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By Your Side
Chapter 8
If any person knew, really knew, the inside thoughts that sped through his brain, they would have had enough material to make a stand up comedy routine. One moment he refused to believe her offer to stop by her place meant anything. The next moment, he stared at Karen’s profile and compared it to Pam’s, detail by detail, knowing without a doubt that there could be no comparison. In his mind, Pam won at everything, in every way possible. From the differences in their hair to the stark differences in their physique, Karen was no match.
The thought that Pam had just asked him to spend a holiday with her and he’d turned her down made him want to shove his head in the freezer and wake up his brain. He watched through the blinds of the kitchen door as Pam stood stock still with her hand cradling a coffee mug, her eyes trained straight ahead on the men’s room door. In an instant she moved, walking back toward her desk, as if she’d had some realization that snapped her out of her trance.
As she passed his desk, she gave him a weak smile, stopping for a moment, looking at the wall before bringing her focus to him.
“Hey,” she started, pointing a finger at him, “Do you have a screw driver I can borrow? I think I’ll set up the TiVo at some point this weekend.”
He held in an amused laugh, but he couldn’t help squinting his eyes. “Why would you need a screw driver to hook up a TiVo?”
“Oh,” she nodded, laughing, her cheeks growing pink. “Um, I guess I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll have to look at the instructions.”
“Probably a good idea. Read the English version.”
She smirked. “Yeah, good suggestion. I recently forgot how to read Japanese.”
“Did you? I’m fluent.”
“Oh, are you?”
“Yep,” he nodded, biting on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as Dwight started interjecting.
“Women should never use electronic devices. I once watched my great aunt electrocute herself trying to plug in a toaster,” Dwight said pointedly.
“Thanks, Dwight. Let’s just hope I don’t electrocute myself,” she replied, discreetly rolling her eyes.
“I can help you if you need me,” Jim offered.
“Please, that’ll be just as bad as if a woman did it,” Dwight scoffed. “I’ll help you. I’ll have it done in under a minute.”
“That’s fascinating,” Jim started, turning his attention toward Dwight.
“No, no. It’s okay. I’ll … I’ve got it under control. Thanks,” Pam smiled before walking back to her desk.
*
She wouldn’t have labeled it a last ditch effort to try to salvage the friendship she so desperately wanted back in her life. It had been close to it though. She realized as she walked back to her desk that she waited too long, missed her chance again, and the tears stung her eyes. But she refused to let the emotion win out over her. She took a long gulp of her tea and studied him as he stared intently at his computer screen.
A desire to go to her apartment and sit there until Tuesday when they had to be back at work after the holiday washed over her with a force unlike any other. She knew Isabel would call her a quitter, chastise her for giving up. She would own up to it, chalk it up to bad timing, and try to pick up the pieces again.
Picking up pieces of her life had become a part time job ever since the day she called off her wedding. With a resigned shrug and a sharp exhale, she busied herself, preparing for the end of the day, the end of the week, and made a mental note to stock up her refrigerator for the weekend.
He had given her a lot over the time they’d been friends. His warmth, his kindness, his sympathy, the strength she needed years ago to go home to another man and deal with her own unhappiness, just because she knew that she had Jim to turn to, to rely on.
As she gathered her things from her desk and left for the day, giving him a small wave as she walked toward the elevators, she found a new resolve. She still needed to take care of herself. She could not rely on him to bring her happiness, to enrich her life. It was not like they wouldn’t see one another every day, but she sensed a shift, very subtle or possibly not so, over the time since he’d returned to Scranton.
She regretted not doing something sooner, placed full blame on herself for missing her chance, and by the time she walked into her apartment, arms filled with grocery bags, she felt lighter, continually telling herself that some things weren’t meant to be. Whatever they had or could have had more of, that had passed somehow. She wondered if he remembered how she lamented about how they weren’t friends anymore and that she wanted to be the way they were again.
That was her flaw though, she realized as she stocked her cabinets and refrigerator. It was her fault for not telling him what she really wanted. She knew, had known what she wanted – him, at work, after work, over the weekends, in every facet of her life. At the time she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that, couldn’t find the courage to bring it up that night he showed up at her apartment with a pie and spent the night on her couch.
It was fear. Not the fear that he was in another state and long distance relationships never worked out. It was fear of something, nonetheless. She wanted, needed to tell him what it was she was so afraid of. But they were no closer to honesty than they had been when they were actual friends who relied on one another. No closer than they had been on that bench when he drove to Scranton that night and gave her the hug she so desperately sought from him.
Once the barrier was lifted and he returned, the fear settled in and she couldn’t move forward. She had tried the only way she knew how. The chat they had over coffee on his first night back would be something she would remember forever. The way he smiled, held the door opened for her, ordered for her, paid for her coffee and slice of cake, it made her feel as if they were on a date.
She slept, her dreams wracked with his face, images of things that could have been, pictures of the way things used to be.
