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My Best Friend
Chapter 2
I’m not a perfect person. There’s many things I wish I didn’t do. Yes, I know, those are lyrics in a song, but it applies to me. I’m not perfect. I mean, maybe my kids, on rare occasions, think I’m perfect. Like when I give in at the grocery store and buy them candy just so they don’t throw themselves on the dirty floor and start screaming. I learned my lesson this one time, I had to run to the store for milk and bread. Simple enough. Cece had to come with me – like tears down her face because I had my keys in my hand- had to come with me, and it’s so amazing how she stopped crying the instant I picked her up and said okay. We were at the checkout counter, waiting to pay and I was trying to keep her occupied. But then it happened before I even saw it coming. She wanted M&M’s, but she had just had ice cream before we left, so I said no. She dropped to the floor and started screaming, and I couldn’t pick her up. Yes, me, a thirty something year old man over six feet tall could not lift his two and a half year old daughter from the floor. I’m not even sure how she did it, she just was like… a boulder. I mean, I’d never seen anything like it.
Now when we go grocery shopping, they’re allowed to pick out one thing that they want. Anything else that they add we mysteriously put back when they’re not looking, and it completely amazes us when the girls forget they even asked for the treats that they had to put in the cart or the world would end right then and there, in aisle four of Stop and Shop.
Parenting has been a challenge. I know everyone says it’s the hardest thing a person can do, raising children. I never really understood it until our oldest started walking. We were like, oh my God it’s on the move, now what do we do. Don’t get me wrong though, I love my family, and one day I’d love to add to it when Pam and I both feel ready to try this all over again. Maybe we’ll fix what we did wrong with Cece and Alyssa with a third one, and he or she will be the perfect Halpert child. Third time’s a charm, they say.
But I’m not perfect. If I needed more proof of that, this documentary is doing a fine job of providing that for me, in case there were any doubts from what I’ve seen so far. I spent most of the day looking forward to watching with Pam from where I left off last night. True to her word, she settled herself right next to me on the sofa and curled into my side while I pressed the play button on the remote.
Immediately, literally immediately I’m brought back to the day the branches merged and I set foot back in the Scranton office once again. That day, I’m pretty sure I remember two things. Stalling for as long as possible in the parking lot that morning, waiting for someone to walk into the office with that wasn’t Andy or Karen, really just because walking in with either one of them would lead to an actual conversation that I’d have to participate in, and my mind was literally all over the place that morning.
The other thing I’ll always remember is her smile when I walked through the door. For a second we forgot everything that happened and were happy for a millisecond before it all came flying back.
The funny part is – not the laugh out loud kind of funny, more of the how pathetic I was during that time kind of funny – while I was in the parking lot stalling and making up a hundred excuses to stay in my car and never go inside, Pam had been setting up the conference room, smiling at the camera, telling them she had been looking forward to having her old friend back. I mean, I lived through it, I know I did. I just can’t understand how it went so wrong so quickly.
“Hey,” Pam whispers in my ear. “We’re here, remember?”
“Hmm?” I mumble, keeping my eyes on the television, watching her introduce herself to Karen.
“You’re squeezing my shoulder,” she tells me and I instantly loosen my grip.
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head, my eyes unpeeled from the television.
“We don’t have to do this. It was hard enough to live through it.”
“I know,” I agree.
She nods and settles back against me, and I love that about her, that she doesn’t push and ask me a hundred times why I’m doing something. She just accepts the things I do – well, most of the time. We’ve argued plenty over what I’ve done wrong. That’s a part of married life, too. The making up though, is totally worth the arguing.
I fast forward through whatever exchange happens between my coworker Andy and my old boss Michael, knowing that this is probably the point in that day where I was standing in the middle of the parking lot waiting for someone to walk in with. At the time, I didn’t want to walk in with Karen because I didn’t want the moment I saw Pam again to have Karen attached to it. And I never want to spend any extra seconds with Andy. Well, back then I really didn’t. Anger management really did change him.
But there I am, hugging Pam hello and I’m telling the lamest joke ever, introducing myself to her like an idiot.
“You looked really pretty that day,” I whisper, leaning over to find her eyes have closed.
She nods, swallows and says, “I did that for you.”
I can’t keep watching this, I can’t watch myself pick that other desk, and still to this day I want to punch Ryan in his smug face for being such a … well. I’m not a fan of Ryan; let’s just leave it at that.
“I hate Ryan,” she mutters, and I see she’s watching the television again as Ryan is shown on the screen with a smug look, like he won something by me giving in.
