2004
Chandler had always thought he liked the dark.
Now he realized he'd never known what "dark" really was.
The headlights of his rental car did next to nothing to illuminate the roadway; mostly, they just lit up the rain. Trees crowded in on either side, looming and anonymous; he could be anywhere, anywhere at all. No signs. No mailboxes. No reassurances of location.
Just the bright rain, and the encircling blackness... like a silver theater curtain with grinning horrors behind.
He checked his odometer, then turned on the map light to double-check the directions he'd scrawled on an envelope. Eight miles to go.
Kurt Cobain's scream of pain faded out, and Chandler hit the previous track button, just as he had the entire drive. Drums filled the car again, and Chandler smiled grimly.
He crumpled his empty pack of cigarettes, threw them to the floorboard, and groped the passenger seat with his hand, searching for the open carton.
He'd bought three. Cigarettes were astonishingly cheap down here.
Which was good.
Rain from the cracked window stung his forehead, and he leaned his face up into it.
The trees broke to one side and the embankment plunged downward... towards what, he couldn't tell.
Two miles to go.
Lights up ahead, set back from the road. He glanced at the odometer and slowed to a crawl. Time to start checking mailboxes.
He found the right number, parking the car by a guardrail. This wasn't right, couldn't be... there wasn't a house here, just a pier.
He'd expected... what the hell *had* he expected? Something out of "Gone With The Wind", maybe, a massive white elephant of a Colonial estate with manicured grounds, probably some fountains that barely missed being pornographic, seventy gazillion rooms filled with antiques.
Not a lonely pier slanting down into the darkness.
Well, maybe he'd walk off it and drown. He shoved the directions and the cigarettes into his backpack, reserving the door key. He'd travelled light -- just the stuff he could shove into the bag without waking Monica, which pretty much consisted of discarded clothes off his study floor. Who needed underwear, anyway?
He threw the backpack over his shoulder, grabbed his laptop case, slammed the car door and walked hesitantly towards the mailbox, using his left hand to shade his eyes from the rain.
He stepped onto the pier, looked down, and let out a little breath of shock.
There was a house after all.
The small house was actually *in* the river, rising up on stilts above churning water. A railed deck surrounded the house on all four sides, joining with the pier he was now on.
Warm yellow light blazed from the windows, and Chandler shook his head as if to clear a vision. Flowers spilled out of windowboxes, bending beneath the torrential rain... tidy shutters framed windows with... yes, he was not hallucinating... *gingham* curtains.
Nora Bing was not gingham and windowboxes. Nora Bing was white fur and gold lame, platinum blonde hair and six-inch stilettos.
And for that matter, so was his dad.
Maybe the caretaker had made a mistake, told him the wrong house number. Chandler walked down the pier carefully, death grip on the handrail. He finally reached the overhang of the roof, and shook himself like a dog.
There was a note pinned to the door. He approached it cautiously.
Dear Chandler,
I got you some groceries, dear. I'm afraid I don't
know what you like now - it's been almost thirty years
since I shopped for you last, after all. You mentioned
on the phone that you hadn't really gotten to pack, so
I've laid out some of your father's things for you
upstairs. I'll send my daughter over to check on you
in a few hours.
Delores
Apparently, he had the right house after all. What the hell?
He pulled out the key, but when he tried the doorknob, it opened easily.
He swung the door the rest of the way open, and his jaw dropped.
The warm, inviting living room was the absolute antithesis of his mother's antiseptic, elegant, minimalist white-on-white New York apartment. A beaten-up brown leather sofa stood, flanked by comfy armchairs, in front of a roaring fireplace that split the room from the kitchen. Overflowing bookshelves ringed the walls. And there were...
He stepped into the room almost in a reverie, unable to believe his eyes.
There were pictures of him *everywhere*.
Baby Chandler, toddler Chandler, teenage Chandler. Chandler with his parents, Chandler laughing, Chandler in the bathtub with his hair formed into horns. They crowded the bookshelves and leaned crazily against each other on the massive oak mantle, propped up in places by bizarre Play-Doh sculptures.
There hadn't been a single picture of him in his mother's apartment.
What the hell was going on? He was overcome with a weird sense of deja vu. It seemed like he'd dreamt this house before, of life in a house like this, back in the days when his parents communicated in screams.