When she woke up the next morning to tears pooling in her eyes, she let go of him, wished him well, and spent the rest of the morning in bed, letting the tears flow, allowing him to leave her heart proving far more painful in the light of day than it had as she drifted to sleep the night before.
*
Nervous wouldn’t have been his first choice of words to use. He could have called it anxious maybe, something more than anxious, but not nervous, because nothing was really on the line, nothing - except for everything. He’d spent a good portion of two hours getting ready, fixing his hair, picking out his clothes, making sure his teeth were flossed and his stubble had been shaved properly. He assured himself that he hadn’t put on too much aftershave and that his cologne was at an acceptable level.
The moment he stepped out of his bathroom, he remembered that he’d forgotten to put deodorant on, went back and completed that task, and stared at himself in the mirror once more.
No, he wasn’t nervous, he tried to convince himself. The shaking of his hands as he fixed his hair for the tenth time begged to differ.
He checked his watch, and darted for the door, taking his keys and the box he’d prepared with him, locked his door and walked to his car, his heart thudding in his chest.
If he tried to relive the drive to her place, he couldn’t have. Somehow, he managed to operate his vehicle while his head was a jumbled mess of things, distracting him just enough that he wouldn’t miss a stop sign or a red light.
He parked his car, clutching the box in his hand, checking twice to make sure he parked far enough away from the fire hydrant.
He stepped in front of her door, knocked three times - convincing himself that three was a good amount of knocks. More would be excessive. He’d have to ask her to be sure.
The instant the door opened, her eyes scanned over him as her mouth hung open, her expression not telling of what she thought.
“I did not know you wore glasses,” he said, grinning as her eyes lifted to meet his. Before she could think to deflect, he added, “You look really pretty with them. You should wear them more often.”
She let out a sound, somewhere between the beginnings of the letter G and a laugh. “Hi,” she finally said, her hand grasping the side of the door. “Come in.”
“Hi,” he replied, stepping through the threshold. “Did I miss the TiVo hook up?”
“Nope, haven’t gotten to it yet,” she closed the door behind her as they stepped into the small living room. She fiddled with the edge of her t-shirt, stretching the pink cotton material as far as it could go.
“Good. I brought tools,” he lifted the tool box in the air before setting it on the floor.
“I thought you didn’t need tools?”
“Well, let’s see,” he said, focusing his gaze over the few things that laid inside the box and not where his eyes wanted to stare – at the way her yoga pants accentuated the curve of her hips completely perfectly.
“A small hammer, a screw driver, twisty ties and dental floss?” she questioned as she peered into the box.
“Hey, my dad always said, if a hammer and a screw driver can’t fix it, twisty ties and dental floss can,” he widened his eyes as he snuck a look in her direction, wondering why her eyes were red rimmed underneath her glasses. “I wasn’t interrupting anything? I was going to call, but you said stop by any time. I know it’s not the right day that you said to but, I just figured,” he trailed off, biting back the anxiousness.
“No, no it’s totally fine. I wasn’t doing anything. Just watching TV.”
“Ah, speak of the devil.”
“Yes, the TV is the devil. My dad would always bug us to leave it off when we were younger. He thought it was ruining us somehow. So now I just keep it on all the time. Kind of out of spite, even though I know he has no idea I do it.”
“Well done. I didn’t know you were so feisty.”
“Eh. Not feisty. Just … anyway. Can I get you a drink? Something to eat? I haven’t made any dinner yet, but I have some snacks.”
“Oh, just some water’s good. Thanks.”
“Okay. You can sit, you know,” she smiled, waving her hand in front of the sofa.
“Right,” he said, letting out an amused laugh as she walked the few feet to her kitchen. “So, you haven’t used those hooks yet?”
“What? Oh, no, uh, I sort of… I’m not tall enough to put them up, and I haven’t bought a step stool yet.”
“Okay then, that’s been added to the blotter.”
“The blotter?” she questioned, handing him a bottle of water.
“Yes, the weekend blotter. A list, if you will, of things to do.”
“You could’ve just called it a to-do list,” she said with a glint in her eye as she sipped her water.
“What’s the fun in that?”
She nodded in agreement, her eyes trained on him intently. “I’m really happy you decided to stop by.”
“Awesome,” he grinned, pointing toward the box labeled TiVo, still in its original wrapped sealed condition. “So, is that the bad boy right there?”
“The one and only,” she laughed.
He moved toward the box, using the tip of the screw driver to open the seal.
“Hey, you used the screw driver, see? I wasn’t being ridiculous,” she said, taking a victory sip from her bottle of water, spilling most of it down the front of her shirt. “Oh, damn. What a mess I am.”
He knelt on one knee, leaning his elbow on the opposite thigh and watched as she tried to wipe up the mess from her shirt and the floor.
“Go ahead, you can laugh. It happens more than you think.”
“Really? How did I not know that about you?”
“Oh, there’s a lot about me you don’t know,” she replied.
