Chapter 5: Advance and Retreat.
When Jim opened his front door at 7:10 that Thursday night, Pam could not have known how much that poor man had been driven nearly insane by his efforts to make the evening perfect. It was easy to forget that though they had spent nearly 40 hours a week for five years sitting only feet from each other and though they had spent much of the last few days in a frequent state of liplock that this, in fact, would be their first date.
And Jim was determined to do it right. While he was all the appearance of calmness as he walked Pam out to her car after work, that façade disappeared as he sprinted to his car, raced to the grocery store, and then sped back to his apartment. He was barely through the front door when he yelled to his roommate sitting casually on the sofa, "You need to leave."
"Huh? Why?"
"Pam."
Jim didn't need to say any more. His roommate got the picture quickly.
"OK, I'll call my girlfriend and see if I can come over to her place." He stops before heading up the stairs and smiles broadly at Jim. "Should I tell her I need to spend the night?"
"Um, I, ah . . . "
"OK, well, I'll pack my stuff up."
"Oh and if it's not too much trouble, could you help me get dinner started? I'm running behind. Please."
"Oh, man, I want you to recognize that I am the best friend ever."
Jim grabbed his roommate's head with both hands and kissed him on the cheek. "I promise to get you a certificate saying just."
"I want it notarized."
Together, they got the salad made, the chicken started, and the bruschetta dressed and ready for the oven in time for Jim to get a quick shower. When the doorbell rang, Jim's roommate ran upstairs to get his overnight bag and let Jim greet his guest alone.
Pam had been in a midgrade panic roughly since receiving Jim's final email. You can stay over if you want. It was so casual, yet it set Pam's head whirling. It wasn't that she didn't want to spend the night with Jim. She did. But, for her, the prospect of being that intimate with Jim brought with it a host of fears that she hadn't had to contend with for many years, fears she had, up until only a few days ago, thought she would never have to address again.
She had been a shy child and an awkward and shy teenager. And even now, as an adult, Pam still felt like the artsy nerd that felt overcome with pride and gratitude when the popular jock Roy showed interest in her in high school. Roy had been her first boyfriend. It was with Roy that she had first had sex. It was only with Roy that she had had sex. And, for a long time, she had resigned herself to the idea that Roy would forever be the only man she would have sex with. Resigned is the wrong word. It comforted her. Pam was never one to trade comfort and certainty for excitement and expectation.
For those who have cycled through several relationships by the time they find the permanent one, the fear of sex with someone new, while still significant, is not as paralyzing as it is for those, like Pam, who worried secretly that she wasn't any good at it or that she didn't quite know what she was doing. She had no valid reason for believing such a thing. Certainly Roy had never hinted at anything being wrong or amiss. But, for Pam, who never acknowledged that she was pretty, let alone "beautiful," as Jim had repeatedly written in his emails, it was easy to dismiss herself in bed, as well.
And the build-up between herself and Jim would make it even more of a let down if the act somehow fell short of the expectations.
So Pam was quite nervous indeed.
When she looked in the mirror after work, she saw a frumpy receptionist in ridiculously white tennis shoes. She couldn't go like this. But, she wasn't one to make herself deliberately sexy. She doubted that she knew how.
Her friend Emily spied Pam looking at herself disapprovingly in the mirror.
"Hey Pammy, what's wrong?"
"I look like a receptionist."
"You are a receptionist."
"But I don't want to look like one. I want to look nice for Jim tonight. Different."
"It sounds like he likes you just fine the way you are."
"I know he likes me. But I want him to more than 'like' me."
"Ah. Well, I could help you." Pam beamed and thanked her friend. Together, they loosed Pam's hair, applied make-up, and dressed her less conservatively.
Right before Pam was set to leave Emily's apartment for Jim's, she quick poured a small glass of bourbon and downed it quickly.
Jim welcomed Pam with a kiss and, as she walked in, Jim's roommate bounded down the stairs and greeted Pam himself.
"It's good to see you again, Pam. I wish I could stay and chat with you for a while, but, well, Jim is kicking me out of my own apartment."
Pam laughed and Jim made like he really was going to kick his roommate in the ass.
The two of them were left alone. And awkward.
"Sit down. Do you want a glass of wine or something?"
"Yes, please." Pam was actually thinking, "Yes, wine desperately."
Jim brought her the wine and a plate of bruschetta.
"Wow, you really went all out. Thank you."
"Aw, nothing, really, especially when you force your roommate into slave labor."
"Oh, no, and we kicked him out."
"Eh, he's done it to me plenty of times."
Pam continued, "Is that Van Morrison playing?"
"Yeah, you like him right?"
"Oh, yeah, of course."
Jim was relieved. He kept obsessing to his roommate about what music should be playing when Pam arrived.
"Come on, just make up your mind or I'm going to put in the most obnoxious 80's hair band I can dig out." Sick of the indecision, his roommate finally picked up a Van Morrison CD and shoved it in the stereo. "Everyone likes Van Morrison," he assured Jim.
