Chapter 4: Closest He Had to a Wife

Courteney entered Central Perk. Immediately, her eyes went to the iconic orange couch… and the person sitting on it.

The man had his back to her, but from the shape of the head alone, she knew who it was, and her heart hammered in her chest.

She smiled.

"Hi, honey…."

The gentleman rose, and turned his head.

Courteney lost her breath.

There he was, looking healthy and whole and alive and so, so good. Here was the man as she had known him when they had acted opposite each other as onscreen spouses, in their 20s and 30s. Matthew's entire expression brightened, even beyond the dimpled smile he was known for.

"Hey…..! You made it!"

Beaming, Courteney ran into his arms. Matthew caught her and lifted her off her feet as they spun in each other's embrace. Cheek to cheek, Courteney felt the pinprick of tears at her eyes, and she nuzzled her face against his.

"Sssh…." Matthew hushed her, strumming his hands, always steady and sure, up and down her back. "CC….." A whimper escaped her and she burrowed her face into his firm chest. "Court – babe…. It's all right…."

She nuzzled against him again. Enveloped herself in his warmth. "Why did you have to go….?" she murmured.

"I didn't want to. Believe me, I didn't," Matthew murmured, rocking her. "The hardest part of it is honestly not being with you, or Jenny, or the others." When she lifted her head to peer up at him, he grinned down at her in that smoldering, Chandler way. "But, Courteney, you can't imagine how peaceful it is. How… happy… this place…" His voice trailed off. Courteney wanted to ask him where he was, what he meant by 'this place,' but the tears cut off her air. Face easing, Matthew tenderly caressed Courteney's cheek and she leaned into his touch, her lashes fluttering. She felt him brush a tear from just beneath her eye and she shuddered happily.

"I'm scared of not being with you," she confessed. "I think about…. what you must have been going through… when you…" She started to weep.

"Ssssh…. Sssh….." Matthew stroked her face with his thumbs, tilting her head back so she could look up into his handsome face. "Don't worry about that. Just think about what you need to do. And that is keep this family – our family – together."

Courteney knew instantly what he meant. Their family: Jenny. Lisa. The boys. Courteney felt a twinge lance through her at how her mind now conjured only two boys instead of all three. She swallowed hard.

"I don't think I can do it."

"If anyone can, it's you, my love."

"Not that," she whispered softly. "It isn't that…." She gazed at him heartbreakingly. "I don't think I can say goodbye to you. Cause then, it's…. permanent." It was worse than that: after goodbyes, all that was left was the remainder of her life. Of waiting. For whatever was after this existence. She was a handful of months shy of her 60th birthday, which meant that she had a good thirty years left, perhaps, maybe 35 if she was really fortunate.

"Do you miss me as much as I miss….?" Suddenly, she felt Matthew's lips on hers, and she melted into his kiss. When they sensuously broke apart, Courteney stayed frozen for a moment, eyes drooped shut and her lips remained puckered eagerly.

She finally let her lashes flutter open to see his smirk. "Does that answer your question?"

She nodded.

"Of course I miss you – all of you. But time passes differently here." He bit his lip. "My one sadness is that this is going to be so much harder for you than it is for me."

Courteney flung her arms around Matthew's neck. It was uncertain how long the onscreen lovers stood there, holding each other in the apparition of an empty coffeehouse set.

"…. I have to go now, sweetheart."

"What….?" Courteney warbled, stricken. "No…. I want to stay with you…."

"It's not your time yet, baby. Do what you have to do. Take care of Coco and have a good rest of your life." He cradled her face in his palms, holding her eyes intensely. "No matter where I go…. You will always be my wife, when I think of you…."

The intensity of his promise surprised her, and yet at the same time, a sort of peaceful acceptance washed over Courteney, as the tears flooded her anew. "And you will always be in my heart!"

Matthew bent and kissed her goodbye, and Courteney held it for as long as she could. She felt her TV husband release her, and she watched as he turned away, heading off into some nebulous white space beyond.

Matthew glanced back once and smiled at her. "We're a team, remember? And our team always wins."

Courteney woke up with tears on her pillow, yet also with an emotional smile on her face. The grin and lingering sensation of peace dimmed as she sat up to face the morning.

Face the task at hand.

It was one week later. A full week had gone by without her Matty in the world. It was November 4th, 2023. Today, she and the rest of her Friends would have to perform the wrenching task of burying him. Of saying goodbye.

Lethargically, she rose from the bed, tightening her bathrobe around herself. She scrolled through her phone, reading the messages her partner, Johnny, had left her. He wished her luck today, sending his support and his love. Coco also had texted healing vibes. Courteney's daughter had offered to come home again for the weekend, but Courteney had told her to stay at school and focus on her studies. Showering, Courteney finally willed herself to pull on the little black dress of mourning she had set out on a chair the night before.

Lisa had offered to pick her up and drive her to the service. Jenny would also be carpooling with them on the way. Schwimmer had assured the girls that he and Matt would meet them there.

The funeral service was held at the cemetery in Forest Lawn, a quiet little suburb in Los Angeles.

The plots were a popular final resting place for various celebrities. It was a bright and sunny, fall day, just before Daylight Savings, the skies a brilliant blue. The gloriousness of it seemed to mock Courteney; only the seasonal chill served as an appropriate offset for the beauty that Courteney felt the world shouldn't display, that she shouldn't feel.

A tent had been erected over the niche where Matty's ashes were to be laid to rest. It seemed like a sensible ambience to Courteney – protection from the sun and all – until David Schwimmer mentioned to her in a low voice that the tent had actually been erected to keep paparazzi stationed on the roofs of the nearby building from getting decent shots. A reception would be held afterward in the vestibule of the church just behind them, which was a short walk from the tent.

