Act Three: The One With A River In Egypt

Scene One: The Build Up

Rachel stared balefully at the selection of sad sandwiches and already-wilted lettuce. An army may march on its stomach, but the good folks at Bloomingdale's evidently did not believe that their employees did. She inspected a pot of something calling itself pasta salad and put it back.

'Hey.'

She turned slightly, found another of the staff peering at the offerings with a look of resignation.

'Hi, Cindy.'

They shuffled along in the queue, adding the least unappealing items to their trays.

'Three days in a row - that's like a record for you.'

Rachel frowned. 'Huh?'

'Three days having lunch here; I mean, you always have lunch with that guy, uh, Chandler, right?' She smiled slightly, eyes suddenly brighter. 'He's funny.'

'He- I- Not always, I don't always have lunch with him, it's sometimes, just sometimes. We're friends. He lives across the hall from me. He's a, uh, y'know, he's a friend.'

Cindy's eyes were widened, round, looking at her; she said slowly: 'Okay.'

Rachel clutched her tray, paid for her meal, found a seat at one of the tables and made the appropriate noises of feigned interest during Cindy's monologue.

It was not, she repeated to herself, always lunch with Chandler. It was not every day, it was just ... most days. Her first day at Bloomingdale's, her nerves jangling with excitement and dry-mouthed fear, he had looked at her and given her one of his quiet, sincere, slightly lopsided smiles and offered to take her out to lunch - just so she'd have a friend, a familiar face, to talk to, rely on. On her first day, then the next day and then- And then sometimes after that she'd have lunch with Ross instead but after that it had been Chandler again, always, just her and Chandler, the two of them for nearly an hour each day. Something that was theirs, something that she never really talked to anyone else about; she wasn't sure anyone else even knew.

His much-hated job became a source of entertainment; he would always have a story for her: the saga of Larry from accounts and his ongoing war with Jeff from personnel; Jackie from system support and her campaign to win the heart of Adam from finance. It made her look at her own work in a different light, finding the humorous aspects, looking for the little things she could save up and tell him at their next lunch, the things that would make him laugh.

She missed it, she realised suddenly, spearing the leaves of her salad. She missed the easiness of those encounters, those minutes out of her day where everything else just became so much background noise. She missed the blue eyes dancing at her from across a table. She missed him.

After lunch, she half-dialled the number then stopped. So, she would call him and then what? She sat, the receiver in her hand, staring at nothing in particular.

They would be all right in the end, she reasoned. All it needed was a little time and everything would go back to normal.

ooOoo

The brightly coloured images flickered past in a blur of hyperactive animated energy; Chandler focused on them, losing himself in the detail and the unashamed inspired silliness of it. He barely looked around when the door behind him opened and then closed again; he glanced over, straightened when he saw her, turned back and lowered the sound on the television.

Rachel placed her purse carefully on the breakfast bar, smiled at him. 'Hi.'

'Hey. Hi. Monica let us come over to watch cartoons again,' he explained.

'Ah. Where's Joey?'

'Well, y'know, that porn isn't going to watch itself.'

She rolled her eyes. 'God, isn't there only so much porn you can watch?'

He shook his head, pitying. 'No. See, that's the beauty of porn - its variety is infinite.'

'I just don't get it.' She took a glass from the cabinet, filled it at the sink, took a few small sips. 'I mean, isn't it just the same thing over and over? And the pizza gets delivered and never eaten, the washing machine is broken and never gets fixed.'

'Hey, the washing machine does so get fixed, getting to the spin cycle is frequently a very important component of the plot.'

Her eyebrows went up. 'They have plots?'

'Did you not see the heartrending tale of one man's quest for love and acceptance that was Forrest Humps?'

They smiled at each other. She drank her water, rinsed out the glass.

'Still needed a break from it though, huh?'

'Oh yeah, all that writhing and moaning kinda gets repetitive.'

Rachel rolled her eyes again, crossed the floor and hovered uncertainly at the end of the sofa.

'You want to watch cartoons with me? I think this is the one where Wile E. Coyote finally gets the better of Roadrunner.'

Her eyes moved to the television, back to him; Wile E. Coyote was dragged to the bottom of the Grand Canyon attached to an anvil.

'You think?'

He smiled. 'I can live in hope.'

She laughed lightly. Her eyes wandered around the room, not staying on him longer than was necessary. 'Have you heard from Ross?'

A moment before he answered. 'No.' Flat.

'You know, I can't believe he flew all the way to London. That's-that's... That's crazy.'

'Uh-huh.'

Wile E. launched himself out of a giant catapult and straight into an acre's worth of cacti. Needles sticking into him everywhere. Chandler didn't laugh.

'And now she's over here...'

'Yeah.'

He heard her sigh. The unfortunate coyote blew himself up and Chandler thought wearily, bitterly, that the creature deserved to eat just once.

'Hey.' Rachel again, soft. He looked at her. She still stood at the end of the couch, looking down at him, the long blonde wisps framing her face. 'Are we having lunch tomorrow or are you going to blow me off again?'

'I haven't-' He caught his breath. 'I've just been really busy. Y'know when you don't actually do what you're paid to do all year and then they want those figures you've had twelve months to do next week...' She was still smiling at him, still soft and a little sad. He swallowed, hard. He reached across for her hand and she took his; her curled fingers felt warm and delicate. 'I wasn't blowing you off, Rach, I'd never do that.'

'Okay.'

She still held his hand; but when the door opened and Monica entered she let go, jerking away as though she'd been burned.

'Maybe Wile E. will have better luck next time,' she said.

'Yeah, maybe.'

She went into her bedroom. He declined Monica's offer of cookies, suddenly feeling his stomach contract.

He lingered in the hall between apartments, caught in the place that wasn't hers and wasn't his, somewhere neither could claim ownership, somewhere as neutral as their hopelessly entangled lives would allow. The hallway, he decided, was Switzerland. He'd have to get it a cuckoo-clock.

He pushed open the door to number twenty; dark inside, just the unsteady light from the television illumining the place, the sound muted. Joey had fallen asleep in his Barcalounger, the remote still in his hand. Chandler stood for a moment, watching the soundless images. The girl on screen was pretty, very pretty, more natural-looking than most of her colleagues. Dark blonde hair, regular features that became mesmerising under the force of a devastating smile, clear green-blue eyes.

He looked away, looked back.

The actress' eyes had drifted closed, heavy and smoky with ecstasy, her head titled back, lips parted and quivering.

Chandler took the remote gently from Joey's unresisting hand, flicked the switch. All dark. He pressed the on button again and was greeted with the scrambled fuzz of white noise. He put the remote back between Joey's fingers and went into the room that had been hers.