Pam moved in with Roy two months later, at the end of what would have been her junior year. Her off-campus apartment lease was up, and as Roy pointed out, it just made sense for the two of them to live together now that they were working at the same place and spending most evenings together anyway. Pam liked living with Roy: the solid sense that she belonged was important to her, and their combined salaries meant that they were able to move into a nicer place than either of them had been in before. She liked driving in with him in the mornings and out in the evenings—at least those evenings where he wasn’t out with the boys from the warehouse—and she liked that it made them more “couple-y” in their friends’ minds. Not that anyone they knew forgot that she and Roy were together, but living together was an extra step of seriousness in everyone’s minds. And now she could see his smile every evening and feel his arms around her every night.
She hadn’t really thought about how moving in with Roy might affect her relationship with WScranton8. Because of the barrier they had erected against talking about Roy, he really didn’t factor into her thoughts when she was online, and she was careful without realizing it to make sure that the reverse was also true. She still poured out her hopes and dreams and enthusiasm online. She still didn’t tend to mention them to Roy. But she didn’t think about the difference, and her needs were all being met, so she was happy. It helped that Roy was out with the boys enough—or slouched in front of the TV on the couch enough—that she still had plenty of time to chat with WScranton8. Roy didn’t really care what she was up to as long as she didn’t interrupt the game, and after their third fight about how much she was spending on art supplies she gave up painting in front of the TV entirely, so their evening after-dinner routine was pretty much set. He’d flip on whatever game of whatever sport was on, she’d sit in the alcove by the kitchen where she was still technically in the living room with Roy, and she’d boot up the computer she’d stowed in the corner.
She was becoming more and more convinced that WScranton8 was in fact in Scranton, if only because the few references he made to sporting events always seemed to match whatever Roy was watching at the time. She supposed they could be national broadcasts, but she didn’t think the local minor league team was televised much outside of the Scranton area—and while he’d never explicitly said the team name, the elation he expressed at their results matched Roy’s too precisely for coincidence. She pushed that thought out of her mind, though, because whether or not he was in Scranton, she now had definitive proof (if their arguments about dropping out of school hadn’t been enough) that he was not Roy, unless Roy was some kind of AOL-chatting ninja who could do it while passed out on the sofa right under her nose.
So she tried to put aside her speculations about WScranton8 and just enjoy their friendship, especially on the nights when Roy was out with Darryl, his boss, and a bunch of the other warehouse guys. She’d come home, log on, and it would be just like old times. She’d regale him with stories of her work—always carefully anonymized—and he’d tell her about school—with similar lack of specific names or details. They weren’t kids anymore, so it wasn’t exactly her mom’s old warning that sat at the back of her mind when she did this. Instead, it was a rhythm they’d fallen into: nothing too personal on the surface even though everything was deeply personal underneath. He knew her as well as she knew herself: his book recommendations were flawless, his taste in movies matched her own, and when he sent her links for new food to try her mouth started watering with an almost Pavlovian reaction. She always bookmarked them, and usually tried them out on a night when Roy wasn’t home—after the first time she’d varied their dinner routine with one of WScranton8’s dishes had resulted in him dumping his plate in the trash and muttering about how he just wanted comfort food after a long day at work. She’d had to fish the plate out of the trash later; Roy still hadn’t adjusted to owning real plates and tended to forget when he was out of sorts. So she waited for his Friday night poker game, or his Monday Night Football party, or whatever event it was on a random Wednesday, and then she could pull out her spice rack, cook to her heart’s content, and chat with WScranton8 about the nuances of Oaxacan vs. Yucatecan cooking. She did notice though that whenever he mentioned his own cuisine in one of his stories about himself it was standard American: sandwiches, meat, cheese. She wondered if he was cooking along with her in the same way she was with him. A little bit of her hoped so.
This evening she was dreading him getting online, though, because even though she’d made the best chicken cacciatore two nights before from one of his recipes (Roy was out playing an impromptu Madden tournament at Darryl’s), that wasn’t the big news. The night after that—the night before this—they’d been at her parents’ for dinner and Roy had popped the question. He hadn’t made a big deal of it—it had just come out over dinner—but she’d said “yes” just as soon as she could understand what he was asking. Her mother had asked how they liked life now that they were living together, and they’d smiled at each other and he’d surprised her right then and there. “Pammy,” he’d said, “now that we’re living together, I was thinking…maybe we ought to make it official.” She’d given him a little bit of a confused look, since both their names were on the lease, and he’d gone on to ask it officially: “Pammy, will you marry me?”
Of course she’d said yes, she thought. She loved Roy; she was happy with Roy; her life would only get better if she became Mrs. Roy Anderson. And she was so happy and surprised and her parents were too and it had been such a wonderful evening.
But now she was online and realizing she would have to tell WScranton8 that she’d agreed to spend the rest of her life with the guy she couldn’t even mention to him most days.
Or did she? After all, precisely because she never mentioned Roy online, she didn’t really need to mention this, did she? It wasn’t like her being engaged changed anything about her relationship with WScranton8, any more than her having a boyfriend did, or his having a girlfriend would (when had he last had a girlfriend? She pushed the thought aside). They were still friends. They would continue to be friends. And since she wouldn’t mention Roy any other night, why should she mention him tonight?
She finished this train of logic triumphantly and spent the evening chatting about her chicken. She even mentioned that her mother had made a similar dish for dinner last night without letting slip a single mention of the larger event that might have made that night unique.
She was so proud she’d managed it that she barely even felt the little twinge of guilt that sat low in her gut as she spent the night after she had become engaged chatting with another man online without mentioning her engagement. Or the twinge of disappointment that her fiancé (such a lovely word!) wasn’t there to distract her from it because of Monday Night Football at Poor Richard’s.
