Chapter Two: Mike and Phoebe
One little hand after another reached up onto the top of the counter. Black pigtails and blonde braids swung in unison as pale fingers groped for what lurked on the edge. The smell of freshly baked, Nestle Tollhouse cookies drifted over their little noses, freckles leading up to hazel eyes. They just couldn't resist, and soon, little hard ovals fell over the marble into open palms.
"Valerie and Joey," a stern voice said with a hint of a smile. The girls whipped around, black hair hitting the first girl in the face. Mike Hannigan stood looking expectantly at the two young ladies, their hands full of chocolate chip filled goodness. Mike tapped his foot, trying to look as angry as he could with crumbs smeared across his first daughter's faces. "Explain why you're trying to sneak in some Nest-lay Toll-house-uh cookies before dinner?" The girls giggled as their daddy pronounced the name the same way their mommy did, the 'French' label for the American cookies.
"Oh my lord, Mike. Today I had to massage this creepy old man. He kept making passes at me until I hit him with Ross' old Tonka truck he left at the shop. I lost eighty dollars a week, you know? If he wasn't such a pervert," she grumbled, throwing a purse down onto the couch. Flipping her blonde curly hair, in the style of her 1994 self, over her shoulder, Phoebe Buffay looked up at the three. "No crummies," she laughed.
Mike stood with his hand under one cookie, holding his other hand under the munching mouths of his girls. He grinned when he saw his wife, her eyes, matched in those of their offspring, looking at him with pure love. It had been what? Eight years since he had wed to her, and four years since they had their first children. "Sorry, honey. I couldn't make them wait until dinner," he said slowly, finishing off his own.
"It's fine. I'm just whipping up something, since tomorrow is the day before Thanksgiving. I mean, no use cooking with their favorite meal only two days after," she explained, scraping two more cookies off the counter top and slipping them to the younger females. They hugged their mommy, smiling up at her with four teeth missing from one mouth, and brown chocolate smeared on the other. "Did you hear anything from Joey? I really want him over, he's been so lonely since Chandler left," she asked.
Mike shook his head. While he didn't exactly know Phoebe friends all that well, he missed them. They had kept her so wonderfully weird and imaginative, and now, she just wasn't the woman he married. He loved her unconditionally, but he missed the girl who thought her mother lay in a cat. He had decided a few days ago to ask her to go down to Central Perk and play for Thanksgiving, as Gunther said she was welcome anytime, any day.