"Hello, Dunder Mifflin," Michael answered his phone. "Scranton branch Regional Manager speaking."

"Hey, Michael."

"Jim!" said Michael loudly. "How are you?" He swiveled to his right, leaned back in his chair, and made eye contact with Pam, whose head had come up abruptly at his greeting. She dropped her eyes back to her computer screen.

"Okay. Um, the reason I'm calling…."

"Hold on a sec, Jim, let me put you on speaker."

"Speaker?"

"Yeah, and now I'm gonna quick open my door so everybody can hear you."

"What? No, Michael, I wanted to…."

"Don't be shy!" said Michael as he returned from opening the door and flopped back into his chair. "Everybody here misses the sound of your voice. Isn't that right?" he called out into office. Nobody answered. "One more second," he said, and he got up again and went to the doorway. "Hey, everybody!" he said. "Let's give a big shout-out to our transferred brother. Everybody say 'Hi, Jim!'"

There was a halfhearted chorus of "Hi, Jims."

"Oh, come on, you can do better than that!" said Michael.

"Michael…" Jim said.

"Kelly, you used to be a cheerleader, right? You seem like the cheerleading type, you have to have been. Come on, start us off."

Kelly yelled, "Hi, Jim!" and the rest of the office followed, louder than before. Dwight's "Hi, Jim" sounded like a threat.

"Did you hear everybody?" Michael asked.

"Yes. Yeah, sure, Michael, now can we…."

"I don't know if you could hear Pam, she's wayyyy over there at her desk," said Michael.

Pam closed her eyes and exhaled sharply.

"Pam!" said Michael. "Get on over here, you! Say hi to Jim!"

Pam got up and walked stiffly over to Michael. He gestured at the doorway.

"Just stick your head in there and belt it out," he said.

"Hi, Jim," she called weakly.

"Hi, Pam," he said. "Michael, let Pam get back to work. I heard her the first time."

"I'll bet you did," he said, giving Pam a broad wink and shooing her back to her desk. He went back to his chair. "How can I help you, Jim? Need your old desk back yet?"

Jim sighed. "Actually, I was…. Do you still have your door open?"

"Yup."

"I was just calling to say hi," Jim said.

"That is so thoughtful of you," said Michael, and he raised his voice again. "You are such a thoughtful person."

"Um, yeah, thanks," said Jim. "Well, I better get back to work."

"So soon?" asked Michael.

"Yeah, there's a lot going on over here," said Jim.

"Well, give us a ring anytime," said Michael. "You might want to call in on the main line next time, though."

"I don't think…."

"Because I'm not chained to this desk. I could always be away from it. You never know. It's…it's probably best if you call in on the main line." He gave the camera a thumbs-up sign.

"Sure, okay," said Jim resignedly.

"Well, I hope to hear from you soon, buddy," said Michael. "We'll keep your desk open for ya."

Ryan cast an uncertain glance at Michael, who wasn't looking at him.

"Thanks," said Jim. "Bye."

Michael hung up the phone and went over to Pam's desk. "Man!" he said to the whole office. "Was that ever nice! That Jim…I don't know how we get along without him…do you?" he asked, turning suddenly to Pam.

"Um…."

"Better than we did with him," muttered Dwight.

"I called Michael to try to sort of subtly figure out how uncomfortable he made it for Pam. And, uh…I guess I figured it out, just not as subtly as I had hoped to. Kinda want to apologize to her, but kinda feel like that'd be a little pushy, like maybe she'd think it was just an excuse to talk to her.

"I don't want to make things harder for her right now."

"Yes, that was awkward. And embarrassing. But…I lived. That's good to know. That awkwardness is something you can live through, I mean. Feel like I should have realized that a lot earlier. I have worked here a while. I guess sometimes these things take more time than you'd think. Kind of like when I decided to make Tuesdays office supply order day instead of asking around at random times and then placing the order and just having to put another order in the next day. It took a while to think of that, too, but…now it seems so obvious. So, yeah. It's kind of like that."

Pam took a deep breath and started typing.

"Hey, Jim.

"I was going to send you this a week or so ago, but I forgot. Sorry. But now, finally, you have it: the report on what Michael does all day. This could possibly be followed by reports on various other members of the office staff—I'm sure you've missed Dwight at least as much as he misses you.

"It's weird to think that you can picture everything I can talk about here—all the faces and all the places (and that was not supposed to rhyme, but I'll leave it in so you can laugh at me), but the only thing I can picture at the Stamford branch is you, and I can't help but imagine you at a desk just like the one you had here. If I were going to mentally illustrate one of your work stories, I would see a nondescript office space, some vague coworkers, a familiar-looking desk, and you, sticking out like a sore thumb because you'd be the only thing in the whole illustration that was clearly defined.

"I can just hear you now: 'You call yourself an artist, Beesly? You can do better than that!' So far, if I try to do better, your desk just starts looking more like your desk here, and the person sitting closest to you starts looking more like Dwight. But I am taking art classes, so we'll see how the mental image progresses.

"Any details you could help me sketch in would be appreciated.

"Pam"

She attached all of the logs on Michael she had typed up for Jan. For the current day, she wrote: "2:45-3:00—Led office in cheer for transferred sales rep. Did his best to publicly humiliate current receptionist, and in so doing made her realize that things could only ever get more awkward anyway, regardless of any actions she may/may not take."

She stared at the empty subject line for a long time. Finally, she typed "Communication Lines Open."

And she sent the message.

End of Episode