Cancer scare

 Jim half-smiled, half grimaced at the camera. “Yeah, rough morning. The baby caught a cold from daycare. She wants nothing to do with me when she’s sick and she was up most of the night...which means Pam was up most of the night. ” He lost the second half of the smile. “Pam doesn’t do well when she hasn’t had her sleep.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me that everyone hates me?” Pam’s voice was quiet but Jim was fairly sure her pitch was waking up neighborhood dogs and bats. “No one wants me here, they think they were better off without me, and I should have stayed home with the baby. I told you. I told you.”

Jim straightened up from where he’d been crouching in front of the refrigerator in the  office’s small kitchen, retrieving their lunch. Pam stood in the doorway, obviously upset. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were wet with the beginning of tears, and a crease had appeared between her eyes. Worse, she was tugging and twisting at her wedding ring, a frantic, unconscious motion that was the only habit of Pam’s that Jim really hated.

He took her hand to still the movement as much as to reassure her. “No one hates you,” he said. “Well, maybe Angela, but only because you’re such a floozy.” He hoped that he had hit the right reassuring but not flippant tone. Pam had adjusted very well to her return to the office, but between hormones, lack of sleep, and the so-called “mommy guilt” surrounding her return to work, her moods changed with all the frequency but none of the predictability of a traffic light.  “Tell me what happened.”

“I was heading into the break room to wait for you and Erin was in there with Kevin. And he said, ‘Are you sure it’s Pam?’ and she said, ‘Yes, definitely. Pam is the cancer of the office. ‘”  

Jim made a face he usually reserved for Michael-led meetings in the conference room. “Erin said that.”

“Yes!” Pam wailed softly. “She said, ‘Pam is the cancer of the office’. And then she said something like, ‘I thought so by the way you all talked about her when I first started, and then she came back and it is so obvious’. And then she said…” Pam sniffed and rolled her eyes to keep the tears in. “She said she’d checked with Toby and he’d confirmed it!”

Jim was baffled. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that everyone loved Pam as much as he did (he was pretty sure that there were still a few grudges out there about the note on the dirty microwave); still, to consider her a cancer in the office?  That was just silly. And it didn’t sound like something Erin would say, anyway.  Jim gave Pam’s hand a squeeze.

Jim looked helplessly at the camera. “So…any idea if paranoia and auditory hallucinations are symptoms of some post-partum thing I don’t know about yet?”

 He took a deep breath and smiled at her. “OK, this is a misunderstanding, Pam. Seriously. I’ve never heard Erin say a mean thing about anybody even if they deserved it, which you totally don’t. Because nobody hates you.”

“OK, maybe she doesn’t hate me, but she didn’t say she did.” Pam was so upset by now that her syntax was starting to confuse him. “She said my presence is, like, infecting the office.  And she would know! You know stuff like that when you’re the receptionist!”

Jim quirked an eyebrow. “I was in love with you for years and you didn’t know it. I think you may be slightly overestimating the all-knowing powers of the reception desk.”

Pam let go of his hand. “Do not make fun of me,” she snapped.

“I’m not- Pam, c’mon, I’m not. But you are very tired and I’m not sure you are thinking this through.”

“I’m not…"  She stopped. “OK, yes, I really could use a nap. But I know what I heard!”

“I just can’t believe that’s what she meant. You had to have misunderstood her.” Pam looked skeptical and still on the verge of tears. With one firm nod, Jim decided his course of action. “C’mon, we’ll go find out.”

“What?! No! Wait! Jim!”

Without waiting for her, Jim grabbed up their lunch bags and headed to the break room.

Erin grinned at them cheerily from her seat at one of the small tables. Jim thought he saw relief in her expression, which wasn’t entirely surprising considering that she was sitting in the room with Kevin as her sole companion.  “Hello, Halperts!” she chirped.

“Hey. Um, Erin, listen…” Jim began, ignoring the small sound of protest Pam made behind him. “I- “

“Hey, Pam?” Kevin interrupted, “When is your birthday? It’s soon, right?”

“Oh, yeah!” Erin’s expression brightened even further, if that was even possible. “We were just talking about your birthday. It’s in July, right? You totally must be a Cancer.”

Self-preservation instincts kicked in just as the laughter was about to pass through Jim’s lips. He kept his eyes trained on Erin’s innocently inquisitive expression as he heard Pam softly say, “Yes,” and then walk quickly out of the room.

Kevin nodded slightly. “I wondered when the next birthday was going to be. I was hoping we would have cake soon. I really, really like cake.”