He closed the door behind him, his eyes sliding from foreign object to foreign object. Homey kitchen with the gingham curtains he'd seen from outside. Antique appliances, bulging spice rack, cookie jar in the shape of a happy puppy. What the hell?
Noise upstairs. He focused on the opposite doorway, and in moments it filled with an impossibly short redhead, arms full of laundry basket.
"Hey, you made it!" she cried, setting the basket down and extending her hand.
"Delores?" Chandler said timidly.
"No, no, I'm the daughter. I'm Megan. Oh my god, you're soaked!"
Chandler looked down and realized he was standing in a puddle. "Oh, yeah."
Megan set the laundry basket down and began to root through it. "Mom sent me over, said there hadn't been time to get the phone hooked back up. I thought I'd wash this stuff of your dad's while I waited... it's a little mothball-y... but I'm sure there's something you can wear."
She pulled out a chambray workshirt and a pair of faded jeans. "Here, these look like they're your size. You wanna put these on and give me that stuff? I can wash it with the rest of this."
Chandler looked in amazement at the clothing Megan held out towards him. "*That* stuff is my *dad's*?"
Megan shot him a weird look. "Are you okay?"
"I'm a little... freaked," Chandler admitted, setting down his backpack. "You know how weird it would be if you discovered that Ozzy and Harriet were secretly into cocaine orgies? This is... kinda the opposite of that."
"Here," Megan said kindly, pressing the clothes into his chest. "You change, okay? You'll catch your death. There's towels in the closet over the toilet." She steered him towards the bathroom door, and he obediently went inside and began to strip.
"You don't remember me at all, do you?" Megan called through the door.
"I've met you before?"
"You used to come down here with your parents all the time."
"I *did*?"
"Yeah, and you were a terrible influence on me, too," Megan laughed. "I was the only smoker in my third-grade class. Hey, you hungry?"
Chandler pulled the towel off his head and realized that he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. "Yeah, I am, actually."
Megan's voice faded as she walked towards the kitchen. "You're not vegetarian or allergic to stuff, are you?"
"Nope..."
"I can't believe you don't remember coming down here."
"Well, I... I thought I'd dreamt this place before. Maybe I actually just remembered it."
"I guess you were pretty young. We had some great times here, though. Your dad made the *best* chocolate chip cookies, oh my god."
"*My* dad? Chocolate chip cookies?"
"Are you sure you're Chandler Bing?"
"Are you sure you've met Chandler Bing's parents?"
"Are you sure *you've* met Chandler Bing's parents?"
Chandler sighed, opening the bathroom door and setting his wet bundle on top of the laundry basket. "Apparently not."
He walked towards the kitchen, pausing to stare at the photos of a childhood he barely remembered.
"I mean..." Megan said in confusion from behind the fridge door, "Nora and Charles were so awesome. Weird, yeah, but awesome. You don't know how many times I wished they were *my* parents. And it sounds like... well, no offense, but it sounds like you hate them."
"I don't *hate* them," Chandler said, running his finger over the mantel. "I guess I... well, it's hard to feel connected to people who are constantly shipping you off. Boarding school, summer camps, seven gazillion hours of therapy... it's like I never saw them. I guess they didn't want me... interfering in their lives."
Megan's jaw dropped. "What?"
"Well, you know, they had their men, and their parties, and their Vegas burlesque act..."
"Chandler... your parents didn't *want* to send you to boarding school!"
It was Chandler's turn to gape. "Excuse me?"
"Do you have any idea how many times my mother sat on that couch, holding *your* mother while she cried... because she missed you so much?"
"No way," Chandler said weakly.
"Your mom never told you this stuff?"
"I barely talked to my mom," Chandler whispered.
Megan stared at him, gesturing to the kitchen table with a can. "Well, sit down. Sounds like we need to talk."
***
"Jacob Bellows, please," Monica said shakily, turning the business card over and over in her fingers.
"Who may I say is calling?"
"Monica Bing."
Condescending laughter on the line. "Oh, I don't think Jake wants to talk to *you*, honey."
Indistinct voices, muffled, angry, then a clear: "No, gimme the bitch."
Chandler's agent came on the line. "Are you proud of yourself?"
"What?"
