A/N: Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews! You guys have really boosted my confidence in writing fanfic for The Office. And don't worry, that Jam goodnes is coming!
"And he was just . . . so awesome that day!" Kelly wailed, sitting back on Pam's couch with a beer in her hand. "I seriously thought at that moment that we'd be together forever—I thought, 'oh my God, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this person!' And then he just . . . dumps me!"
Pam raised her eyes from her lap and looked at the camera with a wide, pleading gaze. "Yeah, that sucks—"
"It's like on Passions when Luis and Sheridan were meant for each other, and then he ran off with her slutty niece and now she's evil and plotting revenge . . . oh my gosh, Pam, I'm Evil Sheridan!"
Pam looked at the clock above her mantle, reading 6:45, and looked back at a sniffling Kelly. "I bet you feel much better now—"
"Am I pretty?" Kelly asked suddenly.
Pam stared. "What?"
"Am I pretty? Pam, you can tell me the truth. Do I dress like a slut or something, because I swear I'm not. Maybe I talk too much—my parent's say I talk too much and I'll never get a nice Indian boy to marry me . . . as if I'd want one. An Indian boy, I mean, not a marriage—I'm saying I'd want to get married, but not to an Indian guy. Not that they're bad or anything, they're just all so boring!" Kelly paused, looking out across the living room with her eyes welling up with tears and her bottom lip quivering. "Ryan wasn't boring . . ."
As Kelly downed her beer like a jogger swigging a liter of water, Pam inched closer to her coworker on the couch, deciding to take a chance. "You know what, Kelly?" Pam said softly. "I think the only reason Ryan broke up with you—and this is just a hunch—is because he's threatened by your . . . spirit."
Kelly wiped her nose and looked at Pam. "What does that mean?"
"I mean," Pam continued, feeling progress being made, "Ryan's the type of guy who just, you know, wants to focus on his career and make lots of money—"
"But I wanted that, too!" Kelly cried. "I could never date a poor person, Pam!"
"Just listen," Pam said, keeping her cool. "You're a very bright person. You do talk a lot, but you always have something interesting to say. You wear colorful things to work and you're generally very sweet. I just think Ryan wasn't ready for someone of your . . . uniqueness. And if you ask me, Kelly, if Ryan couldn't see how great you are, then he's not worth it."
Kelly stared, her mouth open and her eyes starry from Pam's stream of compliments. "Oh my God," she sighed. "You're totally right."
"I am?"
"Ryan never really appreciated me! I was too good for him, he just kept me around as his trophy girlfriend! I could do so much better than him!"
"Right!" Pam said with fake enthusiasm. Deep down, she felt good about helping Kelly and finally bringing a smile to her coworker's lips, but at the same time, the clock was ticking.
A crack of lightning and a subsequent boom of thunder jolted the girls in their seats. Pam looked out the window, her face dropping like a ton of bricks and a sickly feeling growing in her stomach. She went to the window and peeked through the curtains, the pinprick of worry in her gut growing to the size of a baseball as sheets of rain began falling on the pane.
"This is so weird," Kelly said from the couch. Pam turned to see her friend with her hands over her heart. "It's like God is crying for me because He knows Ryan broke my heart." Instead of feeling sadness, it seemed as though Kelly was flattered that God might have been crying for her, evident by the smile growing on her face.
"Kelly, I'd hate to just throw you out like this—"
"Maybe we could go to a movie tonight or something, I feel much better."
"It's just that . . ." Pam took a cautious step towards her coworker on the couch and glanced at the camera. "I kind of have plans tonight."
Kelly perked in her seat. "Really? With who?"
Again Pam looked at the camera. "I'm having dinner with a friend."
Kelly set her beer on the end table and stood. "You have a date tonight?"
"It's kind of—"
"Oh my God, are you getting back together with Roy? Did he threaten to kill you or something if you didn't get back together with him?"
"What?" Pam asked, alarmed. "No!"
Kelly suddenly gasped, her brown eyes as big as serving platters. "You're going out with Jim tonight, aren't you?!"
Pam winced at the sudden revelation. "Oh, God," she sighed.
"You can't wear that tonight!" Kelly cried, looking Pam over with disgust as though she were carrying the Bubonic plague. "That's, like, a funeral dress—you can't wear that, Pam!" Kelly gasped again. "Ohmigod! You have to let me give you a makeover tonight!"
Pam's face dropped and she shook her head. "No."
"Oh, please, Pam! You'll look so much better when I'm done, you have to! Jim's gonna want to marry you when I make you look beautiful! Please, please, please!"
Pam paused, looking down at her dress. "Is it really that bad?"
Kelly grabbed her hand and pulled Pam down the hall to her room where her clothes were still piled about. "You are so lucky I came over tonight, Pam." Kelly slammed the bedroom door shut and leaned back on it. "You'll thank me for this, I swear."