I laugh, like I always do when our thoughts mirror one another and rub my thumb over her elbow. “Me too,” I say, fast forwarding Andy and Dwight’s … pissing contest, would be the best way to describe it. I keep it moving forward, catching a glance of Pam’s face on screen when Karen passes me a piece of gum. Still to this day, not that I care at all about anything related to Karen, I still don’t know why she did that. But at the time, I didn’t care.
I fast forward through some exchange between myself and Karen that I can’t really remember. There’s Andy trying to get in good with Angela … I wonder if he really knew that she would destroy his life a little a few years later.
My mind wandering is cut short as I stop fast forwarding and watch one of the moments that back then, I thought about for weeks. There’s Pam and I in the break room, and I’m listening to the way she’s asking me if I want to catch up over some coffee. I can’t even explain how difficult it was to say no to her. And I really think it’s a good idea that the cameras showed up when they did and no one will ever see what our friendship was like before it all imploded. All of the long lunches we used to go on and all of the laughter we shared and how close we were – still are. I have to remind myself. Still are. Closer now, even.
I pull her flusher against me, whisper I’m sorry in her ear, but she doesn’t move. Her eyes are fixated on the screen as I turn her invitation down and walk out of the room.
“I knew you hated me. It’s written all over your face,” she says above a whisper and I’m not sure how to get rid of the lump in my throat that magically appeared as I watch her on the screen, hugging her arms around herself in the break room.
“I didn’t hate you. I was just upset,” I tell her, kissing the top of her head.
It’s true. Hate is a strong word. I could never hate her. I love her. She’s the air I breathe and the mother of my children. And, she makes the best lasagna I’ve ever eaten.
“Yeah,” she says with a shrug, moving to stand. “I don’t think I can watch this, turns out. I’m um, I’m going to bed.”
“Wait, please, stay,” I say, taking her hand and pulling her into my lap as the documentary continues to play in the background. “I know this is crazy. I just … need you.”
“I know,” she agrees, putting her head on my shoulder as she settles into my lap.
It’s all she says, and after a few seconds of silence, she presses the fast forward button on the remote. I don’t expect her to start narrating, but she does.
“I spent most of the day in the bathroom or the stairwell in tears. Especially after this,” she points to the screen as it slows to play at normal speed, showing us and our coworkers in the parking lot.
The look on her face … I’ve never seen it. It looks like she’s choking on something or… her heart is being ripped out of her chest.
“I did that to you,” I whisper, my hand finding its way to cover my mouth.
She doesn’t say anything, just clears her throat. What is she supposed to say? That by the looks of it, I killed her that day, and that was only the beginning?
I shake my head at myself as her head presses into my shoulder and I hit the fast forward button.
As I’m wondering if the camera crew recorded our exchange in the parking lot later that night, there it is, right in front of me. The second after I press play, it’s like I’m having an out of body experience.
I don’t listen to the words we’re speaking on the screen. I remember them. I remember feeling proud of myself for telling her I started dating someone else. All I can see from where I’m sitting is that she had been crying. Again. So, if I’m keeping score, that’s at least twice so far, and there’s so much of this year left to go. Honestly, I was so oblivious and into self preservation and … I never intended to be such an asshole.
“Pam, I never meant to make you cry… I … my god I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my chest aching.
“You didn’t know what you were doing. That’s all I kept telling myself,” she says with a small laugh, almost like a sarcastic laugh. “I tried avoiding you, I really did. I stalled that night, so I wouldn’t end up seeing you in the parking lot.”
“How could I not see how upset I was making you,” I ask.
She shrugs and leans into my side a little more, pointing the remote toward the TV, moving to the next one on the list. “You didn’t want to see it then.”
I shake my head and press my fingers into her wedding band, like that will somehow take away the pain in my chest. I remember putting this on her finger, and to this day she hasn’t taken it off, not even for a minute.
I love that about her.
“I really didn’t know,” she says calmly. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to say when you said that you started dating someone. I mean, you know? I just … I wanted to ask you so many questions right there, but all I could think about was getting home before I broke down again. That night I split time between crying my eyes out and drowning my sorrows in Ben and Jerry’s. I um, I remember standing in my kitchen before I went to bed, holding your tea pot, about to throw it in the trash, but I couldn’t do it.”
I kiss her forehead and run my finger across her cheek, seeing that the TiVo has stopped and is now asking if I want to delete or save.
I select delete, like it will magically take away every single thing about that day and make it like it never happened.
“It was my fault too,” she says, fast forwarding the next installment.
“No, it wasn’t.” I shake my head, because back then, I blamed her for everything. Now? After seeing this? I completely blame myself for ignoring every signal she was sending me. I was just so proud of myself for moving on, finally after five years, that’s all I saw, that I moved on. I didn’t want to believe in something that was never going to happen.
