.
By Your Side
Chapter 6
Beautiful days deserve beautiful memories.
It was a sentiment she had read while picking out her mother’s birthday card a few short months before, and it stuck with her. A lot of that day stayed with her. She had been shopping with her sister Penny for the perfect gift to go along with the card, their sisterly chatter had been mixed with last minute wedding detail and her sister’s relationship concerns.
Pam had been the one doling out advice to her sister, as Penny lamented about the uncertainty of continuing a relationship with someone she had been dating for nearly a year who showed more passion for a football game than he did with her. The more Pam listened, the more she saw her relationship with Roy within the shell of what Penny had been going through.
As they strode through Boscov’s, Pam interjected with, “Can you see yourself waking up with him every morning? Can you honestly say that you’d be happy going home to him every night? Is he the one person you’d tell anything to? Do you get excited at just the thought of seeing him?”
Penny shrugged silently through each question and changed the subject to the latest news about their cheating cousin, but Pam’s own advice stayed with her. No one except her mother knew what Jim had confessed, and as they walked toward their car to go home and wrap their mother’s gift, Pam wondered when the excitement of seeing Roy had died, and when it was replaced by relief whenever he would go out.
Once her decision was made, she hadn’t looked back. And months later, a week removed from seeing Jim for the first time since June, the feeling of his hand in her own still gave her this indescribable feeling in her stomach. For the six days since they said their goodbyes by her car door with promises to see one another soon, the way he smiled at her before he walked away made her want to run to him and beg him to stay.
Instead, for the past week, she’d called him every evening and each time they ended their conversation, she couldn’t help but fall asleep with the thought of what it would be like to hear him say goodnight to her with his breath on her bare skin and his lips on hers. It was as if her mind ignored the awkward pauses in conversation, as if it didn’t hear the underlying tone of the things they hadn’t been brave enough to say out loud yet.
She found herself awake and dressed before seven in the morning, a feat unknown to her usual Saturday morning rituals of cleaning, shopping and painting. Before she could second guess herself, she unfolded a piece of paper containing directions to Stamford that she had printed out the day before – simply asking him for his address had been easier than all the ways she tried to think of ‘tricking him’ into giving it to her. He hadn’t questioned why she wanted it. In turn she had given him her own address.
That simple action alone seemed to have done wonders for last night’s conversation. There was more laughter, more reminiscing, and less longing – at least for her.
It hadn’t occurred to her to be nervous until she stood on his doorstep hours later, holding the pie she bought on the way, second guessing herself as the milliseconds ticked by before he answered the door.
He opened the door, his hair in exactly three different directions, his eyes bleary and his cheeks covered in stubble. The smile on his face the moment he saw her had been genuine.
The surprise in her eyes had been equally as genuine when she saw that he had a thin brunette seated on his couch.
A wave of heat mixed with nausea flowed right through her as she thrust a smile onto her face and swallowed her shock.
“Hey,” he said with wide eyes and laughter in his voice. “I thought you were busy today?”
“Hey, I’m so sorry, should’ve called first,” she rambled, trying to figure out if she were angry or embarrassed. “Um, I can just… I’ll go … I didn’t mean to um, I’ll, just.”
“Come in,” he insisted.
“No, no,” she shook her head. “I was just stopping by really quickly to say hi, and bring you this. It’s not homemade. Well, the people at Perkin’s probably made it somewhere… but you know,” she laughed nervously. “I’ll… I’ll see ya. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh yeah, same here,” the brunette nodded, confusion littering her face. “It’s Karen, by the way.”
“Pam, hang on,” Jim said, steadying her hand as she picked at her fingernail.
She smiled suddenly, fighting back her embarrassment. “I’m meeting someone in a little bit for lunch, no big deal. I’ll see you.”
She ignored him as he called her name, walking away as quickly as she could, sliding into her car and paying him no mind as he stood next to her car, tugging on her passenger door, pressing her foot on the gas, she pulled away slowly.
The tears held off from forming until she was safely back inside her apartment, and she waited for them to hit her the moment she closed her door – finding it odd when they didn’t show.
Instead, she took her cell phone in her hand and stared at the screen as it flashed seven missed calls, six voicemails and ten text messages. As she scrolled through the missed calls, she squinted as she stared at one name that didn’t read Jim. With a sharp inhale, she settled herself on her couch and listened to the voicemail and returned the phone call, leaving a message.
