The Screening
By Teala373
Chapter 5: Spicy Food, Bathrooms & Flipped Moods
Jim's mind was reeling as he sat on the couch and watched the clock. He had run a quick errand before racing home and taking a shower. He then did a quick spot check of the house, but Mark had apparently cleaned up before he left. That just left Jim to wait.
He watched the clock flip over from 6:14 to 6:15. He sighed in agony.
His mind began to wander. He didn't even care anymore if she was toying with him or if she still didn't realize how her actions affected him. He was just happy to have some time alone with her. It was probably the last chance he would have like this before June...
The ringing of the doorbell made him jump. Quickly wiping the sweat from his palms, he hurried to the door and threw it open.
"Sorry, we're all stocked up on Girl Scout cookies for the season." He tried to be his usual self, but seeing Pam on his doorstep, looking as beautiful as ever, was starting to crack his façade.
Pam laughed. "Well, then it's a good thing I brought dinner instead!"
He stepped back to let her in, and then followed her to the kitchen. "You look nice," he murmured, noting how much he enjoyed the way she looked in jeans.
Pam turned back slightly. "Thanks... you... look nice, too," she tugged playfully on one of his shirt sleeves, "I like this pullover."
"Thanks," he replied while beaming.
Dinner was just like lunch. The talked and laughed while eating their favorite Chinese dishes.
"You ordered a lot of spicy dishes," Jim commented as Pam spooned another spicy dish on his plate, insisting that he had to try it.
"I always ordered vegetable lo-mien, but I've decided to live more adventurously."
Jim laughed. "Are you going to start mixing regular in with the decaf, too?"
"Maybe," Pam giggled as she stood, "I'm going to go refill your glass. You'll need it after trying that spicy chicken."
Somewhere in the back of Jim's mind, he wondered why Pam kept insisting on refilling his glass. He barely would get his glass down to ¼ full and she would instantly be pouring more for him.
She quickly returned with a glass filled with milk. He raised an eyebrow in question at her as she set it down.
"When you eat something hot or spicy, you should drink milk," Pam began, "water just spreads it around, but milk, absorbs it or something. I don't know, I read that somewhere once."
Raising his glass in a salute, Jim smiled. "Well, thank you for your concern."
They continued talking and eating for several more moments. Pam always seemed on the verge of something, but Jim wasn't quite sure what it was. He was afraid to call her out on it and break the mood. He had seen Pam's mood flip over quickly by a simple comment, and he didn't want anything to spoil tonight.
"Excuse me," Jim began as he rose from his chair, "I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Pam asked, a little too loudly and quickly, her eyes wide.
"Chill, Beesley, I'm just going to use the little boy's room."
Pam laughed awkwardly. "Oh, yeah, sure. I'll, um, start cleaning up."
"No!" Jim practically shouted, fearing that the end of the meal meant the end of the night. "Uh, I might eat some more, so, don't move. I'll be right back."
Pam smiled and nodded her head.
Jim headed over to the downstairs powder room. He thought he heard Pam getting up as he neared the door. He was just about to enter the room when he heard Pam behind him.
"I, uh, I have to use the bathroom, too," she spoke quickly as she brushed past him, "I'll just use the upstairs one, okay?"
"Yeah, sure," Jim wondered why she seemed so rushed and nervous. "You okay there, Beesley? You drink to much diet soda or something?"
Pam giggled as she started up the stairs. "I guess it's all the spicy food making me loopy!"
Shaking his head, Jim entered the bathroom and put the thought out of his head.
Pam, on the other hand, had other plans. She dashed to Jim's bedroom and crept inside, trying to be as quiet as she could. Opening the top right desk drawer, she found the object of her desire: the Christmas card Jim had never given her.
Grasping the letter, Pam silently closed the drawer and headed to the bathroom. Leaning up against the counter, she trembled as she pulled the card from the envelope and began to read.
Tears instantly began to well in Pam's eyes as she read Jim's neat, but typical male handwriting. She had never heard Jim speak as passionately as the words he had written down. He outlined his love for her, telling her how amazing and wonderful she was, and how much he wanted to be with her.
After his original message, there were more writings in different types of ink. The best Pam could tell was that he used the card as almost a journal of sorts to continue logging things he just couldn't bring himself to say in person.
He wrote about how Roy wasn't good enough for her, that she could accomplish everything she wanted, and that he would support her. He wrote about her art skills, places they could go together, poems and quotes that he thought pertained to her. The last thing he had written in the card caused the tears to flow freely from Pam's eyes.
"I would build you a house with a second story terrace and all the flowers you wanted to plant there. We would have breakfast there every morning, just not George Foreman grilled bacon."
Pam laughed as she wiped her eyes. Reading the card again, she tried to gain the courage she needed to confront Jim. As she passed his bedroom, she noticed something on his desk that she had failed to recognize in her quest for the card: a black DVD case with the film crew's logo on the front.
Jim, having heard Pam enter and exit the bathroom, but not having heard any running water, came to stand at the bottom of the stair case landing. He was confused as to why Pam was standing in the middle of the hallway, with some sort of paper in her hand, frowning into his bedroom.
"Hey. You okay?"
She turned and looked at him, her courage having turned to frustration. "No," she responded coldly.
Surprised by her response, Jim quickly covered the distance between them. "What's wrong," he asked, looking down at her with concern.
Pam lifted angry eyes to meet his. She didn't want to be angry, but something had snapped inside her. "Why do I always have to do everything," she whispered roughly before slipping past him.
Jim stood in the hallway, dumbfounded over what had possibly caused her mood to flip over. He couldn't believe that this was happening to him again. Every time he thought things were going well between them, something random would just set her off and put distance between them again. Taking a quick glance into his room, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Sighing, he made his way downstairs.
Pam had closed all the food containers and shoved them in the refrigerator. She was struggling to put her coat on when Jim caught up to her.
"Hey! What... what's going on? What's the matter?"
"Everything's the matter!" she shouted. "I thought... I thought I wouldn't have to... have to just," she stopped as she finally got her coat on, "I thought I wouldn't have to just leap into... into the unknown... I thought you would help me!"
Alarm and confusion filled Jim's eyes. "What are you mean? Pam, come one! Talk to me!"
Pam headed for the door, with Jim close on her heels, pleading for her to stop. He contemplated grabbing her hand and making her stay. His hand snaked out, but before he could reach her, she spun around.
"Why can't you just say it! What can't you tell me what I want to hear? What are you just leaving everything up to me? Or giving up? Why?" she continued to shout, "Am I not good enough? Not worth it? How can you... h-how can you... write these things, but not say them? Because you don't really mean it?" Finished with her spat, Pam threw two envelopes towards a bewildered Jim before slamming the front door behind her.
Jim was in shock as he watched the two envelopes flutter to the floor. He had no idea what had just occurred. He had no idea why Pam was so upset. He had no idea what he was supposed to do.
"Everything had been so perfect," he mumbled aloud, still staring at the door. Ignoring the envelopes on the floor, he trudged up the stairs and sat down on his bed, holding his head in his hands.
He sat there, his mind blank, for several moments before looking up. He opened his top left drawer to look for a small bottle of aspirin he kept in there.
That's when he noticed the Christmas card was missing.
Gaining a new burst of energy, Jim sped down the stairs and dropped to his knees in front of the two envelopes by the front door. The first envelope, as Jim suspected, was the Christmas card. The second envelope, with his name written in Pam's simple cursive on the outside, had something very surprising in it.
It was a matching ticket to Australia with a note reading "I'm coming with you."
