Before the Beginning Chapter 5: Phoebe: Peace and Harmony, a friends fanfic

Author's Note: This chapter took forever and a day to write. Sorry, guys! I had a difficult time beginning, but once I got a good start, the story took off on a direction of it's own and ended up being the longest chapter yet! Hope you enjoy, and if you do, please make my day and review!

Disclaimer: Okay, okay, I admit it. I don't own any of the Friends characters. Or Central Park. And definitely not the NYPD. So don't go getting all floopy on me. J

Phoebe: Peace and Harmony

"Miss? Um, excuse me, miss?"

The woman on the bench muttered incoherently and opened one eye to locate the source of the voice interrupting her sleep. It had taken her literally hours to even get somewhat comfortable on this bench in the depths of Central Park, and judging by the tone of the voice above her, she wouldn't be getting more rest any time soon. Maybe if she just ignored the voice, it would simply go away. All she had to do was drift slowly back into dreamland…

That's when the shaking started.

"Excuse me, miss. I'm sorry, but you can't sleep here," the police officer insisted while gently jostling the woman's shoulder.

This time, Phoebe Buffay opened both her eyes and immediately squinted against the glare of the officer's badge reflecting the early morning sun. She pulled her aching body to a sitting position and struggled to think clearly as the young police officer observed her anxiously.

Even in her semi-lethargic state, Phoebe noted his nervous expression with a vague sense of amusement.

"I'm not going to mug you or anything," she told him, punctuating her sentence with a yawn. "I promise."

The officer grinned, despite his attempt to maintain his intimidating demeanor.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I don't mean to stare. It's just that you're so young—and so pretty—" he added, blushing, "to be…to be…um…"

"Homeless?" Phoebe finished nonchalantly as she gathered her meager belongings and stood. "Well…thanks. I guess." She tossed her tangled blonde hair over one shoulder and began to walk away.

The officer hurried after her. "Wait!"

Phoebe kept walking, but still the man pursued her. "Hey, hold on a sec!"

With an impatient roll of her eyes, Phoebe stopped abruptly and glanced back with an impassive stare. He caught up easily and began to gesture empathetically as he spoke with hurried words.

"Sorry—again. I didn't mean to be rude or anything. I'm kind of new—to the whole police thing, that is. This is only my fourth official day of work," he confided somewhat sheepishly. "I just thought that all…um…homeless people were old and…and dirty and stuff."

Phoebe watched as he fumbled for words, waiting for him to simply stop babbling. Man, he was definitely young. When he finally paused uncomfortably, Phoebe shrugged. "Well, now you know."

The officer opened his mouth to continue his defensive speech, but Phoebe cut in before he could speak. "Listen, I know that it's your duty to keep the city streets like, safe and, an…and clean and everything, and you're doing a good job, but if you're gonna be wearing that," she said, gently tapping his shiny badge with one finger, "then you should remember that the NYPD is an establishment that looks out for the good of all people. Including homeless people," she added empathetically. "Because we are people, you know. Even the people that are old and dirty and stuff. All of those people still have hearts and brains and feelings. So…have a nice day."

And with that, Phoebe strolled away, leaving a slightly bewildered member of New York's finest standing alone in the middle of Central Park.

***

It had only been three days, but it felt like months. Phoebe could hardly believe she was once again completely alone in the world. Well, not completely alone, if you counted Ursula, but Phoebe didn't. That was one person that Phoebe hardly considered human, much less a family member.

Phoebe could only vaguely remember the days that she and Ursula had been real sisters. No, more than sisters. There had been a time when she and Ursula had actually been twins. They had finished each other's sentences, talked in a secret language, and refused to sleep in separate rooms. But all that changed with, as Phoebe liked to call it, "The Great Thermos Incident" shortly after the girls' eighth birthday. The relationship quickly went downhill from there. And after their mother died, the girls eagerly went their separate ways. Since then, aside from a few brief encounters, Ursula had kept her communication to the absolute minimum, and Phoebe was more than happy to comply.

Now though, Phoebe caught herself wishing that she and her sister had remained on good terms. Or at least on speaking terms. Because at a time like this, it would sure be nice to have somewhere to turn for someplace to sleep or for a little food money or even for a listening ear.