"I asked you, are you proud of yourself? 'Cause that was a pretty splendid little stunt you pulled."
"Please, Mr. Bellows, I'm trying to find Chandler, do you know where he is?"
"Why, you aren't done? Got some favorite pets to boil and serve?"
Oh god. Chandler must have told him about her and Brian. "He *told* you?"
"Of course he told me, are you kidding? He was supposed to send me the damn thing Thursday. I've been on the phone all day, setting his career back by years. That *was* what you wanted, wasn't it?"
"Mr. Bellows... what are you talking about?"
"Ahhh, evil *and* slow, nice combo. I'm talking about the book, bitch, 'Letters To A Stranger', the formerly eagerly anticipated, now sent to friggin' novel heaven, sophomore outing by Chandler M. Bing."
"I... what?" She shook her head. He wasn't making any sense.
"Don't bother. I know, Chandler knows, and guess what? Everyone's about to know."
"B-but..."
"Chandler's not goin' down for this, okay? *You* are."
Click. Dial tone.
She set the phone down in confusion, and it immediately rang again.
"Mon, are you and Chandler watching TV?" Ross demanded. "Put Chandler on the phone."
"Chandler's... not here," Monica stammered. "Where have you two been all day? I've been calling you and calling you..."
"Turn the TV on. NBC. There's been some huge mistake."
Monica grabbed the remote and flipped to the channel.
The screen filled with two women, obviously being polled on the street. "Chandler Bing Fans" was written underneath them in white type.
"Well, I just think it's horrible," the first one said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.
"I'd like to kill that..."
The clip ended, and both announcers laughed.
"Kinda had to bleep that one, didn't we, Steve?"
"Sources at Bing's publishing company reveal that it was Chandler Bing's own *wife* who destroyed the novel, overwriting the file with a note that said, simply: 'I Hate You'."
"Isn't that *ridiculous*?" Ross said. "Ohhh, Mon. *Not* a good picture of you."
They'd filled the screen with a photo from some publishing company party they'd gone to a few months before. In it, Chandler was grinning adorably, leaning down to graciously sign a book for a apple-cheeked, beaming teenage fan.
Monica, however, had been caught in harsh light, looking anorexically thin and twenty years Chandler's elder. Her blood-red mouth was set in a thin, angry-looking line, and her shining black chignon seemed to yank her eyebrows violently upward... her grip on Chandler's arm looking for all the world, at that moment, like she was attempting to violently yank Chandler away from the sweet young fan.
Monica looked like...
Monica looked like Cruella DeVille.
"Oh my *god*, Ross," Monica breathed out in horror.
"Yeah, you shouldn't wear your hair up anymore," Ross replied casually. "Man, Chandler's going to eat his publishing company for *lunch* when he sees this. What a load of crap!"
"Ross. Ross. What... exactly... are they saying that I did?"
"Well apparently, they think that Chandler had his book saved in a file on his computer, and that you maliciously wrote over it with a note that said 'I Hate You'."
"Oh my god!"
"I know! Like you'd destroy 'Letters to a Stranger'."
"Um, what?"
"Like you'd destroy 'Letters to a Stranger'."
"Was... was that the title?"
"Well, duh..."
A chill ran down Monica's spine. "And uh... um... what do you think he would have named that file?"
"I dunno." She heard Ross calling out for Rachel, and her unintelligible reply.
"She says the last time she saw him working on it, it was 'letter.doc'."
And everything clicked. "Oh my god, Ross, oh my god, oh my god..."
"What are you freak... wait. Mon, you didn't *actually* erase his book, did you?"
"I... I think I might have."
"Oh my god, why?"
"I didn't mean to!"
"You didn't MEAN to write him a note that said you hated him?"
"It was stupid Microsoft Word, that stupid paper clip!"
"The office assistant?"
"Whatever!"
More muffled Ross-talking, and a distinct scream of horror from Rachel.
"So, Monica, wait, wait. Rachel wants to know if Chandler's really... y'know... 'whereabouts unknown'."
"You guys weren't home, I tried to call!" Monica sobbed. "I talked to Phoebe and Joey, we've been trying to find him all day!"
"So he just disappeared?"
"He left me a note... but... I didn't understand it. I thought he was mad about something else."
"Something else?"
