Jim drove her home after Toby's good-bye party in complete silence. She sat tense and quiet in the passenger seat, her purse on her knees, wondering if he would bring up the subject lying between them. But he concentrated, with exaggerated care, on the lights and the turns and getting into the right lane to cross the bridge, as if he'd never driven to her place before. Once, she opened her mouth to speak, and he asked loudly if she needed him to turn on the AC or the radio. She shook her head, feeling her stomach go all heavy and dark with an all too familiar feeling.

He's changed his mind. He doesn't want to marry me after all. What did I say? What did I do?

He pulled up to the curb, instead of turning into her parking lot. That said that he was dropping her off, not coming in. She had kind of hoped that they could be alone and quiet so they could talk about what had happened (Angela marrying Andy? Seriously?) and, more importantly, what had not happened. Or maybe they would skip the conversation and make love. But now he got out and walked around to her side of the car and opened her door. It should have felt chivalrous but it felt like he was ordering her out of the car. So Pam climbed out, and turned to face him when he slammed it shut.

"You, um, want to come up?" she asked in a small voice.

He flashed her a distracted half-smile, brushed his lips across her cheek, and shook his head. "I'm beat. Call you tomorrow?"

She shrugged, a sharp pang of disappointment closing her throat.

"Good night, Pam," he said, and his coat flared as he turned and walked around his car. As he pulled away, he gave a cheery wave but she couldn't return it.

How had everything gone so wrong?

She didn't sleep well that night, waking every few hours from some dream that immediately faded, but left her anxious and sweaty. When she did fall asleep, she overslept and didn't wake up until nearly noon. Before she was even fully awake, she called Jim from her bedside phone. There was no answer. Finally his voicemail kicked in, but she hung up. She couldn't think of anything to say. On the one hand, she could not think of anything that had gone wrong--no quarrels, the sex was good, they got along fine. But there had been a growing tension between them ever since Jim had hinted that he was going to propose to her...and then hadn't.

Maybe that had been a joke. It was hard for her to believe Jim could be so off in his sense of humor, that he, of all people, could joke with her about being engaged. Yet, if he really thought it was okay to tease her by dangling in front of her a proposal he was never going to make, well, Pam had to wonder how well suited they were to one another after all. If Jim really was that insensitive, did she want to marry him? She had once loved Roy Anderson to the point of overlooking his insensitivity and boorishness. She wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Pam bolted for the bathroom and threw up. When she stopped heaving, she slumped against the toilet, tears hot in her eyes. How could she have been so blind?

She had been afraid of this. She hadn't wanted to admit it to herself, but there had always been that tiniest of fears--that Jim was chasing her, claimed to love her, even believed it himself, only because she was unattainable. But now that he had her, now that there was no barrier between them, he lost interest. Tension gripped at her stomach and she heaved again, miserable and lonely and wishing she had someone she could talk to.

She cleaned up, got dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and padded into the kitchen. There were dirty dishes beside the sink, left over from their breakfast yesterday morning. She rinsed them and put them into the dishwasher. She picked up Jim's coffee cup, with one swallow of coffee left in the bottom. Tears stung her eyes as she emptied it down the drain. She closed the dishwasher and ran it. Then she made herself a cup of strong coffee and sat at her tiny table, staring into space.

Her feelings for him had not changed. She still loved him, the tall gawky adorable awkwardness of him, the humor in his eyes, the love in his hands on her body in the dark, the way he paid actual attention to what she said. If his feelings had changed, well, she would carry on as before and wait for him to realize it himself.

She spent the rest of the day making lists of things to pack for New York. If she spent too much time wiping her cheeks of tears, or listening too hard for the phone to ring or for a knock on her door, well, it was something she would have to get used to. She was used to patience.

At sunset, as she was wondering whether to bother cooking or just call out for pizza, Jim called.

"Hey," he said when she answered.

"Hey," she said. The silence stretched, no longer the comfortable closeness it had been.

"I, uh, just wanted you to know that I'm um going out of town tomorrow."

Where was on the tip of her tongue, but even as she opened her mouth the answer Utica flashed through her mind and she only said. "Okay."

"I just didn't want you to, uh, worry because I'm not here."

He sounded lame to her, but she only said, "I guess I'll see you Monday then."

Was that relief in his voice? "Yeah, Monday. Hey, you okay?"

She cleared her throat. "Yeah. I'm fine. Have a good trip."

"Yeah, I will." He sounded much more cheerful. "I love you!" He hung up before she could answer.

I love you. He says it so casually. As if it hadn't cost him years of waiting and hoping to say that. As if he takes it for granted now. Like Roy used to take it for granted.