“Hi, Danny, its Pam. Sorry I missed your call. I guess we’re in for a game of phone tag. Yep, I’m free tonight. So… tag… you’re it. Just let me know what time and I’ll go put my bells on,” she laughed nervously.
She pressed the end button and began to read through the text messages she had received from Jim, the last one asking her to call him when she got home. His voice messages all ended the same way. That she wasn’t interrupting anything and that she should call him when she got home.
Choosing to text him instead made her feel better. She reasoned that it would at the very least hide her tone, which as soon as she exhaled, became choked up and thick.
She wrote to tell him she had gotten home and that she would talk to him again soon, sending it after reading the short text over to make sure she hadn’t been harsh. And as soon as she pressed the send button, she wondered why she cared if she had been harsh.
With nearly five hours of her Saturday gone, she searched her closet for something to wear that evening and busied herself with menial chores she hated doing – vacuuming, dusting and cleaning the kitchen.
It wasn’t until six in the evening that she broke, when no return phone call from Danny came, she fell in on herself, fat hot tears sliding down each cheek as she sunk into her couch.
Fifteen minutes into her pity party, her phone rang. With a relenting sigh, she answered.
“Hey. Sorry again for barging in this morning,” she started, trying to keep her voice even.
“Come back.”
“It’s late.”
“It’s only six. If you leave now, you’ll be here in no time. We can get pizza and watch a movie and talk about what just happened.”
“Nothing happened. I’m… I’m used to it.”
“Used to what,” he questioned, his breath filling her ear.
She let out a sigh of her own and decided the veil of the phone was enough coverage for a bit of honesty. “I’m used to watching you be with someone else.”
There was a pause long enough for her to question if the call had failed. His tone was even and calmer when he finally spoke. “Karen just stopped by this morning because she’s wanted some file for work.”
“Oh,” she nodded, closing her eyes.
“Can you please come back?”
“It… it’s late, Jim. Maybe I’ll see you if you come back home for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”
“Fine. What’s your address, I’m coming there then.”
Before she could contemplate the merits of giving him her address versus standing by her original statement that it was too late, she instinctively did the former and soon found herself re-tidying up her apartment.
Once her couch pillows had been as fluffed as they could be and her kitchen countertop gleamed, she set out to find something in the cookbook he had given her to make for dinner that would work with the limited ingredients she had in her apartment. Flipping through page by page, scanning her cupboards and refrigerator, it became apparent that she had done little in the way of changing her meal choices, or much of anything else.
She slumped down in her seat and shut the cover of the book with a thud. It had become a habit of hers of late – one step forward, two steps back. It hadn’t been intentional, but she had managed to find herself in that kitchen chair more often than not feeling upset with herself for not being more than what she could be.
A knock sounded at her door, pulling her eyes away from a silver knob on her cabinet door. With a deep inhale she walked the small distance and greeted him with a forced smile.
“Hey,” he said, squinting one eye, holding out a white box to her. “I sort of ate that pie you brought so…”
“You ate the whole pie?”
“Yep. Between bites, I called you. I know, super productive. I looked down and saw I managed to eat the whole thing throughout the afternoon. So, I brought you this. It’s tiramisu.”
“Thanks,” she shrugged one shoulder and moved aside to let him in. “Come in. How are you not sick?”
“My stomach is like a steel cage.”
She muttered a laugh and tried to smile as he patted his stomach.
“You okay?” he questioned as he walked inside, his eyes wandering around the small living room.
“Oh yeah. I was going to make dinner, but I never bought any ingredients, so,” she twisted her lips to the side as she closed the door. “You shaved.”
“I did,” he nodded and rubbed his cheek. “Should I not have? How did you have time to even notice?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Whatever.”
“No, not whatever. We should talk,” he prodded. “Let’s go get some dinner, and then after we could go catch a movie.”
“I guess,” she sighed. “I mean, you did drive all this way. And you brought dessert,” she tapped the cake box and walked toward the refrigerator.
“Some bottled water and yogurts do not make a good refrigerator,” he said, standing to the side.
“Oh yeah? What’s in yours?”
“Well, if you stuck around long enough you would have seen a weeks worth of store bought leftovers and some beer.”
“You’re never going to let me live it down, are you?”