Pam turned to the camera, horrified in her own quiet way.
000
Jim to camera:
"Well, so far it's been a disaster," Jim said, slumped on his couch. "The restaurant I booked gave my table away to some politician visiting from New York . . . and, since it's Friday, all other restaurants are filled up. But hey, at least all the bad stuff is happening before the actual date. Guess that's something to be thankful for." Jim stopped as a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky outside. He mugged at the camera and pointed to the rain-soaked window behind him.
"When it rains, it pours."
000
"Michael, it's Dwight." The odd sales rep from Dunder-Mifflin sat up in his seat, rain pounding the windows of his 1987 Pontiac Trans Am. He looked at Jim's house and back at the camera. "It started to rain, my mission is in jeopardy."
Dwight paused as he listened to his boss on the other end. "No," he said, "he hasn't left the house yet. His dinner plans fell through, that might put a damper on his evening." Dwight listened again, looking at the camera. "I don't know if he's canceled his evening—wait . . . this could all be a diversion to throw us off the scent." A small smile curled Dwight's thin lips. He nodded to the camera as if it were his accomplice. "It all makes sense now."
Dwight stopped and listened to his boss on the other end of the line. "Of course I don't think Jim caused it to rain." Silence again. "Uh, because it he did, he would have to be some sort of upper-level sorcerer, able to bend the laws of the natural world . . . then again, I have seen him move things with his mind." Dwight slumped in his seat again, looking out at Jim's house with the phone pressed tightly to his ear. "We're through the looking-glass, Michael."
000
Dwight to camera:
"I take pride when Michael asks me to spy on my coworkers. I think of it as an honor to report back the going-ons of my fellow employees. If Michael is the captain of the ship, I'm the one in the crow's nest shouting 'iceberg, right ahead!' Of course, on the Titanic, the captain didn't turn fast enough and the ship hit the iceberg, killing thousands of people . . . but that's not the fault of the night watchman. It's my duty in the crow's nest to report, not to act. Then again, if I were the captain I would have smelled the iceberg coming and turned the ship in time, thus saving lives and making me a hero." Dwight sighed. "Which is why I should be the captain of this ship . . ."
000
"And then I thought for, like, three whole days that I was pregnant, but it was just PMS—I mean, I was freaking out, Pam! I even went to Wiggles and Giggles to buy cute little baby outfits, like dresses and overalls, but my check bounced and I had to take it all back. Luckily, Ryan never found out or maybe he would have stayed with me in the end. Do you like this color?"
Pam sat, facing Kelly on her bed as he coworker talked and held an eyeshadow kit up to her nose, swirling the colors around and dabbing clumps of makeup on Pam's face as though she were her own personal Barbie doll.
"Uhm . . ." Pam turned her head to the clock on her nightstand.
"Don't move!" Kelly yelled, turning Pam's face back with her hands. "It's time for mascara."
As Kelly dipped the brush in the mascara well, Pam rolled her eyes over to the camera, her face twisted in agony as her coworker made her up. Kelly put the mascara brush away and sat back, smiling. "That totally works with the color of your dress," she said. "Oh my God . . . you look just like a fairy princess."
000
Pam to camera:
Pam sat, dressed in a hideous pink dress she hadn't worn since her senior year of high school, with a thick layer of equally-as-pink makeup on her face—blush, eyeshadow, lipstick—and glitter over her eyes just below her brows. As quickly as the lightning had been flashing outside the window, Kelly had whipped Pam's hair up in tight curls, pinning them to the top of her head like frosting on a cake, topped with a fucsia flower pin she found in the closet.
Pam shook her head at the camera, feeling grimy from all the chemicals Kelly had put on her face, a small, self-deprecating smile on her frosted lips.
"Stupid, stupid Pam . . ."
000
"So, like, what's the deal with Jim, anyway?" Kelly asked, dabbing Pam's face with a Kleenex.
"What do you mean?"
"Doesn't it bother you that he's going out with you right after he dumped Karen?"
Pam pressed her lips in a thin line and shook her head. "It's not like that—"
"Looks like a rebound thing to me," Kelly said. She pulled her hand away from Pam's face. "No offense."
"None taken."
A beat of silence entered the room, interrupted only by the constant clicking of rain against the glass of Pam's window. "He's cute," Kelly said suddenly.
Pam smiled. "Yeah, I guess he is."
"I think it's so adorable you two are finally going out. I mean, I've been stuck in the back cubicle, like, forever, but whenever I went on break, I always used to see you guys talking together, and even before Jim told anyone that he was in love with you, I always thought—'wow, these two would make the cutest couple.'"
"Thank you," Pam said hesitantly.
Kelly unsheathed a tube of lipstick and pressed it to Pam's lips. "Are you going to put out tonight?"
Pam rocked backwards and looked at Kelly, horrified. "What?"
"What?" Kelly said, as though Pam had asked the audacious question.
TBC