Jim has been to Pam’s apartment a few times before: a Super Bowl party shortly after they’d met; picking her up on the rare occasions they got together outside work; once to bring her take-out soup for lunch, when she was home from work with the flu.  Still, as he removes his jacket and wet boots by the front door, it feels strange to be here. A faintly unsettled pang spreads warmly through the pit of his stomach. It’s not entirely unpleasant.

Glancing around, his gaze falls to a big newsprint pad and a transparent plastic carrying case filled with drawing supplies on the table by door. A bottle of red wine with a festive green ribbon tied around its neck sits next to it.

‘I guess we might as well drink that,’ Pam says, ducking into the kitchen for a bottle opener and two glasses, all of which she presents to him.

‘There’s some jug wine already opened, but this is much better…or at least, a lot more expensive,’ she gestures to the bottle that’s all dressed up with nowhere to go. She laughs quietly, ‘I was trying to impress my teacher.’

Jim keeps her company while she nukes and boils, drinking wine and helping chop vegetables for a salad. The funny thing is they don’t even talk much while they work, as if they do this all the time. If not for the weird persistent sensation now gradually spreading from his gut to his limbs and head, this might almost feel normal.

‘It’s nice not to be alone in the kitchen,’ Pam remarks as she points to a cupboard, indicating where the pasta is stored. ‘Pick one?’

He peruses the choices. There are bow ties and seashells and assorted corkscrew varieties.

‘Roy only likes spaghetti. Maybe linguini if he’s being fancy.’

‘Really? Couldn’t tell that by this line up.’

‘My little rebellion,’ she grins mischievously without looking up from the pot she’s stirring.

He hands her a box of the twistiest shape he can find.

When they finally sit down to eat, the pasta is delicious - the best he’s ever had. Or maybe it’s just the best he’s ever had with Pam, which is pretty much the same thing. She deflects his praise, ‘it’s nothing fancy,’ but she’s clearly pleased, insisting on piling his plate with seconds

‘This totally makes up for your appalling lack of marshmallows,’ he smiles, slurping up the last of his noodles.

He looks across the kitchen table at Pam’s face, lit by the small flickering candle she’s placed between them. He loves her like this, loose and relaxed, her cheeks flushed from the wine. He wonders what it would be like to see her this way every day, every night - for this to really be his ‘normal.’

That bubble is abruptly burst by the shrill ringing of the telephone. It’s obvious who it is. Jim gets up to clear the dishes, pretending not to listen.

‘Fine,’ he hears her say into the receiver, followed by a long silence during which her entire body visibly tenses. When she speaks again, the ease she had at dinner has disappeared.  ‘No, I don’t want you to drive home…it’s way too late – the class was cancelled anyway.’ Her voice clenches even more as she responds to something Roy says, ‘you’re obviously drunk and the roads are icy. Just stay over there…. No, I’m not mad, Roy. I’m…I’m…look, let’s just talk about this tomorrow…Okay.’

She hangs up without saying goodbye. He also notices that she didn’t tell Roy that he’s here with her. He knows better than to read anything into it. She was probably just anxious to end the call, too aggravated to make small talk. Still.

‘Pour me some more wine, would you?’ she forces a smile, interrupting his train of thought. ‘The movie starts in couple of minutes…you’re staying to watch with me, right?’

Dr. Zhivago. He’d forgotten all about it. Somehow, their phone conversation that afternoon seems like years, not just a few hours, ago.

‘Sure, why not,’ he agrees, emptying the last of the bottle into her outstretched glass.

He can think of about a dozen reasons why not right off the top of his head. None of them seem to matter at the moment. As the first strains of Lara’s Theme fill the air and the credits begin to roll, they settle down side by side on the sofa. Almost immediately, he can sense Pam unwinding again. She pulls her legs up under her and gets comfortable, spreads out a little. It’s not a large sofa.

It’s hardly a shock that her proximity proves distracting. Every time she absentmindedly reaches up to wind one of her curls around her finger, or even inhales, he loses all track of the film’s plot. Had he not seen it before, he’d literally have no idea what it was about. About halfway through, she gets up to fill their glasses with jug wine (‘pretend this is vodka,’ she suggests) and when she sits back down, it’s just as close, maybe even closer. She winces slightly, pressing her hand to the small of her back.

‘Still bothering you?’ Jim asks.

‘A little,’ she nods.

