Sway
Title: Sway
Pairing: Jim & Pam
Show: The Office
Timeline: Set sometime in the future.
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Greg Daniels. Ricky Gervais. Stephen Merchant. All of them are not me.
Chapter 2 - The Future Mother-in-Law:
Planning a wedding didn’t get any less stressful the second time around.
But fortunately for Pam Beesly-soon-to-be-Halpert, it definitely got more fun.
She figured that had everything to do with the groom and nothing at all to do with herself.
Because of Jim, she was happiest she had ever been. Because of Jim, she was pursuing her love of art, even while holding down her more realistic job of receptionist extraordinaire. Because of Jim, she laughed more, daydreamed more, lived more and felt more secure in their relationship than she ever had with Roy.
It didn’t hurt that he was the best sex she’d ever had, either.
Not that she had tons of people to compare him to - all . . . one of them. Roy. Which made her feel nauseous when she remembered thinking she wanted to spend the rest of her life with that.
Which she knew was stupid because the decade plus she had spent with Roy had made her the woman she was today, the woman she knew Jim loved more than the Phillies, the ’Sixers, his guitar or even pranking Dwight.
And she loved Jim more than art or mixed berry yogurt, even more than her Mom (although she’d never tell her mother that).
But still. For her own mental well-being, she wanted everything with the wedding to be different. Already the guest list had been cut from over one-hundred people down to fifty with more cuts planned. Once they figured out whose feelings they might have to hurt. Because a small, intimate affair suited them best and it also was in-keeping with that whole “everything-different-than-when-I-was-with-Roy” theme Pam was going for.
She hadn’t admitted it to Jim, but running into Roy and Kenny at Cugino’s had shaken her as well. She felt like she had watched old home movies of herself and was reminded how bad her hair had been and how horribly she had dressed - except worse because this was the man she had planned to marry. There had been a moment in her conversation with the good ol’ Brothers Anderson where she had sort of floated out of her body, stared down at herself and said, “What the hell were you thinking!?”
But she knew what she was thinking. She was thinking she had been awkward, mousy Pam and Roy had been, well, about twenty pounds lighter as quarterback and captain of the football team. And he’d had more friends than just Kenny.
And for some reason he had liked her.
But high school didn’t last forever for a purpose. And years later, after a late night confession in a dimly-lit parking lot, Pam had finally realized what that purpose was. She suddenly looked at her life and realized that fantasy of the insecure nerdy girl dating the quarterback wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Especially when said former QB still acted like he was in high school, despite time and biology clearly stating otherwise.
And now, Jim.
Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
He had been like coming up for fresh air. He was the fantasy now. Except when it had become reality, it surpassed the hype far beyond even her own expectations. They really were as perfect for one another as they had both hoped and dreamt.
They really were as good together as they were on paper.
She marveled over how much things had changed. How much happier she was in Engagement/Relationship #2 than she had ever been with the former high school quarterback.
Walking back over to that table, to Jim, she felt like everything had finally come full circle. She could start again. And even though she would never change a thing, it was cathartic to know that she had been granted a do-over.
She still had a wedding to plan. And somehow, all the “stress” really didn’t bother her this time around. Because this time around, she had help.
Pam invited Jim’s mother along one afternoon 68 days before the date to help her pick out his wedding ring. She’d thought of just doing it alone but in the end had called Larissa behind her fiancé’s back to ask if she’d mind tagging along while Pam sought out to the ring Jim would wear for the rest of his life.
Larissa had basically become a second mom in the year plus she and Jim had been dating. Larissa was even close with Pam’s mom now and they swapped emails and phone calls back and forth discussing and planning the wedding. The two of them had planned Jim and Pam’s engagement party together, spent hours on the phone and even were planning a Mothers-of-the-Marrieds (their words, not Pam’s) weekend away after she and Jim got married. Neither of their fathers was allowed.
It had never been like this in all the years she’d been with Roy.
“So what are you thinking for Jim?” Larissa - a tall, thin, beautiful woman of sixty who didn’t look a day over forty-five - asked Pam as they wandered into the Zales at the Steamtown Mall.
Pam frowned as they stopped and peered over the glass display case yielding the men’s wedding rings. “I don’t know. Besides his watch, Jim doesn’t wear any jewelry. But I made him promise he’d always wear my ring, so I want to make sure it’s something that he’ll definitely at least tolerate.”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “Pam, honey, my son would wear a straitjacket if you gave it to him.”
Pam laughed. “Funny. Roy used to act like the ring was a straitjacket.”
Larissa’s eyes, big and hazel and expressive just like Jim’s, twinkled. “Well it’s a good thing Jim isn’t Roy, huh?”
