One month later
He imagines this is how she might have been at that bonfire carnival so many years ago, if she’d shown up. Her eyes are wide, bright and every few moments, she gasps in delight.
“Jim, look!” She grabs his hand and all but drags him over to a painting. “Isn’t it amazing?”
She loves European paintings. He, frankly, would rather look at the Egyptian artifacts, but the look on Pam’s face is worth hanging out with Monet and Cezanne for, even if he does think they’re sort of, well, messy.
The look on her face is worth having fought Upper East Side traffic and driving around for an hour to get a parking spot fourteen blocks away from the Met. Even leaving Scranton before 8 a.m. hadn’t saved them that hassle.
In the four weeks since she’d come home from her grandmother’s funeral to find him sitting on her front stoop, they’d been working their way back to what they’d been and toward what they were becoming.
Karen had moved to Chicago a couple of weeks ago to stay with a friend from college while she pursued an advertising career. The night Pam left to go to Shippensburg, Jim was finally honest with his girlfriend. The truth was, he said, he just didn’t see a future with her.
“Promise me,” she’d said fiercely, trying to keep the tears from falling, “promise me this isn’t about Pam.”
He’d been aware of the cruel irony when he’d hung his head (because he really did feel bad for what he’d done to her) and said “I can’t.”
There were still a lot of long talks, a lot of history to be revealed and emotional snarls to untangle, but he discovered he didn’t mind them with Pam. It wasn’t easy. The who should have called whom after Pam canceled her wedding and Jim found out she’d canceled her wedding debate had gone on and gone nowhere until Pam had informed him, at 3:18 in the morning, that he could “suck it,” without a hint of flirtation in her voice, and slammed out of his apartment. He’d followed her home, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he didn’t know she was safe, then drove sleepily back to his apartment, grumbling about how stubborn she was.
She’d shown up at his door late the next morning with a bag of pastries and a half-smile that was at once sheepish and petulant.
“I suppose I could have called,” she’d sighed, “but you left, so you’ll forgive me if I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.”
“You rejected me,” he informed her, yet again. “Twice. I didn’t want you to think I was some pathetic vulture, swarming the corpse of the broken engagement.”
“But if…”
“Are we going to do this again?” He’d demanded, snatching the wax paper bag from her. “What’d you bring me?”
Pam had rolled her eyes in a way that would have made his mother remark about them getting stuck that way. “Can we at least agree that we both could have handled things better?”
“Say the chocolate chip cream cheese Danish is mine and I’ll accept some of the responsibility,” he’d smirked, and she’d agreed, only after he’d conceded to share part of the Danish.
They were at that hard-to-define place in their relationship where they weren’t “just friends” but they also weren’t quite dating. Despite spending more time together outside of the office than they ever had before, they hadn’t crossed that line.
They both knew it was a matter of when, not if, so they didn‘t feel a need to rush. Of course, Jim had taken his fair share of cold showers over the past four weeks, but he knew it was worth the wait. She was worth the wait.
He‘s being dragged across the gallery.
“Jim, isn’t it incredible?”
For a small woman, Pam is very strong when she wants something and right now what she wants is for him to look at a blue, green and yellow vertical painting of what he thinks is supposed to be a tree. The placard next to it indicates the work is called “Cypresses” and Jim congratulates himself silently on his artistic insight.
“Incredible,” he parrots brightly, nodding enthusiastically, and she sees right through him, because she knows him and also because he couldn’t be more transparent if he were made of cellophane.
“Yeah, right.”
He has the decency to blush. “I’m sorry, Pam. It just looks like finger painting to me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Look closer,” she instructs him, “look at the intensity of the brush strokes. Look at the texture and how the colors blend together. Look at what it feels like, Jim.”
So he does. He leans forward and sees that close up, there are places where the paint isn’t flat on the canvas. He sees places where the leaves on the tree could be green flames. He sees something frenetic and desperate in the swirling brushstrokes. He tilts his head to look from a different angle, concentrating to see what she sees without having to try.
And suddenly, two small hands are grasping the sides of his black zip up sweatshirt and pulling him down. He realizes what’s happening just as his lips collide with hers and laughs into her mouth.
“That’s my move, Beesly,” he teases, nipping at her, his arms slipping around her waist. “Very unoriginal.”
“You talk too much,” she mumbles, sliding her tongue along his.
He tastes the inside of her whipped cream flavored mouth and swallows her happy sighs.
Kissing her beat the hell out of Van Gogh any day.
Author's Chapter Notes:
So this is how it all wraps up. Or how it all begins.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks so much to everyone who read this story. Your feedback is always so appreciated and just makes my day.
andtheivy is the author of 17 other stories.
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