Take a Second, Take a Year (Pam/Karen)
My awesomely late entry, recovered from a dying computer.
Title: Take a Second, Take a Year
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4,470
Pairing: Pam/Karen
Prompt: As it turns out, Pam does find her Karen, one sunny afternoon in Central Park.
This precludes most of what happened at the end of season 3.
It was lonely for Pam at Dunder Mifflin after Karen left; she had just gotten used to having an actual girlfriend (not the lesbian kind) at work. But Karen and Jim imploded, and Karen found a great job in New York City, and that was that.
Pam and Roy exploded, or Roy did anyway, and Pam suddenly found herself free to stop circling and just spiral into Jim.
But that didn't work either because Jim wasn't any different despite his haircut, and she'd spent the year growing up and rethinking the rest of her life. She had a list that was entirely doable, not like those fantasy lists she used to make for herself about gardens and houses. Jim's list seemed to be entirely "go back to the way things were." There was no -plode of any sort for them; they just kind of petered out.
In the meantime, Pam applied for the graphic design internship and got it. She increased her art school course load to nearly a full schedule and still worked the reception desk. And she stood up to Michael, leading to not exactly a healthy work environment, but one in which Michael never mentioned her breasts to her face.
Jim was entirely sweet and supportive about the list, though at the end of her internship he pouted a little and slouched around the office. But what had it all been for if she stayed in Scranton? There was no design position at the Scranton branch, so with a well-placed word from Jan and a moderately enthusiastic recommendation from her internship supervisor, she got a job in New York at headquarters. She was almost used to the concept by now-that if you wanted something, you could ask for it instead of silently staring at the back of its neck.
She drove to Manhattan on a grey winter day, followed by the movers. She was moving into an unfurnished third-floor apartment and she had saved specifically to pay these guys to haul her furniture up there. She had initially looked for a place out in Brooklyn with the intention of commuting in for work, but her salary let her live on the island, which was pretty awesome.
She was settled by nightfall; she didn't even bother to watch the Scranton moving van drive off, the last piece of her old life disappearing around the corner without incident. She was in full-on Ol' Pammy mode as she settled into her new, tiny, found-and-rented-all-by-herself apartment. Ol' Pammy wasn't afraid to live alone in a place like Manhattan. Ol' Pammy was going to decorate her apartment with reckless abandon. Ol' Pammy wanted to call Karen right away.
Pam resisted for the next two days. It was the middle of the work week and Pam had to unpack, she had to get comfortable first. She wished Karen still worked at Dunder Mifflin so Pam could just e-mail her. She could let the emoticons do the talking for her.
It was only when she was facing five lonely days before starting work that she consented to look up "K Filippelli" in an online directory for Manhattan. Still, she didn't use the number until Saturday morning, and even then she stared at the phone for a good twenty minutes before actually dialing.
Karen answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
Pam almost forgot how to use the phone.
"Hello?"
"Karen, it's Pam," she blurted out. There was a disgusting slurping sound and series of muffled coughs and crunches on the other end. "Karen?" she repeated.
"I'm sorry, I was eating some cereal. Pam. Oh my God. Hi."
Pam wished her phone had a cord so she could twist her fingers through it. "Hi," she said back, softly.
"I don't want to be rude, but why are you calling me?"
"I'm in New York. I'm here for a job," said Pam.
Silence.
"Dunder Mifflin's graphic design internship," Pam continued. "I finished it this year and they offered me a job here. I just got settled in my new place and I wanted to call you, because…I don't know anyone else in New York."
"That's great," said Karen, sounding like she was forcing herself to sound normal. "Congratulations."
"Thanks."
It was a full seven seconds of awkward silence before Pam asked, "Do you want to meet up later?"
*
Karen gave her directions to a bookstore café not too far away; their apartments turned out to be within a short train ride of each other, though New York short and Scranton short were two different measurements.
It was a chill, clear February day and there was leftover dirty snow clumped randomly against the curbs. She saw Karen waiting for her outside the shop in jeans and a dark pea coat. Her hair was a little shorter and her skin seemed a little paler in this bleak light, but she otherwise looked the same. Pam felt slightly overdressed in her skirt and matching top, but it was way too late to go back to her apartment and change. Karen saw her too and rocked up on her toes, as if she were caught between meeting Pam halfway and waiting for her.
"Hey," said Karen when Pam was close. The greeting puffed out of her mouth in a little cloud of warm air.
"Hi," said Pam. She smiled, ducked her head, and had a momentary freakout over the tension that had just materialized between them. Her eyes were slightly glazed over when she looked up and attempted to cover her awkwardness.
Karen pointed underhand to the store entrance. "You wanna go in?"
"Sure," said Pam, a little too enthusiastically.
They managed to forestall conversation a little longer while they got coffee. Or while Pam got coffee and Karen got a chai tea latte, no foam. They sat off to one side, in a little alcove in the café section.
"Oh, I forgot to get a stirrer," said Pam, moving to get up, but Karen was already holding one. They had the kind that looked like thin tongue depressors. "Thanks," she said, taking it.
"So when'd you get in?" asked Karen.
"A couple of days ago," said Pam. "I drove down with the movers."
"Jim didn't come with you?" asked Karen, sounding so casual Pam knew she had to be forcing it.
"Oh...no. I wanted to do it, y'know, on my own. If by 'on my own' you mean with the help of two really muscular moving guys."
"So, graphic design," said Karen. "I'm impressed."
