Breakfast was actually fairly silent, because of how hungry Jim in particular was. He forced himself to eat more sedately than he wanted, aware that the upgrade from (admittedly solid) hospital food the night before to real, cooked, human food was probably something his stomach would need to adjust to. He breathed in the smells of the food first, ignoring the teasing coming from both his dining companions as he almost stuck the burrito up his nose inhaling its scent. Then he nibbled at it, taking deliberate small bites to savor each bit—and allow his mouth and stomach to reaccustom themselves to real food. He could tell that Larissa and Pam were each scoring points off him while he ate in what he was well-aware was an atypical manner for him, but he wasn’t going to let it put him off his feed. The only comment he felt obliged to respond to was when Pam gestured at his burrito and said “the one thing I can’t figure is, when did Jim Halpert get adventurous in his choice of cuisine? I seem to remember a man who ate the same thing for lunch every day, and here you are with something I’ve never seen you eat before.”
He raised a finger. “False,” he said in his best Dwight imitation. He knew it was rusty, but for some reason Pam reacted like it was the best thing in the world, cracking up instantly. Oh right, idiot, he thought. She loves you. She’s missed you. It’s not the imitation she’s reacting to—it’s you. He smiled at her and then resumed his Dwight impression. “The contents of a breakfast burrito are fundamentally indistinguishable from the contents of a ham and cheese sandwich.”
He raised the burrito—grateful now that he’d taken such small bites because it meant that it was still sufficiently intact to use as a prop, whereas his normal eating habits would have demolished the entire thing in three gulps—and gestured with it. “Fact. A tortilla is simply mistreated bread that has refused to rise like a proper German pumpernickel”—this last in an exaggeration of the German accent Dwight would slip into when talking of his großvater—“making it easier to defeat. Fact. The cheese used in this burrito is, despite the Latin American origin of the cuisine, the same cheddar as Jim uses in his lunchtime sandwiches.” He thought the use of the third-person was a particularly good touch. “Fact. A burrito is a wrap and a wrap is simply an inefficient sandwich. Fact. This particular inefficient sandwich was advertised to contain chorizo, a non-German and therefore inferior sausage, but contains instead a distinctly unsausaged pork product indistinguishable from ham. Conclusion: Jim is eating a ham and cheese sandwich.” He held eye contact with Pam throughout this recitation, gesticulating with the burrito as necessary, until the end, when he winked, and was rewarded by a bright pink face and a series of incoherent giggles. He thought she looked adorable.
She mustered just enough coherence to turn the joke back on him. “Question.” He nodded, proud of her for regaining enough composure to join his Dwight impression. “Doesn’t that burrito also contain egg?” Damn, she was good. He nodded, and assumed an attitude of disappointment that he did not feel—making sure to convey this to her with a short waggle of an eyebrow—and replied in grave tones.
“Obviously, Pam. This is breakfast. A ham and cheese sandwich is a lunch food; the addition of the egg is what transforms it into an appropriate food for breakfast.” He grinned. “Also, I couldn’t get it without.”
Larissa rolled her eyes at them both and muttered something he was pretty sure amounted to “I’m really glad I don’t work with Dwight.” Of course she recognized the Dwight impression, he realized—he’d done it for her when telling her about the barbecue at his house and how Mark hadn’t believed Dwight existed. She and Pam got into a discussion of what it was like working with Dwight as a woman, which he listened in on but didn’t contribute to besides raising an eyebrow at Pam’s continued certainty that at least one woman didn’t mind working with Dwight. Dwight and Angela? Really? I wonder what Kelly would call them if they really were together. She’d come up with some kind of Brangelina/Bennifer thing. Angelight? Dwightela? Dwangela? Ugh. I really hope Pam is wrong on this. But do I? After all, if we can find each other, maybe even Dwight and Angela deserve some happiness. If they can really find it together, which I doubt.
Then Larissa was suddenly standing and he wondered what he’d missed. The confusion must have been obvious on his face because both women were laughing and Larissa was repeating herself (he knew because she had a particular tone of voice that was “my big brother wasn’t paying attention and so I’m repeating this,” and she was using it).
“I said, I think I’ll leave you two lovebirds together, because I need to go make sure Mom and Dad’s house is ready for when they come back. I was supposed to be house-sitting after all, and for some reason I’ve been a little busy.”
“Mom and Dad…”
“Are on their way back right now. I had a panicked email from Mom when I got home last night telling me they were rushing to the airport and if I didn’t hear from her otherwise they would be on a plane arriving…well, arriving today, I guess. Something about how they didn’t reset their mental calendars when they crossed the international date line, so when the nice lady at Qantas rebooked them for June 13 they thought it was today, like it is here, but it was actually yesterday, like it was there.”
Jim grinned. “You know, you’d think they’d have thought of that, given that Dad’s favorite book is Around the World in 80 Days.”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “Right? Anyway, the flights take like 24 hours, but that means they’re landing tonight—so I have to make sure I did the stuff I promised I’d do before they got home, and then pick them up from the airport. Which is fine—I feel like a third wheel anyway.” She smiled at Pam to prove this was not a real problem. “And I figure you two lovebirds could use the time alone.” She reached over and gave Jim a firm but careful hug. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She looked down at him. “Or more to the point, anything I wouldn’t let you do. Love you.” He responded in kind, still working out what it meant that their parents were actually mid-air already and coming home. Meanwhile, she reached over and hugged Pam. “Love you both.” He heard Pam whisper what he could have sworn was “Love you too.” And then Larissa was gone. He smiled across at Pam, who blushed and said “Shall we get you back?”
