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“It’s snowing,” Pam announced, sliding back under the covers and as close to him as her protruding stomach would allow. She slid her cold feet between Jim’s legs and he yelped.
“Watch it!” He exclaimed and she giggled, her face buried in his back, his t-shirt bunched in her hands. “Those feet are lethal!”
“It’s snowing,” she said again. “Like really snowing.”
“As opposed to fake snowing?” He teased, as she burrowed further under the covers.
“Shut up,” she replied, but he could hear the laughter in her voice. “There’s like a foot of snow out there. Looks like we’re getting our white Christmas.”
“Christmas isn’t for five more days, Bees,” Jim reminded her. “If Al Gore is correct, and the man did invent the internet remember, global warming will surely bring us a fifty degree day and melt all the snow before Christmas.”
“Bah humbug Scrooge,” Pam said. “You and Al Gore can suck it. There’s no way all that snow will be gone by Friday. And you know what the best part is?” The best part, Jim thought, was how excited she sounded for the snow. The best part was the way she had wrapped her increasingly awkward body around his and the way she had buried her cold nose in his back.
“What’s that?”
“It forces our hand, Jim, because of the snow we have to have a Do Nothing Day,” her voice was giddy and he understood why. Do Nothing Days were his absolute favorite. Pam would make popcorn and he would make hot chocolate (Pam tried to call them cocoas, but he told her, “Little girls drink cocoa, Pam, men drink hot chocolate.” She had giggled, “Sorry, you big manly man, do you want mini marshmallows on your hot chocolate?”), and they would waste away the day on the couch, Pam’s feet mingling with Jim’s, and their hands intertwined under a blanket.
“But first,” Pam said. “Before the Doing Nothing can commence, I propose not leaving this bed for at least another hour, give or take twenty minutes, depending entirely, of course, on whether or not I have to pee.”
Everything, they had learned, depended entirely on whether or not Pam had to pee. Where they sat in a movie theater (on the end of a row), or where they went to eat dinner (there were a few restaurants which used a type of air freshener in the ladies’ room that made Pam nauseous. Jim kept a list. It was a shame, really, because some of those restaurants had been his favorites), or even the time that Oscar scored tickets to a minor league hockey game and asked Jim if he and Pam wanted them (the answer had been no. Too many people, too few bathroom stalls).
Pam heard women talk about how much they loved being pregnant, how they loved the way their bodies changed and she thought it was all a crock. Being pregnant, as far as she could see, kind of sucked. She was sick all the time and had to pee all the time and her body felt alien and cumbersome. None of it was magical or beautiful or awesome and she kind of wanted to punch anyone in the face who disagreed with her.
Jim closed his eyes and felt Pam’s breath warm on his back, and he waited until he heard her breathing even out again before he gently climbed out of bed and opened the blinds.
Pam hadn’t been kidding about the snow. He had always loved the way that snow muted everything, made everything beautiful and quiet and peaceful.
“The only thing that would have made this better,” Pam’s voice startled him, and he wondered how long he had been standing there watching the snow fall. She had the down comforter from their bed wrapped around her, and it swallowed her whole. “Would be if it had happened during the week and the office would have been closed down.” Old Jim would have agreed with her, but New Jim had suddenly become a responsible adult who worried about taking care of his wife and baby and felt a little like that kid in school that had perfect attendance and bragged about it to everyone else.
He hated that kid in school. That kid was Dwight. He hated that he was Dwight.
He didn’t tell Pam this, just as he didn’t tell her how he woke up in the middle of the night terrified that the company was going to fail, that he was going to fail. He just wrapped his arm around her and kissed her temple.
“Hey, how about we make a snowman later?” Jim suggested.
“Or snowwoman,” Pam corrected. “Welcome to the twenty-first century Mr. Halpert.” She punched him lightly on the arm and he feigned hurt.
“You are freakishly strong all of a sudden,” he complained rubbing his arm. “I think we have a mutant child growing in you.”
“Baby,” she retorted.
“I think I’m going to bruise.”
“I didn’t realize I was marrying such a wuss.”
“Bite your tongue woman!”
“Can we make snow angels later too?” Pam asked, ignoring Jim as she walked away from the window, the blanket trailing behind her. “And oh! Maybe a fort? A really great fort? A fort that would put all other forts to shame?”
“We do have to practice our fort building skills before the kid gets here,” Jim agreed. “We want to cement our status early on as the coolest parents on the block.”
“I really like snow days,” Pam grinned. “Like really really like snow days.”
Jim smiled as he followed behind. He really really liked snow days too.
Story Notes:
Something fluffy I started on a snow day. And then of course did not touch for a week and a half. The title is by Fleet Foxes (love the Fleet Foxes)
bashert is the author of 37 other stories.
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