"Thanks. I mean, I took a lot of classes, too. And I think Jan really talked me up," said Pam.
"Jan," Karen repeated, curiously.
"I think she felt bad about me working for Michael for so long. I guess when I told her I wanted to come to New York, she pulled a few strings or something."
"Way to go Jan," said Karen.
"And you-what do you do," asked Pam, once again overselling the enthusiasm and unable to help it.
"Marketing department over at NBC. Client-facing, handling accounts, that sort of stuff," said Karen. She stared at her drink while she spoke.
"NBC, wow," said Pam. "Do you see famous people all the time?"
"Not really," said Karen. "I mean, I see people in the elevators, sometimes, but my office is on a totally different floor. I got to go to a taping of Saturday Night Live once, though."
"I am kind of jealous of that," said Pam. They shared a brief mutual grin, and then they were silent again.
"Is this really awkward?" Pam blurted. "I know we haven't talked in a really long time."
"Maybe because my boyfriend was in love with you and I moved to New York to get away from Scranton. That could be why it's awkward," said Karen, a hint of snap in her voice. She pushed her drink away with a small sigh. "Sorry. You'd think a year later, I wouldn't be so pissed off about it. It wasn't your fault."
Pam decided if Karen was going to be blunt, it was time to be bold. "I really missed having you around. I think we were friends, for a while."
"Is that why you called me? Because we were friends?"
"I…guess so."
"And you want to be friends again."
"I think we could be," said Pam, feeling ridiculously hopeful all of a sudden.
A moment's pause. "I think so too," said Karen.
*
The rest of the coffee date was no less awkward, but Pam went home feeling like it had been worth it. She had Karen's new cell phone number stored in her own cell and she was starting work on Monday, where her boss would undoubtedly never ask her for a spare bra or lock her in a conference room.
Come Monday, she discovered that her boss was actually a bit on the dull side and left her first full day as a graphic designer feeling underwhelmed.
So she texted Karen; it was more casual than a phone call and it bypassed any of those embarrassing silences to which they'd become prone. Mondays suck. Dinner plans? she sent.
A minute later her phone beeped with, meet me rock plaza 7pm.
Pam almost went back home to change, but there was something appealing about showing up in her nice work clothes. They weren't especially fancy, but they weren't a pastel cardigan and skirt, either. She had nice pants now, even a tailored pair, and nice shirts that would have inspired a series of fashion shows at lunch back in Scranton. She had even ditched the Keds for some patent leather flats.
Seven o'clock found her wandering around Rockefeller Plaza, stopping a few moments to watch the skaters at the rink, wondering why it looked so much smaller in real life than on television. There were bigger places to skate in Scranton. She saw a couple of kids goofing off at center ice and pulled out her sketchbook, a requisite item for her these days. She had stacks of them now, all filled from cover to cover.
Karen found her like that, sketching clumsily in her mittens because it was too cold to go bare-handed, even for five minutes. "Looks good," she said from over Pam's shoulder.
Pam turned, found Karen with her hands jammed in her pockets, her face just starting to turn ruddy under her knit watchcap. "Thanks."
"I'm hungry. You want to get out of here?" asked Karen.
They went to a little tapas place Karen liked, more for the food than the sangria. The lighting was low, but not so low you had to squint, and it cast everything a warm flame color. "This place is nice," said Pam. "It's my first time eating out at a restaurant in New York. I like it."
They had mussels and shrimp, an interesting pheasant dish, potatoes, and some kind of cheesy egg thing that Pam resolved to look up online for the recipe. And then they were bundling up again, heading out into a dry, cold night.
"I'm headed this way," said Karen, pointing down the block to a subway stop.
"I'm headed uptown," said Pam. Silence found them again, but Pam brushed it off. "Dinner was great. You have to show me all your favorite places, so I can look like I know my way around the city."
Karen's smile came easily. "Sure."
*
"...and then we had dinner at this great place in Brooklyn Heights. The lamb and rice was amazing. And then they brought out this super rich baklava. Mom, you have to come visit me if only to eat at this restaurant." Pam flopped down on her couch, a little physical flourish to the end of her story. She adjusted the phone to rest between the cushions and her ear, leaving her hands free to pick up some knitting.
"It sounds like you've been seeing Karen a lot," said her mom, her tone somewhere between curious and approving. "I'm glad you have people you know down there."
"I made some friends at work too," said Pam, tamping down on a surprising defensiveness. "We're going to go see Mamma Mia on Broadway next weekend."
"Broadway? Isn't that expensive?"
"Well, they're not really good seats, so they don't cost too much," said Pam, neglecting to mention that the tickets were still in her "minor splurge" range. "Come visit for the weekend. You could go with us."
"I can't next weekend, honey. I'll be there for Easter next month, though."
"I thought I was coming home for Easter," said Pam.
"I'm coming to New York, and I'm going to meet Karen and all your friends."
The thought of introducing Karen to her mother became surprisingly tempting when she played the scenario out in her mind. "Okay. In that case, I should tell you about this bar we went to-"
*
For a month of being friends with Karen again, they had never brought up Dunder Mifflin, Scranton, or Jim. Sometimes Pam caught herself about to reference something from the old office, or bring up something Jim had pointed out to her. She and Jim e-mailed all the time; sometimes he called her and they talked for an hour or so. But it was sedately comfortable for them now; Pam didn't worry so much about remembering funny stories or interesting things for him. If they ran out of things to say, they hung up, and she didn't feel sore about it at all.
