.
“I think this is illegal.”
“No.”
“Yeah. I really think it is.”
“What’s illegal about this?”
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
Pam tapped her foot before sliding down the wall to sit next to Jim.
“You’ve locked Dwight and Angela in a closet!”
“How is this different from any of my other pranks?”
“Well, to begin with, they don’t normally involve Angela.”
He glanced over at her and threw his hands in the air, still waiting for an actual reason as to why this was wrong.
“What if there’s a fire and they can’t get out in time?”
“That’s why we’re sitting here outside the door.”
“Come on Jim.” She tilted her head to the side hoping that light begging would make him change his mind.
“You can go back to the room if you want, I’m not leaving.”
“This is almost kidnapping.”
“How? They’re in Dwight’s room. I didn’t take them anywhere; I just locked them inside his closet.”
“What if they have to pee?”
“Dwight has a strong bladder.”
“Why would you even know that?”
“Are you telling me that you don’t know if Kelly has a strong bladder?”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. For the past 24 hours he had been acting like someone else, and it was kind of worrying her now.
Pam was in Jim’s bed wearing his t-shirt sleeping soundly next to him. She didn’t say anything after he said that one day he planned on proposing to her, but she didn’t have to because the kiss that she gave him after said it all. He had been watching her for awhile waiting for her to wake up. He was getting hungry and he was dying to know why Pam had gone to church with Angela. He nudged her gently hoping that would be enough to get her up.
“Please just a little bit longer,” she groaned.
“Come on Pam. I’m starving.”
“And I’m exhausted. I haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep in the past week.”
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.”
“Please,” she begged. “Just another hour.”
She moved her leg over his to keep him from getting up.
“Fine, but then I need to know why you went to church with Angela.”
“I told Angela.” She moved closer to him thinking that she could now go back to sleep.
“You told Angela what happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you crazy? She’s probably on her way up here with a priest to perform an exorcism.”
She moved closer to him until half of her body was on top of his.
“No, I don’t think Protestants do the whole exorcism thing.”
“Why did you go to church?”
“She said that I needed to repent.”
“Did you?”
“I’m not exactly sure how you repent, but I did try to listen to most of the sermon.”
“Hey, remember that you have nothing to repent for, okay?”
He looked down to affirm this with his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and she nodded against his chest.
“Why would you ever take advice from Angela anyways? She’s so screwed up that she’s actually dating Andy.”
“Some of what she said was helpful.”
“Really?” He asked in disbelief.
“I said some of it, not all of it.” She lifted her head to look at him, so he wouldn’t think that she had gone over the edge and become a lackey of Angela’s. “She was surprisingly very nice about the whole thing. And it gave me an opportunity to tell her to take her own advice.”
“Nice one Beesly.”
“She didn’t say anything, but she also didn’t give me the death glare. Kind of makes me think that she actually did think about taking her own advice. She just needs someone to give her a push.”
Jim sat up and Pam rolled out of his way.
“What’s wrong? Hunger suddenly got the better of you?”
And that’s how they ended up sitting in Dwight’s room. One minute they’re lying in bed and the next minute Jim is jumping out of bed rambling about how he knew how to fix it. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she watched him pace back and forth hatching out his plan in his head. He threw some pants on and waited for her to get up.
“What are you going to fix?” She asked nervously from the bed.
“Dwight and Angela. I know what to do.”
“No, Jim. I did not mean that you should give her a push. I was thinking more like one of her friends or God.”
“Think of a way to get Angela up to Dwight’s room and I’ll make sure that he stays there.”
“No, Jim. I did not volunteer to help.”
“Pam. You’re her friend. You’re Angela’s only friend.” He looked pleadingly at her.
She knew he was right. Although Angela attended many prayer groups, she never seemed to talk about any of the people from the meetings. Pam suspected that Angela was too harsh even for them.
“But why is it our responsibility?”
“Because I know how Dwight felt all of those months, and we were only apart for a week.”
“Awww, that’s cute. Dwight’s your best friend!”
She climbed out of bed and strolled over to him putting her arms around his neck.
“Please come back to bed,” she whispered in his ear. She pulled him back and he begrudgingly followed.
“This isn’t fair, using my weaknesses to get me back to bed.”
“Just give it a few more hours before you decide about doing something. I can’t sit through another movie night like you tried to set up last year.”
He did give it a few more hours, but that was it. Two hours later he was planning how it would all go down over dinner. He was like a maniac making lists of things that he would need. She wasn’t sure what was on the list, he was being very secretive about it all. It was like he was planning the greatest prank of all time, but this one involved real people’s feelings and that just made Pam think that this was not going to end well.
There was a loud bang on the door again. It had slowed down in the past 10 minutes. Pam wasn’t sure how someone didn’t call another RA or the cops. Maybe Dwight’s floor appreciated knowing that he was locked away or maybe they were used to weird noises coming from this room.
“Here’s the thing that I don’t get, I saw you push Angela into the closet, but how did you get Dwight to wait inside until then?”
“I told him that I was going to be meeting with the person that’s been putting lube on his door handle, but he had to wait in the closet until I said the code word so he would know when we got enough information to write the guy up.”
“He bought that?”
“The lube on the door handle has become his top priority after breaking up with Elizabeth.”
“I don’t know if it’s weirder that he waited or that you knew he would wait.”
There was another bang.
“JIM! Open the door before I’m forced to break it down. I’ve never damaged school property before, but if you do not call of this prank I will.”
“I think that’s called vandalism, Dwight, and we both know that is a serious infraction.”
Dwight was obviously thinking about the repercussions of damaging school property as the room became quiet again. There was a little whisper, which was unmistakably Angela. It was the first time Pam heard her say anything the whole time.
