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crack_van2013-12-18 04:33 pm
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-12-18 04:33 pm
Entry tags:
“A Better Version of Me” by Talkative (Mature)
Fandom: THE OFFICE
Pairing: Pam Beesley/Jim Halpert
Length: 7,471 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: MTT
Why this must be read: As perfect as the proposal scene and the ensuing JAM goodness was in canon, I’d kind of like this to be the real version. Jim visits Pam throughout her summer in New York, sending mix CDs and lots of love. They resolve that wedding business, bond with her lovely old-Jewish-lady neighbors, and charge forward with a vitality and lightness that I think the show lost after Season 4. (Incidentally, I was not aware that Halpert is a Jewish last name despite being Jewish myself and having excellent Jewdar, but I love that the author made it relevant.)
It takes Pam a week to realize that she is dressed all wrong. Her receptionist's clothes are too hot, uncomfortable, and fussy for her new, temporary life. Her nylons stick to her legs, allowing sweat and grime to accumulate around her ankles. She walks everywhere now and her shoes are uncomfortable. There's no room in her tiny apartment to lay things flat to dry. Her classmates dress in jeans, beat-up shoes, and ironic t-shirts. It makes her feel like their mother. It makes her remember that she's only 29 and she sees that she's been spending years trying to race toward being someone older, more put-together.
She goes to used clothing stores and hole-in-the-wall shops in Williamsburg and acquires a small collection of a-line skirts that fall freely to her knees. They're made of stiff cotton that she associates with kitchen curtains or soft jersey like old t-shirts. They have elastic waistbands and are dark colors with small, indistinct patterns, tiny lines or flowers the size of her pinky fingernail. She buys thin cotton t-shirts in solid colors, camisoles with bras built in, and, because she has never owned anything like them before, a couple of filmy t-shirts from the bin of a used shop, printed with the name of elementary school baseball teams from towns she has never heard of. She replaces her work shoes with soft-soled canvas flats and wears them with little white footie socks. Everything can go in the washing machine, the dryer. She feels cooler, more appropriate. Jim has given her one of his old canvas shoulderbags. Before the end of the first week in her new, old clothes, a couple of tourists stop her outside of her apartment and ask her for directions. She does a little dance by herself in the living room in celebration.
Her hair becomes a problem. It sticks to her neck and gets in her face so she goes to a salon down the street and has it cut, leaving only enough to make a small ponytail at the base of her neck. She sends Jim a text message from the salon chair - "Haircut. Consider yourself warned." She is too busy to think about her hair most of the time and stops wearing what little makeup she used to bother with. She feels clean, unencumbered, and in her proper place. She takes cool baths every night before she goes to bed. She reads a lot, listens to music all of the time. There's no television in the apartment.
She is at school 8, sometimes 10 hours a day. She works hard and is cordial with her classmates, but she doesn't really make friends with them. She feels too focused on the task at hand to bother figuring out how to negotiate the cliques springing up around her. It seems like they all come to know one another effortlessly. She feels a little too gawky, a little too loud in the classroom. She is ten years out of high school and is surprised at how much of that girl is still in her, intact and unchanged.
At the end of the first week, the day before she goes shopping for new clothes, a square, flat package addressed in Jim's neat handwriting arrives in her mailbox. There's a CD inside, labeled "Because You're in New York and Are Cooler Than Me." It's Spoon and Lou Reed and The Hold Steady and Elvis Costello and Patti Smith and Pavement and The Ronettes and The New Pornographers and Arcade Fire and he's definitely cooler than her. It's all she listens to for the next week.
Her introduction to her neighbors is a knock on her door the first Friday night she's there. When she answers, the old woman standing before her informs her that it's the Sabbath and that she should come to dinner. She finds herself sitting at Mrs. Chapsky's table, drinking iced tea, and eating bread baked in her tiny, overheated kitchen before the sun went down. She finishes two bowls of ice-cold, electric pink borscht with sour cream and thinks of Dwight. She emails him the following Monday morning to tell him that she does, in fact, like beets. She might even love them. She sends him Mrs. Chapsky's borscht recipe. He responds with a terse thank you and a p.s. thanking her for leaving for the summer. "Her boyfriend," he writes, is much more productive in her absence. Pam is fairly certain that Dwight misses her.
Because of Mrs. Chapsky, she meets Mrs. Rabinovich and Mrs. Farber. She is clearly their little diversion for the summer and she is glad. They fuss over her, feed her, and call her by her full first name. They coo over her sketches. She listens to their stories and, because they always look so deliciously cool, starts occasionally tying her hair back with a scarf like they do.
