Everything Flows, Nothing Abides
Of course he had gotten an invitation. It was simple, traditional. Creamy white ecru paper, single embossed panel, black ink. Her handwriting was on the envelope. That had been the first thing he had noticed as she shuffled through his stack of mail a few months earlier. Bill, bill, advertisement, the invitation. After a while, the question had not been whether or not he was going to receive one, but when. She would feel badly if she did not send him one. It made it simpler for her. Leave it up to him.
There, with it in his hands, Pam's marriage seemed palpable. It was no longer a ring on her finger that had been there for years. It wasn't a conversation with the bridal gown shop he overheard as he worked. It was coming. It was definite. It was right there, and it felt as if every day that passed, everything was flowing differently. After opening the envelope, he ran his hand over the invitation's smooth surface. The ink did not smudge. It would not. No matter how many times he rubbed his fingertips over her name, it stayed. It did not flow. Sometimes he just stared at the words, her name next to Roy's, and it depressed the hell out of him. That was the selfish part of him. The part of him that did not want her to move forward with her life. Other times he stared at the words, her name next to Roy's, and he couldn't help but smile. That was the valiant part of him. The part of him that wanted her to go forward, even if it meant moving forward without him.
A few days ago, the meeting that he had been dreading and anticipating finally happened. It was a Wednesday. The day had been uneventful. Michael had hidden in his office for most of the day after another failed attempt at office camaraderie. Dwight had been mildly complacent, only once asking Jim an annoying question about whether or not he had seen the Star Trek special on television the previous night.
"Yeah, Dwight," he had replied, "I did. It was excellent."
"Darn it. I missed it," Dwight said, "You didn't happen to record it, did you?"
"Nope, sorry. Not this one," Jim sighed.
Dwight clicked his tongue and continued working. Jim continued working. It was a moderate day. He ate his lunch in his car, emptying the brown paper sack onto the passenger's seat and quickly consuming the contents. Time went by slower when he wasn't eating with Pam. When he wasn't laughing at her jokes or trying to make her smile. With her, it took the entire hour just get through the contents of his brown paper sack. That day, alone, he had eaten everything in less than ten minutes.
The day was ending. People were filing out, some seemingly more hurried than others. Ryan was first. He avoided eye contact with everybody and quickly darted out. Angela and Dwight were always the last to leave, and they usually tried to leave apart, one a few moments before the other. But everybody knew that they always left in the same car. Michael came out and told a joke. It was something about golf balls and tennis elbow, but his boss had stumbled half-way through it and had to start over. Even if it could have been amusing to begin with, it was ruined at that point. And much like all of the other jokes that his boss told, Jim tuned him out.
He remembered that he had been anxious for a week or two every time this moment came. The moment when he stood, grabbing his bag and starting for the door, he was hoping he could merely say good-bye and leave. Not like before, when the idea of marriage had not been palpable. Those were the times when he leaned against the counter and watched her as she gathered her things. He liked to make her nervous. Looking back now, he wondered if he ever really made her nervous, or if he just made her anxious. Nervousness involved sweaty palms, roaming eyes, and a racing heart. Anxiety just meant that something was happening that she didn't want to be happening. Did she ever really think he was funny? Did she ever really think he was that great of a friend? Oh, right. He'd gotten an invitation. That qualified him.
"Hey, Jim," she had called out before his hand had even touched the door handle.
Hey Jim. The two words he had been dreading since the day the postman had forsaken him. Everybody started bad news with a greeting and your name. Like when his mother had told him that his grandmother had died. It was early in the morning. He was still in bed, trying to get as much sleep as he could before he had to go to school. His mother quietly opened the door and sat on the edge of his bed. She gently shook his leg and he awoke easily.
"Hey, Jimmy," she had said, "You know how Grandma's been sick for a while?"
Jim had shook the memory and turned to face her. He waited to hear her bad news. She grabbed her things and strode uneasily up to him, brushing a piece of hair out of her face.
"Are you, um…" she began, "Are you coming to the wedding on Saturday?"
He had paused that day. Like Michael often did, he had thought that the situation would simply go away and he would be free of the responsibility of having to either reject or accept the invitation. She knew he had gotten one. He knew that she knew that. She was clever, sending him an invitation.
"I can't," he had lied, "Sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I have something else that's been planned for a long time."
He had never lied to Pam before. Not about things he mattered. Sure, about his feelings, but not things that mattered. Never about anything that involved a false excuse and missing an opportunity to see her.