He thinks he’s drunker on her nearness, her scent, than on alcohol when he reaches out and gently pushes her shoulder, so she angles her back towards him. He almost can’t help himself, but he’s surprised by how readily she complies. Like this is nothing unusual. He begins to massage, careful not to stray even an inch beyond the area her own movements had indicated. The edge of her sweater has ridden above the waistband of her jeans, exposing a small crescent of skin. His fingertips just barely graze it. It’s smooth, almost velvety, like he knew it would be. Pam doesn’t even start, just let’s her weight relax into his hands like that’s where they belong. When she makes a satisfied humming sound and sighs, ‘yeah, right there,’ he loses his ability to breathe.

It’s too much.

He hastily withdraws his hands, with a friendly pat on the back to show – himself more than her - that he’s not deluded. Turning back to face the television, she seems oblivious, lightly leaning against his side. Her posture implies nothing suggestive.

He’s pretty sure.

Making matters worse, it’s chilly in her living room. He can’t help noticing her nipples poking visibly against the thin peach colored wool of her top. At least he assumes it’s from the temperature. He looks away quickly, but his body has a mind – apparently that of a sixteen year old – of its own. He recalls an evening much like this one a few months earlier, watching a movie on another girl’s sofa. Katie had literally straddled his lap, shimmied out of her shirt and unzipped his fly, and his involuntary reaction had been no more instantaneous or intense than the one he’s experiencing right now.  He repositions his leg and a grabs throw pillow, he hopes discreetly, to avoid humiliating himself. 

For just a second, he allows himself to envision a parallel life where it wouldn’t be mortifying for Pam to see the effect the mere thought of her breasts has on him. Where he wouldn’t need to hide. He imagines her laughing, leaning in to kiss him, reaching down to touch him, oh fuck, touching him, as she whispers in his ear ‘we already know how this movie ends.’ He’d flick off the remote and take her in his arms. She’d wrap herself around him, warm, soft and eager. There’d be no shame.

This train of thought definitely isn’t helping his current predicament. It’s also about as likely to occur as their assuming the identities of Dr. Zhivago’s fictional lovers. He makes himself focus on the television screen. Pam seems absorbed, sniffling quietly as Yuri and Lara begin their doomed affair.

She was right; he’d forgotten how very long this movie is. Somewhere around the three-hour mark, her head starts to list towards his shoulder, then onto it, and she’s asleep, her hair tickling his cheek. Jim shifts his position slightly and she moves with him, her hand unconsciously dropping to his thigh. It lands solidly in the narrow DMZ between the area where an old aunt might pat you on the leg and the one where a touch is another thing altogether. It’s her fingertips, curved to delicately rest against the inseam of his jeans that push it over the edge. Except, she couldn’t be aware of what she’s doing.

She’s not even conscious of that when she’s awake.

He tries, unsuccessfully, to ignore it. By the time she stirs, an older ruined Yuri has literally died of a broken heart. He’s crossed the frozen Tundra for Lara, written her transcendent love poems, and still he’s lost her to history. An infomercial drones in the background as Pam slowly opens her eyes and looks up at him, hazily but directly. She lets her hand linger a beat too long to be completely unambiguous.

Jim stares back at her, and something in her expression seems to say she would give him everything right now. If only he’d ask. Or, he could be seeing what he wants to see. The longer he plays this game, the worse he gets at it.

He hears his voice imploring her, Oh Pam oh Pam oh Pam I’ve loved you so long… 

But it’s only inside his head.

The sound coming out his mouth says, ‘I should go…it’s late.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she quickly replies. ‘I mean, the roads are bad…and the sofa pulls out. I could…’ she trails off, as he begins to extricate himself.

‘No, I really shouldn’t. I have Suzanne’s gift in the car, so…’

He forces himself to stand up and go to the door to put on his boots and jacket. She follows, looking sleepy and maybe a little disappointed and god, he wants to kiss her so much he actually feels dizzy with it. It’s like the room is spiraling and her lips pressing against his is the only thing that would make it stop. But even now, he knows that’s not true. It would steady nothing, just dissolve the fragile glue that holds them in the same orbit at all. 

‘Stay warm,’ he settles for bending down to place a single chaste peck on her forehead.

‘Be careful,’ her words are barely audible as he hurries out the door.

There’s a fresh dusting of snow on his car, which he brushes away with his bare hand. He doesn’t even wait for his engine to warm enough for the defroster to work. Straining to see through the foggy windshield, wheels struggling for traction on the packed icy street, he just drives away in the dark. He’s gone a full block before a lone car heading in the opposite direction honks and he realizes he forgot his headlights. Flipping them on, he makes a turn onto the main road that sends him into a skid. He narrowly averts a collision with an oncoming snowplow, working late into the night.

As Jim rights himself, the snowplow powers undeterred down Pam’s street. He continues on, certain it will cover the path he’d shoveled earlier.

It will be as if it never happened.

 *****