"Oh god, Ross," Monica wailed. "You don't even know how badly I've screwed up."
***
"The thing you have to understand about your parents is..." Megan began, dragging a pan out from a cabinet.
Her cellphone rang, and Megan looked at him apologetically. "Sorry, hang on just a sec." She crossed, dug in her purse, retrieved her phone and flipped the earpiece up. "Megan Mitchell."
"Okay... I'll tell him." She hit the 'end' button. "Mom says you're on TV."
"Why in the hell would I be on TV?"
"Dunno," Megan said, crossing into the living room and pressing the remote on the coffee table. The TV blared to life, and Megan switched over to NBC.
"Kinda had to bleep that one, didn't we, Steve?" the female announcer said.
"Chandler, get in here," Megan said quietly.
Megan and Chandler stared at the screen in horror, watching as the story unfolded. Chandler jerked with indignation when the picture of Monica flashed onscreen.
Megan crossed her arms and looked at Chandler sadly. "I guess that takes care of the 'so what brings you down here' question I was working up the balls to ask."
"That's -- it's -- she -- how the hell do they know?" Chandler screeched, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"Who'd you tell?"
"My agent, I kinda had to. That's it, though." Chandler leaned against the fireplace and gestured at the screen helplessly. "Dammit, Jacob... I should have known he'd pull some shit like this. Everything's about the spin with him."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, look what he's done! A half-hour ago, I was an author missing his deadline. Now I'm the angelic victim of a book-destroying, child-hating shrew."
"The *missing* angelic victim of a book-destroying, child-hating shrew," Megan pointed out. "I bet your wife is worried sick."
"Oh, god."
"You want to call her? You can use my phone."
"No, I... I really, really don't want to talk to her. Still."
"Look, at least call one of your friends," Megan insisted gently. "Just let them know you're okay. You're not mad at your friends, are you? And they can tell your wife you're all right."
She thrust the cellphone at Chandler, and he regarded it for a moment, mentally sorting through his friends for the one least likely to be home. He took it from Megan's hand and dialed.
The phone rang, and the machine picked up.
"Hi! You've reached Phoebe Buffay. Don't hang up, that pisses me off. And you don't want to piss me off."
Beep. "Hey, Pheebs, it's Chandler. I was hoping you could pass on a message..."
Noise on the line, then Phoebe picking up. "Chandler! Chandler, where the hell are you? We've been looking for you all day! We were worried sick!"
"I'm okay, all right? I don't want to say where I am."
"Look, Chandler. Monica is *so* sorry about Brian. She feels totally stupid, she never meant to hurt you..."
"Brian? Who the hell is Brian?"
"Brian's the name of the guy you saw her kissing."
"Monica kissed some guy named Brian?"
Horrified silence on Phoebe's end of the line.
"What the hell, Pheebs? Monica's *cheating* on me?"
"No, no, no! Look, Chandler, it was nothing, that's the whole point, I..."
"I have to go," Chandler snapped, pressing the "end" button viciously.
He looked over at Megan, who was wincing, and tossed the phone at her. "Well, thanks for making me do *that*. I feel so much better *now*!"
The phone began to ring. Megan held it up and looked at Chandler questioningly.
"Turn it off, okay? That's Phoebe calling back, she must have Caller ID or something. I can't... I can't deal with this right now."
Megan turned off the cellphone, set it on the coffee table, and walked quietly back into the kitchen.
***
Monica listened to the phone ring, staring down at the pad where she'd scribbed the number Phoebe had called with.
"Hi, you've reached Megan Mitchell. I can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep."
She must have dialed the number wrong. She hung up, tried again.
"Hi, you've reached Megan Mitchell..."
Monica hung up violently. Who the *hell* was 'Megan Mitchell', and why was Chandler with her?
She sounded young.
Young and pretty.
Monica paced around the apartment, periodically calling the number back, hanging up at the first word spoken by the voice she was quickly coming to detest. At eleven, she turned the news back on.
"The hunt for author Chandler Bing continues, with supposed sightings popping up all across America."
A heavyset man, flanked by two friends, laughed into the camera. "Hell, yeah, I saw Chandler Bing. Saw him in a bar downtown. Asked me if I knew a good divorce lawyer." He and his friends burst into hysterical laughter.
Monica put her head in her hands and sobbed.