“You have no idea,” Pam grinned. “I just . . .” She looked down at the square cut diamond solitaire on her finger. “I just love my ring so much. Every time I look at it or feel it, it reminds me of Jim.” She blushed, goosebumps riding over her flesh when she saw the look in his mother’s eyes. “Corny, I know.”
Larissa shook her head. “That’s exactly why I wanted you to have it, honey! I like to think I know my son.” She paused, waiting until Pam looked directly into the hazel orbs that her fiancé had inherited so perfectly. “I’ve never seen him this happy and I’ve known him twenty-nine years. You’re the only one who should have that ring.”
Even though Pam knew that she made Jim happy - because she too liked to think she knew him, even better than Larissa, and Pam also had never seen him more content - she was still floored and humbled and honored to hear his mother speak so highly of her and her influence in his life. She loved Jim so much and secretly craved the approval of his family, especially his mother. Because Jim adored his mother. “When he first gave it to me, I wanted to kill him,” Pam gushed at the memory. “I mean, there’s no way he could have afforded something like this on his own.” Jim made decent money, especially after the promotion he received following his transfer to Stamford and subsequent return to Scranton, but a ring with a carat of this size would certainly set him back more than several months’ wages.
Larissa winked. “Sometimes it pays to have a few family heirlooms lying around.” Reaching for Pam’s hand, she moved her thumb over the diamond. “It was my mother’s. She and my father survived the Nazi Occupation and lost nearly everything trying to get here to America. They came over from Poland, had to sell whatever was left to get here and make it here. But she never sold that ring.”
Pam knew the story already. Jim had told her when he’d proposed. Well, not right away. After she’d said yes and they’d spent the next several hours making love, they’d cuddled in one another’s arms and giggled and kissed and he’d told her what the ring meant. And he’d warned her his mother liked to tell the story a lot, so much so that he had it memorized, and suggested Pam just nod and smile whenever Larissa repeated herself. She didn’t bother telling Jim she liked hearing the story. It made her feel closer to him, it made her feel like she knew him and his mother and his entire family. She felt like she understood him more. And she certainly loved him more, every single time she heard the tale being told.
Smiling into the face of the kind, generous, beautiful woman who gave her fiancé life, Pam suddenly felt fuller and happier than she had in a long time. “It means so much to me that you’d let me have it,” she said. “I promise to take good care of it.”
“I’m not worried, Pam,” Larissa laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “You take good care of Jim. He’s my baby boy, you know, and I’ve always felt more protective of him than John or Jamie. And I never thought any of his other girlfriends were good enough - well, the two he brought home and allowed me to meet. Neither seemed to get him the way you do.”
Her ego was efficiently stroked and Pam was beginning to feel embarrassed. She decided to crack a joke to change the subject when she realized how “Jim” of her it would be to do so just as her phone suddenly exploded with a cacophony of sound. “Tiny Dancer” blared from her purse and Pam blushed slightly as everyone in the jewelry store turned to look at her.
The Elton John classic meant one thing - Jim was calling from home. She had set their apartment number in her cell to the tune of one of their many unofficial songs. “Hey,” she murmured into the phone as she flipped it open.
“Hey.” His voice filled her ears and spread through her body, infusing her with the rush of warmth she felt every time she heard that low, sexy timbre.
“I’m with your mom right now.”
She could literally hear him smiling as he said, “Yeah? My two favorite ladies! Tell her I say hi.”
“Jim says hi,” Pam offered to Larissa, who simply waved, flashing the huge grin that she had absolutely passed down to her youngest son. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, I just . . . got home, saw your note. Missed you. Wanted to see when you’d be coming home.”
Home. Her heart leapt. “Why? There a harem of naked chicks you need to clear out of our apartment, Halpert?”
Laughter. “No. Well, unless you count that transvestite hooker I picked up on my way home. Trixie, put that down!” He played pickup basketball every Saturday morning at the Y with Mark. It was their “Weekly Guy Thing” to do, as Jim so eloquently put it. She figured it beat the “Weekly Guy Thing” that Roy did with his brother - drinking, getting drunk, being drunk and hitting things.
Giggling, Pam suddenly ached to be home with him. “Trixie, huh? Well, get your Hugh Grant on and sit tight, babe; I’ll be home soon.”
“Oooh, ‘babe’, huh? We’re doing the pet names thing now? Way to keep the spark alive, Beesly.”
Pam’s stomach clenched with laughter. People were beginning to look at her strangely. Larissa, used to their banter by now, simply looked amused, although her own sly sense of humor meant that, occasionally, she’d join in. Something else Jim got from his mom. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, okay?”
