Envy (Latin, invidia)- noun- a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.
Pam had never been called sexy.
It's that kind of thing she thought every woman experiences at least once- a guy who likes her for her body if not for anything else - but it never happened to Pam. By the time she was old enough to really be sexy she was with Roy, and then there was no one but him to tell her she was attractive or beautiful or maybe just a decent person (because when he's not saying any of those things she'll take what she can get) but none of that ever happened. And so Pam came to the conclusion that if no one called her sexy, it must be because she wasn't. She didn't fit any of the criteria, didn't have the tan or the legs or the boobs or the lean figure- which is exactly why she got into mixed berry yogurt in the first place, because if she's being honest, it doesn't really taste that great- but all of her yogurt went to shit the second Karen Fillipeli walked through the doors of Dunder Mifflin.
Pam had spent the better part of the last two weeks analyzing every aspect of Jim's return to Scranton. What should she say? How should she greet him? Would it be an appropriate reaction for her to leap into his arms and tell him that she's loved him far longer than she ever let herself believe, and now she wants to start over and make things right? (that one was more fantasy than reality, but only by a small percentage). She dragged out a blouse and skirt Kelly had practically forced her to buy after Jim left, looking for some sort of cotton confidence that would make her ready for this- this epic, unchangeable second-first-impression thing that she felt so completely unprepared for. But that day came, so much faster and so much slower than Pam thought possible, and she did her hair and put on her heels (her Keds sat forlorn in the closet, partially because they didn't go with the skirt and partially because they reminded her of the times before this regeneration of her and Jim) and Pam thought to herself that maybe she looked a little bit pretty and maybe that would be enough to bring him home in the ways she'd longed for. And when the door opened and Jim walked through the door- Jim Halpert, the man who had told her he loved her and had kissed her in this very room and had touched every single piece of her soul until she came crumbling down- she forget every ounce of decorum she'd promised herself she would have and she just ran to him.
She had imagined this moment so many times. It would be like the movies, where Jim would wrap his arms around her and maybe pick her up a little so he could press a kiss to the top of her head, and she would look up and him and just like that he would know the things she'd dreamed for them. He would know she loved him. Except imaginings are just imaginings, and so the hug felt less like an embrace between two people who need each other and more like a fucking train wreck, all awkwardness and one-sidedness and disappointment. And Pam couldn't figure out for the life of her just where they had gone so terribly wrong (because really, she had seen that late-night phone conversation as a sort of healing), but then Jim went to sit down and he glanced over at the petite brunette in the pantsuit and all of a sudden she had a horrible, sickening sense of exactly what was going on.
Karen was beautiful; Pam had noticed that right away. Not just in that subtle, "she's so pretty" kind of beautiful that women see in their best friends or old couples notice about the darling girl next door who helped them rescue the cat once. She was beautiful in the magazine way, all exoticness and curves and confidence. In a little selfish part of her heart, Pam had always liked being the good-looking woman in the office, because if she's going to work in a shit job with a shit fiancé she should at least get the dignity of being admired for something, even if it isn't the thing that counts. But now there's Karen, and she can tell from the gazes of all the men in the room that her status as the pretty receptionist has taken a backseat to the sexy saleswoman, and Jim is messing with Karen in a totally friendly way, except for they aren't totally friends and Pam is totally aware of it.
In the weeks following that failed invitation for coffee, Pam would like to say that she wasn't following the age-old mantra of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. She would rather talk about how good of friends she and Karen became- alliances in a crazy, fucked up work environment- and how when she had to make the choice between sabotaging Karen and Jim's relationship and being a friend to both of them she chose the latter. But Pam has always been betrayed by her art, and so where the first section of her sketchbook is filled with images of a tall man reaching out to a curly-haired woman, the second has the woman alone and the man with someone new. It's never quite clear, but the new girl looks vaguely Italian.