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“Are you kidding me! Pam and Jim are totally hooking up! All they do is smile,” Kevin said to the interviewers. “They’re just keeping it a secret, right?” he continued, turning to Oscar who was sitting next to him.
“I don’t know. There is no evidence of intimacy. They’ve been in remarkably good moods. Could be other things.”
“Are you kidding me!” Kevin interrupted.
“Further,” Oscar cut back in. “Pam has seemed happier than Jim, which does suggest that their happiness is not connected.”
“No, that’s just cause Jim still feels guilty about breaking up with Karen so he could get with Pam. It has to be pretty awkward with her still around and all.”
“Perhaps, but Karen doesn’t seem all that troubled by it, in fact she’s been nothing but friendly with both of them.”
“She’s just hiding it well,” Kevin argued. “I mean she has to be pretty upset right? She dumps Jim thinking she’ll get the job and then not only does she not get the job but Jim just immediately starts hooking up with Pam!”
“I suppose so,” Oscar conceded.
“And what else could explain Jim and Pam smiling so much?”
“Well, Pam has been more outspoken since beach day, perhaps she is just enjoying a new sense of confidence. Or maybe she’s dating someone else that we don’t know about.”
“Like who? Where else is she gonna meet guys? Art class?” That led Kevin along a train of thought that ended with him giggling. “Maybe she isn’t meeting guys at all.”
“Kevin, not all artists are gay,” Oscar said, interrupting his giggling.
“Maybe,” Kevin said, Oscar's assertion having done nothing to kill his smile. The smile lasted for the rest of the day as he watched Karen stop by Pam’s desk five times in two hours, and Pam drop a sticky note doodle on Karen’s desk as she headed to the bathroom.
Oscar stayed in the interview after Kevin left. “Now you cannot tell anyone this,” Oscar said, glancing around to confirm that the door was tightly closed and no one was looking at him. “But I think Kevin might be right. I’ve heard Pam humming Closer to Fine four times this month, and then suddenly she’s getting on great with Karen after they were fighting with each other? It’s certainly a queer occurrence you might say.”
Oscar smiled at his joke and then continued. “I can’t imagine what’ll happen if Michael ever finds out, so this has to be kept as secret as possible.” He looked over his shoulder into the office, confirming that no one cared enough to be watching him. “Though if he does, I could probably get in on the discrimination suit.” Oscar thought over what he could do with another lawsuit payout. “I guess it wouldn’t be all bad if Michael found out.”
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“Let me get this straight,” Karen said as she leaned on Pam’s desk. “You want to give up a night with all this,” Karen gestured at herself. “To go watch Kevin in a battle of the bands against his old band?”
“Uh huh. Kevin’s my friend.” Pam glanced towards the accountants corner where Angela could be heard very slowly explaining something to Kevin. “Or at least someone I feel bad for enough to want to support him. Ok fine, his band was supposed to play at my wedding and I feel bad for canceling.”
“I don’t think you need to feel bad for something that happened over a year ago, Beesly.”
“Then I guess I’m going to hear two different Police cover bands probably play the exact same songs for no reason. Do you want to come?”
“Sure,” Karen said, drawing a surprised eyebrow raise. “What? I like The Police!”
“Speaking of police, Dwight’s glaring at you,” Pam said.
“That would probably be because my break ended,” Karen checked her watch, “five minutes ago.”
“You're such a rebel,” Pam mock swooned. “I’ll pick you up at six?”
“Sure thing,” Karen said before finally returning to her desk, Dwight’s glare following her the whole way.
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The bar was reasonably busy and had tables reserved for each of the eight bands. Scrantonicity and Scrantonicity II were on opposite sides of the room, though it was unclear if that was by the bands’ request or simply because the bar staff didn’t want to make it too obvious how similar the two names were. Kevin and his bass player Davey made up the entirety of Scrantonicity II, but the table was filled out with Stacey and Davey’s wife Fiona. Pam and Karen joined the table just as the first band of the night was finishing.
“Sorry we’re late,” Pam said.
Kevin was too glad to have anyone show up to complain about tardiness. “No problem,” he said and then offered the highest of honors by passing them the onion rings he had ordered. “We’re going fifth and…” Kevin paused to point and glare across the room at Scrantonicity’s table. “Those losers are going last.”
The next band set up quickly only to cause a screech of feedback when the guitarist tried to tune up. They descended into confused panic, drawing several of the venue's sound workers onstage to save them. The distraction prompted Kevin to turn back towards Pam and Karen.