She spent Sunday packing. The first things she packed were her art supplies and her books, her tiny camera and her portfolio. Only after those essentials were packed did she consider what to wear. Should she stick with her safe, conservative skirts and blouses? Or could she go "art school" with tights and black sweaters? Or would she look ridiculous, imitating students ten years her junior? She lay awake a long time Sunday night, listening to distant traffic sounds, to the ticking clock, thinking about her life and how by now she had wanted to have at least one child and a home of her own, not a tiny apartment and a dead-end job and a boyfriend who apparently couldn't commit.

"Been here, done this," she whispered to herself.

"Are you sure that's everything?" Jim asked. He straightened, his T-shirt showing sweat stains at the armpits, a smudge of grease on his forehead. The last of her boxes sat on a stack of similar boxes in the middle of her dorm room.

Pam looked around, at the big windows and the tiny room "Yeah, I think so," she said. A dorm room? At her age?

Jim nodded. "I'll go move the car. I can't afford a ticket." He loped down the stairs, banging the outside door shut.

She ran her hand through her hair, thinking. Better unpack the cleaning supplies first, then hang up her clothes in the joke of a closet next to the bathroom. And that bathroom--it didn't need cleaning, it needed an air strike. She had lots of work ahead of her to make this into a home.  

"Pam? Seriously? We have to talk about this ... bed." He was glaring at the twin bed shoved up against the wall as if it had personally insulted him.

"It's not like you're going to be sleeping in it," she snapped. Then put her hand to her mouth. "I didn't mean, that is..."

Jim's mouth was a tight line. "I know. Roommate. We'll ... work something out. But what I meant was, that thing's too lumpy. I think it's worse than that mattress at Dwight's farm."

"It couldn't be. Not possible," she said, smiling a little.

"Come on, let's get you a better mattress at least. There's a Sears half a mile from here."

Pam looked down at the pillowcase she'd been twisting back and forth. He was offering to buy her a bed. He hadn't yet offered her a ring, but he was buying furniture with her. Didn't that mean something? "All right," she said. "But if you're going to do that..." She cleared her throat. "At least buy one extra-long. So your feet don't hang off the end."

"When does your roommate arrive?" His voice was low and sweet in her ear.

She grinned. "Monday."

By the time Jim left for Scranton on Sunday night, the new bed was well broken in, Pam's dorm room was neatly organized, and her heart was full and happy. The only cloud in her sky was that it would be three weeks before Jim could come up to see her.

"'Lo?"

"Jim? Oh, thank God! I've been calling you all night. Are you all right?"

"Pam? Uh, yeah. I'm fine. Just had the phone turned off. What's up?"

"You didn't call."

"What? Oh. Yeah. God, I'm sorry. Michael's working me like a cheap donkey, and I put in too many hours this week. I guess I just dozed off."

"At work?"

"Well, I wasn't at work."

There was a long silence on Pam's end. I won't ask. I won't be that girl. I won't be that girlfriend.

"Pam? You still there?"

"I'm here."

"Everything all right?"

"Yeah. It's just that you call me every night for two weeks and then suddenly you don't so I kind of wondered. That's all."

"Hey, it's no big deal, really. I was out driving around, by myself, just thinking. And then I went through the drive-in for a burger and was sitting in the parking lot eating it and before I knew it I was fast asleep. I woke up when the night manager knocked on my window. Scared hell out of me."

He was talking fast, and Pam wondered why he was so nervous. She thought she could tell when Jim was lying to her but maybe she was wrong.

"Yeah, well, I hope you're at home in bed," she said with forced jollity.

"You bet."

 "Sleep well."

"You too. I love you."

As she hung up, she wondered at how meaningless that sounded.

She slept poorly, which meant she was sleepy during class, and her work suffered. Her roommate was in and out at all hours, likely to come in just when she had just fallen asleep. The noise in the dorm annoyed her, like a low-grade headache that wouldn't go away. She was forcibly reminded that she was nearly a decade older than some of her fellow students. It made her feel useless and cranky and alien.

The only time she felt like herself these days was her nightly phone calls to Jim, and those were hardly stress free. He tried to keep things light, talked about Dwight and Michael and the office, and never said a word about their future.

On a Sunday night in late July, she called Jim's apartment and a woman answered.

"Halpert residence."

"Uh. Is Jim there?"

"May I ask who is calling?"

"His girlfriend." Was that still true?

Noises, then Jim's breathy voice. "Pam? I thought you had a field trip."

"Rained out. Who was that?"

"That? Oh, the woman who answered? Oh, she's just someone from the apartment complex." He definitely sounded nervous. Evasive.