Chandler had always thought he liked the dark.
Now he realized he'd never known what "dark" really was.
The headlights of his rental car did next to nothing to illuminate the roadway; mostly, they just lit up the rain. Trees crowded in on either side, looming and anonymous; he could be anywhere, anywhere at all. No signs. No mailboxes. No reassurances of location.
Just the bright rain, and the encircling blackness... like a silver theater curtain with grinning horrors behind.
He checked his odometer, then turned on the map light to double-check the directions he'd scrawled on an envelope. Eight miles to go.
Kurt Cobain's scream of pain faded out, and Chandler hit the previous track button, just as he had the entire drive. Drums filled the car again, and Chandler smiled grimly.
He crumpled his empty pack of cigarettes, threw them to the floorboard, and groped the passenger seat with his hand, searching for the open carton.
He'd bought three. Cigarettes were astonishingly cheap down here.
Which was good.
Rain from the cracked window stung his forehead, and he leaned his face up into it.
The trees broke to one side and the embankment plunged downward... towards what, he couldn't tell.
Two miles to go.
Lights up ahead, set back from the road. He glanced at the odometer and slowed to a crawl. Time to start checking mailboxes.
He found the right number, parking the car by a guardrail. This wasn't right, couldn't be... there wasn't a house here, just a pier.
He'd expected... what the hell *had* he expected? Something out of "Gone With The Wind", maybe, a massive white elephant of a Colonial estate with manicured grounds, probably some fountains that barely missed being pornographic, seventy gazillion rooms filled with antiques.
Not a lonely pier slanting down into the darkness.
Well, maybe he'd walk off it and drown. He shoved the directions and the cigarettes into his backpack, reserving the door key. He'd travelled light -- just the stuff he could shove into the bag without waking Monica, which pretty much consisted of discarded clothes off his study floor. Who needed underwear, anyway?
He threw the backpack over his shoulder, grabbed his laptop case, slammed the car door and walked hesitantly towards the mailbox, using his left hand to shade his eyes from the rain.
He stepped onto the pier, looked down, and let out a little breath of shock.
There was a house after all.
The small house was actually *in* the river, rising up on stilts above churning water. A railed deck surrounded the house on all four sides, joining with the pier he was now on.
Warm yellow light blazed from the windows, and Chandler shook his head as if to clear a vision. Flowers spilled out of windowboxes, bending beneath the torrential rain... tidy shutters framed windows with... yes, he was not hallucinating... *gingham* curtains.
Nora Bing was not gingham and windowboxes. Nora Bing was white fur and gold lame, platinum blonde hair and six-inch stilettos.
And for that matter, so was his dad.
Maybe the caretaker had made a mistake, told him the wrong house number. Chandler walked down the pier carefully, death grip on the handrail. He finally reached the overhang of the roof, and shook himself like a dog.
There was a note pinned to the door. He approached it cautiously.
Dear Chandler,
I got you some groceries, dear. I'm afraid I don't
know what you like now - it's been almost thirty years
since I shopped for you last, after all. You mentioned
on the phone that you hadn't really gotten to pack, so
I've laid out some of your father's things for you
upstairs. I'll send my daughter over to check on you
in a few hours.
Delores
Apparently, he had the right house after all. What the hell?
He pulled out the key, but when he tried the doorknob, it opened easily.
He swung the door the rest of the way open, and his jaw dropped.
The warm, inviting living room was the absolute antithesis of his mother's antiseptic, elegant, minimalist white-on-white New York apartment. A beaten-up brown leather sofa stood, flanked by comfy armchairs, in front of a roaring fireplace that split the room from the kitchen. Overflowing bookshelves ringed the walls. And there were...
He stepped into the room almost in a reverie, unable to believe his eyes.
There were pictures of him *everywhere*.
Baby Chandler, toddler Chandler, teenage Chandler. Chandler with his parents, Chandler laughing, Chandler in the bathtub with his hair formed into horns. They crowded the bookshelves and leaned crazily against each other on the massive oak mantle, propped up in places by bizarre Play-Doh sculptures.
There hadn't been a single picture of him in his mother's apartment.
What the hell was going on? He was overcome with a weird sense of deja vu. It seemed like he'd dreamt this house before, of life in a house like this, back in the days when his parents communicated in screams.
