disclosure
He knows he’s being irrational, but he can’t stop thinking about it. Pam bumps his hip and flicks him with a towel while they’re making dinner, and he has a sudden, stark vision of her glowing face upturned to Roy with the same teasing grin. She sees the shadow cross his face, and her eyebrows draw together a bit in confused concern. Before she can ask, he pulls her to him to drop a kiss on her nose, and the moment passes.
An hour later they’re on the couch watching TV, sharing a spoon while they eat ice cream out of the carton. His legs are stretched out on the coffee table and she’s snuggled in warmly to his side, her legs on top of his, a blanket over both of them. She takes the spoon from him and scoops out a mouthful, but instead of eating it she lifts it up for him, and as he smiles and leans down to lick it off he wonders if she and Roy ever did this. It makes his stomach clench, and he knows he’s being insane, but he can’t unthink the thought. The smile slides off his face before he can look away.
Pam’s smile falters as she drops the spoon into the mostly-empty carton and sets it on the end table. “Is something wrong?” she asks quietly.
“What? Oh, no…no.” But his smile is too quick, and they both know it. She regards him skeptically for a long moment while he struggles for a deflection. There’s no irritation in her eyes, though, just a soft, puzzled concern.
So he kisses her.
Fully aware of what he’s doing, she doesn’t respond immediately. But after a few seconds, with his mouth open on hers and his arm wrapped tight around her, he feels her give in. She shifts to straddle his lap and brings both hands to his face, drawing back a little to gaze at him with worried eyes before she leans forward to plant kisses on his cheeks, his nose, both corners of his mouth. Coming back to center, she presses a soft kiss to his lips and rests her forehead against his, closing her eyes.
“Tell me,” she says finally, softly.
He hugs her close and feels her breath on his face, not daring to open his eyes yet. He’s not sure he can speak and he doesn’t want to try until he’s certain something incredibly stupid won’t come out.
She turns her face to rub her soft cheek against his rough one, kisses his jaw. “Jim.”
“I’m a terrible person,” he blurts.
She sits back on his thighs to look at him, and grins widely, clearly amused by this revelation. “Okay…that’s not true. What did you do?” She sucks in a breath as her eyes go suddenly wide in dismay. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t buy an iPhone.”
“I was putting some stuff away in the closet and I found your box, your… mementos.” He licks his lips. “Wait, what?”
A frown creases her forehead, more confused than angry. “My mementos?”
“A box, it says ‘memories,’ I’m sorry. I know it’s private and I had no…did you get me an iPhone?”
“No—well—no.” She sits up a bit, using his arm for leverage. “Okay, so …you looked through it?”
“Pam,” he bites his lip, his eyes pleading. “I’m sorry. I had no right.”
Her frown softens as she shrugs, a faint blush tinting her cheeks. “So you’re on to me, huh?” She smiles a little. “I was thinking of putting a few things in your stocking this year.”
It’s his turn to sit up and draw back. “What—why—what?”
“You know, like you did with the teapot.” Her frown deepens once more. “I guess not?”
The thought of finding any of those things in his stocking is too baffling for words. He stares at her in utter confusion and not a little hurt, wondering how she can possibly think that’s a good idea, until she climbs off his lap and heads upstairs. He stares after her for a moment until she calls, “Come here,” from the top of the stairs.
She’s lifting the FedEx box out of the larger box marked “Memories” when he pauses in the doorway to watch her. “It’s still sealed,” she frowns. “What—oh.” She picks up the Adidas shoebox and smiles in sudden comprehension. “Oh!”
“Oh,” he echoes.
“You don’t want my prom corsage in your stocking?” She laughs and the sound of it pulls a slight smile out of him despite himself. “C’mere,” she pats the floor next to her and shoves the shoebox aside, finding a loose bit of tape on the FedEx box to tear it open down the center.
Reluctantly he sits cross-legged beside her as she starts pulling items from the box, and immediately he feels like a jackass. His handwriting is on everything in it.
The first thing she sets aside is a sheaf of letters he sent her in New York. He’d written the first one the day she left and she was so delighted to get mail, real, actual old-fashioned mail!, that he sent her one every week after that. They’re bound in a length of ivory yarn he recognizes from her ill-fated attempt to knit him a sweater.
The two years they’ve been together make the top layer, artifacts not unlike those in the other box: movie ticket stubs, brochures and pamphlets from art shows and museums they’ve visited, the birthday card he gave her this year (unabashedly sentimental, with a note signed I love you, forever that brought tears to her eyes).
