Jim had not planned being out with his work colleagues on this particular Friday night. Karen had a prior engagement with some old friends in New York, one of whom had just had an acrimonious split from her boyfriend since they’d made the arrangement months ago, and so she’d reluctantly asked him that she go alone – a lot of dirty martinis would be involved, she’d said, and it needed to be “…Girls only – nothing personal, Jim, I’d really like to show you off, but it would be insensitive to Jenny for me to turn up with my gorgeous boyfriend in tow.” With that, she gave him a warm smile and pecked him affectionately on the lips. So, ever accommodating, Jim saw her off from the office at five pm, and was preparing to go home for a night in front of the football highlights before Kevin grabbed him as he was about to head out of the door. Jim noted as subtly as he could, that Pam was still at her desk, shutting down her own computer, looking like she too, was readying to leave. He avoided catching her eye.
“Dude, we’re all going to Poor Richards. You should come.”
“Oh, hey Kev, I was just gonna go home and watch the game highlights tonight.”
Jim was tired. The truth was that the energy going into sustaining the public façade of perfect relationship happiness with Karen when deep down, he would have quite liked a little more personal time and space than she was giving him, was taking its toll. Add to that his deliberate avoidance of Pam wherever possible after the debacle of Roy’s attempted attack on him, and he was becoming truly worn out. He was actually grateful for the time to himself this weekend. He’d not really had a free one in weeks, as most weekends Karen had already made plans for them both before he could get in any suggestions of his own. In his attempts to ‘move on,’ Jim couldn’t help but note that he was now essentially trapped in his own personal purgatory of “sophisticated fun.”
“C’mon Jim, we've barely hung out since you've moved back to Scranton." Kevin looked at him with a soulful expression.
Jim felt bad. He was actually pretty fond of Kevin; they’d stayed in contact after he’d left for Stamford. Kevin had kept Jim in his Fantasy Football league and was the second person after Phyllis to let Jim know, quite gleefully in fact, that Pam had called off her wedding to Roy. The big guy’s puppy dog eyes were too mournful to resist, the idea of a cold beer in a simple bar a lure too strong to ignore; and so Jim relented and gave Kevin a gentle smile.
“OK, only for one though.”
“Nice!” grinned Kevin.
***
Jim arrived at a newly repaired Poor Richards, Roy and Kenny having smashed up the bar just a couple of weeks earlier and now barred for several months as a result. It was already fairly busy with workers ready to end their working week with a beer, and this evening, it would appear, a song. Jim noted that there was a karaoke machine readied for action and a small stage - more of a plinth really, that had already been constructed for the evening at one end of the room. He manged to buy a beer without too much drama and found the rest of the Dunder Mifflin group. He was thankful there was no sign of Pam with them, and breathed a small sigh of relief as he sat down with Kevin and Oscar as they caught up on the week’s sports and news.
What Jim didn’t see in the throng already gathering, was Pam entering the bar with Kelly, Isabel and a couple of other girls he wouldn’t have recognised, taking up residence on the opposite side of the room at a free table.
***
Pam was pissed off, seriously pissed off. It was a little with Roy, who’d turned out to be as lame in bed second time around as she’d remembered previously, not to mention his ridiculous temper. With her newfound boldness, she’d put a stop to that nonsense as soon as he’d overreacted about her kiss with Jim on Casino Night. If she’d ever wondered if Roy had really been worth taking back, she’d had her answer – a resolute no. Mostly though, her ire was with Jim, who had now become entirely closed off to her. Whilst she understood that things had become horribly messy between them, he was behaving like a total jerk. This was supposed to be the same guy who claimed to be her best friend, the same guy who had told her he loved her just months before. Screw him. Screw Roy. Screw them both. And not like that.
Kelly had been angling for a night out for ages, Isabel had called her up for the same reason; so she ended up combining the two, asking another couple of friends from her art class as well. The girls had agreed to meet early, so Pam and Kelly had snuck out before any Friday night arrangements for the Dunder Mifflin branch had been made. Pam knew that nine times out of ten, of course her workmates would be out on a Friday night and in a town the size of Scranton, she could well bump into them, especially as she knew exactly where they frequented… but never Jim these days, as he was so obviously out doing sophisticated things with Karen. So as they’d already had a drink (or two) at the Backyard Ale House a few blocks away, they were already well loosened up.
Despite twenty different bars in Scranton that they could have chosen, somehow (mainly thanks to Kelly and her obsession with Ryan), they ended up at Poor Richards, even though alarm bells were going off in Pam’s head that this might be a Very Bad Idea, even if she wasn’t quite sure why when they first walked in.