"Oh," she had said, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow."
He left before she did. Never before had he wanted to get into his Corolla and drive away from the office faster then he did that day. He saw her in his rearview mirror just as he was about to pull out of the parking lot. She was climbing into Roy's truck, and he started off before she had closed the door. It irked him. The little things that Roy did always had irked him. When he took two complimentary jelly beans instead of one, even though Jim ate several a day during his visits to Pam. When he came to eat lunch with Pam, even though lately Jim had been eating in his car or at his desk. When he was engaged to the woman that he had thought about marrying a thousand times.
It was Saturday. Of course he had gotten an invitation. Everything was flowing still. It was still before noon. He sat at his desk in his bedroom holding the invitation in his hands, looking at it for the longest time. It was no longer June 10th, a date that was coming but was not yet foreseeable. It was June 10th, today, the day of the wedding. Pam's wedding. To another man.
He laughed quietly to himself and set the invitation down. He glanced at the clock on his wall. It was eleven forty-five. When did it come to this? Him hiding out in his bedroom, watching the clock, and staring at an invitation that was probably never sincere to begin with. Looking over at the suit he had laid out on his bed, he commended his decision not to go. Sure, yesterday afternoon he had felt bad about Wednesday and pulled his old suit out of the back of his closet. He was going to go, he had decided. He didn't want to seem like an ass. But, it was probably too late for that.
This morning was when he had lost courage. After a restless night, he had finally drifted off to dreams he couldn't remember now. Awaking, he appreciated that moment between consciousness and unconsciousness where no one remembers what life is or what is wrong or right with it. It's the oblivious moment just after lazily waking where it seems that the only thing you've ever done is sleep. But after that moment, when memories fade back, Jim lost his courage. He could not go. He had thought that he could not go before. But now, he knew.
He tossed the invitation aside onto his desk. It was noon. She was walking down the aisle in a dress that she probably looked beautiful in. Everybody was standing for her. Everybody except him. Roy was dressed in a rented tuxedo. He probably had his hair slicked back. Pam probably appreciated it. She was smiling that smile that he had thought had been for him a thousand times before. Now, the only time her smile meant anything was when she was getting married. That smile would always be for Roy from now on.
The doorbell rang. He shifted his thoughts back to reality. Hiding the invitation under some papers, he pushed his chair back and stood. His housemate had probably forgotten his key again. Lately, since his friend had fallen in love, he was always forgetting things. His keys. His wallet. Everything that had happened to him before he met that girl. Trotting down the steps, he unlocked the door and opened it. It wasn't his housemate.
It was Pam.
"Pam, what are you doing here?" Jim asked.
She was still in her wedding dress. Her face was flushed and rosy and beautiful. He looked beyond her, into the driveway and saw Roy's truck.
"Can I come in?" she asked.
"Yeah, of course," he replied, flustered.
Jim opened the door to allow her in. She picked up the train of her dress and stepped inside. The place looked different now, she decided. Not like before when everyone had met there after work. It was open, more airy, more comfortable. Like Jim. The tears were already forming in her eyes.
"Aren't you suppose to be somewhere today?" Pam asked.
Jim felt a blush creep to his cheeks. He felt his heart race. Was it possible for his heart to beat this fast without exploding? Taking a look at her in her dress once more, he said,
"Aren't you suppose to be getting married?"
That was when the first solitary tear rolled down her cheek. She tried to brush it aside, like she did so many other things in her life, but Jim noticed it. He always noticed the things she brushed aside when nobody else did. She looked down at her dress as he had. The train was stained slightly brown at the end and was beginning to fray.
"I've ruined my dress," she said, then touched her hair, which was losing the big curls she had put in it that morning, "And my hair."
"Why are you here, Pam?" Jim asked.
"I don't know," she replied honestly.
Why does she do this to me? Jim thought. Something was clearly wrong. She was upset. She was at his house when she should be getting married. It was June 10th, today, the day of Pam's wedding. Only, he wasn't there. And now, she wasn't, either.
"You didn't go through with it, did you?" he asked, and maybe it wasn't so much a question as it was a hopeful declaration.
She shook her head. She wouldn't make eye contact with him. It was terribly funny, all of it. Her standing here in her wedding dress, thinking that her hair looked awful when it in fact looked beautiful to him. Him picturing something of the sort happening over and over in his mind the past few nights, and now not knowing what to do.
