Chapter 4: The One with the Butt
Monica's apartment had that particular late-evening quality — warm light, the smell of whatever she'd made for dinner still hanging pleasantly in the air, everyone settled in their usual spots like furniture that had arranged itself. It should have felt like any other night. Except Monica had just told them she'd broken up with Alan, and the table had gone very quiet.
Joey broke first. "Why?"
Monica wrapped both hands around her coffee mug. "I just... didn't feel it," she said simply. No drama in her voice, no apology. Just a fact she'd been carrying around and had finally set down.
"You didn't feel it?" Chandler stared at her. "Monica, we all felt it. I felt it. The man called me this afternoon just to check in. He asked how my day was and actually waited for the answer. Do you understand how rare that is?"
"When did you and Alan become best friends?" Ethan asked.
"His voice," Chandler said, with the haunted expression of a man who had been genuinely moved by something and resented it. "He has this tone, like he actually means what he's saying. I'm not used to that. It threw me off completely."
"Did he get you to quit smoking?" Ethan asked.
Chandler pointed at him. "He almost did. That's the thing. He called and said, 'Chandler, those cigarettes aren't good for you,' and something about the way he said it—" He paused. "I'm not going to finish that sentence."
"You don't have to," Ethan said pleasantly. "We all understood it."
The laughter broke the tension, and Monica looked quietly relieved — not about Alan, exactly, but about the fact that the room hadn't made it weird.
Rachel had been quieter than usual, though. She'd laughed at the right moments, but there was something sitting behind her eyes that hadn't been there yesterday. Chandler, in the way he sometimes surprised people, noticed.
"Hey," he said, pivoting. "Ross, remember that time you took Rachel to that laundromat on Bleecker? The one with the broken water temperature dial?"
Ross immediately looked guilty. "That was not entirely my fault."
"Her white sweater," Chandler said to the table, "came out pink."
"It was a nice pink," Ross offered weakly.
"I actually kept it," Rachel admitted, smiling a little. Then the smile faded. "I ran into some people from home today. At the coffee shop." She turned her mug in a slow circle. "They all have these... careers. And apartments they chose on purpose. And they're like, settled." She exhaled. "I don't know. I looked at them and I couldn't tell if I was jealous or just embarrassed."
Phoebe reached over and put her hand on Rachel's. "You know what I think? I think everyone's timeline looks different from the outside. Like, from where they're standing, your life probably looks incredibly brave."
"Or completely chaotic," Rachel said.
"Bravely chaotic," Phoebe said firmly.
"Rachel." Ethan leaned forward slightly. "Three months ago you were about to marry someone you didn't love, in a life you didn't choose, because it seemed like the thing to do. You blew that up. That's not treading water. That's actually swimming."
Rachel looked at him for a moment. "That's a generous interpretation."
"It's the accurate one."
Monica, who had been listening quietly, stood up and disappeared into the kitchen for approximately forty-five seconds, then reappeared carrying the Monopoly box. "Okay," she said. "Everyone pick a token before I assign them, because last time Chandler took the top hat and spent the whole game doing a bit."
"The bit was good," Chandler said.
"The bit took forty minutes," Monica said.
"It was a long bit."
They played until nearly midnight, the board getting increasingly chaotic, Joey somehow acquiring three railroads through what he described as "strategy" and everyone else described as "luck and Ross feeling sorry for him." By the end Rachel was laughing — really laughing, the kind that surprised her — and had forgotten, at least temporarily, about the people from home and their settled lives.
The next morning Ross was already in a mood before anything had happened to him, which meant the universe was going to have to work harder.
It was the anniversary of the first time he and Carol had slept together. He hadn't told anyone this. He didn't need to. It was written all over him in the specific way that Ross wore difficult feelings — openly, completely, like a man who had never learned to file things away.
Ethan found him like this at his door at ten in the morning, and made an executive decision. "Get your coat."
"Why?"
"Hockey. Rangers are practicing. We're going."
Chandler was already in the hallway. Joey appeared behind him eating a sandwich. Ross looked at all three of them and accepted that resistance was not a real option.
The ice rink was loud and fast and smelled like cold air and concession stand nachos, which was, Ethan had always felt, the correct smell for a place where you were trying not to think. They found seats in the lower bowl and settled in, and for a while it actually worked — Ross's shoulders dropped about two inches, Chandler made three consecutive jokes that landed, Joey got into a detailed conversation with the man next to him about whether the Rangers had a real shot this season.
Then the puck came over the glass.
It happened fast and it happened directly to Ross's face, which was perhaps the universe's way of saying you don't get to just not deal with things by going to a hockey game.
They got him to the hospital in twenty minutes. He sat on the exam table holding an ice pack to his nose while a nurse checked him over, and the four of them filled up the small room in the way that four people in a small room always do — too much talking, not enough useful information, Joey asking the nurse questions she clearly didn't have time for.
When the room finally cleared out a little, Ross lowered the ice pack and looked at the ceiling.
"Carol's the only person I've ever been with," he said. "Like, the only one. Ever."
Nobody said anything immediately, which was the right call.
Ethan looked at him. "You know what my parents told me when I was eight and Chi-Chi stopped coming home?"
