Chapter 4: Détente
Chandler had borrowed Phoebe's grandmother's cab to make the drive to the ophthalmology practice. He was on his way back to the Villages when he got a text from Rachel, supplying Michelle's home address:
I've taken over the afternoon shift. Joey headed out. Mon and I are sitting on the couch, watching trashy TV and eating ice cream. Good luck.
Chandler smiled softly to himself. You too, he typed back. He could almost imagine the scene: Monica, crying into her vanilla. When she had been single and dating, vanilla ice cream and movies had been her go-to comfort place after a break-up.
He felt a twinge of pain on her behalf. This was more than just a break up. This was the death of a spouse. Chandler wondered – even doubted - if ice cream and a replay of Old Yeller would be enough to get his best friend through this, the absolute worst of emotional troughs.
Grandma Buffay's cab luckily had a GPS monitor mounted on the dash. He wondered how often, if at all, Phoebe actually used it. Chandler pulled over to the side of the road and spent a few minutes fiddling with it; he typed in Michelle's address when he finally got it to work.
"Keep heading straight for ten…. miles…." The female voice chirped.
Chandler smirked. "God, if you were a real woman, I'd date you…." he muttered. Though he had to concede: no one had a voice quite as melodious and balming on his soul as Monica's.
As he drove along, he turned on the radio and found himself pausing over a sweeping ballad that seemed to remind him of the situation in which he now found himself in regards to his best friend:
"If I loved you…. Time and again, I would try to say…. All I'd want you to know… If I loved you, words wouldn't come in an easy way…. Round in circles I'd go! Longing to tell you, but afraid and shy…. I'd let my golden chances pass me by! Soon, you'd leave me – off you would go in the mist of day, never, never to know…. how I loved you… if I loved you…"
The GPS actually guided him to Westchester County, not far from where Monica and Richard had first married. Chandler pulled up to the curb and stared out at the little clapboard house. He slumped back in the plush of the driver's seat for a moment, to gather his thoughts.
Playing back the confrontation in Monica and Richard's bedroom from the other morning, he had figured that seeking out Tim first would have been to get the harsher judge out of the way. Now, he wasn't so sure – Michelle had threatened to sick a SWAT team of cops on him. From her point of view, he could have been anybody standing strangely in her stepmother and dead father's bedroom: a burglar. Worse, a rapist. Perhaps she hadn't recognized him from the funeral, or the wedding the previous year, though to Chandler's mind, that seemed a bit far-fetched.
He opened the door to the cab and climbed out. Across the way, at his back, he heard another door opening almost simultaneously.
A woman's voice called out to him:
"Excuse me, sir? Can I help you? We didn't call a cab, but if you're lost, I can point you to…." Michelle's voice trailed off as Chandler turned around. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she turned up her nose a little, even as she drifted closer.
"So, my stepmother is having an affair with a cab driver," she sniffed prissily.
Chandler rounded the front of the cab slowly. "She isn't. And I'm not." He wrestled to keep the stammer out of his voice. "I got your address from Rachel. Rachel Green? The cab I just borrowed from another friend. Michelle… I – I came to apologize…"
Michelle appraised him up and down leerily. After a long moment, she beckoned Chandler to follow her.
Chandler decided to count himself lucky that she even invited him in, much less seemed willing to hear him out.
"So, what do you do?" Michelle asked. She wasn't doing a good job of weaning the condescending tone out of her voice.
"Data analyst," Chandler scratched at the back of his neck. "I work for WENUS analytics."
Michelle let out a bark of a laugh, tossing her hands in the air. "Oh, well, if that name isn't just perfect!" she sniped sarcastically.
Chandler frowned hard. "Look, Michelle, this is a courtesy call. Please believe me when I say that nothing untoward happened between your stepmother and me the other night."
Turning back to him, Michelle folded her arms around herself in a kind of self-hug, glancing down at the hardwood floor. In the near distance, Chandler could hear the shrieks of kids playing, coming from the direction of the backyard. Discerning his look, Michelle gave a wave of her hand.
"The kids are off from school today. My husband is working."
Chandler nodded. There was a pause. Michelle was still staring down at the floor.
"She's more than just my stepmother, you know…." she mumbled. "We were friends in school."
"Lincoln High," Chandler supplied.