It took her some time to realize that she was saving the funny and interesting for Karen. She wanted to tell Karen about the arguing girls on the subway ("And she was like, I can't believe you didn't bring me bail money, and the other girl was all, your boyfriend gave me the clap, and then they…"), the falcon she saw flying outside of her office building, the bike messenger she saw eating it against the side of a taxi. She didn't want Karen to think she was the same quiet receptionist she'd been in Scranton. And to Karen's credit, she never made Pam feel that way. Status never came into it; they were just two people who knew each other, and Pam never thought to question how easily they had fallen back into friendship.
"I have this new project coming up," said Karen near the end of March. It was just the two of them again, drinking girly drinks in the back of a half-dark bar and attempting to play darts, though neither of them precisely knew the rules.
Karen lobbed a dart at the pockmarked board. "It's going to eat up all my free time for the next few weeks."
Another dart, this one optimistically closer to the bullseye. "I have to cancel on ASSSSCAT."
The last one bounced off the board and clattered to the floor.
Pam watched as Karen shuffled forward to pick up her darts. "That's okay. Things are starting to pick up at my office too." Which was technically true, even if her own workload wasn't increasing.
"You're probably not going to see me for the next two weeks, is what I'm saying," said Karen. She dropped her darts next to her martini, picked up the empty glass, shook it as if that would magically make it refill.
"Oh, my mom's coming into town in two weeks. I really want you to meet her," said Pam.
Karen looked doubtful. "Everyone in my office is going to pull overtime. Can I let you know how things are going next weekend?"
"Okay," said Pam. She clutched her darts in her left hand. "I don't think my aim is getting any better. I forfeit."
*
Two weeks drifted by. Pam cleaned, shopped, and planned out her dinner with her mom and Karen. She was getting nervous, and didn't want think about the reasons. Now was not the time to dissect how they worked so well together with Jim removed from the equation, or what that said about their relationship after versus during Scranton. She liked having a good girl friend, and if that meant spending a lot of her time exclusively with Karen, she wasn't going to complain, because Karen knew the best restaurants and bars and she never minded tagging along to the art stuff Pam wanted to see and she even managed to wrangle tickets to a gallery opening for an artist Pam loved.
She called Karen the afternoon of her mother's imminent arrival to confirm dinner the next evening, and wasn't surprised to hear her cell go to voicemail. That was how it had been for a while-Karen calling her back to say she'd been on the line with an employee or a client or her boss. "Hey, it's me. Just checking to make sure we were still going out tomorrow night. My mom's-actually, she's calling me right now. Bye."
Mildly surprised by the timing, she switched over. Her mom was supposed to call when her bus was close to the city; Pam would meet her at the Port Authority and escort her to the apartment.
Pam found her mom outside of the bus terminal already taking pictures of Times Square. After the squealing and the hugging, Shannon Beesly turned her daughter around three hundred and sixty degrees. "Manhattan agrees with you," she said as a police car went squealing past them.
They talked during the entire subway ride back, even over the sometimes cacophonic rattling of the train and the hipster with the blaring iPod who sat next to them most of the way.
Pam watched her mom closely at the apartment and, finding approval in her smile, smiled herself. "I want to repaint, but my landlord won't let me. Maybe if I get a promotion I can move to a place that'll let me paint," said Pam.
"A promotion," her mom repeated, in that impressed, encouraging mom-way.
"Not any time soon, but-that's my phone." Pam pulled out her cell, saw that it was Karen, and answered happily. "Hey, you have good timing. My mom's here."
"Pam, I'm really sorry to do this to you, but I can't make dinner tomorrow."
Pam bit her lip. "What about tonight," she offered gamely.
"I'm going to be at the office late tonight. At least until nine. We're ordering in for dinner."
Pam turned away from her mom to continue the conversation. "That...really sucks."
"I know. I'm sorry. My boss wants this done by Monday, which is going to be impossible unless I pretty much start living in the office."
"It's, um. It's okay. Let me know when it's over," said Pam, and hung up. She pasted on a smile and faced her mom. "Karen can't come. She's got work."
"That's too bad," said Shannon from the couch. "I really wanted to meet her."
"I wanted you to meet her too," said Pam. She felt her forehead knotting in the kind of frown you make right before you start to cry, was startled by the notion that she was this upset, and promptly teared up.
Her mom pulled her down to sit on the couch and draped an arm around her shoulders. "Oh honey, what's wrong?"
"I really don't know," Pam confessed, rather thickly. "I think I just had my heart set on going out to a nice dinner and introducing you to my friends. Maybe it's stress."
"Are you sure? Because it sounds like you're upset about Karen."
Pam tensed under her mother's arm.
"We can have a nice dinner ourselves. I'm not that far away. I can come down any time to see you and meet everybody."
"I guess, maybe I just wanted to show you I was doing all right. Here, by myself," said Pam, liking the sound of that explanation, even if it did make her feel like a teenager.
"I never doubted that," said Shannon. She smoothed the hair back from her daughter's face and patted her knee. "Now show me the rest of the apartment, and we'll talk about all the tourist things I'm going to embarrass you with tomorrow."
*
True to her word, Pam's mom dragged her to every tourist hotspot ever popularized by New York romantic comedies. Her vacation day was spent at the Empire State Building, Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza (Pam steadfastly ignored everything around her), browsing the shops on Fifth Avenue, getting caught up for an hour at the Strand, cutting through bits of Central Park, and eating dinner in the East Village, Shannon taking pictures all the while.
