The frosty air had gone unnoticed while on her quest for Michael, but now perched low in the last row each lungful she inhaled added to the internal chill she felt knowing she would soon witness her own likeness coming up from the staircase near the front of the boat.

She’d seen herself on camera before. Her parents had a camcorder and took plenty of home video of her and Penny growing up.

Roy’s folks too, liked to record family events and holidays and would often host follow-up dinners just so they could play the show back for an audience made up of the players in their seasonal follies.

She’d even just this past November, walked in on Matt reviewing the recent talking heads and caught a few seconds of herself sharing the details of her prior performance review from Michael. From what she saw on the small monitor, her auburn hair seemed more brown than red, her nose appeared wider and her cheeks a little fuller as if the ten pounds the camera was said to add was all concentrated on her face.

She was used to the slightly aberrant image of herself on film and while it always made her cringe, seeing her likeness in video wasn’t so strange.

But this would be something entirely different and nothing could quite prepare her for the other world event she was about to observe. It wouldn’t be a recording but another living, breathing version of Pam Beesly that would soon be standing just feet away.

How would it feel to share the same physical space as the person who for whom this was a new experience? To breath the same air, to both hear and remember the roar of the water splashing against the boat and live though the same event that was already a memory burned in her brain?

Would the things she remembered about that night suddenly change if she noticed something more or different this time around or would it feel like separate experiences, happening to two distinct individuals, despite the fact that they were both her?

Trying to guess what to anticipate only made her shiver more, the thick, puffy coat doing little to shield her from the chilling sensation that seemed to be originating from within her body and not from the cool breeze blowing off Lake Wallenpaupack.

She debated closing her eyes not knowing how unsettling her reaction might be when her other form came into view. It was only the sound of movement in a row up ahead of her that made her open them again. Thinking it was Michael, she popped her head up and peeked over the benches but it wasn’t her bosses dark coiffed locks she discovered. Instead, it was the beanie capped head of the cameraman, Randall, also propped low to stay hidden and secure a spy shot of the two figures who just walked to the starboard railway.

Unable to help herself, she gasped audibly in reaction to the surprise of learning they had been filmed that night combined with the current disorientation at seeing the real live version of her past self.

She only hoped the wind whipping up from the lake had drowned out the sound of her panic and that Randall was too focused on Jim and the other Pam in front of him to notice that she was also there behind him. The documentary would take a quite interesting turn if he turned back to discover her, that is if he survived the shock of it all.

Shrinking back like a frightened turtle, she recoiled below the bench but inched herself sideways to peek out and observe herself standing at the boat’s edge with Jim.

Strange as it was to watch what she lived once before, she couldn’t tear her eyes away either. As yet, the memory unfolding before her and the one solidified in her mind remained in perfect synchronicity as she stared ahead to where the other her leaned against the railing looking up at her best friend.

Being here reminded Pam of another Harry Potter phenomenon, that of the swirling blue liquid in the pensive which, upon the addition of a fluid thread pulled from out of his brain with his wand, allowed Dumbledore to see the things he’d seen before. Pam wondered if what she was feeling now was similar to how it felt when Harry fell into the eddy in the large silver urn to relive a time from the past. She had the slight sensation of being underwater, as if floating, but that she could attribute to the motion of the boat. However, it was the ripples and shadows cast over what seemed like a scene from a movie, one where she had the starring role, that took on a mystical quality and made her recall the film she finally got Roy to take her to see.

But beyond the ethereal feeling in her eyes and body, there was something about seeing the look of her own face that seemed different from what she saw in the mirror or in photos of herself, as if Jim’s lighthearted disposition and calming presence was reflected back in the visage of the Pam she watched. Her other self glowed, her smile resplendent, with eyes that lit up like the moonbeams that danced atop the water’s flowing surface. She wasn’t able to hear the words they were speaking but she didn’t need to, she remembered most of what they talked about. As it happened, they’d said very little to each other as they waited out the way too boisterous activities happening below deck.  

Silence inhabited so much of the time they stood there. She had mentioned Roy and then Katy, which strangely wiped the happy expression from his face and seemed to destroy his skill with language.

When it happened for the first time, it felt like forever that they remained there in the muted stillness, the only words coming from Jim’s eyes and not his lips and for maybe the first time in the course of their friendship, she had trouble deciphering their meaning. At least that was what she told herself as she waited for him to say something, both then and now.