He closed the door behind him, his eyes sliding from foreign object to foreign object. Homey kitchen with the gingham curtains he'd seen from outside. Antique appliances, bulging spice rack, cookie jar in the shape of a happy puppy. What the hell?
Noise upstairs. He focused on the opposite doorway, and in moments it filled with an impossibly short redhead, arms full of laundry basket.
"Hey, you made it!" she cried, setting the basket down and extending her hand.
"Delores?" Chandler said timidly.
"No, no, I'm the daughter. I'm Megan. Oh my god, you're soaked!"
Chandler looked down and realized he was standing in a puddle. "Oh, yeah."
Megan set the laundry basket down and began to root through it. "Mom sent me over, said there hadn't been time to get the phone hooked back up. I thought I'd wash this stuff of your dad's while I waited... it's a little mothball-y... but I'm sure there's something you can wear."
She pulled out a chambray workshirt and a pair of faded jeans. "Here, these look like they're your size. You wanna put these on and give me that stuff? I can wash it with the rest of this."
Chandler looked in amazement at the clothing Megan held out towards him. "*That* stuff is my *dad's*?"
Megan shot him a weird look. "Are you okay?"
"I'm a little... freaked," Chandler admitted, setting down his backpack. "You know how weird it would be if you discovered that Ozzy and Harriet were secretly into cocaine orgies? This is... kinda the opposite of that."
"Here," Megan said kindly, pressing the clothes into his chest. "You change, okay? You'll catch your death. There's towels in the closet over the toilet." She steered him towards the bathroom door, and he obediently went inside and began to strip.
"You don't remember me at all, do you?" Megan called through the door.
"I've met you before?"
"You used to come down here with your parents all the time."
"I *did*?"
"Yeah, and you were a terrible influence on me, too," Megan laughed. "I was the only smoker in my third-grade class. Hey, you hungry?"
Chandler pulled the towel off his head and realized that he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. "Yeah, I am, actually."
Megan's voice faded as she walked towards the kitchen. "You're not vegetarian or allergic to stuff, are you?"
"Nope..."
"I can't believe you don't remember coming down here."
"Well, I... I thought I'd dreamt this place before. Maybe I actually just remembered it."
"I guess you were pretty young. We had some great times here, though. Your dad made the *best* chocolate chip cookies, oh my god."
"*My* dad? Chocolate chip cookies?"
"Are you sure you're Chandler Bing?"
"Are you sure you've met Chandler Bing's parents?"
"Are you sure *you've* met Chandler Bing's parents?"
Chandler sighed, opening the bathroom door and setting his wet bundle on top of the laundry basket. "Apparently not."
He walked towards the kitchen, pausing to stare at the photos of a childhood he barely remembered.
"I mean..." Megan said in confusion from behind the fridge door, "Nora and Charles were so awesome. Weird, yeah, but awesome. You don't know how many times I wished they were *my* parents. And it sounds like... well, no offense, but it sounds like you hate them."
"I don't *hate* them," Chandler said, running his finger over the mantel. "I guess I... well, it's hard to feel connected to people who are constantly shipping you off. Boarding school, summer camps, seven gazillion hours of therapy... it's like I never saw them. I guess they didn't want me... interfering in their lives."
Megan's jaw dropped. "What?"
"Well, you know, they had their men, and their parties, and their Vegas burlesque act..."
"Chandler... your parents didn't *want* to send you to boarding school!"
It was Chandler's turn to gape. "Excuse me?"
"Do you have any idea how many times my mother sat on that couch, holding *your* mother while she cried... because she missed you so much?"
"No way," Chandler said weakly.
"Your mom never told you this stuff?"
"I barely talked to my mom," Chandler whispered.
Megan stared at him, gesturing to the kitchen table with a can. "Well, sit down. Sounds like we need to talk."
***
"Jacob Bellows, please," Monica said shakily, turning the business card over and over in her fingers.
"Who may I say is calling?"
"Monica Bing."
Condescending laughter on the line. "Oh, I don't think Jake wants to talk to *you*, honey."
Indistinct voices, muffled, angry, then a clear: "No, gimme the bitch."
Chandler's agent came on the line. "Are you proud of yourself?"
"What?"