"I'll put them on flickr for you," she said, surprising Pam. Apparently her mother had been accumulating internet savvy for some time now. "It'll help us keep in touch," she added.
The next day was Saturday; they stayed in and cooked breakfast together before returning to Fifth Ave for an extended tour of Tiffany's.
"Think you could find anything for ten dollars here?" Shannon murmured to her daughter. The store was crowded with customers and other tourists, even the upper floors.
"I think you can buy just a box," said Pam. They were wandering around the engagement and wedding ring displays; they had passed a nervous young man trying to decide between white gold and platinum.
"An empty Tiffany's box. That might be one of the saddest things I've ever heard," said Shannon.
Pam hummed a nonverbal response, distracted by the thought that Karen might call. She held out hope until eight-thirty, when she received a text: dying slowly, no end in sight, going late til mon. It was like a tiny bubble of disappointment going off in her chest; she felt let down, and couldn't think of anything to text back.
"She's not coming, huh," said her mom, correctly reading the look on Pam's face.
"She's really busy," said Pam.
"I understand," said her mom, in a way that made Pam think she was saying something else.
The rest of her mother's visit was pleasant, but uneventful. They walked leisurely through Times Square on Sunday morning, or as leisurely as they could while tourists thronged around them, and waited for the bus together in the lower levels of the Port Authority.
"I'll call you when I get home," said Shannon, giving her daughter a hug. "And I'll come back again soon."
They exchanged their I-love-yous and Pam watched her mom board the bus, feeling almost that she would rather join her there.
*
Karen called her on Monday, during lunch. "I made it, I'm alive. Let's get something to eat."
Pam met her at a hot dog stand they both liked for its minimum sketchiness and consistently uncrusty condiment bottles. With relish falling off her bun, Pam watched Karen wolf down her food. "The girl who orders our takeout is a vegetarian," she said with her mouth full. "She keeps trying to make us vegetarians too. I haven't had real meat for a week. Not that this is real meat either."
"My mom really wanted to meet you," said Pam.
"I really wanted to meet her too," said Karen, missing Pam's tone.
"I mean, I really wanted you to meet her."
"I'm sorry. But this project was really important. And it means I get a huge bonus this month. Hello, sexy new flat panel TV." Karen glanced sideways, saw Pam nibbling half-heartedly at her hot dog. "Come on, Pam, your mom lives less than two hours away. I can meet her any time."
"No, yeah, it's totally fine," said Pam, trying not to sound completely passive-aggressive.
"Is something else wrong? I mean, is everything okay with you?" asked Karen.
"Everything's fine." Pam took a moment to exhale. "Sorry. Really, it's fine. I didn't mean to get all weird about it."
"I almost believe you," said Karen.
"I mean, I'm still disappointed, but I'm sure I'll get over it," said Pam, slightly taken aback.
Temper flaring under the stress of the days spent shut in her office, Karen decided to push. "Why are you disappointed? Didn't your mom meet your other friends?"
"No," said Pam softly.
"Then why was it so important that she meet me?"
"I have to get back to work," said Pam. She dumped the other half of her hot dog in an overflowing garbage bin as she walked away.
*
Being in a fight with Karen was unsettling. Pam didn't send her goofy emails about online articles, didn't call her to talk about whatever she'd watched on TV (they liked the workout tips they got from Biggest Loser, and tended to avoid Extreme Home Makeover because it made them emotional), didn't go out with her for their usual Friday night drinks. She emailed Jim, and talked to her mom, and went out with her coworkers, but the Karen-shaped hole in her time was obvious.
Karen called her up on a bright, warm Sunday. "Hey. Let's go for a walk," she said. "Winter's really over. We should take advantage before it gets too hot."
Pam met her at the edge of Central Park, at the Hunters' Gate close to the Museum of Natural History. She sat on the sun-warmed stone and sketched while she waited.
"You're gonna need a new sketchbook soon," said Karen, walking up to her.
Pam left her drawing of the horse-drawn carriages that kept plodding by. "Hi," she said, half-shy.
"Hey," said Karen. She pushed up a pair of dark sunglasses to squint at Pam, hands automatically jamming into her boy-shorts pockets. "Come on. It's a nice day." She started walking, Pam at her side. They wandered aimlessly, heading in the general direction of the lake, forsaking the more crowded paths. She spoke again when they were close to the water. "So I kind of weirded out on you, and I'm sorry."
"I am too," said Pam. "Not about your weirdness. My weirdness. I'm sorry about that."
Karen laughed at her. "I'm glad I wasn't just imagining it."
"It was definitely real. I don't know where that came from. I hadn't seen my mom in a while, so I guess I just...blew things out of proportion."
"I guess so," said Karen.
They kept walking, skirting the edges of the lake. Miraculously, it was just the two of them for a good ten minutes, passing silently under trees and dappled sunlight. Pam felt Karen's hand brush the back of hers, almost took in a sharp breath. But a pair of joggers hove into view and Karen moved away.
"You'd think there would be more people out," said Pam. She flexed her fingers as the joggers huffed past them.
Karen didn't answer, instead staring at the ground as if searching for something there. But then, without looking, she drifted close to Pam again. This time her hand brushed down the length of Pam's until their fingers touched, and just like that Karen was holding her hand.
"Don't weird out on me again," said Karen, looking up at Pam. "You don't have to."