From behind her bench, she began her count.

1…

2…

3…

This night, the view she had was of her own face, not Jim’s. But it didn’t matter she couldn’t see his now. That image of his hooded lids, eyes laced with declarations she to this day refused to hear, it had been imprinted on her soul, haunting her even later that night as she lay in bed with Roy.

6…

7…

8…

She could see them just as clearly now, as she stared at the wind whipping through the hair on the back of his head, still refusing to hear what they were screaming to her.

10…

11…

12…

Instead of letting herself focus on the meaning behind his lack of speech, she hyper-concentrated on her new perspective, that of her own face and her own eyes.

14…

15…

16...

The seconds that ticked by, marked only by the hush that came over both of them, drew the smile away from her own lips too but even through the awkward quiet the light in her own eyes never faded.

18...

19...

She wondered if her eyes took on the same luminance when she was with Roy. They must, she was to be his wife and she loved him. And later tonight she could possibly get the chance to see herself glow like this again.

21…

Especially since in the next hour he would be declaring his love and setting their wedding date. That event was certain to reproduce the sparkle she was seeing now.

23…

24…

The words Roy spoke that night, those she couldn’t quite remember. She’d had a few beers and had just been complaining to Katy about how he was dragging out the engagement. It took her largely by surprise when he stood up to make his announcement. She didn’t actually grasp what was happening until the moment had passed.

26…

It would be nice to get a chance to really listen this time, record his speech in her heart to keep forever.

27…

While she contemplated how she might make that possible, she noticed her other self had once more voiced the excuse to extricate herself from the unfamiliar situation with a wordless Jim.

“I’m Cold.”

It came from inside her own head, the voice that spoke the words. The wind was too loud and she was too far away for the vocal version to reach her, but she heard it anyway, the words that broke the interminable silence.

27 seconds.

Was that unreasonably long or had it only seemed that way because of all that was swimming though her head that night? Her anger with Roy, her jealousy of Katy for being one of those girls back in high school, in fact that type of girl to the present day.

Paired with those emotions were her masked inability to read just what was on Jim’s mind, the guilt she felt pretending she hadn’t even the slightest sense and the extreme confusion about her own feelings.

It felt long watching it again tonight.

Maybe longer.

And yet she was no more ready to accept what his pensive look and lack of words had been telling her.

Her future had finally become clear in its path with a date set and her marriage happening so soon.

Acknowledging what deep down she probably knew would only complicate things.

She might have to look inside herself and admit she wasn’t satisfied. With her career, with her partner, with what the life that lay ahead would have in store for her.

But if there was anything Pam was afraid of, it was making a change.

So once more, she let her practical mind, the one scared of rocking the boat, take control.

Denial could be a powerful thing, sometimes with the ability to make you see things that weren’t there or cloud from view the things that were.

In Pam it was so omnipotent it effectively altered her thinking not once but twice now.

All the thoughts, all the feelings bubbling up from way down below, both times she was on this cruise—the ones that had been fighting so hard to make their way up through the depths, that nearly rose to the height where they might break through the surface, they were drowned once more. Her rejection of transformation of any kind causing them to sink way back to where they came from, almost as if they never existed.

And like the emotions that plummeted rapidly, the other Pam also disappeared down below passing back down the stairs that minutes before brought her up with Jim.

It was just as well, where they would go, Randall would follow and she could return to searching for Michael and then find a safe place where she could watch herself get re-engaged again.

But while her past self had walked away and gone through the doorway to the lower deck, Jim did not. He remained at the ledge; somehow looking smaller than his 6’ 3” frame as he stood gazing off at the lights along the shore.

Did she know he hadn’t been behind her that night?

On the evening of her memory, she got to the bottom of the stairs where she was greeted by Katy who she suspected was quite tipsy by then. Jim’s date asked where she had been but didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she had grabbed her by her gloved hands and pulled her back to the dance floor where most of the Dunder Mifflin women had a little disco circle going. She remembered hopping around a few minutes in her coat and scarf before she went back to sit down, Katy joining her after a few more songs, holding fresh beers in her hands.

Back then she just assumed Jim had come down behind her and stopped in the restroom or got detained himself, accosted by Michael or one of the other guys.

But now she knew Jim had not returned downstairs right away. But why? Sure, it was nice view but somehow, she sensed that was not why he lingered. Was he suddenly ill, seasick as Michael was?