"I asked you, are you proud of yourself? 'Cause that was a pretty splendid little stunt you pulled."
"Please, Mr. Bellows, I'm trying to find Chandler, do you know where he is?"
"Why, you aren't done? Got some favorite pets to boil and serve?"
Oh god. Chandler must have told him about her and Brian. "He *told* you?"
"Of course he told me, are you kidding? He was supposed to send me the damn thing Thursday. I've been on the phone all day, setting his career back by years. That *was* what you wanted, wasn't it?"
"Mr. Bellows... what are you talking about?"
"Ahhh, evil *and* slow, nice combo. I'm talking about the book, bitch, 'Letters To A Stranger', the formerly eagerly anticipated, now sent to friggin' novel heaven, sophomore outing by Chandler M. Bing."
"I... what?" She shook her head. He wasn't making any sense.
"Don't bother. I know, Chandler knows, and guess what? Everyone's about to know."
"B-but..."
"Chandler's not goin' down for this, okay? *You* are."
Click. Dial tone.
She set the phone down in confusion, and it immediately rang again.
"Mon, are you and Chandler watching TV?" Ross demanded. "Put Chandler on the phone."
"Chandler's... not here," Monica stammered. "Where have you two been all day? I've been calling you and calling you..."
"Turn the TV on. NBC. There's been some huge mistake."
Monica grabbed the remote and flipped to the channel.
The screen filled with two women, obviously being polled on the street. "Chandler Bing Fans" was written underneath them in white type.
"Well, I just think it's horrible," the first one said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.
"I'd like to kill that..."
The clip ended, and both announcers laughed.
"Kinda had to bleep that one, didn't we, Steve?"
"Sources at Bing's publishing company reveal that it was Chandler Bing's own *wife* who destroyed the novel, overwriting the file with a note that said, simply: 'I Hate You'."
"Isn't that *ridiculous*?" Ross said. "Ohhh, Mon. *Not* a good picture of you."
They'd filled the screen with a photo from some publishing company party they'd gone to a few months before. In it, Chandler was grinning adorably, leaning down to graciously sign a book for a apple-cheeked, beaming teenage fan.
Monica, however, had been caught in harsh light, looking anorexically thin and twenty years Chandler's elder. Her blood-red mouth was set in a thin, angry-looking line, and her shining black chignon seemed to yank her eyebrows violently upward... her grip on Chandler's arm looking for all the world, at that moment, like she was attempting to violently yank Chandler away from the sweet young fan.
Monica looked like...
Monica looked like Cruella DeVille.
"Oh my *god*, Ross," Monica breathed out in horror.
"Yeah, you shouldn't wear your hair up anymore," Ross replied casually. "Man, Chandler's going to eat his publishing company for *lunch* when he sees this. What a load of crap!"
"Ross. Ross. What... exactly... are they saying that I did?"
"Well apparently, they think that Chandler had his book saved in a file on his computer, and that you maliciously wrote over it with a note that said 'I Hate You'."
"Oh my god!"
"I know! Like you'd destroy 'Letters to a Stranger'."
"Um, what?"
"Like you'd destroy 'Letters to a Stranger'."
"Was... was that the title?"
"Well, duh..."
A chill ran down Monica's spine. "And uh... um... what do you think he would have named that file?"
"I dunno." She heard Ross calling out for Rachel, and her unintelligible reply.
"She says the last time she saw him working on it, it was 'letter.doc'."
And everything clicked. "Oh my god, Ross, oh my god, oh my god..."
"What are you freak... wait. Mon, you didn't *actually* erase his book, did you?"
"I... I think I might have."
"Oh my god, why?"
"I didn't mean to!"
"You didn't MEAN to write him a note that said you hated him?"
"It was stupid Microsoft Word, that stupid paper clip!"
"The office assistant?"
"Whatever!"
More muffled Ross-talking, and a distinct scream of horror from Rachel.
"So, Monica, wait, wait. Rachel wants to know if Chandler's really... y'know... 'whereabouts unknown'."
"You guys weren't home, I tried to call!" Monica sobbed. "I talked to Phoebe and Joey, we've been trying to find him all day!"
"So he just disappeared?"
"He left me a note... but... I didn't understand it. I thought he was mad about something else."
"Something else?"