After a couple of seconds of silence, Jim tells Pam, "Look, if you don't like what we're having tonight, you don't have to pretend. If you take a bite and it's terrible, I'll order pizza or something."
"I'm sure it'll be great. It smells really good."
They bounced through unimportant and insignificant conversation with semi-ease for the next twenty minutes, waiting for the chicken to be done. While Jim checked the oven for the last time, Pam poured herself more wine and helped set the table.
"So," Pam began cautiously, "how long have you . . . "
Jim interrupts her. "Roughly since you came in the office to interview for the job." Pam laughs and blushes. "Actually, it might have been when you got out of your car to walk into the building to interview." Pam laughs even more.
As Jim fills her wine glass, she interrogates him further. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"Are you kidding? Roy is huge. And I've kind of grown attached to my face."
"No, come on, really."
"Um, it just never seemed like the right time. I mean, what if you said no and then our friendship would be all weird? Besides . . . " Jim stops here and looks sad.
"What Jim?"
"I know this is going to sound odd, but . . . it was, like, if I never asked, you couldn't say no either. I could keep hoping and believing that you might one day want me too. If I asked and you just said no, I'd know that was that. And I couldn't dream any more."
Pam is touched and reaches over and put her hand on top of Jim's.
After dinner, Jim starts to pick up the dishes and clean up. Pam rises to help, but Jim tells her he has everything taken care of.
"No, I want to help you, Jim. Actually, as strange as this might sound, when I've thought about us together, I would picture us doing dishes together."
"Oh great. That's just what every guy wants to hear! That a woman fantasizes about dishwashing with him."
Pam says uncomfortably, "Well, sure, I fantasize about other things too. But what I mean is, I just pictured us being very comfortable even doing stupid little chores and stuff. I'm going to stop now, before I make myself sound like a complete freak." She pours more wine into her glass.
"No, no, I kind of like that explanation. Because, honestly, dating sucks. I mean, there you are, trying so hard to be perfect for this person you don't know yet. You're always on edge, always trying too hard. But the real great part of the relationship is when all that pretending, all that performing, is done. And you can wear ratty boxers around the house and you can admit you like watching Battlestar Gallactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns and you can be comfortable not talking every second and do the crossword on Sunday mornings and . . . " Jim stops as he realizes that he's rambling. "Well, I'll shut up now."
"No, no, I know exactly what you mean. Well, not the Battlestar Gallactica thing. That's actually kind of frightening. You know Dwight loves that show, right?"
"Yes, and that is very disturbing and I beg of you not to tell him."
Pam continues, "So, Jim, brace yourself. I have a very personal question to ask you."
"Oh boy."
"Your hair."
"What about it?"
"Do you just not comb it in the morning or is it actually a studied look that you work at?"
Jim laughs. "You'll just have to find out for yourself."
At this, Pam feels blood rush to her head. She pours herself more wine. They move into the living room to sit on the sofa. Jim asks if she'd like to watch a movie. Together they look through Jim's DVD collection, and a constant flow of comments like "oh, I love that one too," "I can't believe you even know that movie," or, occasionally, "what were you thinking?" They finally settle on Kicking and Screaming, a film Pam had never seen, but which Jim assured her that she'd love.
"Did you want more wine?" Pam answers Jim with a little too emphatic a yes. When Jim got to the kitchen, he realized that the wine was gone, which struck him as odd, since he only had two glasses himself.
"Um, sorry the wine's all gone and there's only beer in the . . . "
"Beer is fine," Pam interrupts Jim, to his troubled surprise. Nonetheless, he brings a beer.
They start watching the film. Jim watches Pam intently to see if she's liking the film and smiles every time he sees her laugh. He does grow worried, though, when he sees Pam come back from each trip to the bathroom with another beer. He had only ever seen Pam drunk once, at last year's Dundies. And she didn't seem to have high tolerance for alcohol then, so he didn't peg her as a big drinker at all.
Finally the film ends and Pam expresses approval of the film. The last lines, in particular, stayed with her: "I just wish we were an old couple so I could kiss you."
With the film over, it was an awkward moment for both. It's that point in the date when the big decisions are often made, either explicitly or implicitly, either deliberately or accidentally. And it's almost always more of a negotiation within the self more so than with the other: should we kiss? how far should we go? when is it really too far to turn back? These are the times that try dating men and women's souls, or at least scare the Hell out of them.
Each was nervous in their own way. For his part, Jim was worried that he was pushing Pam too far too fast. It was only a few days ago that she was engaged to be married to another man. Was he being too selfish, in too much of a hurry? And, Pam, of course, was worried that she'd fail to live up to the fantasies and expectations Jim had accumulated in five years. How could she ever live up to all that? How could anyone?
But that night the decisions were indeed made implicitly and accidentally. Pam soon passed out on Jim's sofa and awoke the next day, lovingly covered in a blanket, her head supported by a pillow, and acute embarrassment washing over her.
You're such an idiot, she thought.
OK, I think there's one more chapter to go here. BTW, the Kicking and Screaming movie I reference is the older one, with Eric Stoltz and Parker Posey, not the more recent slapsticky comedy.