“So are you bringing a date tonight?” he asked.
“No, me and Karen just carpooled to save on gas.”
“So Jim’s busy tonight?”
“I guess so, I would have thought he’d come by to support you, so he must be busy.”
“I’m sure he is,” Kevin said with a knowing nod.
“I think I heard him trying to book a room at Dwight’s farm,” Karen added. “Who knows why he would want to go there.”
“I’m sure the experience can’t be beet,” Pam said. Karen was the only one willing to laugh at the joke, giving a polite chuckle that was soon replaced by the band finally getting set up.
Karen leaned over towards Pam when the next band headed to the stage. “So do we know why Scrantonicity broke up?”
“We do not,” Pam whispered back. “Kevin’s complained about the disrespect of one former band mate, but that could mean anything.”
“You haven’t asked?”
“No, and it's way too late now. Of course you could ask.”
"Hmm." Karen glanced at Kevin and the sheen of nervous sweat that was growing on his head. "Maybe it would be better to hold off on that."
"You just need to get your courage up," Pam said, offering Karen the last half of her martini.
Karen accepted the drink, and the next two that Pam ordered, steadily growing her courage and volume as the next three bands played. “So Kevin,” she asked as the fourth band filed off the stage.
Kevin stood up, frantically wiping sweat from his hands with a grease stained napkin. Davey stood up as well, seeming slightly more composed.
“Maybe don’t ask right before they go on?” Pam said, prodding Karen’s side with a gentle elbow.
“Good luck!” Karen over-corrected too loudly.
“Nice save, Filipeli,” Pam said. “Go Kevin!” she yelled, drawing a confused look from Stacey.
Kevin made his way onto the stage and then stumbled his way through bringing a mike next to the drum kit. “Hello?” he said into the mike.
The bar grew quieter as the audience waited for him to continue.
“Is this thing on?” he asked.
“It sure is!” Pam yelled. Karen echoed her voice with a cheer.
“Ok, um. We’re scrantonicity two and we uh….” Kevin stumbled on his words as he dropped one of his drum sticks. “Fuck,” he mumbled, just on the edge of the microphones hearing as he reached down to grab the stick.
“Um yeah…” Kevin said once he’d sat back up. He decided to cut his losses on the introduction and just counted off before he and Davey launched into a guitar-less rendition of ‘Every Breath You Take.’
Kevin started off unsteadily, his voice shaking and falling off the melody, but then his eyes fell on the table Scrantonicity was sitting at and he found his stride. His voice grew fuller and darker as he sang out the lyrics and stared down his former band mates.
“Oh can’t you see? You belong with me…”
“The stripped back instrumentation really brings out the creepiness,” Karen whispered to Pam, though in her drunken state her voice carried to Stacy who laughed.
“At least he’s not looking at us,” Pam answered in an actual whisper.
The song finished soon enough and was greeted with light applause from all but one of the tables plus a standing ovation from Karen. Pam briefly rose with her, before pushing her back into her seat and hiding in her own.
“Didn’t he say the bar uses an applause meter?” Karen asked.
“Well yeah, but everyone was looking at us!”
“Oh, yeah I can’t have anyone else looking at my hot girlfriend!” Karen’s dopey grin was too pretty for Pam to get mad at how loud she’d said that.
“Exactly,” Pam said, letting herself take Karen’s hand under the table as Kevin started singing ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me.’ Pam held Karen’s hand until the song ended and they broke into a slightly less rambunctious round of applause.
Kevin looked far more comfortable as he made his way off the stage and returned to the table. “Let’s see those losers top that with just a drum machine,” he said, gesturing towards Scrantonicity’s table.
Pam nudged Karen with an elbow and gave her a significant look. “So they have a drum machine,” Karen said once she’d finally gotten the message. “Is that because you split up?”
Kevin let out an angry snort. “No. We split up because Jay thought we should add the drum machine as if I’m not a good enough drummer.”
“Pfft, that was stupid of him,” Karen said.
“It was,” Kevin said, grinning at finally finding someone willing to blindly agree with whatever he said about the split. “And then he got his uncle to join him as the singer and he’s just so old.”
“Sheesh, old people can’t be in bands!” Karen agreed.
“Exactly,” Kevin said, before turning to watch the next band introduce themselves.
Pam leaned over to Karen a moment later. “Thank you for finally figuring out the source of the band drama.”