Something in her chest turned dark and cold. "Does your neighbor have a name?"

"Ellie. Her name is Ellie."

"Is she pretty?" Pam wanted to bite her tongue. Then she wanted to hit someone. Maybe Jim. She didn't like the way being mean to him made her feel, it didn't make the ache in her heart feel any better. But she sat silent through the ensuing pause, with the line crackling with interstate static, and refused to back away.

"I didn't notice," Jim said very deliberately. And then he hung up.

Pam stared at the phone in her hand. He had never hung up on her before.

It was three days before he called again, and neither of them mentioned the incident.

Jim didn't come up to New York that following Sunday, and the weekend after that, which should have been her turn to go to Scranton, she stayed home. They watched a movie on the oldies channel, phones parked in their ears so they could trade snarky comments, but the pauses were no longer full of that hushed expectancy, no longer full of a delicious tension only to be resolved when they were together. Pam felt tears rolling silently down her cheeks after Jim sleepily said goodnight.

The following Friday he showed up at her dorm, all smiles and hugs. He dangled a key in front of  her. "The Palace!"

She blinked. "Jim, that's crazy! It'll cost the earth!" Her heart sped up, however, seeing his eager smile and his windblown hair and the tie all askew.

 "You're worth it!" He drew her into a close hug. "Get packed," he murmured into her hair. "We have a lot of time to make up for."

Later, after a long, languorous re-acquaintance with one another that concluded in an outrageous dessert eaten in non-traditional ways, they relaxed against one another in the king size bed.

Jim wiggled his toes. "My kind of bed. Nice and big," he said.

She laughed into his skin, her doubts forgotten in this warm, lazy moment. "You're a freak of nature," she said.

"We should totally get one like this," he said, mock-solemn. "You and I can take this half, and rent out the other side. It would probably pay for itself in a year."

"Andy and Angela will probably be needing one," she giggled.

Jim squeezed his eyes shut. "Ow. Please. The mental image..."

She snorted and poked him. "Meet you at the southwest corner, big guy."

Later, as he was shaving and she was getting dressed, she picked his jacket up off the floor. When the paper fell out of the pocket, she almost didn't look at it. But when she did, the cold dark thing in her chest came back.

It was a return receipt for an engagement ring, dated the week before.

Numb, she said nothing, put it back in his coat, and forced herself to act natural through the rest of the evening. If it was over between them, it would be him to call it off. She would not reject him again. She'd done that too often.

As he dropped her off in front of her dorm, he reached an arm across the back of her seat.

"Something wrong?"

"No."

"Really, Pam, you're so quiet."

"I ... I don't know. I don't really feel well. Something ... "

"What?"

She took a deep breath. "Are we all right, Jim?" She made herself look in those eyes.

Love looked back at her. "All right? What's wrong? Did I say something? Of course everything's all right."

Then why have you changed your mind about marrying me? "Just ... a feeling."

He framed her face with her hands and kissed her. "I love you, Pam," he said.

I don't know what to believe any more.

It was her last trip home to Scranton before the end of classes. She'd taken the train down, and Jim met her at the station with kisses and a bouquet of flowers.

"I need to find an apartment," she said as soon as she got into the car.

Jim looked over at her, frowning a bit. "Didn't we say something about living together?"

"You know how I feel about that." Don't push him. But don't let him squirm out of this. If it's over, make him end it.

He nodded. "I know," he said quietly. He signaled for a turn, got onto the highway.

"This isn't the way to your apartment," she said.

"I know." He bit his lip, and looked over at her. "Pam, there's something I have to show you. I ... I know things have been a little ... weird this summer. I haven't told you maybe some of the stuff I've been up to. There's a reason for it. I ... you'll just have to trust me."

Trust. A hard word, that. A person could batter her heart to pieces on a word that hard. Pam took a deep breath. "Okay. So what's the big secret?"

"Just hang on." He accelerated up the on-ramp and was soon in traffic. Pam sat with her knees together and her heart beating fast. The woman who answered the phone. The late nights when he didn't answer. The receipt for a ring he sold back to the jeweler. She refused to think about what that all might add up to.

Soon Jim was exiting the freeway into a residential subdivision. The houses along these streets were old, World War II era bungalows of brick and stone, with small porches and a cozy, lived-in look. The trees were large, mature oaks and elms and maples. The yards were small but well kept, with roses and late-summer daisies in full bloom. One yard had a swing, another had a basketball hoop. A dog trotted along as if he owned the block.

"Did you get a new place?" Pam asked.

Jim pulled to the curb in front of a small house of yellow brick with white trim. "Here we are," he said.

"I thought your parents lived on the other side of town."