“Okay. Hey, Pam?”
“Yeah?”
“I really love you.”
Now she was grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. “Love you.”
Larissa was eyeing her slyly as Pam hung up and dropped her phone back into her bag. “We can ring shop another day, you know.”
“What?” Pam bit her lip. “Oh, no. He can wait.” Turning away from Zales, she furrowed a brow. “I know there’s another jewelry store in here somewhere.”
They sought out a mall directory and after seeing that their only other options were Kay Jewelers and the decidedly un-wedding-jewelry-like Piercing Pagoda, Pam and Larissa warily headed toward Kay’s.
“So how are the plans coming along?” Larissa asked as they fell into step together along the wide corridor.
Pam smiled. She loved how easy it was to talk to Larissa. Since her own mother lived ninety minutes away in South Jersey, Pam often used Jim’s mom whenever she couldn’t turn to her own for certain things because of that long commute. “They’re coming. We’re going to register tomorrow. But Jim and I really don’t want to complicate things too much, we just want to be married, you know?”
Larissa grinned and Pam was struck again by how much Jim looked like her. “The marriage is the most important part; the wedding is just fun.”
“Yeah. But a few weeks ago it occurred to us that we hadn’t even figured out the whole honeymoon situation, so-”
Larissa’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, where were you thinking? Joe and I didn’t get to take a honeymoon, we couldn’t afford it. But on our twentieth, he took me to Aruba and now it’s pretty much the only place we go!”
Pam loved the idea of her and Jim having vacation rituals. God-willing, they too would have forty years together and could take as many vacation rituals as humanly possible. “I think Jim and I are going to have to wait a few years too.”
“What? Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just . . .” Pam was unsure where to begin. She didn’t want to go into the whole story but found herself talking anyway. “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy. But it’s just so expensive! And when Roy and I were together, I made him think I wanted to go to Hawaii because I knew it was more affordable but he wanted to go to Mexico and it was just a mess. Jim said he’ll go wherever; he doesn’t care as long as we’re together, but I can’t . . . I mean, we’d basically go into debt just paying for the airfare, right? On top of all the wedding expenses . . .” Her voice trailed off as she realized Larissa was staring at her with amusement. “What?”
Jim’s mom, his older, female twin, shook her head. “I mean . . . you’ve done the whole engagement thing before, Pam; you must have know the traditions of who pays for what.” When Pam just stared at her blankly, Larissa chuckled, steering her away from a loud, obnoxious family of five over to a bench in the middle of the corridor. “The groom’s family pays for the honeymoon, Pam.”
“What?”
“I told Jim! I thought he would have told you! I made it perfectly clear to him that Joe and I are going to cover your honeymoon expenses.”
No room for misunderstanding there. Pam’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God, what? No. No! Larissa, I could never . . .” She clamped her mouth shut when Larissa’s hand flew up in the air in a brutal, blunt motion of silence.
“Jim’s my baby boy, Pam. He’s the last of the Halpert kids to get married, he’s found himself a smart, beautiful, confident woman who adores him and we are going to pay for his honeymoon. It’s the least we can do! Our last gift as parents before we give away our son forever.”
Pam was having a hard time taking all of this in. Forgetting the fact that Larissa had hilariously called her confident, she chose to focus on the fact that her mother-in-law was telling her that she wouldn’t have to pay for her dream honeymoon after all.
Frowning, Pam shook her head. “Larissa, I can’t.”
Jim’s mom laughed. “Pam, honey, you don’t get it. Your mother and I have already discussed this. We really should have all sat down and hashed this out and I apologize for that. Your parents are paying for the reception and everything that goes with it. You are obviously buying your own dress and all that your wedding-day look entails, Jim is doing the same and Joe and I are covering transportation and the honeymoon.”
Pam’s parents had spent - and lost - a significant amount of money in her wedding-that-never-was with Roy. It had been hard enough trying to get her parents to not pay, mainly out of guilt for all they had lost prior, but the Beesly’s had been adamant. It appears that a stubborn streak was something both she and Jim’s parents had in common.
“You told Jim you were going to pay for our honeymoon?”
Larissa shrugged. “I made it known to him, but he being Jim, it probably went in one ear and out the other.”
“Because he never mentioned it,” Pam replied. And somehow she didn’t think her fiancé would be too happy about it. Jim wasn’t necessarily the most proud man she’d ever known, but he was up there.
“Larissa, I can’t . . . Thank you.” She smiled. “I love you for even offering but, really, it’s so expensive.”
“You’re not talking me out of this, Pam.”
