They all called out a greeting as Monica moved towards the kitchen. She opened her bag and pulled out a largish bottle. "This is absolutely the last bottle of semi-decent champagne they had at the liquor store, so we're saving it for midnight."
"Well, we have a couple of hours, then." Phoebe gestured. "I made some tea if you'd like."
Monica saw that there was, indeed, a teapot on the stove. Which was odd, she'd never seen Phoebe drink tea before. Monica poured herself a cup and walked over to the living room. "Watcha playing?"
"Trivial Pursuit." Chandler picked up a piece. "Wanna play? We just started."
"No, I'll watch you guys." She took a sip of the tea, which was quite strong but very good. She sat on the couch between Ross and Chandler.
They played the game for over an hour, which mostly consisted of trying to come up with the most off-the-wall answers to the questions. Chandler was of course the best at this, but Phoebe held up surprisingly well. Ross's witticisms were a distant third, and Monica tried to help him out as best she could, although she wasn't exactly a comic genius either.
When the game ended with Ross the putative winner, Monica glanced up at the clock. "An hour to go. Wanna watch Dick Clark?"
"Of course!" Ross grabbed the remote and turned on the television. Chandler groaned audibly.
"Nineteen ninety-two." Monica shook her head. "This last year seemed to go by so fast."
"How'd you do on your resolutions?" Chandler asked.
Monica shrugged. "Not sure I really made any. How about you, get much writing done?"
"No, haven't had much time. Been working a lot."
Monica considered him for a moment. Chandler had been putting in a lot of overtime lately. It wasn't hard for her to guess why. "So, are you ever going to get a new roommate?"
"Naw. I like privacy."
Monica narrowed her eyes. "Which is why you're over here practically every night?"
"Only because you feed me."
"Uh huh. Tell me the real reason why you don't get a new roommate."
"Hey, look, it's Dick Clark again. Or at least, the robotic facsimile they made of him years ago."
"Answer my question, Chandler."
By this point everyone was looking at Chandler. He looked around, then grimaced. "Okay. The whole Kip thing was a disaster. And I don't just mean you, Mon. Even before your breakup, I dreaded coming home and finding him there. I'd rather work fifty-five hours a week then put up with that."
"Not all roommates are bad," Ross interjected. "I mean, you and I, we got along fine. And Monica and Phoebe are going great. You just got unlucky one time, that's all."
Monica nodded. "Plus, remember what you told me once about killing myself just to make ends meet. The same thing applies to you. I think you should get a new roommate. Just be more selective. You more-or-less picked Kip out of a hat. Be a little more formal, interview people like I did."
"Well..." Chandler looked uncomfortable. "I mean, I like how things are going. How can I make absolutely certain that whoever I pick won't mess things up?"
"Ooh! I know!" Phoebe jumped from the table and ran into her bedroom. She quickly emerged with a small book. "Give me your tea cup."
Chandler raised his eyebrows and handed over his cup. Phoebe peered into it, then opened the book and began leafing through it.
Ross frowned slightly. "You're, you're reading his tea leaves?"
"Uh huh," Phoebe said absently. "Linda from work taught me. She lent me this book."
"And, and it predicts the future?" Ross sounded slightly incredulous.
"Of course." Phoebe's finger moved down the page, stopped. She peered into the cup, then back at the page. "Okay... a cat, which indicates deviousness or companionship... and... a half-moon, which indicates fertility, above a triangle, which indicates land... so that means..." Phoebe looked up and beamed. "Your apartment is going to be turned into a farm."
"Oh? I'm going to grow crops in the living room? Thank goodness I've got that scarecrow set up, then."
Phoebe frowned and peered into the cup again. "Well, something about farms, anyway. And animals. Maybe your new roommate will be a farmer."
"Farmer, check. I'll just post a roommate wanted ad at the local Amish bar."
"Great! And Monica..." She lifted up another cup. "Let's see what your future holds."
Monica furrowed her brow. "Um, Phoebe..."
"Two intersecting circles. That means family. And the little arrow, that's a male symbol, so it must mean your father or brother. And... from the arrow... a line, which means that the arrow is the source of... hmm, three really tiny x's, which means, people... three people... ah!" Phoebe looked up triumphantly. "Ross is going to turn into three dwarves."
Ross looked very surprised. Chandler was laughing into his hand. Monica couldn't help smiling also. "Phoebe, I'm still holding my cup. Those are your tea leaves."
"Oh." Phoebe blushed slightly and closed the book. "Maybe we're better off not knowing the future."
"So, Phoebe," Ross said with a touch of amusement. "Why all this interest in the future?"
"Oh, oh nothing," Phoebe said quickly. "I just, you know, a new year and everything, they always say happy but they say that every year, and every year can't be a happy year, so it's best to, you know, try and make sure as much as you can. I mean, I wouldn't want to say Happy New Year if you were going to be dead by the end, I'd say, Starts Out Well But Ends Very Badly New Year instead."
The smile left Monica's lips. Phoebe was babbling a bit, which was somewhat unlike her. "Is something wrong?"
