Postmark Akron

When she was in middle school, she kept a diary on a fairly religious basis. She’d record every happening in her life in curly penmanship complete with heart-dotted i’s. She filled pages with her hopes and dreams and scribbled illustrations in the margins. She felt like words had power…that by writing something, she could make it happen. She remembered writing phrases like “I know I’ll get into advanced art next year” and “I wish that Roy Anderson would notice that I’m alive”.

When she was in high-school, her diary was put away in a shoebox filled with ribbonned barrettes, plastic ponies and photos of boy-bands cut out of magazines. She didn’t need it any more. She had what she wanted. She was Roy’s girl and she was doing her art (and she was good, her teachers told her she was). She was busy with football games and riding around in the middle seat of Roy’s pickup, his arm protectively around her. She didn’t have to conjure reality out of words or capture fantasies on paper. She was living her dream life. She had it all.

When she left college after a semester and starting working at Dunder Mifflin, she thought about starting a diary again. She had found her old middle-school journal when she and Roy had moved in together. She read through the pages, shaking her head at her foolishness…her immaturity. The life she was living then didn’t need to be documented. It was boring and humdrum. Each day was the same. She thought that maybe sometime in the future, she’d keep a bride’s diary…documenting things like her dress fittings and cake tastings. That would be something worth recording.

When Jim started working at Dunder-Mifflin, they kept a notebook of pranks. It was kind of a like a diary, but it was more than that. It was something that bound them together. They recorded everything they did to Dwight (so as not to repeat anything). They wrote down the preposterous lies they had spun so as not to get caught (Pam’s whole existence as a spy for a secret government agency was chronicled in the pages of that flimsy spiral notebook). It was a record of them…of who they were together.

After Jim left, she actually started writing again. It wasn’t in a diary or anything like that. She’d find herself making lists on scraps of paper, jotting down questions (“Did I do the right thing?”) in the margins of her art assignments. She tried to work through everything she was feeling…his absence…his declaration…her cowardice…her guilt…on paper and it helped. Besides her mom, she didn’t really have anyone to talk to about these things, so her paper scraps became her friends. She trusted them with things she’d never utter out loud. That’s how the letters had started. One night in late August, the need to talk to him again became so urgent that she poured her heart out on a piece of paper. When the letter was finished, in a burst of courage, she had addressed it and devised a plan to send it to him while masking her identity. She began to feel again that her words could have power…even if she wasn’t ready to speak them out loud.

The day Jim came back with someone new…someone he had “kind of started seeing”, she really needed to believe that writing something down could make it so. That evening, instead of sharing a cup of coffee with her best friend and working through the things that were between them like she had wanted, she found herself sipping a glass of wine and wiping the tears out of her eyes as she wrote.

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“Hey. What’s this?” Jim looked down at the small stack of letters sitting in the middle of his desk.

“Bait from young fisherwomen hoping to land the Big Tuna, Tuna.” God, Andy was annoying.

Jim silently cursed as he realized that the safety mechanism he had put in place back in Stamford no longer existed. Here, the receptionist didn’t know that he wasn’t accepting any fan mail. Heck, he was barely speaking to the receptionist here. Ever since that scene in the parking lot a few weeks ago when Pam basically let him know that she didn’t care that he was seeing someone…that was the end of it. She had confirmed all of his suspicions…that though she called off her wedding, she didn’t do it for him. She wanted nothing to do with him in a romantic sense.

And he couldn’t go back to being friends. He just couldn’t. It hurt too much. And it hurt too much to think that those early letters had been from her. Being back here in Scranton had just reopened wounds he had thought had built up thick scabs. Seeing her, though, just ripped them right up all over again. He looked down at the stack of letters and noticed a long plain envelope sticking out. He made note of the Akron postmark and blew out a long breath. This wasn’t fucking fair.

His ringing phone gave him something to concentrate on instead of that damn letter.

“Jim Halpert.”

“Hey! It’s me. I just finished my last sales call. Let me tell you, trying to deal with new customers is exhausting! ”

“You could just let me take them.”

“And let you hone in on all of those commissions? No way. So…what are we doing tonight? It’s 4:45…no way I’m coming back to the office.”

