Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim and Pam meet each other for the first time with a little bit of help from Jim's sister in-law.
Jim was standing in front of his mirror. He smoothed out a few wrinkles on his shirt. He tucked the shirt in and then pulled it out again. He turned off the lights in the bathroom and grabbed his keys from the dining room table. He took one last look at her picture before walking out the door. It was the only picture he had left in the house. He didn’t really have a lot of pictures up before, but when she died he had to take them down. It was too painful to see her smiling face staring back at him everyday.
“I’m sorry,” he thought before closing the door.
He wondered if it this was too soon. How long should you wait before you start dating again? It had been a year and a half since she died, but on some days he felt like it was just yesterday. Today was one of those days.
His brother’s wife Erin had started bothering him a couple weeks ago about getting back into the dating game. She wasn’t trying to be insensitive; she was just worried about him. Last week she called and asked him to go on a double date with her friend from high school. She said that she had run into her the other day at the grocery store. Apparently she had just moved back to Scranton. He smelled a setup, but he said yes. Not because he wanted to go on a date, but he thought if Erin could see how bad the date would be with her own eyes she would lay off of him for a while.
His stomach was in knots when he pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant. He clenched the steering wheel hard before letting go to turn off the car. He could see his brother Jon and his wife, Erin, getting out of their car. He couldn’t see the face of the woman with them, just the top of her head. What was her name? Erin told him five times yesterday. How could he have forgotten already?
Pam had been sitting in the backseat of the car rubbing the stain at the bottom of her shirt. This was the second shirt she had put on before leaving the house. She couldn’t keep anything clean anymore. Her daughter, Francesca, must have been trying to sabotage this date. Maybe it was her way of saying, ‘Wait for dad. He’ll come back one day. I know it.’ That was a stupid thought though. Franny had never met Roy. Maybe she heard his voice a few times while she was in the womb, but he never talked to her belly. He never put his hands on her stomach to feel the baby kick or move.
Pam should have known then that he was going to leave. Her mother warned her about guys like Roy, but she thought he was different. For a while he was. He moved to New York with her when she decided that she wanted to go to school. He was supportive and thoughtful. Then after they got married things changed. He stopped doing the small things that mattered. After working on a project all night he wouldn’t cover her with a blanket when she eventually fell asleep on the couch anymore. He wouldn’t call to tell her that he was going to be late. Sometimes he wouldn’t tell her that he was going out with his friends, he would just walk out the door and come home at 4AM.
When she missed her period she knew she was pregnant. It took her two weeks to work up the courage to tell him. If this had been a year before she wouldn’t have hesitated telling him. They had talked about having kids and Roy never objected to the idea. He encouraged it in fact. He would say that he wanted to have two boys that looked just like him. He would kiss her and unbutton her pants. Afterwards he would joke that his two boys were on the way. She used to think it was cute, now looking back it really pissed her off.
She was too busy thinking about stupid Roy to realize that Jon and Erin had gotten out of the car. She tried looking through the windows of the car to see the man Jon was waving at. She could only see his shirt and she betted that he didn’t have a huge stain from baby formula on his shirt. She licked her thumb and rubbed it over the spot again. She stepped out of the car and Jim came into view. He looked like an older version of Jon. He was cute and nothing about him reminded her or Roy.
Jim could finally see whatsherface. He liked the way her hair looked big and curly, almost messy. It made her seem like she wasn’t trying too hard to impress him and he could appreciate that. His wife’s hair was stick straight and blonde. It helped that she looked nothing like her. Jim shoved his hands in his pockets as he approached the three. He gave a fading smile to his brother and Erin.
“Pam, this is Jim,” Erin said.
Jim pulled his hand out of his pocket to shake her hand. She gave him the same small smile he had just give his brother and his wife. Her hands were soft and then he tried to remember the last time he had held someone’s hand, and he couldn’t. Not with out thinking about Megan. Her hand slipped out of his and his body betrayed him when his fingers dragged across her palm, just prolonging the touch. Her fingers coiled toward him as a reflex. He looked away not wanting her to think that he meant anything by that. She wanted to say something as they walked into the restaurant, but she couldn’t think of anything.
Erin hadn’t really told Pam a lot about Jim. When she ran into her that day at the grocery store she asked Pam about Roy. She remembered him from high school and she had heard a few years back that they were living in New York together. She didn’t go into the full details, but told her that they weren’t together anymore. She told her that she moved back to Scranton with her daughter and they were living at her parent’s house until she found a place. They exchanged numbers and the next day Erin was calling her asking if she would want to go on a date with her husband’s brother. She said no at first. She didn’t think she had time to be dating right now. Honestly though, she was just afraid to put herself out there again. When the man you thought you knew so well could walk out on you when you’re 6 months pregnant, what would a complete stranger do to you? She didn’t have anything left to give and she couldn’t have someone taking the time that belonged to her daughter.