A Better Version of Me
Pairing: Pam Beesley/Jim Halpert
Length: 7,471 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: MTT
Why this must be read: As perfect as the proposal scene and the ensuing JAM goodness was in canon, I’d kind of like this to be the real version. Jim visits Pam throughout her summer in New York, sending mix CDs and lots of love. They resolve that wedding business, bond with her lovely old-Jewish-lady neighbors, and charge forward with a vitality and lightness that I think the show lost after Season 4. (Incidentally, I was not aware that Halpert is a Jewish last name despite being Jewish myself and having excellent Jewdar, but I love that the author made it relevant.)
It takes Pam a week to realize that she is dressed all wrong. Her receptionist's clothes are too hot, uncomfortable, and fussy for her new, temporary life. Her nylons stick to her legs, allowing sweat and grime to accumulate around her ankles. She walks everywhere now and her shoes are uncomfortable. There's no room in her tiny apartment to lay things flat to dry. Her classmates dress in jeans, beat-up shoes, and ironic t-shirts. It makes her feel like their mother. It makes her remember that she's only 29 and she sees that she's been spending years trying to race toward being someone older, more put-together.
She goes to used clothing stores and hole-in-the-wall shops in Williamsburg and acquires a small collection of a-line skirts that fall freely to her knees. They're made of stiff cotton that she associates with kitchen curtains or soft jersey like old t-shirts. They have elastic waistbands and are dark colors with small, indistinct patterns, tiny lines or flowers the size of her pinky fingernail. She buys thin cotton t-shirts in solid colors, camisoles with bras built in, and, because she has never owned anything like them before, a couple of filmy t-shirts from the bin of a used shop, printed with the name of elementary school baseball teams from towns she has never heard of. She replaces her work shoes with soft-soled canvas flats and wears them with little white footie socks. Everything can go in the washing machine, the dryer. She feels cooler, more appropriate. Jim has given her one of his old canvas shoulderbags. Before the end of the first week in her new, old clothes, a couple of tourists stop her outside of her apartment and ask her for directions. She does a little dance by herself in the living room in celebration.
Her hair becomes a problem. It sticks to her neck and gets in her face so she goes to a salon down the street and has it cut, leaving only enough to make a small ponytail at the base of her neck. She sends Jim a text message from the salon chair - "Haircut. Consider yourself warned." She is too busy to think about her hair most of the time and stops wearing what little makeup she used to bother with. She feels clean, unencumbered, and in her proper place. She takes cool baths every night before she goes to bed. She reads a lot, listens to music all of the time. There's no television in the apartment.
She is at school 8, sometimes 10 hours a day. She works hard and is cordial with her classmates, but she doesn't really make friends with them. She feels too focused on the task at hand to bother figuring out how to negotiate the cliques springing up around her. It seems like they all come to know one another effortlessly. She feels a little too gawky, a little too loud in the classroom. She is ten years out of high school and is surprised at how much of that girl is still in her, intact and unchanged.
At the end of the first week, the day before she goes shopping for new clothes, a square, flat package addressed in Jim's neat handwriting arrives in her mailbox. There's a CD inside, labeled "Because You're in New York and Are Cooler Than Me." It's Spoon and Lou Reed and The Hold Steady and Elvis Costello and Patti Smith and Pavement and The Ronettes and The New Pornographers and Arcade Fire and he's definitely cooler than her. It's all she listens to for the next week.
Her introduction to her neighbors is a knock on her door the first Friday night she's there. When she answers, the old woman standing before her informs her that it's the Sabbath and that she should come to dinner. She finds herself sitting at Mrs. Chapsky's table, drinking iced tea, and eating bread baked in her tiny, overheated kitchen before the sun went down. She finishes two bowls of ice-cold, electric pink borscht with sour cream and thinks of Dwight. She emails him the following Monday morning to tell him that she does, in fact, like beets. She might even love them. She sends him Mrs. Chapsky's borscht recipe. He responds with a terse thank you and a p.s. thanking her for leaving for the summer. "Her boyfriend," he writes, is much more productive in her absence. Pam is fairly certain that Dwight misses her.
Because of Mrs. Chapsky, she meets Mrs. Rabinovich and Mrs. Farber. She is clearly their little diversion for the summer and she is glad. They fuss over her, feed her, and call her by her full first name. They coo over her sketches. She listens to their stories and, because they always look so deliciously cool, starts occasionally tying her hair back with a scarf like they do.
A Better Version of Me