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She notices the week after New Years that Karen's begun to acquire a taste for the M&Ms she'd started leaving in a bowl on top of her desk.

She watches Karen grab three at once.

"I used to leave jellybeans out," she says, eyes fixed on the Sudoku game on her computer monitor, "but they get stale pretty quickly."

Karen pops a candy in her mouth.  "The receptionist back in Stamford was always on the South Beach Diet.  So all she ever put out were those horrible sugar-free hard candies."

Pam makes a face.

"I could really care less about that sort of thing, though," Karen says, her elbows resting on the desk.  "What's the point of eating candy if it doesn't even taste good, all for the sake of dieting?"

Pam wishes it were that easy to say she didn't care about something, and then actually believe herself.

"What are you playing?" Karen asks, coming behind Pam's desk and putting her hand on the back of Pam's chair.

Pam leans back a little.  It's almost him.

* * * *

She counts to thirty after she looks down at the phone to see that Michael has hung up with Jan.

He'd taken to picking apart all of his conversations with Jan, word by word, and calling her in to help him analyze everything Jan had said for double entendres and hidden meanings.  Pam had become especially creative at coming up with new interpretations for the simplest words. 

She hadn't had a choice, really.

Like the time she told him that when Jan had demanded he stop beating around the bush and approve the purchase orders, what she was really trying to say was that she was on her way to get a bikini wax.

Okay, that was one of her more risky ones. 

When Michael calls Pam and Karen into his office, Pam turns to Karen, mouthing, "Just follow my lead."

Karen nods.

Not quite him, but still.  Almost.

* * * *

Picking on Angela becomes something they do.

Well, not exactly picking on.  More like stealthily rearranging her cat figurines while she was in the ladies room, or putting black caps on all of her blue pens.  Stuff like that.

They exchange triumphant looks across the room when Angela blames Kevin every single time.

Of course it's not the same.  But it's close.

* * * *

Roy hasn't been upstairs all week, which is good, because Karen keeps asking her about that "cute guy from the warehouse." 

She just tells her that she's not looking for a boyfriend right now. 

* * * *

"Really?"  Karen whispers incredulously.  She leans back in her chair as Pam sits on top of her desk.  "Only twice a week?"

Pam giggles.

"Well how many times a week do you...?"

"Oh, at least four.  Maybe five.  Sometimes in the shower, sometimes while I'm watching LOST..."

They both snicker as Stanley gives them a pointed glance.

Karen talks a little louder.  "I mean, you can never exfoliate your feet too often."

Stanley rolls his eyes.

High-five.

* * * *

Sometimes she sees him noticing them and he looks confused, left out even. 

When Karen's at Pam's desk, he doesn't turn around.  When Pam's at Karen's desk, he hides behind his computer monitor. 

She's seen him almost walk in on them in the break room while they eat lunch, and turn around when he realizes that they're in there together.

They share bags of chips and Ziploc baggies of grapes.

Still not him.



69 cups of noodles is the author of 31 other stories.
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