Pam laced their fingers together, let their hands swing a little, and smiled to herself.
Title: Take a Second, Take a Year
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4,470
Pairing: Pam/Karen
Prompt: As it turns out, Pam does find her Karen, one sunny afternoon in Central Park.
This precludes most of what happened at the end of season 3.
It was lonely for Pam at Dunder Mifflin after Karen left; she had just gotten used to having an actual girlfriend (not the lesbian kind) at work. But Karen and Jim imploded, and Karen found a great job in New York City, and that was that.
Pam and Roy exploded, or Roy did anyway, and Pam suddenly found herself free to stop circling and just spiral into Jim.
But that didn't work either because Jim wasn't any different despite his haircut, and she'd spent the year growing up and rethinking the rest of her life. She had a list that was entirely doable, not like those fantasy lists she used to make for herself about gardens and houses. Jim's list seemed to be entirely "go back to the way things were." There was no -plode of any sort for them; they just kind of petered out.
In the meantime, Pam applied for the graphic design internship and got it. She increased her art school course load to nearly a full schedule and still worked the reception desk. And she stood up to Michael, leading to not exactly a healthy work environment, but one in which Michael never mentioned her breasts to her face.
Jim was entirely sweet and supportive about the list, though at the end of her internship he pouted a little and slouched around the office. But what had it all been for if she stayed in Scranton? There was no design position at the Scranton branch, so with a well-placed word from Jan and a moderately enthusiastic recommendation from her internship supervisor, she got a job in New York at headquarters. She was almost used to the concept by now-that if you wanted something, you could ask for it instead of silently staring at the back of its neck.
She drove to Manhattan on a grey winter day, followed by the movers. She was moving into an unfurnished third-floor apartment and she had saved specifically to pay these guys to haul her furniture up there. She had initially looked for a place out in Brooklyn with the intention of commuting in for work, but her salary let her live on the island, which was pretty awesome.
She was settled by nightfall; she didn't even bother to watch the Scranton moving van drive off, the last piece of her old life disappearing around the corner without incident. She was in full-on Ol' Pammy mode as she settled into her new, tiny, found-and-rented-all-by-herself apartment. Ol' Pammy wasn't afraid to live alone in a place like Manhattan. Ol' Pammy was going to decorate her apartment with reckless abandon. Ol' Pammy wanted to call Karen right away.
Pam resisted for the next two days. It was the middle of the work week and Pam had to unpack, she had to get comfortable first. She wished Karen still worked at Dunder Mifflin so Pam could just e-mail her. She could let the emoticons do the talking for her.
It was only when she was facing five lonely days before starting work that she consented to look up "K Filippelli" in an online directory for Manhattan. Still, she didn't use the number until Saturday morning, and even then she stared at the phone for a good twenty minutes before actually dialing.
Karen answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
Pam almost forgot how to use the phone.
"Hello?"
"Karen, it's Pam," she blurted out. There was a disgusting slurping sound and series of muffled coughs and crunches on the other end. "Karen?" she repeated.
"I'm sorry, I was eating some cereal. Pam. Oh my God. Hi."
Pam wished her phone had a cord so she could twist her fingers through it. "Hi," she said back, softly.
"I don't want to be rude, but why are you calling me?"
"I'm in New York. I'm here for a job," said Pam.
Silence.
"Dunder Mifflin's graphic design internship," Pam continued. "I finished it this year and they offered me a job here. I just got settled in my new place and I wanted to call you, because…I don't know anyone else in New York."
"That's great," said Karen, sounding like she was forcing herself to sound normal. "Congratulations."
"Thanks."
It was a full seven seconds of awkward silence before Pam asked, "Do you want to meet up later?"
*
Karen gave her directions to a bookstore café not too far away; their apartments turned out to be within a short train ride of each other, though New York short and Scranton short were two different measurements.
It was a chill, clear February day and there was leftover dirty snow clumped randomly against the curbs. She saw Karen waiting for her outside the shop in jeans and a dark pea coat. Her hair was a little shorter and her skin seemed a little paler in this bleak light, but she otherwise looked the same. Pam felt slightly overdressed in her skirt and matching top, but it was way too late to go back to her apartment and change. Karen saw her too and rocked up on her toes, as if she were caught between meeting Pam halfway and waiting for her.
"Hey," said Karen when Pam was close. The greeting puffed out of her mouth in a little cloud of warm air.
"Hi," said Pam. She smiled, ducked her head, and had a momentary freakout over the tension that had just materialized between them. Her eyes were slightly glazed over when she looked up and attempted to cover her awkwardness.
Karen pointed underhand to the store entrance. "You wanna go in?"
"Sure," said Pam, a little too enthusiastically.
They managed to forestall conversation a little longer while they got coffee. Or while Pam got coffee and Karen got a chai tea latte, no foam. They sat off to one side, in a little alcove in the café section.
"Oh, I forgot to get a stirrer," said Pam, moving to get up, but Karen was already holding one. They had the kind that looked like thin tongue depressors. "Thanks," she said, taking it.
"So when'd you get in?" asked Karen.
"A couple of days ago," said Pam. "I drove down with the movers."
"Jim didn't come with you?" asked Karen, sounding so casual Pam knew she had to be forcing it.
"Oh...no. I wanted to do it, y'know, on my own. If by 'on my own' you mean with the help of two really muscular moving guys."
"So, graphic design," said Karen. "I'm impressed."