“Jim?” Dwight sounded much calmer this time. “Angela would like to know how long you plan to keep us locked in here. She is small and although she is strong, her size will only allow her two days before dehydration kills her. After this I will not hesitate in resorting to cannibalism.”
“Really Dwight? You’re worried about food? It’s only been 10 minutes.”
“Question: can you bring Kevin in here?”
“No, I will not spend my last days with a glutton. There’s not enough room anyways,” Angela yelled.
Pam could almost imagine Angela clutching her arms tightly to her chest and turning away from Dwight.
“Weird that they would both think that you would open the door to put Kevin in there and they wouldn’t think about escaping.”
“See Pam. Tell me now that they aren’t meant to be together.”
“You really want those two people creating more people that act and think just like them?”
“Who will the future little Pam’s and Jim’s tease? They’re the bread to our butter.”
“The beets to our garden,” Pam proudly proclaimed.
“What does that even mean?”
“They’re beets, but I honestly don’t know what you eat beets with so I thought garden was the next logical step. At least I didn’t compare us to something you spread... on them.”
“Jim?” There was light scratching at the door.
“Yeah Dwight?”
“Could you give me my natural disaster survival kit?”
“This isn’t really a natural disaster, and how long do you think I plan on keeping you in there?”
“Well, I would tell you where my emergency survival kit is at, but then you would have access to my social security number, along with my rec center locker combination.”
“Can you just tell them why you put them in there? Dwight’s action figures are starting to look like their staring at me.” Pam shifted on the floor next to Jim.
“I’m getting to that, soon.”
Pam stretched out her legs preparing for a long night. She should have brought her homework or at least her sketchbook. She looked over at Jim who was staring intently at the door. Then his words replayed in her head. Who will the future little Pam’s and Jim’s tease? That was twice that he had brought up the future, but they still hadn’t really talked about it.
“About what you said earlier...” She took a long breath.
She wasn’t sure if Dwight’s room was the right place for this conversation, but they were stuck here, so why not? He looked over at her with a bit of panic dancing in his eyes.
“Is that what you want? Kids, with me? To be married?”
He exhaled. “Uh, what do you want?” He asked cautiously.
“I want to hear what you have to say first. It’s not going to change my answer. I just want to know what you want since you’ve brought it more than once.”
“I uh, you want to talk about this here?” He looked over at the closet.
She nodded her head.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Here it goes. I love you. I’m in love with you, and I can’t imagine not ever being with you. So, yeah, I want to have kids with you and marry you. Not necessarily in that order, just as long as those things happen.”
She just sat next to him nodding along with the things he said, not exactly agreeing, which scared him the most.
“What are you thinking?”
“Yeah, I think I want those things too. But when would you want to do that?”
“After we graduate.” He hated that he sounded so unsure when really that was exactly what he wanted.
“What about jobs and schools?” She didn’t want to be the one to play devil’s advocate, but if she didn’t then these questions would go unanswered.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to go to grad school. You know that.”
“We can do both, or we can wait until you’re done. I just know that this...” He motioned between the two of them, “is it for me.”
Her eyes were wide, but not with shock. It was delight and the tight lipped grin she had spread until it looked like it hurt to be smiling that wide. She leaned back against the wall still smiling. Speechless. There was something weird about feeling this happy when Dwight and Angela were standing or maybe sitting in the closet just four feet away.
There was a loud bang coming from the closet. Pam looked over at Jim.
“What the hell is he doing?” She was more shocked by the sheer noise of the act than the fact that he had started making noise again.
There was a loud knock on the wall. Dwight wasn’t hitting the door; he was hitting the wall of the closet. He was intentionally disturbing his neighbor, and the neighbor was banging back.
“He’s going to get an RA to come up here.” Jim stood and approached the closet. “Dwight,” he yelled over the noise and waited for it to stop. “I’ll tell you why I locked you in the closet if you promise not to get mad.”
“I accept the terms.”
“Talk to Angela.”
“What?”
“Talk to Angela. Really talk to her. Tell her.”
He couldn’t see Dwight, but he was sure that Dwight was shocked that this was the reason he did this. That although it seemed like a prank, it was one friend just trying to help out another in the only bizarre way he knew how.
“I’ll let you out in 10 minutes.”
Jim returned to his spot next to Pam. There was quite a bit of whispering coming out of the closet. Then a louder no and then nothing. That was not how Jim expected that to go. Then he reminded himself that this wasn’t a movie. What was he thinking? Locking two people in a small area for twenty minutes wasn’t going to make them forget two years of heartbreak.
He stood and moved towards the door to move the dresser out of the way when Dwight’s door swung open.
Michael was confused as he looked back and forth between Jim and Pam and then back at Dwight’s door making sure that he hadn’t walked to the wrong room.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Jim asked.
“Dwight’s not here, right?”
“He’s tied up at the moment.”
“Good. Every Monday I let myself into Dwight’s room to watch TV.”
“In Dwight’s room?”
“Michael?” Dwight called from the closet.
“I thought you said Dwight wasn’t here.”
“No, well... He’s not here here, but umm, he’s in the closet.”
Pam began pushing the dresser out of the way. She figured there was no use in running now. Angela was the first one to walk out. She was trembling with anger as she pushed past Michael. Dwight emerged a second later looking like a broken man.
“Finally coming out the closet!”
The only thing Michael could say was a joke, and a lame one at that. Nothing about Angela being in the closet or anything about how she looked like she might cry. Pam wondered if she should go after her, but before she could she saw Jim leaning over to Dwight.
“Go. Go tell her.”
Dwight didn’t pause, he went after Angela. And Jim gave Dwight the push he needed.
.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim and Pam talk about the future.
Chapter End Notes:
Sorry for the amazingly long delay. I'm getting over a case of writer's block. We're almost at the end of our story. I'm thinking maybe 4 more chapters. You guys have been great.