"Oh god, Ross," Monica wailed. "You don't even know how badly I've screwed up."
***
"The thing you have to understand about your parents is..." Megan began, dragging a pan out from a cabinet.
Her cellphone rang, and Megan looked at him apologetically. "Sorry, hang on just a sec." She crossed, dug in her purse, retrieved her phone and flipped the earpiece up. "Megan Mitchell."
"Okay... I'll tell him." She hit the 'end' button. "Mom says you're on TV."
"Why in the hell would I be on TV?"
"Dunno," Megan said, crossing into the living room and pressing the remote on the coffee table. The TV blared to life, and Megan switched over to NBC.
"Kinda had to bleep that one, didn't we, Steve?" the female announcer said.
"Chandler, get in here," Megan said quietly.
Megan and Chandler stared at the screen in horror, watching as the story unfolded. Chandler jerked with indignation when the picture of Monica flashed onscreen.
Megan crossed her arms and looked at Chandler sadly. "I guess that takes care of the 'so what brings you down here' question I was working up the balls to ask."
"That's -- it's -- she -- how the hell do they know?" Chandler screeched, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"Who'd you tell?"
"My agent, I kinda had to. That's it, though." Chandler leaned against the fireplace and gestured at the screen helplessly. "Dammit, Jacob... I should have known he'd pull some shit like this. Everything's about the spin with him."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, look what he's done! A half-hour ago, I was an author missing his deadline. Now I'm the angelic victim of a book-destroying, child-hating shrew."
"The *missing* angelic victim of a book-destroying, child-hating shrew," Megan pointed out. "I bet your wife is worried sick."
"Oh, god."
"You want to call her? You can use my phone."
"No, I... I really, really don't want to talk to her. Still."
"Look, at least call one of your friends," Megan insisted gently. "Just let them know you're okay. You're not mad at your friends, are you? And they can tell your wife you're all right."
She thrust the cellphone at Chandler, and he regarded it for a moment, mentally sorting through his friends for the one least likely to be home. He took it from Megan's hand and dialed.
The phone rang, and the machine picked up.
"Hi! You've reached Phoebe Buffay. Don't hang up, that pisses me off. And you don't want to piss me off."
Beep. "Hey, Pheebs, it's Chandler. I was hoping you could pass on a message..."
Noise on the line, then Phoebe picking up. "Chandler! Chandler, where the hell are you? We've been looking for you all day! We were worried sick!"
"I'm okay, all right? I don't want to say where I am."
"Look, Chandler. Monica is *so* sorry about Brian. She feels totally stupid, she never meant to hurt you..."
"Brian? Who the hell is Brian?"
"Brian's the name of the guy you saw her kissing."
"Monica kissed some guy named Brian?"
Horrified silence on Phoebe's end of the line.
"What the hell, Pheebs? Monica's *cheating* on me?"
"No, no, no! Look, Chandler, it was nothing, that's the whole point, I..."
"I have to go," Chandler snapped, pressing the "end" button viciously.
He looked over at Megan, who was wincing, and tossed the phone at her. "Well, thanks for making me do *that*. I feel so much better *now*!"
The phone began to ring. Megan held it up and looked at Chandler questioningly.
"Turn it off, okay? That's Phoebe calling back, she must have Caller ID or something. I can't... I can't deal with this right now."
Megan turned off the cellphone, set it on the coffee table, and walked quietly back into the kitchen.
***
Monica listened to the phone ring, staring down at the pad where she'd scribbed the number Phoebe had called with.
"Hi, you've reached Megan Mitchell. I can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep."
She must have dialed the number wrong. She hung up, tried again.
"Hi, you've reached Megan Mitchell..."
Monica hung up violently. Who the *hell* was 'Megan Mitchell', and why was Chandler with her?
She sounded young.
Young and pretty.
Monica paced around the apartment, periodically calling the number back, hanging up at the first word spoken by the voice she was quickly coming to detest. At eleven, she turned the news back on.
"The hunt for author Chandler Bing continues, with supposed sightings popping up all across America."
A heavyset man, flanked by two friends, laughed into the camera. "Hell, yeah, I saw Chandler Bing. Saw him in a bar downtown. Asked me if I knew a good divorce lawyer." He and his friends burst into hysterical laughter.
Monica put her head in her hands and sobbed.