"Thanks. I mean, I took a lot of classes, too. And I think Jan really talked me up," said Pam.
"Jan," Karen repeated, curiously.
"I think she felt bad about me working for Michael for so long. I guess when I told her I wanted to come to New York, she pulled a few strings or something."
"Way to go Jan," said Karen.
"And you-what do you do," asked Pam, once again overselling the enthusiasm and unable to help it.
"Marketing department over at NBC. Client-facing, handling accounts, that sort of stuff," said Karen. She stared at her drink while she spoke.
"NBC, wow," said Pam. "Do you see famous people all the time?"
"Not really," said Karen. "I mean, I see people in the elevators, sometimes, but my office is on a totally different floor. I got to go to a taping of Saturday Night Live once, though."
"I am kind of jealous of that," said Pam. They shared a brief mutual grin, and then they were silent again.
"Is this really awkward?" Pam blurted. "I know we haven't talked in a really long time."
"Maybe because my boyfriend was in love with you and I moved to New York to get away from Scranton. That could be why it's awkward," said Karen, a hint of snap in her voice. She pushed her drink away with a small sigh. "Sorry. You'd think a year later, I wouldn't be so pissed off about it. It wasn't your fault."
Pam decided if Karen was going to be blunt, it was time to be bold. "I really missed having you around. I think we were friends, for a while."
"Is that why you called me? Because we were friends?"
"I…guess so."
"And you want to be friends again."
"I think we could be," said Pam, feeling ridiculously hopeful all of a sudden.
A moment's pause. "I think so too," said Karen.
*
The rest of the coffee date was no less awkward, but Pam went home feeling like it had been worth it. She had Karen's new cell phone number stored in her own cell and she was starting work on Monday, where her boss would undoubtedly never ask her for a spare bra or lock her in a conference room.
Come Monday, she discovered that her boss was actually a bit on the dull side and left her first full day as a graphic designer feeling underwhelmed.
So she texted Karen; it was more casual than a phone call and it bypassed any of those embarrassing silences to which they'd become prone. Mondays suck. Dinner plans? she sent.
A minute later her phone beeped with, meet me rock plaza 7pm.
Pam almost went back home to change, but there was something appealing about showing up in her nice work clothes. They weren't especially fancy, but they weren't a pastel cardigan and skirt, either. She had nice pants now, even a tailored pair, and nice shirts that would have inspired a series of fashion shows at lunch back in Scranton. She had even ditched the Keds for some patent leather flats.
Seven o'clock found her wandering around Rockefeller Plaza, stopping a few moments to watch the skaters at the rink, wondering why it looked so much smaller in real life than on television. There were bigger places to skate in Scranton. She saw a couple of kids goofing off at center ice and pulled out her sketchbook, a requisite item for her these days. She had stacks of them now, all filled from cover to cover.
Karen found her like that, sketching clumsily in her mittens because it was too cold to go bare-handed, even for five minutes. "Looks good," she said from over Pam's shoulder.
Pam turned, found Karen with her hands jammed in her pockets, her face just starting to turn ruddy under her knit watchcap. "Thanks."
"I'm hungry. You want to get out of here?" asked Karen.
They went to a little tapas place Karen liked, more for the food than the sangria. The lighting was low, but not so low you had to squint, and it cast everything a warm flame color. "This place is nice," said Pam. "It's my first time eating out at a restaurant in New York. I like it."
They had mussels and shrimp, an interesting pheasant dish, potatoes, and some kind of cheesy egg thing that Pam resolved to look up online for the recipe. And then they were bundling up again, heading out into a dry, cold night.
"I'm headed this way," said Karen, pointing down the block to a subway stop.
"I'm headed uptown," said Pam. Silence found them again, but Pam brushed it off. "Dinner was great. You have to show me all your favorite places, so I can look like I know my way around the city."
Karen's smile came easily. "Sure."
*
"...and then we had dinner at this great place in Brooklyn Heights. The lamb and rice was amazing. And then they brought out this super rich baklava. Mom, you have to come visit me if only to eat at this restaurant." Pam flopped down on her couch, a little physical flourish to the end of her story. She adjusted the phone to rest between the cushions and her ear, leaving her hands free to pick up some knitting.
"It sounds like you've been seeing Karen a lot," said her mom, her tone somewhere between curious and approving. "I'm glad you have people you know down there."
"I made some friends at work too," said Pam, tamping down on a surprising defensiveness. "We're going to go see Mamma Mia on Broadway next weekend."
"Broadway? Isn't that expensive?"
"Well, they're not really good seats, so they don't cost too much," said Pam, neglecting to mention that the tickets were still in her "minor splurge" range. "Come visit for the weekend. You could go with us."
"I can't next weekend, honey. I'll be there for Easter next month, though."
"I thought I was coming home for Easter," said Pam.
"I'm coming to New York, and I'm going to meet Karen and all your friends."
The thought of introducing Karen to her mother became surprisingly tempting when she played the scenario out in her mind. "Okay. In that case, I should tell you about this bar we went to-"
*
For a month of being friends with Karen again, they had never brought up Dunder Mifflin, Scranton, or Jim. Sometimes Pam caught herself about to reference something from the old office, or bring up something Jim had pointed out to her. She and Jim e-mailed all the time; sometimes he called her and they talked for an hour or so. But it was sedately comfortable for them now; Pam didn't worry so much about remembering funny stories or interesting things for him. If they ran out of things to say, they hung up, and she didn't feel sore about it at all.