She groaned, deciding maybe to just let it slide, wait until she got home to talk to Jim about it. Sure, she had done the whole wedding-planning thing before. But none of it had been very traditional. She had done most of it by herself. While she had been relatively close to and obviously friendly with Roy’s parents, they had never once mentioned the whole who-pays-for-what wedding tradition. They were just not that kind of family.
A year into the relationship and there was still so much Pam was learning from Jim, even indirectly.
“I guess we should just focus on the whole ring thing for right now,” Pam heard herself say, looking around the mall in the direction of Kay Jewelers with a frown upon her face.
“You know what? Forget here! I have no idea why this is just occurring to me. I know a jeweler we can get the ring from.”
Pam eyed her future mother-in-law skeptically. “You do?”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Pam, don’t look so surprised. Any woman worth her salt should know the location of a really great jeweler! And one who is not of the chain variety!”
Grinning, Pam nodded, moving into step with Larissa as she headed toward the exit where they had parked the car. “I have so much to learn from you.” She was only half joking. Pam Beesly-soon-to-be-Halpert would never be big on the whole jewelry thing - lots of sparkly baubles just wasn’t her thing - but she figured it couldn’t hurt to at least know of some places that weren’t a Zales or a Kay or a Piercing Pagoda. There had to be other options to get the love of her life’s ring from, right? After all, didn’t Jim deserve better than that? And who was more qualified to help Pam than his own mother?
Larissa flashed their grin again and Pam felt herself blush for absolutely no reason at all. “Come, dear. I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
And just like that, they were off, heading over to an off-the-beaten-path, sublimely intimate jewelry shop where Larissa happened to be on a first-name basis with the owners. There were no impersonal sales people here and the short, old Jewish man behind the counter - he introduced himself as Mr. Stein - paraded out ring after ring for Pam to see and touch.
Each one that caught her attention, she picked up, held between her thumb and forefinger, and closed her eyes, trying to envision the band on Jim’s hand. At first she had been leaning toward traditional gold because, well, isn’t that what everyone got? But after Larissa pointed out that Pam’s ring was white gold, Mr. Stein glanced at it and squealed in recognition. Apparently Jim had taken her ring to him before he proposed to get it sized.
And, as if the heavens could read her mind and knew she was desperate to just pick one already!; Mr. Stein reached for the ring that he said was the perfect match to hers.
As soon as Pam touched it, closed her eyes, felt its cool weight against her skin, she knew it was The One. Her skin flushed as the realization struck her. It was Jim through and through, so much so it brought her to tears.
“This is it,” she whispered, opening her eyes, wiping away the moisture that fell from them. Sniffling, she turned to look at Larissa. “It’s perfect.”
Surprised to see tears in her future mother-in-law’s eyes, Pam watched her nod at Mr. Stein. “You heard the woman, Seth!”
Dropping her gaze down to the ring, Pam felt a foolish, insanely wide grin fill her face. She’d just picked out Jim’s wedding ring. And it was perfect. She had feared she would never find the right one, never find the ring that she liked as much as she knew he would, one that would suit him, one that was deserving of him.
But thanks to Larissa Halpert and Mr. Seth Stein of Stein Family Jewelers, she had.
Mr. Stein described the ring as eighteen-carat white gold. The band had a smoothly polished center and edges, not at all like the standard men’s wedding rings that were too boring for Jim, and not like the gaudy, jewel-encrusted bands that were too flashy for him. This ring was ideal - just the right combination of classic lines and modern innovation. Before her art classes, she never would have even known what those phrases meant.
But now, she was looking at everything through a whole new set of eyes.
And these eyes loved this ring.
“Would you like an inscription?”
Brought out of her reverie, Pam considered Mr. Stein’s question. It was on the tip of her tongue to say ‘no.’ After all, her ring wasn’t inscribed and she was more than happy with that. But something nagged in the back of her mind. When she opened herself up to it, Pam knew what she wanted to do.
“Yes.” That felt right. She was so giddy now she began to giggle. “Yes!”
Mr. Stein handed her a sheet of paper and gestured to the section where she should write down the inscription she’d like to appear on the ring.
She felt Larissa eyeing her curiously as she quickly scribbled the phrase and dropped the pen with a flourish.
“You’re certain?” Larissa asked.
Grinning from ear to ear, Pam nodded, turning to look at Jim’s mother. Her mother. In a weird way. It was all weird, but wonderful. And she was blissfully happy, really and truly, for the first time in her whole life. “Yeah.”
“Well what did you write!? Tell me!” Larissa laughed.
“‘No Misinterpretations’,” she replied softly. A flash of the pain in Jim’s eyes from the night that had forever changed the course of their relationship went through her mind. “Because there aren’t any. And never were.”