Phoebe sighed as her thoughts returned to the friend she had just lost. She hadn't known him for long, but she would always a special place in her heart for the friendly man that had given her a place to live after her stepfather returned to prison. In fact, Phoebe realized that she had probably been his only friend, considering his ultimate decision to commit suicide. Shaking her head, Phoebe once again cursed the injustice of the world and committed silently to do something about it one day.

"Enough with the depressing thoughts, Phoebe!" she said out loud, causing a few passersby to edge carefully away from the woman talking to apparently no one. Phoebe ignored them and sauntered confidently through Central Park, debating on what to do with the day stretched out ahead.

***

The clock on the dingy white wall read seven minutes to eleven when Phoebe entered the soup kitchen for lunch. She could see the volunteers bustling busy behind the long counter as they prepared the day's spread. Among the first patrons there, Phoebe took a seat in a metal folding chair near the other early arrivals and began to observe the individuals around her. One woman caught her attention almost immediately. It wasn't necessarily the woman herself that sparked Phoebe's interest. In fact, the woman was pretty ordinary looking—probably in her late forties with stringy brown hair streaked with strands of gray. But nestled among the woman's sparse belongings was a soft black guitar case that's shape indicated it did indeed contain a guitar. Phoebe stared wistfully at the instrument, lost in thought.

Since her father had abandoned her family before Phoebe was old enough to remember, Phoebe had no personal recollection of the man. She was forced to be content to get to know him though stories told by her mother. Several times, Phoebe's mother had mentioned Frank Buffay's love of guitar playing and his dream of one day playing for a group of adoring fans.

"Not that anyone would ever listen long enough to become a fan at all," Lily Buffay laughingly told her enthralled daughter. "He was pretty horrible. Always making up silly songs and playing those same three chords over and over and over again."

Then she would smile and tell how Frank's songs were the only way to get baby Phoebe to sleep during her frequent bouts with colic.

"You would just calm right down and smile at him like you were the only two people in the world. You were definitely his biggest fan. Actually, you were probably his only fan."

Realizing that the woman with the guitar was attempting to secure her attention, Phoebe shook herself out of the depths of nostalgia and offered a friendly smile. The woman shyly smiled back, and then spoke, seeming to gather her courage with each word.

"Do you like guitars?" she asked so quietly that Phoebe had to lean forward to hear.

Phoebe blushed, realizing that she had been caught staring.

"Ye…ye…yes," she stammered. "I mean, I've never actually played or, or even held one, but I like them. A…a…a lot."

The woman seemed to carefully contemplate her next words before saying them.

"Would you like to hold mine?"

Phoebe could hardly believe her good fortune. Her fingers began to tingle with anticipation as Nice Guitar Lady unzipped the case and carefully eased the instrument from its protective shell.

Phoebe had expected to see a beat-up, scratched guitar almost beyond recognition of anything that might remotely be musical. What actually emerged was more than Phoebe could have hoped. Although not exactly new, the guitar was obviously well taken care of, with a gleaming light wood surface and taut strings.

Nice Guitar Lady hesitated for a moment, cradling the instrument in her arms as one would a small child. Phoebe held her breath, fearing that Nice Guitar Lady had suddenly changed her mind and at the same time, understanding why she would. Having resigned herself to simply gazing at the instrument, Phoebe was genuinely surprised when it was passed into her waiting grasp. Only vaguely aware of the owner's uncertain scrutiny, Phoebe reverently ran her fingertips over the smooth surface, feeling as if she had finally found the appendage that had been missing from her body. Her hands seemed to instinctively know how to position themselves, with her left hand lightly pressing the frets and her right tentatively hovering over the strings. Taking a deep breath, Phoebe simultaneously strummed the strings from top to bottom with her thumb, taking care to note the tone from each string. The sounds she produced weren't exactly melodious, but an ecstatic grin spread across Phoebe's face as she glanced at the woman observing her.

Nodding encouragingly, Nice Guitar Lady spoke. "My name is Betty."

Phoebe had completely forgotten the fact that they had not yet been properly introduced. The fact that Nice Guitar Lady had an actual name was slightly disconcerting to Phoebe.