I had no idea that I made things worse by doing that – but apparently, I did.
I look at the clock on the cable box – it’s still early, and before I can decide if I want to watch more of my life and the mistakes I made on film – or whatever they’re using these days, Pam takes the remote from my hand and selects the next one on the list.
There’s this coworker I had back in Stamford that transferred to Scranton when our branches merged – Hannah. She was certifiable. She would bring her baby to work almost every day, dressed like a girl, even though it was a boy. Thus, my daughter’s did not wear anything but pink when they were newborns and toddlers. They’re girls and the world should know that about them at least.
I smile as I watch the screen, Pam telling Hannah how adorable the baby is, calling it a she and I laugh, because I never saw that before.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say, feeling myself smile. “I didn’t know you thought it was a girl too.”
“Yep,” she nods. “Boy or girl, still, not as cute as Cece and Alyssa.”
“Definitely not,” I say, meaning every single syllable. My daughters are beautiful. They both look exactly like their mom.
I pick up the remote to fast forward through most of this, not really remembering the day clearly until I see Andy and me talking about the things Pam hates – though I told him that she liked them.
“Who were you playing a joke on? Me or Andy?”
“You know, at first it was him, and then it was to get you to laugh, and then I got worried that you would actually agree to go out with him.”
She smiles and shakes her head, kisses my cheek and I keep fast forwarding through each portion, watching Michael act like a felon and then all of us outside in the parking lot, freezing our skin off. I remember thinking that day how cute Pam was in her winter coat, all hunched and shivering. I remember wanting to hug her. I remember remembering I started a relationship with Karen a few days before and forced my hands into my pockets.
It is so weird watching my own actions on television, recalling that I was about a million miles away in my head, yet my body was there, numb from the cold. I double the speed of the fast forward, and run into the end of that half hour and I find it absolutely fascinating that my life – our life, can be put into capsules of half hour blocks of time.
I’m not proud of it, one minute I’m sort of joking around with Pam and the next minute, it seems like it from what I’m watching now, the next one on the list – Christmas that year, I was so distant with Pam. It happened in a week’s time span. I had Karen in my ear telling me I needed to be more serious at work, that if I wanted people to take me seriously as assistant manager I needed to stop the games, and I started to believe her for a little while. I made this resolution for the New Year to stop the pranks and grow up.
But that day, Pam offered this genius prank, Dwight’s final mission for the CIA, and I turned it down at first, wanting to make Karen proud of me. Seeing it played out in front of me, Pam’s face falling when I reject her idea, it killed me all morning. It doesn’t seem like it by the way I’m seeing it on the television, but it did. I can’t fully explain what made me change my mind later that day and accept her gift. But I’m putting my money on guilt and old habits die hard.
As I watch this though, I remember the thoughts that were in the back of my mind. All I could wonder about was what would it be like to wake up Christmas morning with Pam in my arms and kids jumping on our bed. It actually happens that way now, the exact way I imagined it, and it’s … beyond anything I ever imagined it would be, ironically. It’s our very own perfect moment, like they show in movies. The rest of our days during the year are chaotic and hectic and sometimes a little nutty. But Christmas day at the Halpert’s, well, it can’t be beat.
I know I missed a lot of Pam’s expressions back then, as they’re being pointed out to me as we both sit quietly and take this in. That day though, I saw her staring at me while she was on the phone as Karen and I exchanged gifts. I saw the look on her face when I turned down her gift initially. I saw the way she looked coming out of the kitchen as Michael “canceled Christmas.” Evident tears there once again.
“How many times did I actually make you cry?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she insists, and we both start laughing at Dwight tossing his cell phone.
As she selects delete and I notice she jumps over one.
“Hey, why did you skip that one,” I ask, pointing to the screen.
“No reason, it’s getting late, we should move on,” she says, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Michael and Jan in Jamaica, remember?”
“Yeah, we had that … something, I don’t remember. Put it on.”
“It’s nothing, Jim. Just another boring day.”
“So fast forward through it, I want to see all of them if this is the only night we’re doing this.”
She shakes her head and hands me the remote.
The second Michael says “Hey, mon,” I laugh out loud. “He thought he was the funniest guy ever. This should be interesting, I don’t remember this.”
Something about the way she fidgets on the couch and rubs her eyes underneath the rims of her glasses tells me that she remembers it well. The sigh she lets out says whatever I’m about to watch is not going to be pleasant.
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Chapter End Notes:
Okay so maybe it'll be a little longer than 2 chapters. Hope you're enjoying this little thing.