Jim’s Ring
Pairing: Jim & Pam
Show: The Office
Timeline: Set sometime in the future.
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Greg Daniels. Ricky Gervais. Stephen Merchant. All of them are not me.
Chapter 2 - The Future Mother-in-Law:
Planning a wedding didn’t get any less stressful the second time around.
But fortunately for Pam Beesly-soon-to-be-Halpert, it definitely got more fun.
She figured that had everything to do with the groom and nothing at all to do with herself.
Because of Jim, she was happiest she had ever been. Because of Jim, she was pursuing her love of art, even while holding down her more realistic job of receptionist extraordinaire. Because of Jim, she laughed more, daydreamed more, lived more and felt more secure in their relationship than she ever had with Roy.
It didn’t hurt that he was the best sex she’d ever had, either.
Not that she had tons of people to compare him to - all . . . one of them. Roy. Which made her feel nauseous when she remembered thinking she wanted to spend the rest of her life with that.
Which she knew was stupid because the decade plus she had spent with Roy had made her the woman she was today, the woman she knew Jim loved more than the Phillies, the ’Sixers, his guitar or even pranking Dwight.
And she loved Jim more than art or mixed berry yogurt, even more than her Mom (although she’d never tell her mother that).
But still. For her own mental well-being, she wanted everything with the wedding to be different. Already the guest list had been cut from over one-hundred people down to fifty with more cuts planned. Once they figured out whose feelings they might have to hurt. Because a small, intimate affair suited them best and it also was in-keeping with that whole “everything-different-than-when-I-was-with-Roy” theme Pam was going for.
She hadn’t admitted it to Jim, but running into Roy and Kenny at Cugino’s had shaken her as well. She felt like she had watched old home movies of herself and was reminded how bad her hair had been and how horribly she had dressed - except worse because this was the man she had planned to marry. There had been a moment in her conversation with the good ol’ Brothers Anderson where she had sort of floated out of her body, stared down at herself and said, “What the hell were you thinking!?”
But she knew what she was thinking. She was thinking she had been awkward, mousy Pam and Roy had been, well, about twenty pounds lighter as quarterback and captain of the football team. And he’d had more friends than just Kenny.
And for some reason he had liked her.
But high school didn’t last forever for a purpose. And years later, after a late night confession in a dimly-lit parking lot, Pam had finally realized what that purpose was. She suddenly looked at her life and realized that fantasy of the insecure nerdy girl dating the quarterback wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Especially when said former QB still acted like he was in high school, despite time and biology clearly stating otherwise.
And now, Jim.
Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
He had been like coming up for fresh air. He was the fantasy now. Except when it had become reality, it surpassed the hype far beyond even her own expectations. They really were as perfect for one another as they had both hoped and dreamt.
They really were as good together as they were on paper.
She marveled over how much things had changed. How much happier she was in Engagement/Relationship #2 than she had ever been with the former high school quarterback.
Walking back over to that table, to Jim, she felt like everything had finally come full circle. She could start again. And even though she would never change a thing, it was cathartic to know that she had been granted a do-over.
She still had a wedding to plan. And somehow, all the “stress” really didn’t bother her this time around. Because this time around, she had help.
Pam invited Jim’s mother along one afternoon 68 days before the date to help her pick out his wedding ring. She’d thought of just doing it alone but in the end had called Larissa behind her fiancé’s back to ask if she’d mind tagging along while Pam sought out to the ring Jim would wear for the rest of his life.
Larissa had basically become a second mom in the year plus she and Jim had been dating. Larissa was even close with Pam’s mom now and they swapped emails and phone calls back and forth discussing and planning the wedding. The two of them had planned Jim and Pam’s engagement party together, spent hours on the phone and even were planning a Mothers-of-the-Marrieds (their words, not Pam’s) weekend away after she and Jim got married. Neither of their fathers was allowed.
It had never been like this in all the years she’d been with Roy.
“So what are you thinking for Jim?” Larissa - a tall, thin, beautiful woman of sixty who didn’t look a day over forty-five - asked Pam as they wandered into the Zales at the Steamtown Mall.
Pam frowned as they stopped and peered over the glass display case yielding the men’s wedding rings. “I don’t know. Besides his watch, Jim doesn’t wear any jewelry. But I made him promise he’d always wear my ring, so I want to make sure it’s something that he’ll definitely at least tolerate.”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “Pam, honey, my son would wear a straitjacket if you gave it to him.”
Pam laughed. “Funny. Roy used to act like the ring was a straitjacket.”
Larissa’s eyes, big and hazel and expressive just like Jim’s, twinkled. “Well it’s a good thing Jim isn’t Roy, huh?”