What startles him is that the collection goes back years. Valentine’s and Halloween and Christmas cards. Dozens of random notes and cartoonish doodles on Dunder-Mifflin notepads and ‘While You Were Out’ pink memo sheets.
He picks up an empty Skittles wrapper. “Okay, now this is just garbage,” he laughs, but for the first time in four hours he’s able to breathe easy.
“It is not garbage. You bought these for me the day before I got my teeth cleaned. And I called you a bad influence and you said ‘Seize the day, Pam, seize the day.’ ” She smiles fondly, remembering.
“Well,” he says gruffly, but she can see he’s pleased.
She pulls the rubber band off the shoebox, lifts the lid and pulls out the corsage to thumb through the papers underneath. “This is all my high-school stuff,” she explains, smiling as she holds up the Homecoming flyer. “My first dance. And—oh!” She opens the program for Les Mis and riffles through it quickly. “We went to Philly for the weekend to see Roy’s sister, and she got us tickets for this while the guys went to a Flyers game. Her best friend was working there and we got to go backstage and meet the cast. It was amazing.”
“Roy’s sister,” he echoes.
“Yeah…” She looks up from the program with a chuckle. “You don’t think I got Roy to go to a play? A musical?”
“I…” He shakes his head.
“Oh, aren’t you cute.” She rifles through the box, pulls out a ticket stub. “Here’s something Roy took me to.”
It’s a ticket to the Sunoco 500 at the Pocono Raceway. Jim looks up at her with wide eyes.
“He was quite the romantic,” Pam sighs, grinning as she elbows him lightly in the ribs.
He grins back. “Clearly.”
Taking the stub back from him, she put it back in the box. “It was fun, though,” she muses. “I mean, it wasn’t anything I’d have picked, but…it was still a good time. Although I did get horribly sunburned.” She gazes out the window for a moment, a faraway smile on her face, and then turns back to meet his eyes with a pensive frown. “I should get rid of all this junk, I guess. I haven’t looked at any of it in years.”
He shakes his head instantly. “No, that’s not—don’t do that, please. It’s my—I shouldn’t have been snooping.”
“It’s just stuff,” she shrugs, putting the lid back on. “I always meant to make a scrapbook, or something, but… I don’t know, I just…” She smiles. “I just like to keep things. As you can see,” she gestures at the open FedEx box, and he smiles, just a little.
“And look…yours is bigger,” she adds, with a wicked grin.
His reluctant smile grows until it breaks free and he laughs aloud. “Very funny,” he says, mock-sternly, and then sighs. “Pam, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You can look at my things. Everything I have is yours.” She gives him a teasing smile, but her eyes are utterly serious.
He looks at her for a long moment, taking that in, and nods, slowly.
~~~~
Late that night, when Jim’s low soft snoring assures her he’s deeply asleep, Pam carefully slides out from under his arm and goes back to the closet. Quietly, she slides the Adidas shoebox off the shelf and pads downstairs.
Her memories of Roy are, by choice, mostly pleasant, and still occasionally fill her with a warm nostalgia. But since she’s been with Jim, they’ve become distinctly blurred. Almost as though they happened to a different person.
She barely remembers the girl who walked so proudly into prom on the arm of Roy Anderson. She looks at the picture of the two of them standing awkwardly in front of her parents’ fireplace and tries to conjure the memory, but it has faded to a series of vague impressions: his shy smile as he pinned on her corsage, the scent of Windex in his freshly-scrubbed truck, the soft lighting in the gym. And, later, his lips on her neck, his warm hands on her back as he unzipped her dress.
That was a good day. There were so many of them in the first years she and Roy were together, all faded now like the dried corsage in its Ziploc bag.
Her memories with Jim are edged in sharp relief. His posture, his tone, the glint in his eyes, are etched into her mind’s eye with a clarity that defies the monotony of their time together in the office. The few moments they escaped to be themselves, away from co-workers and cameras and fiancés, made the best days. Nearly all her best memories from the past five years are bound in some way to his eyes, his smile, their shared laughter. His unerring ability to make her smile, even when she doesn’t want to.
No, he’d never ask her to throw any of these things away. And it's that knowledge that makes her want to be rid of it.
She sets aside the corsage, and drops the box into the garbage. Staring down at it among yesterday’s coffee grounds and a pile of cucumber skins from their dinner salad, she’s surprised at the feeling that nearly overwhelms her, bringing a wide smile to her face.
Free.
~
Author's Chapter Notes:
All done. Hey, I said this would be a short story. :)
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. :)
callisto is the author of 22 other stories.
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