Ross glanced over. "That she went to a farm."
"That she went to a farm," Ethan confirmed. "Big farm, upstate, lots of room to run around. Very happy. Many squirrels." He paused. "I believed that until I was eleven. I overheard my mom on the phone." He let that sit for a second. "The point being — we all get told the version of things that's supposed to make it hurt less. And then at some point you find out the real version and you have to figure out what to do with it."
"Chi-Chi didn't go to a farm," Ross said quietly.
"Chi-Chi did not go to a farm," Ethan confirmed.
Ross absorbed this. "Poor Chi-Chi."
"Yeah," Ethan said. "But you loved her, and she knew it, and that part was real." He glanced at Ross sideways. "Same thing applies to Carol, by the way. What was real was real. The rest is just — the version of the story changing."
Chandler, who had been quiet for a full two minutes, which was his personal record, said softly: "My parents told me they were happy for most of my childhood." He said it like a punchline that had lost its joke somewhere along the way.
The room sat with that for a moment.
"Okay," Joey said. "When we get out of here, I need you all to come see my show."
"Tonight?" Ross asked, ice pack back on his face.
"Tonight," Joey confirmed. "It'll be good for everyone. Very healing."
"Is it actually good?" Chandler asked.
Joey looked at him steadily. "It's a musical about Sigmund Freud."
"I asked if it was good, Joey."
"It has a great energy," Joey said.
Freud!: The Musical was staged in a theater that seated, generously, about two hundred people, of which perhaps sixty had shown up on this particular Tuesday. The lighting was enthusiastic. The costumes were committed. Joey, playing a supporting role that involved considerably more singing than he'd mentioned, was giving it absolutely everything he had.
Ethan sat in the third row between Chandler and a Ross who was breathing exclusively through his mouth due to the nose situation. On Chandler's other side, about midway through the second act, a woman sat down in the empty seat next to him.
Ethan noticed Chandler notice her in the way that was very obvious to everyone except Chandler.
Her name turned out to be Aurora. She had a directness about her — the kind of person who made eye contact when she talked to you and meant it. After the curtain call, while Joey was still taking what Ethan counted as his third individual bow, Chandler had somehow migrated two seats over and was in the middle of what appeared to be a genuinely good conversation.
Ethan leaned to Monica. "Is he nervous?"
Monica watched Chandler for a moment. "He's doing the voice," she said. "The slightly lower voice. He's nervous."
"He's doing well though."
"Surprisingly," Monica agreed.
Ethan watched Chandler exchange numbers with Aurora and come back to the group with the specific energy of a man trying not to show that something good had just happened to him and failing completely.
"Don't say anything," Chandler said, sitting back down.
"I wasn't going to say anything," Ethan said.
"You were about to say something."
"I was going to say she seems great," Ethan said. "That's a good thing."
Chandler's expression softened slightly. "Yeah," he said. "She does."
Joey came back the next afternoon vibrating with news. He stood in the doorway of the apartment, looked at everyone assembled on the couch, and announced:
"I got a job."
"The show?" Monica asked. "Because we were literally there last—"
"Different job," Joey said. "New job. A movie." He paused for effect, which was a choice, because the pause was doing a lot of work. "Al Pacino movie."
The room shifted forward slightly.
"Joey," Ethan said carefully. "What's the role?"
Joey straightened up. "Butt double."
Silence.
"I'm sorry," Ross said. "Say that again."
"Al Pacino's butt double," Joey said, with the dignity of a man announcing he'd been awarded a fellowship. "I will be representing Al Pacino's posterior in a major motion picture."
Ethan stared at him for a long moment. "So Al Pacino walks into the shower—"
"And then it's me," Joey confirmed.
"From behind."
"From behind."
"Joey," Chandler said slowly. "Your big break is literally your—"
"Do not," Joey said, pointing at him. "I am an actor. This is a professional engagement on a major Hollywood production. I intend to bring everything I have to this role."
"To be clear," Ethan said, "the role is your butt."
"The role," Joey said grandly, "is a part of Al Pacino. And I am going to honor that." He sat down and picked up a sandwich from the coffee table with the composure of a man who had made peace with his journey. "This is how careers are built. One role at a time."
"One cheek at a time," Chandler said.
"I walked right into that," Joey admitted.
Rachel, who had been listening with barely contained delight, turned to Ethan. "Be honest. Is this a real career move or—"
"Joey's been working toward the big screen for years," Ethan said, completely straight-faced. "He's finally on it. Literally and figuratively." He looked at Joey. "I'm proud of you, man. I mean that."
Joey pointed at him. "See? Ethan gets it."
"I absolutely get it," Ethan said, and only partially was he lying.
The butt double situation was, however, immediately eclipsed by a domestic incident of significant proportions.
Rachel had cleaned the apartment.
This was, on its face, a good thing. A considerate thing. A helpful thing. The problem was that in the process of cleaning, she had moved Monica's green armchair approximately fourteen inches to the left.
Monica walked in, set down her bag, looked at the chair, and went still.
"Rachel."
Rachel looked up from the couch. "I cleaned! I thought you'd be—"
"The chair."