After a week of sitting at home in her old room she rethought at least trying to make friends. She loved her parents, but she needed someone else to talk to, someone who wouldn’t pussy foot around certain subjects because they thought that she would suddenly break. And sometimes she really felt like that. Like there was a crack running down her that was visible to everyone but her. And no matter how hard she tried to assure them there wasn’t one they would only believe it more. When she called Erin back she wasn’t so sure why she was so happy that she had changed her mind. It was just a date.
Jim pulled her chair out for her. He waited till she was sitting before he sat down next to her. Erin looked over at Jon and then motioned her eyes toward the two. Jon rolled his eyes and nodded giving her the smallest hint of a smile.
“So...” Jon started. He knew his wife was trying to help and at the moment she was floundering even if she didn’t think she was.
Jim nodded as he waited for his brother to continue.
“You used to live in New York?”
“Uh... yeah. Just for the past four years.”
“Why’d you move back?” Jim asked. “Why would anyone leave New York for Scranton?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer this question. She didn’t want to seem like that sad broken person that everyone else thought she was. So she told only part of the truth. “Rent got to be too much.” It had. Once Roy left she struggled, but she still scrapped by. When the baby was born she could barely afford food for herself and she knew it was time to leave.
Jim seemed satisfied with that answer. He drank all of his water before the waitress came back to take their orders. He didn’t know what to talk about. He hadn’t been on a date in years, especially not a blind date. He glanced over at Pam and noticed that she was rubbing that stain on her shirt.
“I’m a messy eater too.” He pointed down at the shirt. ‘What an asshole thing to say,’ he thought as the words slipped out of his lips, but she didn’t glare at him or furrow her eyebrows in annoyance. She smiled.
“Think they have bibs here?” No one had made fun of her in a while, it was oddly comforting.
“Probably not, but you can have my napkin when dinner gets here. No charge, it’s all yours.”
The waitress reached between them and refilled Jim’s glass. Jim looked away nervously. He was trying to show Erin how this wasn’t going to work, not how easy it was to talk to Pam. He was quiet until dinner came. He listened to Erin and Pam talk about where other people from high school were now.
Pam was taking too big of a bite of her food when Erin began telling Jim about her.
“Pam was an amazing artist in high school. Do you still have all of the things you did?” Pam nodded her head and tried to swallow the food in her mouth so she could answer, but Erin continued on. “You really should see them Jim. I’m sure Pam wouldn’t mind showing them to you.”
Pam now sees that Erin was really pushing this on Jim for whatever reason. She knows how that feels. “They’re all in storage.” She wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “But if you want to accompany me to my storage unit then it’s a done deal,” she joked.
They both smirked at Erin. She laughed because she took this as a sign that it was going better than she hoped.
They finished dinner with some friendly banter. In the parking lot the four of them stood there saying their goodbyes. Jon noticed that Jim was in a remarkably good mood. He hadn’t seen a smile plastered on his face in years. And the fact that he was joking was almost astonishing.
“Hey you know what Jim? Pam’s house is just down the block from yours. Would you mind dropping her off? We have to run to the store before we go home.”
“Sure,” he said. He would have been suspicious if Erin had asked, but not Jon. Jon wouldn’t do something underhanded like purposely making him take Pam home.
Jon couldn’t believe how easy that was.
“Thanks for coming out with us tonight. It was really good to catch up. Give me a call sometime.” Erin hugged Pam goodbye.
“Yeah, it was nice to get out of the house.”
She waved at Jon before following Jim to his car. He unlocked her door and then went to his side and slid in to the car.
“Thanks for the ride.”
“Oh yeah. Thanks for putting up with Erin’s lack of subtlety.”
“I’m used to it. She’s still the same girl from high school.”
He drove for a few minutes and then realized that he had no idea where he was going. He cleared throat. “What street do you live on?”
“Just take your next right after the stop sign. Then it’ll be the first one on the corner on the next street down.”
Well at least he knew Jon for sure wasn’t lying about her living just down the block. He pulled up to the house and put the car in park.
“Thanks for the dinner. I had a really good time.”
“Me too.” He said those words without thinking, so it must have been true.
There was an awkward pause until she reached out her hand and he shook it.
“I guess I’ll see you around.” She opened the door and stepped out.
“Yeah, have a good night.” She closed the door and he waited till he saw her open the front door before driving off. He almost rolled down his window and asked her for her number, but he could hear Megan’s voice in the back of his head and he couldn’t go through with it. He still wasn’t ready for this.
Chapter End Notes:
Up next Pam gets a job and moves into her own place.