“You have no idea,” Pam grinned. “I just . . .” She looked down at the square cut diamond solitaire on her finger. “I just love my ring so much. Every time I look at it or feel it, it reminds me of Jim.” She blushed, goosebumps riding over her flesh when she saw the look in his mother’s eyes. “Corny, I know.”
Larissa shook her head. “That’s exactly why I wanted you to have it, honey! I like to think I know my son.” She paused, waiting until Pam looked directly into the hazel orbs that her fiancé had inherited so perfectly. “I’ve never seen him this happy and I’ve known him twenty-nine years. You’re the only one who should have that ring.”
Even though Pam knew that she made Jim happy - because she too liked to think she knew him, even better than Larissa, and Pam also had never seen him more content - she was still floored and humbled and honored to hear his mother speak so highly of her and her influence in his life. She loved Jim so much and secretly craved the approval of his family, especially his mother. Because Jim adored his mother. “When he first gave it to me, I wanted to kill him,” Pam gushed at the memory. “I mean, there’s no way he could have afforded something like this on his own.” Jim made decent money, especially after the promotion he received following his transfer to Stamford and subsequent return to Scranton, but a ring with a carat of this size would certainly set him back more than several months’ wages.
Larissa winked. “Sometimes it pays to have a few family heirlooms lying around.” Reaching for Pam’s hand, she moved her thumb over the diamond. “It was my mother’s. She and my father survived the Nazi Occupation and lost nearly everything trying to get here to America. They came over from Poland, had to sell whatever was left to get here and make it here. But she never sold that ring.”
Pam knew the story already. Jim had told her when he’d proposed. Well, not right away. After she’d said yes and they’d spent the next several hours making love, they’d cuddled in one another’s arms and giggled and kissed and he’d told her what the ring meant. And he’d warned her his mother liked to tell the story a lot, so much so that he had it memorized, and suggested Pam just nod and smile whenever Larissa repeated herself. She didn’t bother telling Jim she liked hearing the story. It made her feel closer to him, it made her feel like she knew him and his mother and his entire family. She felt like she understood him more. And she certainly loved him more, every single time she heard the tale being told.
Smiling into the face of the kind, generous, beautiful woman who gave her fiancé life, Pam suddenly felt fuller and happier than she had in a long time. “It means so much to me that you’d let me have it,” she said. “I promise to take good care of it.”
“I’m not worried, Pam,” Larissa laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “You take good care of Jim. He’s my baby boy, you know, and I’ve always felt more protective of him than John or Jamie. And I never thought any of his other girlfriends were good enough - well, the two he brought home and allowed me to meet. Neither seemed to get him the way you do.”
Her ego was efficiently stroked and Pam was beginning to feel embarrassed. She decided to crack a joke to change the subject when she realized how “Jim” of her it would be to do so just as her phone suddenly exploded with a cacophony of sound. “Tiny Dancer” blared from her purse and Pam blushed slightly as everyone in the jewelry store turned to look at her.
The Elton John classic meant one thing - Jim was calling from home. She had set their apartment number in her cell to the tune of one of their many unofficial songs. “Hey,” she murmured into the phone as she flipped it open.
“Hey.” His voice filled her ears and spread through her body, infusing her with the rush of warmth she felt every time she heard that low, sexy timbre.
“I’m with your mom right now.”
She could literally hear him smiling as he said, “Yeah? My two favorite ladies! Tell her I say hi.”
“Jim says hi,” Pam offered to Larissa, who simply waved, flashing the huge grin that she had absolutely passed down to her youngest son. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, I just . . . got home, saw your note. Missed you. Wanted to see when you’d be coming home.”
Home. Her heart leapt. “Why? There a harem of naked chicks you need to clear out of our apartment, Halpert?”
Laughter. “No. Well, unless you count that transvestite hooker I picked up on my way home. Trixie, put that down!” He played pickup basketball every Saturday morning at the Y with Mark. It was their “Weekly Guy Thing” to do, as Jim so eloquently put it. She figured it beat the “Weekly Guy Thing” that Roy did with his brother - drinking, getting drunk, being drunk and hitting things.
Giggling, Pam suddenly ached to be home with him. “Trixie, huh? Well, get your Hugh Grant on and sit tight, babe; I’ll be home soon.”
“Oooh, ‘babe’, huh? We’re doing the pet names thing now? Way to keep the spark alive, Beesly.”
Pam’s stomach clenched with laughter. People were beginning to look at her strangely. Larissa, used to their banter by now, simply looked amused, although her own sly sense of humor meant that, occasionally, she’d join in. Something else Jim got from his mom. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, okay?”