"What?" Phoebe blinked at her. "What's wrong? It's nothing, really."
"Phoebe." Ross leaned forward slightly, his gaze intense. "Are you afraid of the future?"
"Afraid?" Phoebe looked back at him with wide eyes. "Why, why would I be afraid?"
Ross studied her for a moment. "That's what I'd like to know. Haven't things gone well for you this past year?"
"Well? Yes, I guess, a little bit, I mean, I love Monica and you guys and we're all having such a wonderful time." Phoebe sounded far from happy, her voice wavering slightly. "I mean, what could go wrong? Besides everyone killing themselves, of course."
Monica frowned in puzzlement. Ross, however, nodded as if expecting that answer. "Or going to jail?"
"Yeah." Phoebe looked down. "Again."
Ross glanced at Monica and Chandler before once more focusing on Phoebe. "Are, are you afraid that, that things are going too well, that... that every time everything has seemed to be going well for you in the past, something bad happened like your stepfather getting arrested or your mother committing suicide?"
Phoebe's jaw began trembling. "The first guy I met in New York City, down at Port Authority, he was nice to me for a while and then he killed himself. And then I met Jimmy, but he was picked up for mugging and I never saw him again. George got taken to Bellevue. Henrietta decided to try and hitch to Florida, the last I saw of her was seeing her walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. And then I woke up one day and Hank was dead beside me, I never found out why. And-"
"And." Ross smoothly interrupted. "And you've known us for over a year, and you're afraid that one of us is going to die or move away?"
Phoebe was biting her lip in an apparent attempt to stop crying. "Good things don't happen to me."
"God, Phoebe." Monica put her tea cup firmly on the table. "We've done all sorts of good things with you, and you've been a good friend to all of us, too. Don't you dare think that we're going to abandon you. Like it or not, afraid of it or not, we're here to stay. So don't you start thinking for one moment that things are going to go bad."
"Oh?" Phoebe looked steadily at Monica. "Can you really, really say that no one will die? No one will move away? That nothing bad at all will happen?"
That brought Monica short. She didn't know how to answer that question.
Ross, however, seemed to have a notion. "Phoebe, you can live forever in fear about bad things that might happen. You're right, we can't give you any assurances. But I can tell you this. We'll help each other out. No matter what happens, good or bad, you can count on us to support you as much as possible."
Chandler nodded. "We all like you, Pheebs. We'll do everything we can to help prevent bad things from happening to you, and we'll help you survive if they do."
Phoebe didn't visibly react, just stared down at the table, still biting her lip. "Aren't you ever afraid of the future, Ross?"
"Of course I am," Ross said easily, a little to Monica's surprise. "I want to have children but wonder if that will ever happen. I wonder if I'm losing my wife."
Monica reached out, held on to his shoulder. Ross didn't acknowledge her touch, still focused on Phoebe. "But I don't let the fear paralyze me. I spend time here, with you guys, and everything seems all right."
Phoebe raised her head. "It is all right. Everything now is all right. But-"
"No, no 'but', Phoebe. Everything's been all right for you this past year. I mean, you had some rough spots, but you got over them, didn't you?"
"I, I guess."
"Then you will this year, too. I promise that."
Phoebe studied Ross for a few moments. Then she smiled slightly. "All right. Thank you." She looked around. "All of you."
Monica smiled back, then stood up and began collecting empty tea cups.
Chandler was looking up at her. "So, I'm afraid of getting another wretched roommate, Phoebe's afraid we're all going to die horribly, and Ross is afraid that he'll never see a Ross Junior. What is it about the future that scares you, Monica?"
By happenstance, Monica's teacup was on the top of the small stack she had created. She looked down at the tea leaves, wondering what Phoebe's book said about them. She shrugged. "Nothing. I mean, this last year was weird enough, with the whole Kip thing and Phoebe's broken leg and all that. I can't imagine the future being any more eventful."
"Can't you?" Ross raised an eyebrow. "That's a pretty mild year by most standards."
"Then..." Monica walked over to the kitchen and put the teacups in the sink. "I guess all I'm afraid of is that things will get weirder. I like normal."
"Oh?" Phoebe cocked her head. "Then why did you pick me as your roommate?"
Chandler piped up. "Yeah! I mean, you can't get much weirder than Phoebe." She nodded emphatically. "If you didn't like weird, she wouldn't be here. Neither would I, for that matter."
There was some truth to that, Monica decided. She'd allowed chaos to intrude on her ordered life. However, the chaos had been controlled, oxymoronic as that sounded. She felt she had a handle on Phoebe, and Chandler, and everyone and everything. No matter how weird they acted, she could always bring them to heel.
She wasn't about to share that with them, however. Smiling enigmatically, Monica took the champagne out of the refrigerator. "Okay, come get some glasses. I'm going to open this over the sink."
Chandler chuckled. "Oh, you wild woman you."
The four of them stood together in front of the television as the ball slowly fell. When it hit bottom and the numbers "1992" lit up, she shared a toast and a hug with everyone and felt fairly certain that the new year would indeed be happy.
(to be continued)