"I'm Phoebe," she returned, unable to tear her focus away from the treasure she held in her arms. Silence prevailed for a few seconds as Phoebe debated how much to pry into Nice Guitar Lady, er, Betty's personal life and Betty considered how much of her story she wanted to share.

"The guitar belonged to my son," Betty finally offered, her eyes all ready beginning to fill with tears. She blinked rebelliously against them, halting the imminent flood before it could begin.

Unsure of how to respond, Phoebe simply nodded and waited for Betty to continue.

"Brett had taught himself to play when he was only ten, and my then-husband and I just knew he was some kind of prodigy. He mostly played for fun—he didn't really like to perform—and he would just sit up in his room with the door closed. The first few times I heard music coming from his room I thought it was just some CD. I even told knocked on his door a few times to ask him to turn it down. I'll never forget the time Brett opened the door to answer me. He was holding his guitar in one hand and had a pick between his teeth. That was when I realized how good he actually was. I used to wonder why he closed himself off from the rest of the world when he played. Now I know it was his way to escape since that's about the time the fighting got bad between my husband and me.

"My husband and I finally divorced the year Brett entered the eleventh grade. Brett and I stayed in the house, but my husband got the car he and I had shared. That left me to share the clunker of a Jeep that Brett had bought that summer. Soon after the divorce, Brett ended up meeting a producer for a tiny record company that wanted Brett to do some studio guitar work for a new singer. That's what made sharing the car so difficult-I was still working as a secretary to make ends meet and Brett constantly needed to be on the other side of town at the studio.

"One night, I had been held up at work with some urgent paperwork and I ended up getting home with the Jeep almost two hours late. Just as I pulled into the driveway, I remembered that Brett had been due at the studio over an hour ago to meet with some of the big shots at the record company. My day had all ready been stressful, so when I walked inside and found Brett pacing the hallway, I was unable to bring myself to be sympathetic. He demanded to know where I'd been, I told him that I was working to put food on the table, and he reminded me once again how big this opportunity was for his music career. Out of sheer frustration, I said that any job he would ever get in music would be unstable and send his life right down the drain. Then he grabbed the keys dangling from my hand and stormed out the house with his guitar, muttering that someday he'd be a huge star and prove me wrong.

"That's the last time I saw him alive. The police officer said that he had hit the tree head-on going approximately 70 miles per hour down a dark, deserted back road. They told me he was killed instantly upon impact, and then they handed me the guitar, which had survived simply because it had been tossed in the back of the Jeep. I remember clinging to that silly guitar as I collapsed on the floor of the foyer, thinking that it was my fault that he was dead. Brett was normally such a careful driver. The only reason he would have been driving so fast would be because he was angry because of our argument and that horrible thing I said to him that made him leave.

"My husband was furious, assuming that our son's death was my fault. Which it was, but I would never admit that to him. I never told anyone about the fight, I just refused to discuss that night with anyone, and gradually I just stopped seeking human contact all together. I stayed in bed all day—stopped going to work, refused to take phone calls or answer the door. When I finally decided to face reality eight months after the accident, I discovered that I had been fired from my job and that I had no money to pay my bills. My husband refused to help, of course, and eventually, the bank foreclosed on my house, forcing me to move out.

"I had nowhere to go, no real friends to turn to. My life had been work—and Brett. I pawned almost everything I owned to get money, and spent a few weeks in a cheap hotel room. Funds finally ran out completely, and I've been sleeping on benches and eating in soup kitchens for the past month or so.

"And I've been carrying that guitar around since the policeman handed it to me the night Brett died."

By the time Betty finished her tragic story, both she and her captive listener were in tears. Phoebe wiped her eyes with one relatively clean sleeve, taking care that no rogue tears dripped onto the precious guitar she still grasped. She searched her mind for something appropriate to say, but nothing seemed right. Instead, she moved from the chair she occupied and offered the only remedy she knew—a warm embrace, with the guitar suspended between them. After an initial moment of shock, Betty gripped the younger woman back, realizing that this was the first hug she had participated in since Brett's funeral.

