Rachel raced back to Central Perk. She needed to tell someone, but when she arrived to find the place empty - empty of all her friends anyway - she realised that was impossible. How could she? If she told Monica what she'd done, Monica would get mad at her. Monica had been against her telling Ross she was still in love with him. That hadn't come to anything. But if Emily got paranoid again, they would hardly be able to blame her.
Emily was weird. Really weird. Rachel stopped to think about what she had seen. She remembered Emily greeting her at the door. It seemed, looking back, that there was nothing behind her eyes. She remembered what Monica had said. They had had a family lunch, the first family lunch since Emily had returned. She had been a success, but when Monica had tried to talk to her, she had found it difficult. Emily had had nothing to say about herself.
'All she was doing was reflecting back what I was saying. Mum and Dad loved it when she did it to them. They already think she's the model daughter in law. They were never like this about Carol'
'She's just faking an interest?' Rachel had asked. Monica frowned.
'It was as though she was doing it because she was told that a nice girl always puts other people first.' Rachel had sniped to herself at the time that Emily wasn't a nice girl so that had to be wrong. Now she wondered. Do nice girls agree to threesomes when their husbands suggest it?
But as for herself, Rachel realised, she'd really made a fool of herself. If Ross was angry with her before, it would be nothing like what he'd be like now. He'd tell Monica and Monica would tell Phoebe and... They'd all know what she did and they'd feel sorry for her. Or angry at her.
Joey came in and sat by her.
'Hey.'
'Hey.' She wished she could tell someone.
'What's the matter?' he asked. 'Same thing as before?'
'Oh Joey,' Rachel said unhappily, 'It's even worse.' She knew he was the wrong person to tell. If he knew that Emily was volunteering for a threesome then he might go over there to see if he could get luck. But she didn't care. Joey at least seemed willing to listen. He was the only one who had called after the dinner. Well Monica had called, but she hadn't felt like taking the call so she had let the answermachine pick up.
'Tell me what happened.'
'Well I went over there, just now.'
'To apologise?'
'Well not really,' Rachel said reluctantly, 'I thought I could provoke Emily and make her show her true colours by kissing Ross in front of her.'
'Whoah!' Joey said, 'You kissed Ross.'
'Well don't tell the whole world,' Rachel said, feeling as though everyone was looking at her.
'Sorry, but I mean, you kissed Ross? He's married you know.'
'Yes I know, so I'm reminded, all the time.'
'So what happened?' Joey asked, awed. 'You know I can't believe you did that.'
'I can't believe I did that either,' Rachel said miserably. 'I've wrecked everything.'
'Oh my God, what's happened? Did she go mad?' Rachel stared at him.
'Well you could say that?' Joey's eyes widened.
'Has she done something to Ross?'
'Only given him the shock of his life,' Rachel said. She had never seen him look so shocked.
'What?'
'She walked in on us - well she was supposed to, that's the way I set it up.'
'And?' Joey said, leaning forward.
'She told Ross that she could go away again if he was busy or he could take us both, if he wanted.'
'What?' Joey exclaimed, making heads turn. 'Oh come on Rachel you're making this up. Emily did not say that.'
'She did.'
'No way.'
'She did. This is too weird, I'm not making it up,' Rachel said.
'You are serious aren't you?' Joey said after studying her face for a while.
'I think she's mad,' Rachel said. 'Ross has married a madwoman. She's loony tunes, Joey.'
'What are we going to do about it?' Joey asked.
'Well he knows she crazy now, he was there,' Rachel said. 'We don't have to expose her.' Suddenly she felt despondent. She didn't want Ross to have problems with his marriage - not these kind of problems. In a way it was a lot worse than the thing with Carol because Emily didn't want to leave him so if they were to split, he would have to do the leaving, but what would that say about him? People would accuse him of abandoning her at the first sign of illness. That would be a despicable thing to do, and she didn't want Ross to do it.
'I was actually thinking of you,' Joey said.
'Me?'
'Well there's going to be a lot of trouble over this, you know you going over there and kissing Ross. And if Emily acts like the antichrist not many people are going to blame her. He doesn't need another busted marriage and even if Monica is your best friend, she's not going to be happy with what you did.' Rachel wasn't happy with what she did either but she couldn't undo it now.
'I know,' Rachel said. 'What am I going to do.' She started crying. She had been blaming Emily for breaking up the group - what if it was Rachel who broke them up? Joey took her hand.
'Whatever happens, I'm still your friend.'
'Oh Joey, why are you being so nice to me?'
'Rachel you're my friend. Friends help each other when they're sad, and maybe you need a friend the most when you've done something you shouldn't have done.' Rachel took her hand out of Joey's and dried her eyes.
'I'd better go.'
'Why?'
'I should keep out of everyone's way until they stop being mad at me.'
'I'll come with you,' Joey said.
'I don't know where I'm going,' Rachel said.
'Dinner?'
'With you?'
'Why not with me?'
'You're just being nice.'
'I like you Rachel,' Joey said seriously, and something about the way he said it made her look again.
'You mean that?'
'Yeah, I mean that.'