No, even in her delusional state, she knew it wasn’t a wave of nausea that detained him.

As he stood at the railing she pondered if there had been something more going through his head when he’d been with her other presence mere moments ago. She’d griped about Roy before. He always just listened, letting her get whatever Roy had annoyed her with this time, out of her system.

Was it about Katy? She knew their relationship came to an abrupt end that same night. Had he needed her advice and she had failed in her role as a friend?

She walked out from behind her bench, completely forgetting about Randall and having to stay hidden once she sensed his distress.

Something told her this hadn’t to do with Katy. Something told her it had to do with her.

Her and Roy.

Her and the crush he told her he’d had when she first started. The little bit of gossip he only shared because Michael had let slip out a week ago, or was it a week from now? How was she to acknowledge the order of events that both had not yet happened but she had memories of? 

Standing here now she knew it was about her and him.

Just as quickly as she came out of her hiding spot, she realized her error and ducked back behind the pillar closer to where Jim was but not before she softly spoke his name, ready to call to him and ask him just what it was he had wanted to say when she, the other she, had been standing there. 

“Oh Jim.”

But she stopped herself.

Even if she could pretend to be the Pam who moments ago left him there troubled and alone, and even if she knew what she could say to stop his anguish, nothing she would say or do now would prevent the event yet to come tonight.

And what was impending was still what she thought she wanted.

Both of them did, the Pam for whom it had already happened and the one downstairs who had no idea it was coming, because they were one and the same.

In less than an hour she would once more have an actual wedding date set. Her dreams of becoming a bride would be closer than they’d ever been, so close that she had an appointment booked to try on gowns with her mom and Penny.

In no more than 60 minutes, both versions of herself would be experiencing happiness she’d been waiting so long for.

Right now, she couldn’t worry that a second look at the incident that preceded that pure joy, was causing conflicting feelings to form around that happiness.

---

‘Nice going.’

‘You royally screwed that up, Jim.’

‘You had your opening, what the hell?’

The Mephistopheles on his shoulder was grilling him hard, having forced away the angel that had kept him quiet while she was still there, the one that whispered, ‘she’s engaged, telling her will only hurt you both’ as he struggled to form the words that would let her know just what he felt.

The pang of regret rang in his ears and he swore he could hear her speaking his name but it must have been the wind or perhaps the water nymphs that lured sailors to their deaths by calling them into the waters through emulation of the voices of their most impassioned loves.

But he wouldn’t jump tonight, not literally at least.

But maybe, after a little more liquid courage, he could take the leap he should have just before. He shrugged off the imaginary beings, letting them be the feast for the siren that called out to him and walked to the door, this time determined not to chicken out.

---

With Jim now gone she assumed it was only a matter of time before Randall would come out from his own hiding spot and follow him to the lower deck.

She hoped it would be soon. Delicate drops of mucus had long since started slipping from her nostrils due to the cold. With no tissue to wipe them away her sniffles occurred more often but less efficiently and her gloved hand had been used more than once as a substitute.

The tips of her fingers and toes of her feet weren’t totally numb yet but were chilled to a more than comfortable temperature. Curiously, her contacts weren’t causing her trouble as they often did when cold air hit her eyes in the winter months. There was no dryness or irritation as if they weren’t even in her eyes at all but they must have been. The cloudy vision she had experienced earlier was gone. In fact, things seemed a bit clearer to her than they regularly did.  The sea air must be therapeutic, perhaps a better remedy than the Bausch and Lomb drops that were in the purse tucked away somewhere downstairs.

While her eyes were fine, her stomach was starting up with the gurgling noises again. Somehow, she would have to sneak herself over to one of the tables with food if only to grab a few cubes of cheese to hold her over.

But most importantly she was still unaware of where Michael was. The thought of two Michaels on the loose somewhere on this boat was more than a little frightening.

“Hermione.”

She heard the name spoken from behind her.

Oh good, he found her.

The voice was gruffer than normal but she assumed from the hoarseness after all his vomiting.

‘Oh, thank god,’ she thought to herself.

“Michael, where have you been?”

But when she turned around it wasn’t Michael standing behind her.

It was Randall.

Using the code word she’d given Michael and looking rather calm, not at all thrown by the fact that he’d just recorded another version of the person in front of him at the edge of the ship with Jim and then retreating down to the deck below.

“You know, don’t you?”