He shook his head slowly and widened his eyes. “Not until you tell me why you took off so fast.”
“I thought I was interrupting something,” she gave, staring at the inside of her refrigerator, gasping the handle tightly. “Which is totally fine, I was just… a little embarrassed that I intruded. I mean, you should be with someone that makes you happy. I mean, I can’t even fill a refrigerator or paint anything decent that’s worth showing anyone,” she rambled.
“Hey, that’s not true,” his face drew a serious look. “What you showed me the other night was great.”
She rolled her eyes. “You say that about everything.”
“Well, then show me something you don’t like and I can try to help you,” he offered. “Go get it.”
“What about dinner?”
“We can order in, I’ll call Cugino’s. I still have the number on my phone.”
“Okay. But you don’t have any artistic ability. Unless you count messing with Dwight as an art form.”
“Oh, hah-hah. Hey I know good art when I see it.”
She shrugged hesitantly. “I mean, it’s not going to get me anywhere anyway, so.”
“Okay, two things. I’m going to help you remove those words from your vocabulary. And also, I’m not seeing anyone else at the moment. I’m standing in front of someone who makes me very happy just by smiling. So if we could start off with one of those, that’d be great.”
“Oh yeah?” she grinned, feeling heat travel to her cheeks.
“Yes. Go,” he pointed his hand in the air. “Nice apartment, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she gave, trying to avert her eyes from him as she stepped out of the kitchen.
She heard him order a large cheese pizza with half mushrooms and half plain as she gathered her sketch pads and half finished paintings. The moment she stepped into the living room and saw him reach for the remote and turn on the television, she silently thought about how close she was to something more than what she held in her arms. What she really wanted sat on her sofa flipping through the channel guide.
She cleared her throat, attempting to shoo away the butterflies in her stomach and walked toward her sofa, setting her artwork on the carpet next to his feet.
“Okay, let’s see. Which are the ones you don’t like?”
She quietly flipped to a water color she had done of a school. “There’s this art contest, nothing big really, but I’m going to submit this to the school. The kids are going to vote on the best one.”
“Get out of here,” his voice raised with enthusiasm. “That’s so cool! You’ll win.”
“Thanks,” she smiled easily.
“I think you have more confidence in your work than you think you do,” he gave, still holding the painting.
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe,” he turned to face her. “You’re entering an art contest. That says a lot about how confident you are.”
“Yeah but, these are just, the rest of them are for that art show, and I’m not happy with how any of them are turning out.”
“All right, let’s have a look.”
She showed him several pictures – the beginnings of their office building and some pictures of fruit. When he sat quietly through each one, her frustration in her work built back up.
“Yeah, I know they’re terrible,” she frowned.
“They’re not terrible. They’re good. But … it’s an art show. What would you want to see at an art show?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t really given it much thought.”
“Okay. Well, I mean, I don’t know a lot, I admit it. But what if we go to an art gallery tomorrow and look at some paintings. Maybe some inspiration will hit you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I’ll call Mark and ask him if I can stay at his place for the night and I’ll come back here in the morning.”
“You can stay here,” she said without forethought.
His eyes widened, his reply cut off by the knocking of the pizza delivery person.
They were silent through half a slice before he spoke again. “You’d really be okay with me staying here tonight?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I mean, you have to go all the way back to Stamford tomorrow at some point. I just figured we could maximize our time together.”
She watched him take another bite of his pizza, his eyes directed toward the television, his attempts at hiding a smile fruitless. “Yeah. Okay.”
They finished their pizza, she watched as he stared sickeningly at his half eaten slice of pizza before he tossed it in the box and wiped his hands. He looked through more of her paintings once their dinner was cleared away, and he made helpful suggestions for each piece she had been working on. All of them ended with - “Add more color.”
The comfort she felt just sitting inches away from him as they watched a home improvement show on TLC made her heart long to be closer to him. When she offered to get up and get him a drink, he quietly shook his head and wound his arm around her shoulder. She lifted her head and pressed her forehead into his chin as she placed her arm across his torso. She wished that things could be different, that he had never moved away. The moment his nose pressed into her hair, she closed her eyes and cataloged the memory as if it were the only one she would ever have of him.
.
Chapter End Notes:
Give me a shout if you're still interested in reading this! Thanks :-)