Michelle smirked. "I know. Crazy, right?"
Chandler rubbed his pursed lips together. "It, uh…. must have been quite a surprise. When she got together with your dad." He had never been the best conversationalist – honestly, he shouldn't be this verbose when he was this nervous. It was a wonder he hadn't made an awkward, off-color joke yet.
Michelle chuckled wryly. "Oh, yeah… But…. then I saw how happy she and my dad made each other, and… I came to accept it." She smiled. "The news about the baby made things even easier."
Chandler breathed in deeply. "Michelle…. I don't know what you think you saw, but nothing happened. I swear. Monica asked me to stay the night; I was ready to sleep on the couch before she asked me to stay with her."
Michelle lifted an eyebrow. "You're not making a play for her?"
"No," Chandler responded. At least not yet, he added, unspoken.
Michelle studied him. "I've heard about you. Monica has spoken nothing but highly of you. I have a feeling I know what my father thought, but whatever those were, he kept them to himself."
"And how do you think your father viewed me?" Chandler challenged.
"That he was threatened by you."
Silence. Chandler stared. "Wh-what?... Like he actually thought I would…?"
Michelle shrugged. "All I know is that he sometimes wondered, if you and his wife were at least once a thing."
"We weren't. Haven't. Aren't," Chandler spluttered. He didn't know whether to feel squeamish or smug. More than anything else, he was shocked. Richard? Threatened by him? He had never had any inkling. He breathed deeply. "Monica and I are just friends. We've been best friends for years."
Michelle nodded. "I know. I'm just shocked neither of you at any point tried for anything more." She sounded strangely bitter. "Handsome guy like you, I'm sure it's always been easy for you. Girls must just eat out of your hand."
"Easy?" Chandler chuckled. "That's not how I'd describe it…." He sighed. "I am just here to help your stepmother – as a friend. We all are, my friend group and me, including your…. I guess Ross is your step-uncle?"
Michelle snorted. "Actually, that was even weirder than having my classmate as a stepmother." She was suddenly blinking back tears.
"Michelle….?"
"Are you and Monica going to stay just friends?"
Chandler squirmed. "I want to be her friend for as long as she'll have me in her life… As for anything else…" he hesitated. He didn't know whether he could trust Michelle with the same information as he had with Rachel, and Rachel had only found out about his true feelings by accident. If he kept tiptoeing around this much longer, Michelle would ask for his intentions straight-out, even though there was nothing going on. And suppose he did show his hand. Wouldn't that just confirm what Michelle had already suspected?
He made his decision. "As for anything else, I don't know. But I don't think Monica would move on so quickly. Given the state she's in at the moment, I doubt it, rather."
"Well, at least you're patient and have some class. I'll give you that," Michelle harrumphed. She gave him a cursory once-over. "Maybe not now, but someday, I'd bet she'd go for a guy like you. The fact that you're best friends, even better." The tears were streaming down her face fast now. "But, hear me, and mark me: if you hurt her, or my baby brother, I'll… I'll…."
Chandler shook his head. "I won't." Something about the emotion in Michelle's face, in her voice, made it seem that she was more than just a stepdaughter worried about her deceased parent's widow. "But if you and I are going to be honest with each other about what's best for Monica, first I think we ought to be honest with ourselves." He shrugged. "Richard may have been threatened by me, as you say, but I never thought I would now feel threatened by you."
He eyed her meaningfully. Eyes popping, Michelle staggered back a bit, as if she had been struck.
"I…. I don't know what you're talking about."
Chandler's expression eased into something gentle. "I think you do." He lifted his hands in a placating gesture. "Now, if I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong, or you can tell me it to my face, but…"
"You're not wrong…."
Michelle wouldn't look at him. Still hugging herself, head bowed, her shoulders began to visibly shake as she started to cry.
Chandler softened. Wordlessly, he approached and tentatively wrapped Michelle in a hug. He gave her plenty of room to push him away or move out of the embrace, if she wanted to, so he was startled by how fiercely she clutched at him, weeping into his shirt.
"It's OK…." Chandler soothed.
Michelle numbly shook her head against his chest. "No, it's not…. In love with my own stepmother…"
"Let me be the first to tell you that you have excellent taste…" Michelle warbled out a wet laugh at his comment. "We can't help who we fall in love with." A pause. "Did your dad know….?"