"I couldn't do it," she spoke up, her voice defeated, "I put on my dress and looked at myself in the mirror, and I just couldn't do it. Everybody's probably still there, wondering where I've gone. Roy's mother is probably furious at me. She always hated me."
Pam broke into tears. Torrents of salty droplets spilled from her eyes and Jim collected her in his arms. She cried into his shoulder. He felt the tears soaking his shirt and with every gasp of breath he heard from her, the more his heart broke. He stroked her hair, feeling the sticky hair spray and wishing she had just left it the way it was. He loved her hair the way it was.
"I couldn't do it, Jim," she sobbed, "I…I wondered for the longest time why nothing seemed to make sense with Roy and I anymore. Why I didn't feel like I used to when I was around him."
"You don't have to explain," he assured her.
He held her like that, strong in his arms, playing with her hair while she spoke. She hugged him back, burying her face into his chest, hoping that this simple act was hiding her. She hated for anybody to see her upset. But especially Jim. She looked up at him.
He wanted to kiss her at that moment, sniffles and all. He could have kissed her, she was so close, all he would have to do was bend his head those few inches to touch his lips to hers, but she wiped her eyes and stepped back.
"Do you have a bathroom?" she asked, "I just need a minute."
"Sure, of course," he replied.
Without thought, he gripped her hand. She didn't recoil or turn away, like she sometimes did before when he touched her. Like at the dojo. He bit his lip to keep from smiling when she tightened her grip on his hand. He was a safe place for her. He led her upstairs and pointed towards the bathroom. She managed a smile and disappeared inside.
Standing in the hallway, Jim leaned against the wall. She was here, in his bathroom, on her wedding day. He had all of these questions for her, but he abided. He had abided for years now. What was one more day? He sighed and went into his bedroom to look out the window. Roy's truck sat there in the driveway. Not only would everybody be wondering where she was, but where the truck was also. Jim could imagine Roy looking out a window and turning to his best man saying,
"Where the hell is my truck?"
At that moment one of the bridesmaids would burst into the door, holding the bride's bouquet, panting and obviously distraught and say,
"Pam's missing," to which Roy's reply would be,
"Yeah, but where the hell is my truck?"
Jim was shaken from his thoughts when he heard Pam's meek voice behind him,
"You were going to come?"
He turned from the window to face her. All of the makeup that was on her face when she had arrived was now gone. She looked like Pam once again. But she wasn't looking at him; she was staring at the suit on his bed. He bowed his head slightly and rubbed the back of the neck.
"I was," he replied.
"Why didn't you?" she asked.
"I'm glad I didn't," he joked, "I would be wondering where you were right about now."
She managed a small smile. Leaning down slightly, she touched Jim's suit delicately. It felt soft between her fingers. She would have liked to have seen him in it. Maybe at the reception he would have danced with her and she would have been able to lean her cheek against his chest and feel the soft fabric. Looking up at Jim, she saw the tear stained spot on his shoulder where she had cried earlier. She decided that Jim didn't need to be wearing a suit for her to enjoy being against him.
"You were going to wear this suit?" she asked. "It looks nice."
She was stalling. He could tell. She didn't want to explain anything. That was fine with him. Maybe she couldn't explain it. Sometimes things in life couldn't be explained. They were flowing, never abiding.
"You know, Jim," Pam said, distracted as she continued touching the suit, "When I was a little girl I imagined how my wedding would be. It was so different. It would have been in a church. It would have been in the spring. And it wouldn't have taken so long to happen. But Roy didn't want to have it in a church, he wanted it at a hotel so we didn't have to drive somewhere else for the reception. He wanted it in the summer because that's what his mother wanted. And the only reason he even set the date was because he was drunk."
"Don't say that," Jim said, "Roy loves you."
He heard how terrible the words sounded when they came out. How wrong and uncommon they sounded. It was the second time he had lied to Pam in the last few days. In the last few years. She shook her head.
"It's funny because that's what my mom said. She told me that every time I talked to her on the phone for the past few years. That's what everybody I know said," Pam sighed, "But I don't think he does, Jim. I don't think he ever did."
The way she said his name so desperate and pleading, like she had been aching to tell him this for a long time. He noticed that her eyes shifted to his desk and they only roamed for a moment before they found the invitation. The corner was sticking out from underneath the pile of papers he had used to try to conceal it. She silently picked it up and laughed bitterly at it,
"Roy wanted to get these invitations. I wanted the ones with the gold pattern around the edge. But these were cheaper," she replied, holding it for a second longer before tossing it back on the desk.