He opened her door for her. "Come on."

The porch smelled of new paint, and she could see sawdust where someone had made repairs to a step. Jim unlocked the front door with a key and ushered her in. "Tell me what you think of the place," he said. His voice sounded tense, foreign.

The living room had a hardwood floor that gleamed with new polish. A worn but clean rug softened the look; a red sofa and two matching chairs flanked a fireplace with a fire laid ready for fall. There were photographs on the walls, and a landscape over the fireplace that her painter's eye noted for its use of color. Jim crossed the open hall way to a dining room and threw his keys onto the polished dark oak table with the ease of long familiarity.

"Where are we?" Pam asked.

"Just tell me what you think of it," Jim asked. His voice was low and urgent.

"It's a wonderful house," she said. "Very nice. Kind of old-fashioned, but clean. Are you living here?"

He beckoned her to follow, and pushed through a swinging door into a tiled kitchen straight out of an antique show. Tiled counters, glass fronted cabinets, a pantry and laundry off the back porch. The appliances were all new, however, from the microwave to the stove to the refrigerator. Pam's bewilderment grew. It looked like a house from Ozzie and Harriet or some old Leave It to Beaver re-run. Nice, comfortable, but what was the point?

"I don't get it," she said, standing in the middle of the kitchen. "Jim, is this ... is this your house?"

He took her hands in his. "My grandmother's, actually."

"I thought she died last year."

"She did. She left this to me and my sister."

"So you're sharing it?"

Jim shook his head, his eyes solemn. "I bought her half. It's all mine."

Pam's eyes widened. "You bought--but how did you afford it?"

He smiled. "It didn't look this good three months ago. I spent most of this summer fixing it up."

The long weekends when he didn't answer the phone. The distracted air. The evasions. "You were out here painting all summer?" Hope began to revive in her.

He laughed. Sunlight through the kitchen window shone gold in his brown hair. "Painting. And roofing. And plumbing. And polishing that damned hardwood floor. Ownership is hard work, Pam."

She felt ashamed of asking, but couldn't stop herself. "And ... Ellie?"

His brow furrowed. "Ellie? Oh, the real estate lady? Yeah, I wasn't completely honest about that. But if I'd told you she was helping me with escrow, it would have kind of given the whole thing away. And I wanted this to be a surprise."

She smiled. "It is a surprise, that's for sure."

He tugged on her hands. "There's more. Come on." His voice was softer now.

He led her out of the kitchen, down a hallway, past a bedroom (glimpses of a quilt hung on a wall, a daybed, an old chest) into the master bedroom.

The floor was polished so brightly she could see faint reflections in it. The bed was a high, brass-trimmed king size bed. Pale blue curtains at the window matched the comforter on the bed, the small area rugs on either side. It looked homey and comfortable and safe.

Unexpectedly, Pam felt tears. Did he mean this for me?

Jim took her hands and folded them into his. "It cost a lot to re-do the place. I ... I had to sell some stuff, had to cash out my 401(k), although God knows there wasn't much in it. But the house is mine, free and clear."

I had to sell some stuff. The ring.

Her heart thundered in her chest. "Free and clear," she whispered.

He brought her hands up to his mouth, kissed them, lingered. Then he dropped them, jerked his head towards the old fashioned dresser and mirror on one wall. "Take a look."

Slowly, she walked to the dresser. A large jewelry case sat in the center of it.

"Open it," he whispered, standing behind her.

She put out a trembling hand oh God this can't be maybe it is I was wrong and lifted the lid. Nestled alone in the center of the jewelry case was a single ring, an old fashioned solitaire gleaming in white gold.

She looked up and caught his eyes in the mirror, looking at hers. "For me?"

"That's the other thing my grandmother left me. It's her engagement ring."

She turned, and his chest was right against her face. Say it say it say it damn you will you finally just say it?

"Pam," he said hoarsely. "There's a wedding ring that goes with that engagement ring. Please marry me and live with me in this house. Please."

When it happens, it's gonna kick your ass, Beesly. Stay sharp. She should have listened to him. She giggled softly.

Jim's eyes met hers, full of questions, full of hope. "Pam? Is that a yes?"

There's room for a studio in that first bedroom,  she thought. Or a nursery. Or both.

"Pam?" Jim's voice was in a slightly higher register.

She looked up at him, and the cold dark thing in her chest was not even a memory. This is how he shows his love, she thought. He doesn't blow the wedding money on a jet ski, or postpone the date forever. He just quietly goes and makes a home for me. For us. A future. She slipped her arms around his neck, and the relief flooding his face was almost funny.

"Promise me we won't invite Michael to the wedding."