Michelle shook her head rapidly. "He would never have…."
"Monica would. Accept you."
Michelle snorted bitterly. "Not if she heard how I'm lusting after her while she's carrying my sibling… I'm a freak!"
"Hey, you're preaching to the king of freaks. Do you know how many times people have mistaken me as being gay? Also, my mom writes smutty erotica and my dad is currently living his best life as a woman. Frankly, I'm stunned at how I didn't turn out gay!"
Michelle sniffled and stepped back, wiping at her eyes. "Well…. if I had to lose her to anyone…. I suppose you're not so bad." She smiled at him weakly.
Chandler nodded. "We both lost out to your father. I'd say you can't get hurt any worse." He pursed his lips. "For what it's worth, whatever I may have felt about him… your father was a good man. He treated Monica well, and I've only ever wanted what was best for her. What made her happy."
"Even if that wasn't with you?" Michelle quibbled.
Chandler hesitated before nodding slowly. Michelle smirked. "I should have known you were the noble type." She wrung her hands. "I'm sorry that my first impression of you was otherwise."
Chandler grinned easily. "Apology accepted." Waving lamely, he turned to head back up the foyer.
"You're going to her, aren't you?"
Chandler froze. "No, actually; Phoebe's on the night shift tonight."
He thought he heard Michelle exhale a whoosh of relief. "Well…. if you're ever alone with her in that big house at night…. Make sure you conduct yourself like a gentleman. And…. try to be patient?" At his glancing back, Chandler saw how she was biting her lip. "Personally, if she never moved on with someone like you, she'd be an idiot, and I'm queer as hell!"
Chandler nodded. "Rest assured: patience, I have."
He headed out the door.
Chandler had a difficult time focusing on the road as he left Westchester County, his mind spinning. It was a welcome relief when his phone rang.
"Pheebs?"
"Hey, Chandler, I need a favor."
He chuckled dryly. "Well, considering I'm riding around in your taxi, I knew you wouldn't wait long before having me make a return on your investment!"
"I have a client who's running late. Could you head for the mansion and cover the night shift of Monica in my place?"
His heart leapt. "Sure thing, Pheebs. But what about your cab?"
"I'll take the bus back. Or have Ross come pick me up in the Porsche. Maybe he'll even let me drive it!"
Chandler cringed. "If he won't let Rachel drive it, he definitely won't let you, hon. No offense."
"None taken. Just make sure you bring my cab back in the morning."
"You got it. Bye, kiddo." He clicked off his mobile.
It was true dusk by the time he pulled up to the Burke mansion on Long Island. As Chandler climbed out, Rachel stole out the door onto the front stoop.
She frowned bemusedly. "You're not Phoebe…"
"She let me borrow her cab so I could put out the fires with the Burke kids." He jerked his head towards the door. "How is she?"
"Drained. She's asleep on the couch."
"Should I try to carry her up to bed?"
"I wouldn't risk it." Rachel studied him. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Chandler frowned in bemusement. He fished the keys to the cab out of his pocket. "You need a ride? Pheebs said she'll need the cab back in the morning anyway."
"Ross is picking me up," Rachel explained. "I'll just wait out here for him."
Chandler pressed the cab keys into her palm anyway. "Wait in the car, until he pulls up. Gated community like this, there might be characters lurking about. Best to be safe, you know?"
Rachel nodded, hugging him. Drawing back, she smiled. "Have a good night." She smirked in a teasing manner; Chandler swatted her.
He quietly entered the house, padding into the main living room. The couch was a wrap-around, facing a plasma flatscreen TV. Curled up on the cushions and with a throw blanket over her, Monica shifted; when she did, the curve to her swollen belly was revealed prominently.
"Who's there?... Richard….?" She sounded half-awake, perhaps still dreaming.
"It's me, Mon," Chandler hissed, scooting into a seat at her side.
"Chandler….?" A content smile came over her face, even as her eyes remained closed.
"Shhh….." Chandler gingerly lifted her head into his lap. "Go to sleep…." He spent some time stroking her hair until he heard the heavy breathing that indicated she was in deep slumber.
Leaning back into the soft upholstery, it was not very long before Chandler was asleep himself.