"Pam, what are you doing here?" Jim asked, repeating the question he had presented to her the moment he had opened the door.
"I wanted to know I wasn't making a mistake," Pam replied quietly, "And you could always tell me when I was making a mistake."
His mind flashed back to the moment in the break room after he had found out that Pam wasn't going to take the internship. He was angry. Not at her, but at Roy. All Pam did was trust him, and Roy took advantage of that. He knew that all he had to say was that she shouldn't do it, and she would trust him.
"Are you going to say something?" Pam asked after a moment when he didn't respond.
"I don't know what to say, Pam," he replied, "If you think it's a mistake, then it probably is. I'm not going to tell you not to get married."
"But could you give me a reason not to?" she asked.
He saw her there, in her dress, her hands at her sides, and he thought for a moment that he should be honest with her. Just tell her how he felt. After all, she had come to him on her wedding day. She was missing her wedding to be here with him. But he reminded himself that it was because she had nowhere else to go. He was her safe place. He was steady. Always abiding.
"I couldn't," he replied, shrugging.
It took a second for the words to sink in. Once they did, Pam realized that she had made a mistake. The one time she had taken a chance in her life, it had turned out that it was all for nothing. She had taken the keys to Roy's truck, knowing that it would upset him more once he realized she was gone. But she hadn't cared. For once, she hadn't cared what Roy thought. What had caused her to do it?
She remembered looking into the hotel conference room where all of the folding plastic chairs were set up. She saw Roy's mother and his brother. She saw her own mother and a few family friends. Scanning the crowd, she hadn't seen Jim. She wasn't sure why it had made her feel empty inside, him not being there. He had told her he wasn't coming. She had slowly closed the door, sneaked into the room where Roy had been getting ready, and took his keys.
"You couldn't?" she asked, helplessly.
"Nope," Jim replied.
He was being harsher than he intended. Nobody wants to be the person who ruins someone's wedding. Especially somebody like Pam, who has waited years for it to happen. He didn't want to be the reason she changed her mind. He strode to her, then reached to grab her hand.
"Nobody can tell you what you feel, Pam," he said, "And as for giving you a reason not get married? I could give you plenty. But it wouldn't matter."
"Plenty? I thought you just said-"
"Roy's an idiot. He thinks that corporate sexual harassment videos are funny. He thinks that the internship is a bad idea for you because it means you'll be doing something with your life besides wasting it on him. He dreads taking you out on dates," Jim said, seemingly all at once, then sighed, "He takes two complimentary jelly beans when he shouldn't even be taking any. He drives away before you've shut the truck door. He's an idiot."
Funny how when Jim spoke, she felt unaffected. She should be furious that he called her fiancée an idiot. And who was he to talk about the jelly beans, when he himself ate several a day? But, as he spoke, she felt the strangest sensation inside of her. Nothing. She felt no anger or remorse. She smiled.
"I know," she replied, laughing.
He let out a sigh of relief, "It's true, Pam. He's an idiot. You deserve better."
"He is an idiot, isn't he?" she laughed again, and when she finally subsided, she said, "Hey Jim?"
Those words again. The start of bad news. Call him superstitious, words were just words, but thus far, those words had brought him everything except good luck. He shifted uncomfortably.
"Yeah?"
"Do you mind if I stay here? I mean, until everything dies down?" she asked.
"Are you going to call your mom?" he asked.
"Eventually. But, right now I think I need time to figure things out," she said, "I guess I'd better come up with a better excuse besides 'Roy's an idiot'."
"You can stay," he said softly, "You can stay as long as you want."
At that moment, she noticed that he was still holding her hand. It felt so natural, and she wouldn't have even noticed it at all if he hadn't grabbed her other hand at that moment. There was a look his eyes that she had seen before. She had seen it that night on the boat. It was like he wanted to say a million things, but knew not how to speak. She did something she didn't expect.
She tipped her head up and kissed him. He didn't resist, which surprised her. But what surprised her even more was when his hands left hers and gently went to hold her face. She sighed into his lips. This was what she had wanted. She had wanted this moment, had thought about what his lips would feel like a million times. She forgot about who she was and who he was and that she was suppose to be getting married to another man. She arched into him, and he responded by pressing more against her. He reached around her and shut the bedroom door.
Nothing was abiding. It was all changing. And all she could do was let it.