“Well, now. I guess we can add that to the blotter too, then.”
“What?”
“The getting to know more about one another thing. So I can stop saying I didn’t know that about you like a hundred times,” he laughed lightly, rolling his eyes as took out a set of wires, instructions and the TiVo device.
“Okay,” she agreed. “I’m just going to go change my shirt. And put on my contacts.”
“It’s water, it’ll dry. And the glasses are pretty cool. Just saying.”
“Thanks,” she grinned, walking slowly toward where he sat, crossing her legs she sat next to him and fiddled with a wire.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he squinted at the directions. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Didn’t you say you knew what you were doing?”
“Um, no I believe my correct words were, I definitely knew you didn’t need a screw driver. I said nothing about knowing what I was doing. That’s some other guy you were talking to.”
“Oh yeah, that was Dwight. Maybe I’ll go call him.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he narrowed his eyes, curving his lip in disgust. “There will be none of that as long as I’m around.”
“Okay, fair enough,” she agreed, rolling her eyes. “I’ll just wait for you to leave then.”
“Who said I was leaving?”
By the expression on her face, her mouth agape and her eyes widening, a smile appearing slowly, he knew he’d made the right decision that morning. The decision wasn’t very difficult to make once he realized that Pam had been making an effort in her own non-descript way. He just hadn’t been paying attention.
As he woke that morning, he realized that he needed turn off the part of his brain that kept telling him not to over think anything and just go with the flow. When he put the pieces of the puzzle together, he had a nearly completed picture of what she had been trying to do. There were just a few more pieces left to solidify it, make it complete.
His New Year’s resolution was quickly becoming learn everything about the woman beside him - the one who watched intently as he connected wires and tried not to make a jumbled mess that he was famous for. He needed it though; he needed her to keep watching him. Because the more she kept her eyes on him, the more at ease he felt, the less he cared that he had no barrier.
“So, let me ask you, what are you planning on recording,” his voice strained in question as he tried to reach around the television stand without knocking over the TV.
“What? Oh, um, I don’t know yet. I was thinking, probably trashy reality shows. American Idol’s starting soon. Maybe some old sitcoms.”
“Which one’s your favorite?”
“Definitely I Love Lucy. It’s a classic,” she nodded, tilting her head to the side as she watched him slide the TiVo into place. “What about you?”
“Gilligan’s Island. I don’t know if it qualifies as a sitcom. I used to watch it with my granddad once a week.”
He watched her smile as he pressed a few buttons on the black box, waiting for it to boot up. He would have sworn that he could watch her smile all day every day. But he already knew that, he reminded himself.
*
She couldn’t wipe the smile from her face, no matter how much she tried. Her mind had definitely leapt ahead of itself, and as she sat and watched him fiddle with her new electronic device, it had already been making plans for the next day, when the calendar would mark the end of one year and the beginning of another. As she watched him continue to wiggle wires as the machine booted, she couldn’t help but wonder what made him decide to stop by. Whatever it was though, she wasn’t going to let another opportunity slip away, whether or not he had been seeing someone.
“What else did you do as a kid,” he asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“Um, well. I used to love riding my bicycle around the neighborhood, draw, obviously. Normal girl type things.”
“Do you have any of your young Pam drawings lying around?”
“No. I think my mom saved them somewhere in her basement.”
“I’d love to see those some day.”
“Okay,” she said, forcing herself not to deflect. “What did you do as a kid?”
“Mostly got beat up by my brothers.”
“Aw, you poor baby,” she laughed.
“Oh don’t worry. I got them back. Master pranksters have to learn from somewhere. We get along better now. And we’re like a three man crowd when anyone messes with Larissa.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. No guy stands a chance with her because of us, at least that’s what she always tells us.”
“Nice. Scaring poor young unsuspecting teens out of their minds. Bullies,” she said with a light giggle.
“Not bullies. Just protective of our baby sister. Any boyfriend has to pass at least one of our inspections before he can date her. It’s mostly me now, since they’re both live out of state.”
“I feel sorry if you ever have your own daughter,” she mused with a grin.
He laughed and nodded, “Kinda like that dad on My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”
“You did not just say that,” she cackled.
“Did I just really admit that out loud,” he said, feeling his forehead. “I must be lightheaded.”
“Let me make you something to eat, and I’ll pretend that I never heard you mention that.”
“Stricken from the record?”
She stood, her grin wide as she nodded. “Stricken from the record.”
She couldn’t help holding out her hand to help him from his perch on the floor, and she couldn’t ignore the jolt in her heart at the mere touch of his hand in her own.
Yes, she thought as he followed her to the kitchen. She had to do something.
.
Chapter End Notes:
More on the way soon, I hope this story isn't seeming choppy. I want to be original, and I realize I'm having issues finishing stories... so hopefully that's what this is? All thoughts are appreciated. Thanks for reading! Thank you again so much, Sally!