It took her some time to realize that she was saving the funny and interesting for Karen. She wanted to tell Karen about the arguing girls on the subway ("And she was like, I can't believe you didn't bring me bail money, and the other girl was all, your boyfriend gave me the clap, and then they…"), the falcon she saw flying outside of her office building, the bike messenger she saw eating it against the side of a taxi. She didn't want Karen to think she was the same quiet receptionist she'd been in Scranton. And to Karen's credit, she never made Pam feel that way. Status never came into it; they were just two people who knew each other, and Pam never thought to question how easily they had fallen back into friendship.
"I have this new project coming up," said Karen near the end of March. It was just the two of them again, drinking girly drinks in the back of a half-dark bar and attempting to play darts, though neither of them precisely knew the rules.
Karen lobbed a dart at the pockmarked board. "It's going to eat up all my free time for the next few weeks."
Another dart, this one optimistically closer to the bullseye. "I have to cancel on ASSSSCAT."
The last one bounced off the board and clattered to the floor.
Pam watched as Karen shuffled forward to pick up her darts. "That's okay. Things are starting to pick up at my office too." Which was technically true, even if her own workload wasn't increasing.
"You're probably not going to see me for the next two weeks, is what I'm saying," said Karen. She dropped her darts next to her martini, picked up the empty glass, shook it as if that would magically make it refill.
"Oh, my mom's coming into town in two weeks. I really want you to meet her," said Pam.
Karen looked doubtful. "Everyone in my office is going to pull overtime. Can I let you know how things are going next weekend?"
"Okay," said Pam. She clutched her darts in her left hand. "I don't think my aim is getting any better. I forfeit."
*
Two weeks drifted by. Pam cleaned, shopped, and planned out her dinner with her mom and Karen. She was getting nervous, and didn't want think about the reasons. Now was not the time to dissect how they worked so well together with Jim removed from the equation, or what that said about their relationship after versus during Scranton. She liked having a good girl friend, and if that meant spending a lot of her time exclusively with Karen, she wasn't going to complain, because Karen knew the best restaurants and bars and she never minded tagging along to the art stuff Pam wanted to see and she even managed to wrangle tickets to a gallery opening for an artist Pam loved.
She called Karen the afternoon of her mother's imminent arrival to confirm dinner the next evening, and wasn't surprised to hear her cell go to voicemail. That was how it had been for a while-Karen calling her back to say she'd been on the line with an employee or a client or her boss. "Hey, it's me. Just checking to make sure we were still going out tomorrow night. My mom's-actually, she's calling me right now. Bye."
Mildly surprised by the timing, she switched over. Her mom was supposed to call when her bus was close to the city; Pam would meet her at the Port Authority and escort her to the apartment.
Pam found her mom outside of the bus terminal already taking pictures of Times Square. After the squealing and the hugging, Shannon Beesly turned her daughter around three hundred and sixty degrees. "Manhattan agrees with you," she said as a police car went squealing past them.
They talked during the entire subway ride back, even over the sometimes cacophonic rattling of the train and the hipster with the blaring iPod who sat next to them most of the way.
Pam watched her mom closely at the apartment and, finding approval in her smile, smiled herself. "I want to repaint, but my landlord won't let me. Maybe if I get a promotion I can move to a place that'll let me paint," said Pam.
"A promotion," her mom repeated, in that impressed, encouraging mom-way.
"Not any time soon, but-that's my phone." Pam pulled out her cell, saw that it was Karen, and answered happily. "Hey, you have good timing. My mom's here."
"Pam, I'm really sorry to do this to you, but I can't make dinner tomorrow."
Pam bit her lip. "What about tonight," she offered gamely.
"I'm going to be at the office late tonight. At least until nine. We're ordering in for dinner."
Pam turned away from her mom to continue the conversation. "That...really sucks."
"I know. I'm sorry. My boss wants this done by Monday, which is going to be impossible unless I pretty much start living in the office."
"It's, um. It's okay. Let me know when it's over," said Pam, and hung up. She pasted on a smile and faced her mom. "Karen can't come. She's got work."
"That's too bad," said Shannon from the couch. "I really wanted to meet her."
"I wanted you to meet her too," said Pam. She felt her forehead knotting in the kind of frown you make right before you start to cry, was startled by the notion that she was this upset, and promptly teared up.
Her mom pulled her down to sit on the couch and draped an arm around her shoulders. "Oh honey, what's wrong?"
"I really don't know," Pam confessed, rather thickly. "I think I just had my heart set on going out to a nice dinner and introducing you to my friends. Maybe it's stress."
"Are you sure? Because it sounds like you're upset about Karen."
Pam tensed under her mother's arm.
"We can have a nice dinner ourselves. I'm not that far away. I can come down any time to see you and meet everybody."
"I guess, maybe I just wanted to show you I was doing all right. Here, by myself," said Pam, liking the sound of that explanation, even if it did make her feel like a teenager.
"I never doubted that," said Shannon. She smoothed the hair back from her daughter's face and patted her knee. "Now show me the rest of the apartment, and we'll talk about all the tourist things I'm going to embarrass you with tomorrow."
*
True to her word, Pam's mom dragged her to every tourist hotspot ever popularized by New York romantic comedies. Her vacation day was spent at the Empire State Building, Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza (Pam steadfastly ignored everything around her), browsing the shops on Fifth Avenue, getting caught up for an hour at the Strand, cutting through bits of Central Park, and eating dinner in the East Village, Shannon taking pictures all the while.