"I just moved it a little so I could vacuum under—"
"It goes back," Monica said, with the specific calm of someone who is being very calm on purpose.
Ethan, who had unfortunately chosen this exact moment to stop by, looked at the chair, looked at Monica, and took a careful step backward toward the door.
"You knew about this," Rachel said, noticing him. "You knew she'd react like—"
"I knew nothing," Ethan said. "I just got here. I don't even know what a chair is."
"Ethan," Monica said pleasantly.
"The chair should go back," Ethan agreed immediately.
Chandler, Ross, and Joey had materialized from somewhere and were now arranged near the kitchen counter with the instinctive clustering of people who wanted to observe something without being implicated in it.
"Monica," Ross said carefully. "It's just—"
"Don't," Monica said.
"Remember when we were kids," Ethan offered, in the tone of someone attempting to redirect, "and you had that ceramic horse on your windowsill, and it always had to face exactly northeast—"
"It had a reason for facing that direction."
"Monica, I love you," Ethan said. "But you alphabetized your soup cans in middle school. We all know who you are."
Monica looked around at all of them. "I am organized. I have a system. There is nothing wrong with—"
"Nobody said there was anything wrong," Rachel said, now sounding slightly guilty. "I just moved the chair."
"Fourteen inches," Monica said.
"You can tell it's fourteen inches?"
"It's facing the wrong angle for the lamp."
Rachel looked at the chair, then the lamp, then Monica. "Okay," she said, getting up. "I'm putting it back."
"Thank you," Monica said primly.
While Rachel wrestled the chair back into position, Ross leaned to Ethan and said quietly, "She's Mom."
"She's absolutely Mom," Ethan agreed, at the same volume.
"I can hear you," Monica said.
"We know," Ross said. "We said it anyway because it's true and also because we love you."
Monica pointed at him. Then at Ethan. Then she picked up her bag and walked toward the kitchen. "I'm making dinner," she announced. "Somebody set the table. Correctly."
"Define correctly," Chandler said.
"Chandler."
"Setting the table," Chandler said, already opening the drawer.
The following afternoon Joey came home significantly less vibrant than he'd left. He dropped onto the couch, stared at the ceiling, and said nothing for a full thirty seconds, which for Joey was the conversational equivalent of a press conference.
"The butt job," Ethan said.
"Gone," Joey confirmed.
"What happened?"
Joey turned his head to look at them. "I got too into it."
A beat.
"You got too into being a butt double?" Chandler said.
"The director said I was — and I'm quoting here — 'making choices.'" Joey said this with genuine bewilderment. "I was acting. That's what I do. I brought depth to the role. Apparently depth is not what they were looking for."
"In a butt," Ethan said.
"In a butt," Joey agreed sadly.
The room held a moment of respectful silence for the loss.
"There'll be other butts," Ethan said finally.
Joey looked at him.
"That came out wrong," Ethan said. "What I mean is — this is one job. Your career is not a butt double credit. Your career is everything you do next."
"He's right," Monica called from the kitchen, where she had apparently been listening to all of this. "And dinner's ready, so everyone come sit down and stop talking about butts at my table."
That same evening Chandler came in looking like a man who had received complicated news and was still organizing it.
"Aurora's married," he announced.
The room processed this.
"And," he continued, "she has a boyfriend."
More processing.
"Current boyfriend?" Rachel asked. "Like, in addition to the husband?"
"In addition to the husband," Chandler confirmed. He sat down. "And she told me this because she wanted to be upfront before we made plans again."
"Okay," Monica said. "So that's done, obviously."
Chandler made a face that was not the face of a man saying obviously.
"Chandler," Monica said.
"I'm just saying—"
"No," Rachel said.
"Hear me out—"
"What is there to hear out?" Monica said. "She has a husband. She has a boyfriend. Where exactly do you fit?"
"In a strictly logistical sense," Chandler said, "I fit in a slot that is currently open. She's being completely transparent. Nobody's being deceived. It's almost—"
"Don't say 'efficient,'" Ethan said.
Chandler closed his mouth.
"Is it something you actually want?" Ethan asked. "Not as a bit. Actually want?"
Chandler thought about it. Really thought about it, which was not always a given. "No," he said finally, in a slightly deflated way. "Not really. I just — she was great. And I don't meet a lot of people who are great."
"You will," Ethan said.
"You don't know that."
"I know you," Ethan said. "Same thing."
Chandler looked at him sideways — the same way Monica had, a few chapters ago, when Ethan had said something similar to her. "You keep saying that to people."
"It keeps being true," Ethan said.
Ross, from the armchair — which was now correctly positioned — cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, from an anthropological perspective, the concept of monogamy is actually a relatively recent—"
"Ross," everyone said.
Ross subsided.
The evening settled into its usual rhythm — the TV on low, someone in the kitchen, the city doing its thing outside the windows. Ethan sat back and looked around the room at all of them: Monica reorganizing something that didn't need reorganizing, Rachel laughing at something Joey had said, Chandler already angling toward a joke he hadn't finished constructing yet, Ross quietly content now that his lecture had been received even if not completed.
They were all, in their different ways, figuring it out.
That seemed like enough.
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