He knew this was a golden opportunity to talk loudly and flirtatiously about going out to dinner, to prove to Pam that he had moved on, but the letter on his desk sat in silent accusation. He didn’t have the heart to go through those motions in front of it…in front of her.

“Hey. I was just on my way out. Let me grab my stuff and call you from my cell, okay?”

“You bet.”

He quickly shut off his computer, grabbed his bag and the slid the letter out of the confines of the rubber band. He noticed that Pam wasn’t behind her desk and he figured that was probably for the best. He could avoid another awkward goodbye.

When he was situated behind the wheel of his car, he dialed Karen’s number. The envelope lay next to him, like a precious passenger. He hadn’t decided what to do about it yet.

“Hey…took you long enough. I’m almost home.”

“I’m still at work.”

“Suck-up. So…what do you want to do tonight? Get something to eat? Hang out at your place?” She purred those last few words and Jim knew what she really wanted to do tonight.

“You know. I’m kind of tired.”

“You’ve been kind of tired since we got to Scranton.”

It was true. He and Karen had gone on a couple of dinner dates back in Stamford and shared a few goodnight kisses, but once he had gotten back to Scranton, he found ways to avoid spending time with her. He preferred to spend his nights in front of the television letting the mindless programming and bottles of beer numb him against everything that assaulted him.

He knew he was using Karen…using her as a shield against Pam and he hated himself for that.

“Look, Karen. I’m sorry. This has just been kind of hard…coming back.”

“I thought maybe hanging out with me would help.”

“Karen---“

“Oh shit. You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“You’re going to pull the whole, ‘It’s not you…it’s me’ bullshit on me, aren’t you.” Her voice was sharp and shrill.

“I’m sorry. I’m just not in a place right now where I can….”

All he heard was the sharp click of the line going dead. He felt sick because he was secretly relieved.

He reached over and felt the white envelope, trying to imagine what its contents contained. As he ran his hand over the cool paper, he could almost imagine that he felt a warmth emanating from inside. Against his better judgment, he picked it up and began to read. He was surprised at how short this letter seemed.

Dear Jim—

Yes, it’s me again. Your biggest fan.

That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Fan, I mean. Did you know it comes from fanatic? I bet you did because you’re smart. I went and looked up the word in the dictionary and was a bit surprised at its definition. It means: marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion.

That definition got me to thinking because this week, Jim. I have a really hard time remaining uncritical of some of the things that you’ve done.

I support you, Jim…I do. I’ve tried really hard to understand what you’ve been going through. I’ve tried to understand your actions even when they’ve been hurtful to others.

But Jim, when you’re being a dick…I think it’s only fair to call you out on it. So Jim? You’re being a dick.

I’m sorry if that critical observation disqualifies me from your fan club, but Jim…really? Not even going out to coffee with Pam? Not even seeing how hard she tried to look her best for you the day you came back? Throwing Karen up in her face the first chance you got? And what exactly are you doing with Karen? Are you being fair to her? Have you been honest with her? Something tells me you haven’t been.

I thought you were better than that, Jim. Or maybe I just haven’t thought hard enough about why you are acting the way you are. I don’t get it and I wish to hell I did.

You should consider yourself lucky. My handwritten version of this letter was much longer and much nastier. Typing it up has cooled me off.

My inclination is to say that this will be my last letter, but I really do believe that you should never say never. To be honest, thought, writing these out isn’t helping me feel any better lately.

Take care, Jim.

(Wanting to be) Your biggest fan (again).

P.S. You know what to do.

And he did. There was no doubt in his mind any longer that these letters were from her. Their highly personal accusations weren’t just from some insightful fan. They were from someone he had hurt. And though the list of those seemed to be growing by the day, he knew who these were from.

This was especially true because he knew from his weekly perusal of the listings in TV Guide, that the merger episode hadn't aired yet. She was busted. 

Fueled by a combination of indignation, a little bit of hope and a need to explain himself, he pulled his keys from the ignition, got out of the car and walked back up to the empty office. Quitting time had come and gone while he talked with Karen and read this latest missive.

He rebooted the computer and opened Microsoft Word.

He really did know what to do.

It was time someone got a taste of her own medicine.