“I’m happy for him. I hope he gets the job.”
Pfff.
And the camera guy actually looked as if he believed her. Such a lie so perfectly said after months of practice. Pam thinks she deserves an Oscar really, and she means the statue, not the accountant.
Aimlessly walking through the frozen food aisle at Walmart Pam recalls the end of the day. Karen and Jim leaving early to spend the night in the big city - ugh don’t think about that - the talking head in which she could have been somebody else not giving a damn about nothing at all, and quoting Popeye. She really hopes the team would leave that part out of the final cut.
She pauses in front of one of the ice cream freezers, opens the door and moves tubs around, looking for a flavour that matches her current spirits, until her hand feels numb. They are probably in New York now. Having dinner. Or watching one of those Broadway shows. Or just walking, hand in hand.
She grabs double chocolate and closes the freezer. Her cart is almost empty. Crackers. Instant coffee. Ice cream. She leans on the handle and keeps on walking.
Maybe they decide not to go tonight and just make an early start tomorrow.
She knows that’s impossible. Karen looked like a woman on a mission when she told Jim they could leave early. And he agreed. As much as Pam would like to believe he was a little reluctant, she knows it was not the case.
The light blue bottles seem to try to tell her something. Softener. Does she need softener? She pauses. “You use fabric softener?” a voice from a past life echoes inside her and it feels as if she is shrinking a little. Maybe it’s the cold from the freezers.
She looks at the bottles again and grabs a big one, although she usually buys it at the dry cleaner’s.
Without really thinking, she grabs a couple of other things and pays. She really needs to go home and rest, because if Dwight is going to be in charge of the office tomorrow, she will need to be awake and ready for anything.
It’s curious how silent her tiny apartment seems. Or is just the plastic bags, making more noise than usual as she takes her stuff? Ice cream, spoon. Clank. She sits in front of the TV and doesn’t know what she’s watching, as the ice cream meets her frozen insides. She doesn’t recognise the flavour either and she doesn’t even realise the moment she falls asleep.
With a start Pam wakes up. The only light comes from the muted TV and she has no idea why it is set on the History Channel. The ice cream rests on her coffee table, with the spoon half sunken.
She looks around for her purse and grabs her cell-phone. It’s 11.27. Rubbing her eyes, she takes the ice cream and walks to the other side of the partition to the kitchen. She tries to stretch. It was a very bad idea to fall asleep on her work clothes. She feels stiff, and even a little dirty. Mechanically she puts her shopping in place. The coffee. The noodles. The softener.
“Fuck it,” she breathes. In her tiny half a kitchen there is not even a cabinet where she can store the bottle. “Fuck it!” It is as if a dam has been opened inside her, and she feels a sudden urge to throw the bottle out of the window. To punch her thin wall. To just yell, and she does. “Fuck it, Jim! Fuck you and your life!” She clenches her teeth and actually hits the counter with her knuckles but with less force than she would have liked.
And it finally dawns on her how it must have been, mere days before her wedding. As if the world was coming to an end. For the first time she can imagine how Jim felt, what made him stop her in the middle of the parking lot, what made him run after her and kiss her senseless. Pam feels it, and finally understands it all.
It takes her three strides to reach her bedroom, and as fast as she can she fishes for the most comfy pair of jeans and sweatshirt she owns and changes. In a small bag she throws a couple of essentials, checks that her driver’s license is in her purse, her keys on her pocket, and that she has some cash, and almost at a run, she exits her apartment.