"I'll put them on flickr for you," she said, surprising Pam. Apparently her mother had been accumulating internet savvy for some time now. "It'll help us keep in touch," she added.
The next day was Saturday; they stayed in and cooked breakfast together before returning to Fifth Ave for an extended tour of Tiffany's.
"Think you could find anything for ten dollars here?" Shannon murmured to her daughter. The store was crowded with customers and other tourists, even the upper floors.
"I think you can buy just a box," said Pam. They were wandering around the engagement and wedding ring displays; they had passed a nervous young man trying to decide between white gold and platinum.
"An empty Tiffany's box. That might be one of the saddest things I've ever heard," said Shannon.
Pam hummed a nonverbal response, distracted by the thought that Karen might call. She held out hope until eight-thirty, when she received a text: dying slowly, no end in sight, going late til mon. It was like a tiny bubble of disappointment going off in her chest; she felt let down, and couldn't think of anything to text back.
"She's not coming, huh," said her mom, correctly reading the look on Pam's face.
"She's really busy," said Pam.
"I understand," said her mom, in a way that made Pam think she was saying something else.
The rest of her mother's visit was pleasant, but uneventful. They walked leisurely through Times Square on Sunday morning, or as leisurely as they could while tourists thronged around them, and waited for the bus together in the lower levels of the Port Authority.
"I'll call you when I get home," said Shannon, giving her daughter a hug. "And I'll come back again soon."
They exchanged their I-love-yous and Pam watched her mom board the bus, feeling almost that she would rather join her there.
*
Karen called her on Monday, during lunch. "I made it, I'm alive. Let's get something to eat."
Pam met her at a hot dog stand they both liked for its minimum sketchiness and consistently uncrusty condiment bottles. With relish falling off her bun, Pam watched Karen wolf down her food. "The girl who orders our takeout is a vegetarian," she said with her mouth full. "She keeps trying to make us vegetarians too. I haven't had real meat for a week. Not that this is real meat either."
"My mom really wanted to meet you," said Pam.
"I really wanted to meet her too," said Karen, missing Pam's tone.
"I mean, I really wanted you to meet her."
"I'm sorry. But this project was really important. And it means I get a huge bonus this month. Hello, sexy new flat panel TV." Karen glanced sideways, saw Pam nibbling half-heartedly at her hot dog. "Come on, Pam, your mom lives less than two hours away. I can meet her any time."
"No, yeah, it's totally fine," said Pam, trying not to sound completely passive-aggressive.
"Is something else wrong? I mean, is everything okay with you?" asked Karen.
"Everything's fine." Pam took a moment to exhale. "Sorry. Really, it's fine. I didn't mean to get all weird about it."
"I almost believe you," said Karen.
"I mean, I'm still disappointed, but I'm sure I'll get over it," said Pam, slightly taken aback.
Temper flaring under the stress of the days spent shut in her office, Karen decided to push. "Why are you disappointed? Didn't your mom meet your other friends?"
"No," said Pam softly.
"Then why was it so important that she meet me?"
"I have to get back to work," said Pam. She dumped the other half of her hot dog in an overflowing garbage bin as she walked away.
*
Being in a fight with Karen was unsettling. Pam didn't send her goofy emails about online articles, didn't call her to talk about whatever she'd watched on TV (they liked the workout tips they got from Biggest Loser, and tended to avoid Extreme Home Makeover because it made them emotional), didn't go out with her for their usual Friday night drinks. She emailed Jim, and talked to her mom, and went out with her coworkers, but the Karen-shaped hole in her time was obvious.
Karen called her up on a bright, warm Sunday. "Hey. Let's go for a walk," she said. "Winter's really over. We should take advantage before it gets too hot."
Pam met her at the edge of Central Park, at the Hunters' Gate close to the Museum of Natural History. She sat on the sun-warmed stone and sketched while she waited.
"You're gonna need a new sketchbook soon," said Karen, walking up to her.
Pam left her drawing of the horse-drawn carriages that kept plodding by. "Hi," she said, half-shy.
"Hey," said Karen. She pushed up a pair of dark sunglasses to squint at Pam, hands automatically jamming into her boy-shorts pockets. "Come on. It's a nice day." She started walking, Pam at her side. They wandered aimlessly, heading in the general direction of the lake, forsaking the more crowded paths. She spoke again when they were close to the water. "So I kind of weirded out on you, and I'm sorry."
"I am too," said Pam. "Not about your weirdness. My weirdness. I'm sorry about that."
Karen laughed at her. "I'm glad I wasn't just imagining it."
"It was definitely real. I don't know where that came from. I hadn't seen my mom in a while, so I guess I just...blew things out of proportion."
"I guess so," said Karen.
They kept walking, skirting the edges of the lake. Miraculously, it was just the two of them for a good ten minutes, passing silently under trees and dappled sunlight. Pam felt Karen's hand brush the back of hers, almost took in a sharp breath. But a pair of joggers hove into view and Karen moved away.
"You'd think there would be more people out," said Pam. She flexed her fingers as the joggers huffed past them.
Karen didn't answer, instead staring at the ground as if searching for something there. But then, without looking, she drifted close to Pam again. This time her hand brushed down the length of Pam's until their fingers touched, and just like that Karen was holding her hand.
"Don't weird out on me again," said Karen, looking up at Pam. "You don't have to."
Pam laced their fingers together, let their hands swing a little, and smiled to herself.