Sometimes, his ring clicks on her counter.  Fingers laced, no calluses.  The nails are rough.  He wants to seem nonchalant, but the hands give him away.  Restless.

Sometimes, he smiles and there's warmth in it.  Ears rise with the corners of the mouth.  Blinding, until it falters, the adam's apple bobbing once as he clears his throat.

Sometimes, he's a shadow.   Looming over her desk, a tree too weary to grow toward the sun.  Too rooted to die.  Static between seasons, home to nothing.

Sometimes, despite his efforts, she can see past the eyes.  Through the film playing there, to the dark booth behind.  She could flip the switch, stop the fantasy.  But she's afraid he would disappear with it.  Cease to be altogether.

Because sometimes, she can see it, like a single frame in the stuttering light of a projector.  Jim, as he must have been.  As she hopes he was.  Decent, hopeful.  Alive.

So, sometimes, when he calls her Pam, she lets it go.  Forgivable, the confusion of this middle-aged man.  A lapse in the flicker of the fluorescents overhead.  Nothing more.