Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here. Nor do I own the film You've Got Mail.
Ad Officium Redire: To return to one's duties.
Chandler almost steeled himself before entering the restaurant and then stopped himself. The last time he'd headed into a restaurant, he'd steeled himself and walked into a disaster. Instead, Chandler kicked the toe of his shoe against the ground as he convinced himself to walk in. He decided it was best if he did it like a Band-aid, swift and unthinking, no time to second-guess himself. It would hurt like hell, but it was better to get it over and done with rather than wallow.
He knew from experience that Monica would already be sitting at a circular table. She was the queen of punctuality, and there was nothing funnier than watching her squirm in the seat beside him when their taxi was caught in traffic. Funny, but also stressful. When Monica got anxious about being late, she didn't find anything he said amusing or charming. It made his self-appointed job of distracting her so much more difficult.
Not impossible, but definitely harder as Monica simply refused to crack a smile, preferring to nibble on her thumbnail and stare intently out the windshield, willing the traffic to budge and giving the seasoned taxi driver directions. Normally, it would only take a little gesture; a touch to her shoulder and a soft smile in Monica's direction, lowering his voice instead of raising it with laughter, to get Monica to pay attention to him. From there, Chandler liked to think he was pretty good at keeping Monica's eyes on him, even if he was making a fool of himself, she wasn't biting her nails or backseat driving and giving a perfect stranger a reason to double the meter or park them in an alley in the middle of nowhere.
The opposite also happened, Monica itching in her seat when other people were late. Chandler liked to think that she'd mellowed since they'd met, conditioned by Joey's constant tardiness to be more tolerant of it.
Those moments when he and Monica were already in their seats at a game or at the train station waiting for Joey, or waiting for Phoebe to come home after she'd taken on another client so they could walk over to Ross' together, were the moments their friendship had grown. The two of them owed a lot to the other's being late.
Chandler wasn't sure what tonight might entail. Monica was going to be in there and he was going to walk in, just like he had done the day prior, and then there would be ten minutes for them to converse while they waited for everyone to join them. Time for Monica to wish Chandler wasn't the one who had rocked up first, hoping he was someone else.
He had to go in, Chandler decided. No one would think it was normal for him to miss two dinners in a row when he wasn't away on business. They'd hound him for questions about what he'd been doing and even though Ross might snore through Chandler's description of his office job as payback for Chandler starting that trend and getting Monica to join him pretending to fall asleep during Ross' discussions of dinosaurs, the group would actually be listening. They teased and joined but they paid attention, especially when they were worried. Chandler didn't think he could convincingly pull off the old I had to stay late at work, I'm irreplaceable on the team and they needed me to reassess some data. He wasn't sure if he could say that and imply that he was happy to comply two nights in a row with a straight face.
So he had to go in to the restaurant. Chandler didn't have much of a choice.
Leaving himself no time to change his mind, Chandler barged into the establishment, damning the consequences.
Monica was wearing black. She always looked good in black, it made her skin look like porcelain and her blue eyes electric in shade and flecked with gold. Her collar bones were prominent above her neckline and something shimmered, a chain of a necklace that was too thin to see except when the light hit it just perfectly. He couldn't see that anything was on the end of the necklace, but he expected it was probably a small diamond if anything, tiny and looking like one of her freckles except that it glinted expensively and Monica wasn't ashamed of it or trying to cover it up like she often powdered over her shoulders. Which Chandler didn't understand at all, he thought her freckles were charming.
Monica was sitting at a table for six, directly opposite the entrance, and the large table made the petite woman appear tiny. She was actually twiddling her thumbs, not just staring idly out the window, but actually flicking one thumb in a circle around the other. Then she looked up and saw him and stopped.
Chandler held his breath.
That was the smile she'd been wearing yesterday. A happy sort of grin she sent him from across the room was so normal for the two of them that Chandler nearly lost his footing on solid ground. Nothing had changed between them.
He couldn't believe it.
There she sat, waiting for him, Chandler Bing, her smile widening when she saw him. She wasn't disappointed or turning pale at the sight of him. In fact, she was beckoning him over.
Chandler blinked, confused. Rightly, he should have suspected that Monica didn't perceive anything as changed between them. All she thought that she'd done was waved him off when he interrupted her date. She didn't know she had emailed him a compound of insults with mildly qualifying remarks that seemed nice on the surface but didn't actually qualify her comments at all.
Chandler felt his scowl deepen.
He'd been shaken to his core - finding out the woman he was in love with was his best friend, only to find out she didn't even like him as a friend and never even considered him as anything more. There she was, sitting as though the world was still turning and that all was right with the world for Monica.
But that's what he had thought yesterday, assuming Monica's smile when he walked in was for him, that her was excitement about it being him.
Then it had dropped. He couldn't get that expression out of his mind. The way she had looked around him, hoping to find someone else.