***
Meanwhile, one strong local-brewed beer had turned into two… and then into three for Jim, who was no longer in a position to drive home. He’d settled alarmingly well into a full-pelt discussion with Oscar, Kevin and now additionally, Meredith, on the MBL draft and whether Barry Bonds would surpass Hank Aaron’s record during the current season. He realised he’d really missed hanging out with these guys. If truth be known, he’d really missed Pam too, who usually have been sitting beside him, nudging his elbow affectionately when he said something that she’d found hysterical. He wouldn’t admit that to himself any time soon though. Shoving her out of his mind yet again, he realised his bottle was empty and stood up.
“Guys, I’ll get this round, same again?” There were several nods and affirmations in his direction, and so he headed through the busy room to the bar.
***
“Whose round is it?” murmured Carrie, one of the art class girls, now at least a couple of sheets to the wind as she inspected her empty glass in an overly critical fashion.
“Pam’s… it’s Pam’s round.” Isabel perked up as she realised there was another drink coming.
“OK, I’m going up to the bar,” Pam announced as she pulled herself out of the booth and headed to queue for drinks. It was busy, and the music from the karaoke was loud. There were a lot of larger people around her, and she was stuck a couple of rows back from the bar as she tried to wait for a chance to pop herself into a serving position. She saw a gap, and as she went to move, she ended up crashing into a tall, firm body trying to occupy the same space.
“Oh!” Pam and Jim both exclaimed as they made eye contact. There was an awkward exchange of acknowledgement and a sizeable pause - quite a feat in the crowded bar, before Pam spoke.
“You’re here.”
“Yes. And it appears, so are you.”
“I thought you’d be out with Karen tonight.”
“No.” Jim looked away for a moment. This felt awkward. “She’s away. Girls’ party in New York.”
“Oh.” Pam felt herself a little surprised and another feeling she couldn’t pin down but felt something like… hope?
“I’m with Kevin, Oscar and some of the office,” clarified Jim.
“Oh. OK.” Another awkward pause. They resorted to their go-to habits when things got uncomfortable. He rubbed the back of his neck. She fiddled with her necklace.
“Who are you here with?” It was meant as a friendly question but somehow it came out… wrong, more accusatory than he’d meant it to. Jim felt a small stirring of jealousy that she might be there with a man. Not that he had any right to feel any jealousy at all, but he couldn’t help himself. He knew why he was really supposed to be at the bar, but this interaction was like poking a wasp’s nest. He knew he was going to get stung, but he knew the pain he was going to feel was needed to give him something that wasn’t the numbness he was living in when he wasn’t allowing himself to be distracted by Karen, or maybe it was rather more the idea of being distracted by Karen, which barely worked in any case, and he hated himself for wanting it. Must have been the alcohol. Those local beers were potent.
“Why do you want to know?” Pam was more a little irritated by the tone of his question and her defensive response reflected that. He wasn’t her best friend anymore, he’d made that clear and she didn’t feel the need to share anything with him, especially the way he’d behaved in recent weeks. The hope she’d fleetingly felt disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. She just wished she didn’t get such a buzz from needling him and feeling the burn of his reaction. She knew the pain she was going to feel was needed, from the constant pining for him that she was feeling, just to feel something different, and she hated himself for wanting it. Must have been the alcohol. She’d now had several bottles of beer.
“I’m just making conversation.” The adversarial tone now set, Jim couldn’t help himself. “Is it Roy? Oh, no, I forgot, he wrecked this place the other week.”
Poke the wasps’ nest, Jim.
Pam huffed. “Why are you even bothered, Jim?”
Put your hand right in that fire, Pam.
“I’m just looking out for you Pam.” Jim said flatly. Here it comes. They both braced in readiness.
“You stopped doing that when you shot off to Stamford without saying goodbye.” There it was. The sting.
“Yeah? Well you’re the one who couldn’t be bothered to tell me she’d broken off her engagement.” The burn.
She got that weird buzz again as his words went straight through her.
“And you’re the one who came back here with a girlfriend” she responded indignantly. The feeling gave him a weird rush as she snapped back at him, at the very fact he’d gotten a reaction from her.
Another space at the bar appeared. Out of the corner of her eye, Pam saw her chance, spun away from him and into the gap, where she was served almost immediately. Jim seethed to himself until he spotted another gap open up a little further along the bar and made his move. He looked down the bar, his eyes narrowing as she took five bottles from the bar tender to take back to her table. Her eyes met his briefly and she smirked. This time the satisfaction of the reaction was hers.