“Okay. Hey, Pam?”
“Yeah?”
“I really love you.”
Now she was grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. “Love you.”
Larissa was eyeing her slyly as Pam hung up and dropped her phone back into her bag. “We can ring shop another day, you know.”
“What?” Pam bit her lip. “Oh, no. He can wait.” Turning away from Zales, she furrowed a brow. “I know there’s another jewelry store in here somewhere.”
They sought out a mall directory and after seeing that their only other options were Kay Jewelers and the decidedly un-wedding-jewelry-like Piercing Pagoda, Pam and Larissa warily headed toward Kay’s.
“So how are the plans coming along?” Larissa asked as they fell into step together along the wide corridor.
Pam smiled. She loved how easy it was to talk to Larissa. Since her own mother lived ninety minutes away in South Jersey, Pam often used Jim’s mom whenever she couldn’t turn to her own for certain things because of that long commute. “They’re coming. We’re going to register tomorrow. But Jim and I really don’t want to complicate things too much, we just want to be married, you know?”
Larissa grinned and Pam was struck again by how much Jim looked like her. “The marriage is the most important part; the wedding is just fun.”
“Yeah. But a few weeks ago it occurred to us that we hadn’t even figured out the whole honeymoon situation, so-”
Larissa’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, where were you thinking? Joe and I didn’t get to take a honeymoon, we couldn’t afford it. But on our twentieth, he took me to Aruba and now it’s pretty much the only place we go!”
Pam loved the idea of her and Jim having vacation rituals. God-willing, they too would have forty years together and could take as many vacation rituals as humanly possible. “I think Jim and I are going to have to wait a few years too.”
“What? Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just . . .” Pam was unsure where to begin. She didn’t want to go into the whole story but found herself talking anyway. “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy. But it’s just so expensive! And when Roy and I were together, I made him think I wanted to go to Hawaii because I knew it was more affordable but he wanted to go to Mexico and it was just a mess. Jim said he’ll go wherever; he doesn’t care as long as we’re together, but I can’t . . . I mean, we’d basically go into debt just paying for the airfare, right? On top of all the wedding expenses . . .” Her voice trailed off as she realized Larissa was staring at her with amusement. “What?”
Jim’s mom, his older, female twin, shook her head. “I mean . . . you’ve done the whole engagement thing before, Pam; you must have know the traditions of who pays for what.” When Pam just stared at her blankly, Larissa chuckled, steering her away from a loud, obnoxious family of five over to a bench in the middle of the corridor. “The groom’s family pays for the honeymoon, Pam.”
“What?”
“I told Jim! I thought he would have told you! I made it perfectly clear to him that Joe and I are going to cover your honeymoon expenses.”
No room for misunderstanding there. Pam’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God, what? No. No! Larissa, I could never . . .” She clamped her mouth shut when Larissa’s hand flew up in the air in a brutal, blunt motion of silence.
“Jim’s my baby boy, Pam. He’s the last of the Halpert kids to get married, he’s found himself a smart, beautiful, confident woman who adores him and we are going to pay for his honeymoon. It’s the least we can do! Our last gift as parents before we give away our son forever.”
Pam was having a hard time taking all of this in. Forgetting the fact that Larissa had hilariously called her confident, she chose to focus on the fact that her mother-in-law was telling her that she wouldn’t have to pay for her dream honeymoon after all.
Frowning, Pam shook her head. “Larissa, I can’t.”
Jim’s mom laughed. “Pam, honey, you don’t get it. Your mother and I have already discussed this. We really should have all sat down and hashed this out and I apologize for that. Your parents are paying for the reception and everything that goes with it. You are obviously buying your own dress and all that your wedding-day look entails, Jim is doing the same and Joe and I are covering transportation and the honeymoon.”
Pam’s parents had spent - and lost - a significant amount of money in her wedding-that-never-was with Roy. It had been hard enough trying to get her parents to not pay, mainly out of guilt for all they had lost prior, but the Beesly’s had been adamant. It appears that a stubborn streak was something both she and Jim’s parents had in common.
“You told Jim you were going to pay for our honeymoon?”
Larissa shrugged. “I made it known to him, but he being Jim, it probably went in one ear and out the other.”
“Because he never mentioned it,” Pam replied. And somehow she didn’t think her fiancé would be too happy about it. Jim wasn’t necessarily the most proud man she’d ever known, but he was up there.
“Larissa, I can’t . . . Thank you.” She smiled. “I love you for even offering but, really, it’s so expensive.”
“You’re not talking me out of this, Pam.”