Chandler found himself waiting for it to drop again.
He took a seat beside Monica so that he didn't have to school his expression constantly while she scrutinised his face. It was better that way, the familiarity of her fruity shampoo calmed him and brought back images of sitting next to her back when there were no questions about where he stood in their friendship.
Chandler groaned, leaning his forearms on the table when Monica started brightly talking about her day. Everything was so messed up by this new information that ChefGirl20 was Monica. Everything was misconstrued and twisted. He meant nothing by sitting beside her, he wasn't intentionally smelling or hair or looking at her chest - no more than the usual platonic way his senses were sometimes invaded by Monica. He was only a man after all, and she was easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever known in real life. But he wasn't making an effort to smell her. He wasn't overrun by his feelings or some madly smitten man who was incapable of reeling himself in and holding himself in check. He wasn't pining or creepy, but everything he did now was tainted with the knowledge that maybe he wanted Monica as more than just a female perspective and the person he told everything to.
Chandler felt bad for staying silent while Monica spoke. He was genuinely proud of her for making some headway with her mother. He thought it was brilliant but that Monica shouldn't claw for Judy's attention. That Judy should be the one vying for Monica's scraps. He hated staying quiet but it was better that way. He needed to bite his tongue or else he'd reveal something about NY1990 that would give his identity away. Or he'd accidentally let slip something about how hurt he was, how rejected he felt. But to protect himself, Chandler needed to stay distant from Monica.
It went against everything Chandler believed to be true about himself. He wasn't bubbly, but he thought he was at least friendly. He wasn't good at social interactions, but he tried hard to get people to like him, letting a lot of things go unaddressed, like being misnamed in the office. He always had been. He was good at letting other people take the credit for his achievements, he was happy to not be the centre of attention. He didn't want the people around him to fight or be mad or upset, so he distracts. He teased to make them reprioritise, he made them laugh to destress. He tried his best to do nothing wrong. Sure, it might be misinterpreted or misguided, but he was always trying to smooth out the bumps in the path for the people around him. He was the type to put himself last so that the others were content.
The peacekeeper.
A people pleaser.
Not as bad as Monica, no one tried to please others the way Monica did. Or more accurately, no one tried to please their parents as much as Monica did, and Chandler, well, he refused to please his parents. He was used to actively trying to distance himself from them, their lives, and their approval as much as possible. Monica needed to please her parents, Chandler didn't.
There was a tension between him and Monica now and Chandler wished there wasn't. He couldn't stay quiet forever and he really didn't want to. She was making great leaps with her plans for her catering while she was otherwise jobless. So working for herself didn't have the same security as being an employee with someone else to worry about the insurance and the responsibility, but she was being smart and level-headed about it. That deserved a congratulations.
"But I haven't decided if I want to do a sit-down meal," Monica told him. Her hands were flapping, wringing nervously. Chandler watched fondly as Monica overthought and second-guessed herself, unable to stop herself from voicing her thoughts. "Which is always lovely and was my first thought. Or finger foods like mini quiches."
Chandler felt himself smiling. Monica also needed a little restraint and perspective. That was normally his role in the group. He could embrace that.
"Is it a party or a dinner?" Chandler asked, on the verge of laughing.
He was about to cave into the conversation, and fall back into his old patterns, when Phoebe and Joey walked in, which allowed Chandler to both prove that he had been listening to Monica and that he was proud of her, but also meant that no one was paying attention to him anymore. Except for Joey, who eyed Chandler every so often, shaking his head at Chandler's behaviour.
"Monica, I'd love to join you," Phoebe gushed happily. "I'm so ready to stop being a masseuse for a bit." Phoebe loved the relaxed climate of her workplace but hated the stress of the big chain and Monica's move towards investing in herself was encouraging, Phoebe claimed, making her want to try her hand at starting her own business. It was a good idea, a popular one and Chandler told them as much.
"A couple of the guys at work and Natasha as well, I think, are really into that," he said, waving a breadstick around. "They get a masseuse into their apartment. Something about the convenience and the privacy that they prefer to going to a spa or joining the gym for that service. Might be something to look into, Pheebs."
"Yeah," Joey agreed. "Just take out an ad in the Yellow Pages. That's all you'd need to do, really. And then put up fliers in the buildings around town like casting calls."
That wasn't a bad idea, Chandler commended Joey, sweeping his hand over to signal the two women. "And in the meantime, Phoebe can help out Monica with the Geller's party."
"I might even be able to find some clients at those parties," Phoebe seemed quite tickled by the idea but Monica glared at her. Chandler chuckled at the way Phoebe baulked bodily at the expression. "Or not. Those events are for your brand-building. Which is fine, because I really do need a break from looking at strangers' backs."
Phoebe then proceeded to discuss her latest client, distracting them with laughter and a loss of appetite for a time until Ross and then Rachel joined them too.