Randall nodded. 

“You’re not freaked out? Wait, are there two of you too? Did we somehow take you back with us?”

She thought about how she wound up along for Michael’s ride and wondered if the mike pacs that connected sound back to their camera units were some type of surrogate chain link that transported him too when the trip occurred.  

“No, it’s just me. But this isn’t my first time witnessing this sort of thing. That time I almost sh…”

Randall stopped mid-sentence, obviously wanting to be respectful speaking to her.

Pam, however, knew what he was about to say. She normally not one to curse, was thinking a slew of expletives back when she first realized what had happened. Mostly, it was directed at Michael but still the words were not usually in her everyday vocabulary.

“Yeah, I could see why. I’m still a little freaked out by all of this. And if it wasn’t happening to me, I’d never believe it was all real. But I take it you have it on film. Guess that changes the scope of your documentary, what with the proof of it in your camera.”

Randall scoffed as he directed her to follow him back to a bench.

“I don’t have proof. I have what most of my colleagues would say is a talent for editing. As least that’s what I heard when I discovered time travelers once before on a job years ago.  That last time, when I tried to show my discovery to the producers, they accused me of some in-camera post-production magic. My insistence it was real magic only got me put on medical leave, that the long hours watching the world through a viewfinder were messing with my cognitive function.  Nope, I’m keeping my mouth shut this time for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is that I don’t want to wind up in a mental hospital.”

Another rumble abruptly escaped from Pam’s stomach as Randall set down the camera that had been still up on his shoulder. She threw her hands to her midsection as if they could muffle the sound that her puffy coat did little to dampen.

“Listen now you don’t have to worry about hiding from me anymore but you do need to find Michael, your Michael, before something catastrophic happens. But remember to stay out of sight yourself.”

He kept talking as he pulled out a granola bar from his own pocket and stretched out the hand that held it to her.

“Mysterious thing time,” he began as he released the grip on the snack. “Powerful and when meddled with, dangerous.”

She’d heard that line before. It was what Dumbledore said before he sent Harry and Hermione on their mission to repair the wrongs perpetrated on the innocent.

“But remember what Dumbledore said about the consequences, too ghastly to even be discussed.”

Either he was a fan of the movies too or he figured out from her code word that she’d pay heed to his warning with the use of the quote. Whichever it was, it was a bit funny him referencing the Hogwarts headmaster as that was who she habitually thought of when she caught sight of the middle age man who over the last year had become a fixture in their office. With his kind eyes, his thick, snowy eyebrows and often unruly beard, though not so long it needed a ponytail holder to contain it, Randall bore a slight resemblance to the school of witchcraft and wizardry’s fearless leader. In Pam’s imagination, Randall was what Dumbledore looked like when he was roughly the same age as the older of the two cameramen.

“Find him and keep him hidden and out of trouble until the boat docks and then you two sneak off when the non Dunder Mifflin people disembark. Something tells me they’ll want to get off as fast as they can.”

“But Randall we only came on board to stop him from …” she hesitated.

Randall was in the original timeline. For him the events to come hadn’t happened yet. Was it harmful to tell him? He seemed to be unfazed by knowing she was from the future but she kept thinking of all the movies she’d seen where there were rules about this kind of thing.

In her mind she heard the voice of Doc Brown, another white-haired sage, insisting that revealing what would happen could have dire repercussions on future events. But she was in the Harry Potter model not Back to the Future’s, or were they all essentially following the same rules? Could she still affect the timeline by sharing details she knew about what was to come and would telling Randall change anything? She opted to share, hoping with some of that knowledge he could become a father-like figure to help her navigate the rest of her journey.

“Listen later Michael is going to…”

Randall waved her off.

“Pam. We’re talking about Michael here; I don’t really need to know the details. I’ll see it soon enough.”

He winked at her and pat the camera he held at his side.

“Besides I’ve got to get back down. I’ve still got the documentary to capture and I’m sure I’m missing something with my Michael. But think about it. We both know who we are dealing with. Anything he does to try to change the future is bound to make it worse, am I right? Don’t waste time telling me, just find him and get yourselves hidden until we dock.”

And with that he too went below, only he took an alternate route through a trap door in one of the sunken deck surfaces and down a staircase she hadn’t known existed.

Randall was right. Their plan to change the future was foolhardy and reckless and it hadn’t even been devised yet.

But somehow things already felt different.