The two separated after a minute or two, returning to their original seats. Phoebe was the first to speak.

"I feel like I've known you for years," she confessed. "Can you believe it's only been about forty-five minutes?"

"I feel the same way," Betty agreed. She paused for a moment, and then said the last words Phoebe would have ever expected. "Would you like to have the guitar?"

Phoebe sat in stunned silence, instinctively tightening her grip on the instrument she still held. She blinked twice, trying to formulate a comprehensible sentence.

"You mean like to keep?" she asked incredulously.

Betty couldn't help but laugh. "Yes, dear. I've been carrying that guitar around for years, hoping that it would somehow link me to Brett. But I've realized that only my memories of him can do that. I know that Brett would want someone who really loved the guitar to have it."

"And you…you want me…you think that I…you want to give it to me?" Phoebe finally managed to say.

Betty nodded confidently, with tears brimming in her eyes. "I couldn't think of anyone who could cherish it more."

"Oh, I would, I would!" Phoebe exclaimed. "Thank you, Betty." She couldn't resist giving her another hug. "I promise I'll never let it out of my sight."

"I don't doubt that for a second," Betty replied, knowing that she had made the right decision.

Phoebe sat back down and began strumming with renewed energy, unable to keep a smile off her face. She glanced up at Betty, who was once again watching her.

"You really are the Nicest Guitar Lady!"

***

It was now or never. She would definitely prefer never, but her conscience was admonishing otherwise. Ever since meeting Betty and hearing her story, Phoebe couldn't stop thinking about the discord between herself and her twin. She had suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to reconcile, before something happened to cause a lifetime of regret. So before she knew what she was doing, Phoebe had found herself on a mission to locate Ursula.

Phoebe took a deep breath as she entered the nondescript restaurant in the Village. The sign above the door read 'Riff's,' and Phoebe was almost positive that this was the job that Ursula had mentioned last time they had talked. Of course, that had been over a year ago, and there was no way of knowing whether or not she still worked here.

"Only one way to find out," Phoebe mumbled as she glanced around the establishment for her sister. She moved out to the middle of the restaurant, hardly paying attention to where she was walking, which is probably why the waiter slammed into her.

"Ursula! Why are you just standing there?" the indignant server asked, glaring at Phoebe as he regained his balance.

"Oh! Um…hi," Phoebe began. "Yeah, um, I'm not Ursula."

The waiter's exasperated expression didn't change. "Yeah, whatever. Well, Queen Zorba or whoever you are today, we need you to work, not just stare at the customers."

"No, I'm Phoebe."

"Okay, Queen Phoebe, then. We just…"

Phoebe interrupted. "Wait…yeah, no…um, hello." She raised her voice to be heard over Pushy Waiter Guy. He finally stopped talking and stared at her. "Yeah, hi. As I was saying, I'm Phoebe. Ursula's twin."

Aggravation was the first emotion to cross Pushy Waiter Guy's face, followed closely by disbelief. Phoebe smugly grinned as he finally managed to look embarrassed.

"Oh! Sorry! Okay, well…sorry," he finished lamely.

Phoebe shrugged her shoulders. "So my sister does work here, apparently. Tell me, is she difficult to work with?" she asked somewhat self-righteously.

Pushy Waiter Guy nodded empathetically. "Yeah. A lot. I mean, well, you could say that."

Phoebe grinned, satisfied that she was not the only person alive that found Ursula unbearable. Unfortunately, that fact did not change what she had come here to do. She posed one more question. "Do you happen to know where she lives?"

He paused in thought for a moment or two before answering. "I overheard her mention it once or twice. It's not too far from here. I think it's that building over that cool bar. Um, I think it's called…um…Central something or other. Anyway, it's right down the street here in the Village."

Phoebe nodded in appreciation. "Thanks a lot. You've been a big help," she told him, turning towards the door. Just as she reached for the handle, one more thought crossed her mind.

"Hey!" she called to Pushy Waiter Guy. "Has she ever said what number apartment she lives in?"

"Number 20!" he called back. "Maybe 19!"

Phoebe yelled her thanks one last time and stepped outside into the late afternoon sunshine. For her, the day was just beginning.

TO BE CONTINUED…