She groaned, deciding maybe to just let it slide, wait until she got home to talk to Jim about it. Sure, she had done the whole wedding-planning thing before. But none of it had been very traditional. She had done most of it by herself. While she had been relatively close to and obviously friendly with Roy’s parents, they had never once mentioned the whole who-pays-for-what wedding tradition. They were just not that kind of family.
A year into the relationship and there was still so much Pam was learning from Jim, even indirectly.
“I guess we should just focus on the whole ring thing for right now,” Pam heard herself say, looking around the mall in the direction of Kay Jewelers with a frown upon her face.
“You know what? Forget here! I have no idea why this is just occurring to me. I know a jeweler we can get the ring from.”
Pam eyed her future mother-in-law skeptically. “You do?”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Pam, don’t look so surprised. Any woman worth her salt should know the location of a really great jeweler! And one who is not of the chain variety!”
Grinning, Pam nodded, moving into step with Larissa as she headed toward the exit where they had parked the car. “I have so much to learn from you.” She was only half joking. Pam Beesly-soon-to-be-Halpert would never be big on the whole jewelry thing - lots of sparkly baubles just wasn’t her thing - but she figured it couldn’t hurt to at least know of some places that weren’t a Zales or a Kay or a Piercing Pagoda. There had to be other options to get the love of her life’s ring from, right? After all, didn’t Jim deserve better than that? And who was more qualified to help Pam than his own mother?
Larissa flashed their grin again and Pam felt herself blush for absolutely no reason at all. “Come, dear. I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
And just like that, they were off, heading over to an off-the-beaten-path, sublimely intimate jewelry shop where Larissa happened to be on a first-name basis with the owners. There were no impersonal sales people here and the short, old Jewish man behind the counter - he introduced himself as Mr. Stein - paraded out ring after ring for Pam to see and touch.
Each one that caught her attention, she picked up, held between her thumb and forefinger, and closed her eyes, trying to envision the band on Jim’s hand. At first she had been leaning toward traditional gold because, well, isn’t that what everyone got? But after Larissa pointed out that Pam’s ring was white gold, Mr. Stein glanced at it and squealed in recognition. Apparently Jim had taken her ring to him before he proposed to get it sized.
And, as if the heavens could read her mind and knew she was desperate to just pick one already!; Mr. Stein reached for the ring that he said was the perfect match to hers.
As soon as Pam touched it, closed her eyes, felt its cool weight against her skin, she knew it was The One. Her skin flushed as the realization struck her. It was Jim through and through, so much so it brought her to tears.
“This is it,” she whispered, opening her eyes, wiping away the moisture that fell from them. Sniffling, she turned to look at Larissa. “It’s perfect.”
Surprised to see tears in her future mother-in-law’s eyes, Pam watched her nod at Mr. Stein. “You heard the woman, Seth!”
Dropping her gaze down to the ring, Pam felt a foolish, insanely wide grin fill her face. She’d just picked out Jim’s wedding ring. And it was perfect. She had feared she would never find the right one, never find the ring that she liked as much as she knew he would, one that would suit him, one that was deserving of him.
But thanks to Larissa Halpert and Mr. Seth Stein of Stein Family Jewelers, she had.
Mr. Stein described the ring as eighteen-carat white gold. The band had a smoothly polished center and edges, not at all like the standard men’s wedding rings that were too boring for Jim, and not like the gaudy, jewel-encrusted bands that were too flashy for him. This ring was ideal - just the right combination of classic lines and modern innovation. Before her art classes, she never would have even known what those phrases meant.
But now, she was looking at everything through a whole new set of eyes.
And these eyes loved this ring.
“Would you like an inscription?”
Brought out of her reverie, Pam considered Mr. Stein’s question. It was on the tip of her tongue to say ‘no.’ After all, her ring wasn’t inscribed and she was more than happy with that. But something nagged in the back of her mind. When she opened herself up to it, Pam knew what she wanted to do.
“Yes.” That felt right. She was so giddy now she began to giggle. “Yes!”
Mr. Stein handed her a sheet of paper and gestured to the section where she should write down the inscription she’d like to appear on the ring.
She felt Larissa eyeing her curiously as she quickly scribbled the phrase and dropped the pen with a flourish.
“You’re certain?” Larissa asked.
Grinning from ear to ear, Pam nodded, turning to look at Jim’s mother. Her mother. In a weird way. It was all weird, but wonderful. And she was blissfully happy, really and truly, for the first time in her whole life. “Yeah.”
“Well what did you write!? Tell me!” Larissa laughed.
“‘No Misinterpretations’,” she replied softly. A flash of the pain in Jim’s eyes from the night that had forever changed the course of their relationship went through her mind. “Because there aren’t any. And never were.”
Jim’s Ring