“Anything for you, Babe,” Karen said with a grin before turning away to burp.
“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Pam said, moving the dregs of Karen’s fifth drink out of her reach.
The other bands seemed to go by quickly until Scrantonicity was making its way up to the stage. There were only two people in it, Jay and his uncle who, while clearly a few years older than Jay, had more hair than Kevin.
“Don’t you dare heckle them,” Pam hissed to Karen, a moment before she opened her mouth to do just that.
Jay stumbled through tuning his guitar and setting up the drum machine while his uncle waited, having grabbed his microphone as soon as he was onstage. Eventually Jay gave a nod to his uncle who brought the microphone up to his mouth.
“We’re Scrantonicity! And I’m Paul!” Jay’s uncle yelled. “Now hit it dude!” Paul pointed to Jay who hit a button on the drum machine starting a beat playing.
“Rox–” Paul started to sing before Jay waved his arms for him to stop. Jay pressed a few more buttons and a nearly identical beat started.
“There we go,” Jay said and started playing his guitar.
“Roxanne!” Paul started singing, staying on key for the first three renditions of the name and then straying wildly for the next 23.
There was a thin scattering of applause when the song finished. Kevin glanced around his table to confirm that no one was clapping and then turned back to stick his tongue out at the band.
“Thank you, thank you, you’re a great audience,” Paul said, as he waited for Jay to push some more buttons. “Now for our next song we're gonna take everyone here in this bar to the moon and walk around there.” Paul paused like he expected applause for just that. When he didn’t get any he turned to Jay. “You ready dude?” He of course spoke into the mike.
Jay responded by pressing a button to start up another barely different beat, and then strumming his guitar.
“This is bad right?” Pam whispered to Karen after Paul started singing.
“Probably?” Karen said with a shrug.
“I thought you knew music, didn't you say you liked The Police?”
“Well, I like two of the three songs of theirs that I know. Doesn’t that count?”
“I guess?” Pam whispered as she continued to watch Paul dance around like there were thousands of adoring fans in front of him.
Eventually the song finished and they headed to their seats, Paul nearly as sweaty as Kevin. There was five minutes of commotion as some people started settling their bill and others waited with baited breath for a winner to be announced.
The night’s MC took the stage to scattered applause. “Alright, what a night this has been,” he said with a grin. “We’ve had eight wonderful bands grace us with some music and now thanks to our advanced auplausometer technology we have a definitive ranking of all eight of them. Who's ready to hear that ranking?”
There was a cheer from the room which drowned out Kevin’s anxious squeak and the sound of the napkin he had gripped with both hands ripping.
“Alright in eighth place we have… Scrantonicity!”
Kevin shot up from his chair with a whooping cheer, followed soon after by Davey who gave his own cheer. They turned towards each other and jumped into a clumsy hug, both of them too excited to be still.
“Um, Ok…” the MC said, momentarily distracted by that unexpected reaction. “Now in seventh place we have Scrantonicity Two!”
Kevin and Davey were too happy at having done better than their former band mates to care that they were in second to last place.
“You know, those two bands ought to consider joining up. Together they might make an alright band,” the MC said, getting a laugh from all but two tables.
“Congrats Kevin!” Pam said, as the MC continued and Kevin sat back down.
“Yeah! You beat those old stupid heads!” Karen added.
“I think I should get Karen home now.” Pam stood up and offered a hand to help Karen out of her seat.
“Thanks for coming,” Kevin said.
Pam nodded and smiled, pleased with herself. She then turned and helped Karen towards the door. Karen didn’t need much help, but it was an excuse for Pam to keep her arm around Karen’s waist.
“We did a good thing tonight, Beesly,” Karen said as they stepped into the cool night air.
“We sure did.”
“And you did extra good cause you didn’t even get to get drunk.”
“Yeah, I think you owe me one for that.”
“I’m sure I can make it up to you.”
Pam came to a stop in front of her car. She gave Karen a quick kiss because she could and then opened the passenger door for her. They climbed in and drove off, Pam heading towards the familiar destination of Karen’s house.
Karen began fiddling with the radio, finally letting out a laugh when she stumbled on the opening notes of ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.’ “Haven’t we had enough of The Police for the night?” Pam asked.
Karen’s only response was to turn up the volume and start singing along as loud as she could. Pam let out a mock groan, but she was laughing by the first chorus and singing along just as loudly by the second.