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she cannot politely ignore him for very long because while he’s backtracking to explain this or that cinematic allusion to their colleagues, she is giggling in the corner against her good sense about it. see, kim knows, he’ll say. her opinion always tips the scale among them in the mail room, proving who is right and who is wrong. it would be incorrect to call her the boys’ mascot; each of them are hers. it is universal elation when she shows up for friday night drinks. jimmy’s been saving her a seat. on monday morning she finds herself excited to ask him if he caught cape fear in theaters.
she is overprepared and meticulous. he’s a strategy guy, a pioneer of working smart. you mean taking shortcuts, she says. she trains all the newbies. jimmy is just her latest victim. he makes useful suggestions such as, let’s sneak howard letters from a secret admirer. soon they are the fastest mail deliverers at HHM, not least because they are racing and keeping score. the score favors kim purposely, always, even falsely on occasion, but this better represents her brilliance, the truth at the heart of things.
jimmy asks if he might be more respectable with a professional haircut, and kim allows that it would be handsome. (really? definitely.) she rolls a strand of his hair between her finger and thumb to be sure, like testing a fabric against her skin.
they carpool. economy is important. he’ll bring her a coffee. he used to drive with a mug in one hand, hot and sloshing onto his pants. often kim stays late to study, or to get ahead tomorrow so she can study then instead. the office has free beverages. it’s quieter than studying at home. she lives in a party building. jimmy waits for her, finalizing important business like a flipbook animation with some of her post-it notes. (stick figure jimmy rides up to stick figure kim on stick figure horseback. she says oh, james! and they ride off into the horizon, a trail of hearts behind them. real kim says subtle, and puts it in her purse.) sometimes they look at chuck’s expensive books.
he plans to let her win at mini golf and she beats him soundly. he owes her a hot dog and she knows a spot.
if they see a movie on saturday, she might as well come over for breakfast on sunday. she can read with her toes in the beachcomber pool. she can push him into it when he blushes and stutters through their first conversation as two people in bathing suits. she can hold her breath for longer.
they fight when she passes chuck in the hallway, yes, kim wexler, so nice to speak to you again, and chuck recognizes her immediately: oh! you’re jimmy’s kim.
i was here before you, she says in the parking garage, pointing and pacing, and mr. hamlin shook my hand and signs my checks so that one day, they can have me. and they’ll be lucky.
jimmy nods and hands her his cigarette. you’re right.
he’s a good cook. she’s an inventive one, if what they say of necessity is true. when he thinks about it too hard—saltines with a bread and butter pickle chip and cheese whiz under the broiler, syrup on toast, burns on baby fingers from excavating hot dogs from the toaster—it gives him a headache.
kate and bogie are getting married on the chopping block when jimmy confesses that he was married once. technically twice. never on the chopping block.
why? kim wants to know, a good question, a fair one. she can’t imagine doing it. she’d rather walk the plank.
i loved them, jimmy says. and i thought it would fix my problems.
they are in love, but they don’t know what to do with it. well, jimmy knows what he would like to do with it, and he pictures it when he’s hot and sweaty in bed at night like the bruce springsteen song. he believes she feels it too, whatever it is: she touches him on the temple, holds his arm when she laughs. she answers when he calls. they blink and hours go by, and it’s too late to leave, and her place stinks anyway— for her great thundering genius she should know that he’s a rogue, in fact he’s sure she knows. but being sure is the membrane that permits him forward. he’s a dreamer, and maybe kim knows something he doesn’t, and chuck doesn’t, and their mother and father and howard and his wives didn’t.
they are in love, and they can’t resist it, but neither can kim believe it. where comes the everlasting kiss and the best sex she’s ever had come new odds against her first sure thing. before, she was alone. now she isn’t. jimmy is the friend she waited for. it is better that they stick to it. it is more important than anything else. and because jimmy is the friend she waited for, he listens.
so every time until the next time, it is just the once, and not again.
she attends chuck and rebecca’s christmas dinner. jimmy asked her on his knees like her plans to watch it’s a wonderful life alone were sacred. rebecca says, jimmy tells me you play the cello.
it is hard to be kim’s platonic friend when she jumps his bones every six months, that’s for sure. when she falls asleep all over him then turns quiet in the mornings. when it is also to betray her if he loves her how she wants. but they are as good at arguing as they are at making up. he tells her that he’s waiting for her. she asks if that’s a threat. no it’s not a threat, he cries. he’s incredulous. he steals half an english muffin off her plate, grumbling, offended. she elbows him. he tells her that she snores.
they take a shower together before work (saves time) and wash each other’s hair.
when she passes the bar, he buys her a steak dinner. they curtsy to the valet. when he presents his scheme to apply to law school himself, she says, jimmy, this is incredible. but you don’t have to be chuck. when he smiles, he’s got champagne bubbles in his eyes.
i don’t wanna be like chuck. like it should be obvious. i wanna be like you.
for a moment, one of those moments they are trying hard not to sleep together, he dates an aesthetician. she is thirty-five with a six year-old son jimmy’s never met. she likes square dancing. jimmy buys a whole outfit. reasonably, kim hates her. but kim cries when they break up. not what she’s looking for? she’s incredulous. what else is she looking for? jimmy thinks kim is a whole marvel. he’s not too upset himself, after all. he got some western wear out of the whole deal, which is not a shabby end of it. but he hates to see her cry.
he gives her a big hug, one arm around her on the back of his ugly couch. oh, kim, he sighs. what would i do without ya?