***
Sometime later, the karaoke was up and running. Various punters were giving their all to the altar of Jon Bon Jovi & Axl Rose. At the Girls’ table, Isabel was staring pointedly at Pam.
“You know you want to.”
“Nope. Never gonna happen.”
“Yeah, you do.” They’d had a drunken night with a lot of wine a few weeks before, soon after Pam had split with Roy for the second and final time. They’d listened to a whole bunch of Fiona Apple, Tori Amos and then the entirety of Jagged Little Pill. In fact, they’d sung through most of the record. One song in particular reflected Pam’s general malaise with Jim - hell, with everything. They’d listened to that one that several times and analysed it at great length. Pam shook her head.
“You don’t even know if they have it.”
“Of course they have it.” Pam took a deep breath.
“He’s here.”
“Oh my god, Pam. Even better. You have to do it. It’s perfect!”
“What’s perfect?” piped up Kelly, the woman with the greatest in-built gossip radar in history.
“Pam has to sing “You Oughta Know” because she’s never going to get a better chance to kick Jim’s ass!” beamed Isabel.
“Yeah!” Kelly clapped her hands. “You totally have to do this. It’s exactly what I’d do if Ryan… well, Ryan would never leave me for another state and then come back with a girlfriend, but if he did, I’d totally sing this.” Oversimplification, Kelly... Pam rolled her eyes at the others.
Carrie and their other art class friend, Steph, nodded firmly in agreement. Kelly had filled them in at length on her dramas with Ryan early in the evening to the point where after several drinks, they knew more in one night than anyone would ever need to know in a lifetime about Kelly and Ryan’s relationship. They already knew Pam’s story with Jim and that only added to the pressure now on Pam to perform.
Before Pam had another chance to protest, Isabel was leading her by the hand to the Karaoke stage and held that hand tightly to stop her pulling away as she yelled the song selection at the DJ.
As the trailing chords of the end of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now finished and the previous incumbent stepped off the stage triumphantly to enthusiastic applause, having been shoved up onto the small makeshift stage, Pam hesitantly took the microphone from him.
“There you go. Do it. Let it all out, Babe!” shouted Isabel before she dashed back to her seat to watch her best friend in action.
From the other side of the room, Jim looked up to see who had stepped up to sing. Initially, he was mostly curious, until the music started, and the colour drained from his face. Oscar noticed, his eyes flicking between Pam standing nervously on stage and Jim’s pallid expression, which only became more horrified still as she sang the recognisable opening bars in a somewhat shaky voice. After a few moments and encouraging nods from Isabel and the girls, the alcohol had kicked in enough that Pam gained some confidence and started to give the song some more oomph.
She’d made it through the opening verse and chorus mainly addressing an appreciative Girls’ table and a few other clearly jilted members of the audience who were nodding along. Then, as if in a magically focussed moment, Pam saw Jim across the room with the rest of the main Dunder Mifflin group. She’d not seen where he’d been sitting up until that point. Their eyes met. Hers narrowed and, in an instant, she became a woman possessed. The lyrics poured out. Her singing voice was never going to trouble the charts, but she could hold a tune and it was enough to grab Jim and everyone else’s attention in the room as her confidence grew.
“It was a slap in the face, how quickly I was replaced, and are you thinking of me while you fu-”
“For God’s sake” spat Jim under his breath. He shook his head at her whilst the room roared at her f-bomb in approval, few of them truly knowing that the subject of her ire was in the room with them all right now. Meredith and Kevin exchanged a knowing look.
Pam continued; her eyes still locked with his. She was really getting into this, and Isabel had been right, it really was cathartic. Jim was still staring at her, seemingly paralysed in shock at her brazenness.
Pam reached the final crescendo:
“It’s not fair, to deny me…of the cross I bear that you gave to me; You, you, you… oughta know!” and grinned as the song came to its abrupt end and the place erupted again in cheers. She acknowledged the room and handed her mic back to the DJ.
Pam was shocked however, as she stepped down. Jim had seemed to teleport from his seat at the Dunder Mifflin table to now waiting by the side of the stage, where, as she stepped down, he grabbed her by the elbow and started frog-marching her out of the bar. Their eyes met, blazing glares at the other. Her expression was defiant, his plain furious.
Just one word came out of his mouth.
“Enough.”
