael opened a few folders on his desk and pretended to sift through them. It was like was trying out for the role of detective and he had to look like he did work all the time. It made Pam want to smack him.
“You’re right Pam; this may be your punishment…” Pam rolled her eyes. “But there’s no reason someone can’t stay behind and help. What about…” A few clicks of the mouse and a few turns of blank pages in a folder later and… “Jim?”
If Pam would have been drinking something she would have choked. “Um, I don’t think…”
Michael smiled and stood. “It’s settled then. Jim will help you with the inventory.”
Pam stood as well and stopped him before he could make it back out into the office. “Michael, Jim and I…aren’t exactly on the same level right now.”
“That’s what she said.” Michael said shrugging.
“No I mean were fighting.” Pam rolled her eyes and felt like telling him that joke of his was going to get him punched one day.
“A lover’s quarrel?” he asked.
Pam let out an aggravated sigh and opened the door to let Michael walk out of his office and over to Jim. She walked back to her desk and watched as Jim got water from the cooler and Michael tell him a really horrible joke. She could tell Jim was uncomfortable because he kept taking sips of water so he wouldn’t have to say anything. But as the conversation went on she could see his expression change and he nodded slowly as Michael walked away.
Pam looked down as Michel went into his office and then glanced up to see Jim walking towards her.
She picked up the phone but she knew he’d see right through her. “Who you calling?”
“Roy.” She said. Maybe if she kept to one worded answers she wouldn’t feel like she was lying all the time.
“Think he’ll be upset about you staying to work late with me?” It was just a question and it popped out of his mouth before he could stop it.
She hit the dial tone button and set the phone down. “Right, because counting Manila folders and ballpoint pens really sets the mood for romance.” She practically spat at him rolled her eyes and it cut Jim to the bone. She wondered when she attained the ability to cut someone with words.
“That’s not I meant and you know it Pam.” Great now he was accusing her. That should have gone well seeing as how he was accusing her yesterday of going out on their first date.
Pam stood and walked around the corner of her desk to approach him. She was close enough that she could smell him and she wished she couldn’t. Because when she got home all she could smell was him. Like somehow his words and breath seeped into her clothes and she couldn’t get him out. Everything she owned smelled of him.
“Well you’re the one who said we’d had our first date last night Jim.” She wished she could have stopped the anger filling her veins. Because the thing was he had been right. Jim was right; and that’s what fueled most of her anger. That she couldn’t admit to herself that he had been right the whole time. Roy was the only thing standing in her way and she quickly wondered when Roy had become an object blocking her path instead of a person.
Jim sighed angrily. “Maybe through this whole night, we just shouldn’t talk.” He was learning to adopt some of her monotone and coldness.
She nodded and went to sit back down, as did he. When people started pouring out of the office she called Roy’s cell again. After explaining her situation she hung up the phone and glanced around the office. Everyone had left except her and Jim. The sound of running computers and the hum of the heater felt like notes hanging in the air to taunt them. She felt like the room was spinning and Jim was the only constant thing. It was like dancing really.
~*~*~
Chapter End Notes:
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