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It's a Thursday afternoon, and they've spent the entire day calling vendors and trying to get live people on the phone, and it's exhausting. Pam never wants to listen to another recording of a person's voice ever again. Ryan is sitting next to her, practically screaming, "OPERATOR!" into the receiver and she can feel the tension radiating off of him. But she's in her own shitty world of listening to tinny country music, wondering how long exactly it is going to take this woman, Michelle, to locate her supervisor.
"FUCK!" Ryan exclaims, slamming his cell down on the kitchen table and pushing the chair back with enough force that Pam's concerned for a moment that Michael's going to need to replace the sliding glass door another time. "Just...FUCK!" He's pulling at his hair, and Pam figures she'll just try Papermate back in a few minutes.
"Take a breath," Pam says, putting her hand on his forearm, and nodding to Michael who'd come in during the initial commotion that the situation is under control.
"I don't want to take a breath, I want..." and he stops, pulling away from her and moving towards where his car keys are sitting next to the fruit bowl. "I've got to go to a meeting."
"Pam'll take you." Michael says and they both turn to look at him, asking, "What?"
"Pam's going to drive you there, Ryan."
"Michael, I can go by myself," Ryan says, and Pam adds in, "I still have a lot of calls I have to make."
"Well, Pam's driving you and she'll just work on the webpage while you're there. I'm the boss!" It's the first time that Michael's put himself in a position of power over the two of them directly, even though they've been working here for almost a month, and it makes Pam feel like she can't argue with him.
Apparently Ryan feels the same way because he says, "If that's what it takes, fine, she'll drive. I'm calling my sponsor." Ryan drops his keys back on the counter and moves towards the front door while Pam's getting her coat.
"Michael, I don't see why I have to drive him."
"What if he stops to talk to a dealer on the way and he gets all high, Pam? I can't have his drug use damaging the other two tenths of this organization."
She's going to correct him about his fraction use, but it seems basically pointless. "We'll be back after the meeting."
Ryan's out on the front lawn, smoking, and looking anxious. "Sorry Michael's making you do this." He stubs his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe and slips it back into a pack. It's maybe the saddest thing about the day so far, which, wow.
"It's fine, I don't mind seeing the outside world every once and awhile."
"Well...thanks. Regardless. There's a NA in Wilkes Barre that I usually go to."
"Then that's where we'll go."
It's mostly quiet until they pull out of Michael's development and Ryan turns the power on for her stereo. Where she has left her copy of "A Little Bit Longer" for approximately the past three months. "Oh my God, Pam, you do not like the Jonas Brothers!" She's blushing and trying to eject the CD, and Ryan's not letting her. "I can't believe you have this in you car! Does Jim know?"
Jim's actually the one who bought her the CD because the number of days she left the "Burnin' Up" video open on YouTube after Kelly sent it to her was getting ridiculous. "They write really catchy music and they were nominated for a Grammy, okay? It's not something you should be trying to make me feel ashamed about."
"Oh, it is in fact totally shameful because you are not 9 and a subscriber to Tiger Beat."
"How do you even know what Tiger Beat is, you big girl?"
"They asked me to pose for it, that's how."
"When they were doing their issue on Hottest Committers of White Collar Crime?"
"No, for their Recovering Drug Addict Special Summer Issue. It was going to be me and Jack Osbourne and maybe Lindsay Lohan if she was still clean at the time. Go left up here," he indicates with his hand, and it's still surprising how comfortable he is talking about the fact that for the rest of his life he's going to be labeled as an addict.
She puts on her blinker and moves into the turning lane, realizing something. "How did you instantly know this was a Jonas Brother's CD?"
"They played that song at half-time on Thanksgiving, Pam. But, nice try." And he laughs, seeming like a totally different person than the one who climbed into her car back in Michael's driveway. Calmer, happier. He starts looking through the things in the door pocket of her car, because, "I just have to see if you have any other embarrassing secrets I can find out about," but only comes up with the honeymoon destination brochures she can't bring herself to look at since quitting her job at Dunder Mifflin.
"You and Halpert still thinking of taking a trip?"
"Not so much at the moment," she says, as he nods, flipping through the packages on Bermuda and Jamaica. "But, how was Thailand? Maybe we'll add that to the list."
"I wasn't in Thailand," he says, monotone and firm.
"Oh, because Kelly said..."
"Kelly was misinformed." And Pam's just going to drop the topic because it's not like someone really wants to talk about their ex-girlfriend ever, forget about in the middle of a sobriety crisis, especially while Ryan is looking out the window and not at her. Like mocking her was just a very short pit stop of happiness on the shitty road of life. She feels bad and is just about to apologize when he starts talking again. "Thailand was code for my parents temporarily kicked me out after I came home trashed for like the third night in a row because I hated myself and my life and everything was going to shit all over again, so I was going to have to go sleep on my brother's couch out in Ohio for a few weeks until they'd let me come back. And, I couldn't say any of that, to Kelly, or my boss, so I said Thailand because it's somewhere I've always wanted to go." Pam feels like she's maybe going to start to cry, just listening to the story, until he says, "But at least I didn't like the Jonas Brothers. Then I'd probably have skipped from blow right into shooting up heroin and never worked at getting my life together."
"Go fuck yourself," she says, but she's laughing and so is he.
"Such language, Pamela!"
"Whatever, Ryan." She shoves him in the arm and they drive for a few more blocks, listening to Nick sing about his diabetes as Ryan skips through the tracks. "Do you think we really have our lives together?"
"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not vomiting in the bathroom at work anymore or getting arrested, so, yeah. That's more together."
"Are we not supposed to be vomiting in the bathroom at work?"
"If you end up pregnant, Pam, I swear, I'm quitting. I'll go back to the bowling alley, I don't care."
"You're not going back to the bowling alley."
"Yeah, I know. It's the building up here past the gas station."
Pam pulls into the parking lot, actually kind of sad that they're here already. "Enjoy the meeting."
"If I'm a good boy can we stop at McDonalds on the way home?"
"We'll see. Now go, you don't want to be late."
"Yeah, I don't want to miss out on the weak ass piss coffee," He opens he door and instantly lights up the cigarette he was saving from earlier. "Thanks again, Pam."
"You're welcome, and on the way back, you can smoke in the car if you want to."
"Have I mentioned that I love you? Because right now I do." He's closing the door and heading towards the building before she can even respond, which is good, because she has no idea what she'd say to that anyway. Pam sits there for awhile, thinking about if she kind of loves the guy who makes fun of her and threw his life away to cocaine and for some unknown reason has decided he needs bleached blond hair. Until it gets too confusing and she gets to work. She gets two webpages done by the time he comes out, and then they pick up Big Macs and gigantic sodas, listening to three earnest brothers until Ryan can't take it anymore.
Back at Michael's, Ryan closes a deal with Bic, and maybe it was a decent day. Overall.