Courteney found herself going through the service in a kind of haze. All of Matthew's sisters spoke. His one brother. His stepfather, Keith Morrison, offered a few words in that signature baritone that carried such gravitas on Dateline broadcasts.

Courteney thought she could get through it until she heard the strains of a minor chord progression. By the key alone, she didn't realize what was happening until the guest singer sang the first few notes:

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way…."

A lowing, bitter sob, just a tick below a wail, emanated from Courteney's immediate left, and she turned to watch Jennifer almost bend in half, keening. The visceral reaction of her best girlfriend was all the permission structure Courteney needed to break down herself and slump against her. Lisa was quick to follow. Through the film of moisture, Courteney observed how rivulets were pouring like a leaky faucet down both of Matt LeBlanc's cheeks. It made her think back to the final taping of Friends nearly two decades before. Matt had also been a wreck that cold January night, and when someone as stoic as Matt LeBlanc cracked…. well, good luck trying to keep it together.

The service ended, and the five surviving cast members stepped out into the sunshine. They walked in some halfway land between a clump and a line, standing almost shoulder to shoulder, leaning on each other as they headed for the wake hall. From somewhere above, Courteney could hear the frantic clicks of shutter cameras, but she didn't dare to lift her head. She refused to give the paps, as they were colloquially known, a clear shot at her broken and devastated face.

Matt was stiff as he stood in the reception hall, nursing a plastic cup of water; the fact that his physique gave the appearance that someone had stuffed an Army tank into a human body didn't help to provide any release of tension.

Courteney found Schwimmer quickly; without a word, her television brother wrapped her in his arms. Ever since they had first been cast, Courteney had felt a sibling-like affection for David that had only grown naturally as the show went on. She couldn't recall having ever viewed him any differently – certainly, she hadn't ever seen him in a romantic sense, which had only served to benefit their in-show dynamic well. With the Matthews (Matty and Matt), Courteney had been able to appreciate their looks, but David had never been what she would call her type. Though, apparently, he had been Jennifer's type – during the Reunion in 2021, they had both admitted to harboring mutual crushes on each other throughout mostly the first season.

From where she rested against David's chest, Courteney's eyes picked out Jen, speaking quietly with Lisa, one of Matthew's sisters, and Julia Roberts. The best friends eyes met briefly, and Jen nodded understandingly to her.

They had spoken very little since Sunday morning, when Jennifer had aired suspicions about the exact nature of Courteney and Matthew's relationship. Recalling it again, the insinuation still stung, and all the more so considering what Courteney knew now regarding her co-stars. Jennifer was a hypocrite at worst, and at best, full of it: an affair with Matty? A fling with a friend and colleague that would have broken a contractual obligation? Ridiculous! Even with the Monica and Chandler storyline, there was one thing that Courteney would never have been tempted to be, and that was a cheater. She had too strong a sense of ethics, regardless of her feelings surrounding Matthew.

Memories of Matthew flooding her mind, Courteney began to bawl again, and she clung to David.

"Go ahead, sis…. Let it out…."

"He was better! He had beaten it! And then he was…. Noooooo….."

David shook his head. "There was nothing you could have done…"

"I would have done anything!" Courteney suddenly blurted vehemently, glancing up at him, nearly crazed. "I would have laid down my life for his!"

David searched her face, clearly at a loss for how to respond to such an outburst of grief. Stroking her hair, he pressed a kiss to Courteney's temple and she slumped out of his arms. Her TV brother wandered off to grab a drink.

Scanning the mourners, Courteney was caught off-guard to find a woman staring at her from across the hall. Gazes locking, the woman started over to her.

She was dressed with elegant dignity, her aged features holding an almost divine quality. Even in her mid-seventies, Suzanne Perry was a strikingly attractive woman.

Courteney smiled wetly, weakly. "Suzanne…." Despite hardly knowing each other – Courteney could recall only meeting Matthew's mother a handful of times previously – the two women embraced warmly.

For a moment, there was silence. Then:

"My boy always spoke so highly of you. To hear him tell it, he worshipped the ground you walked on. 'Where she walks, beauty is always there' – I believe that's what he said to me once."

Courteney grinned sadly, a bashful blush coloring her cheeks. "From his book, it would seem he could have just as easily applied those words to you."

Suzanne smiled back kindly. Courteney found it hard to believe that this woman was a good 15, 16 years older than her. Suzanne had been 21 when she'd had Matty – nearly half the age that Courteney had been when she'd finally had her daughter.

Courteney took a deep breath. "Suzanne…" she began. "You have to know that caring for Matty was more than just part of a…. job for me. It wasn't just for the cameras. Even though our romance was just for a story, I loved…." Abruptly, she halted herself, finding the past tense tasted like ash in her mouth. "I love your son very much."

It heartened Courteney to see how Suzanne's face crinkled in warm understanding. "I know… but sometimes… it's OK to have reality and fiction blur, even in our business. It's how we can arrive closer at truth." Taking Courteney's hands in hers, Suzanne lifted their clasped palms between them. "My dear…. You made my boy so happy, because job or not, you showed him what life could be like. A happy one, especially when in a committed marriage. I mean…. you were the closest he had to a wife!"

Courteney blinked and nearly jerked, startled. A moment from her dream the night before came roaring back into her conscience. "What? What did you say?"

"I said you were the closest my Matty ever had to a wife."

Courteney pursed her lips thoughtfully. In a way, Suzanne wasn't wrong: the comment brought to mind a news story she had read some years back featuring Kelly Bishop, of Gilmore Girls and A Chorus Line fame. Gilmore Girls had tried to compete with Friends when the former premiered in the early 2000s, but by that time, Friends had been well established in its dominance. Kelly Bishop had been married to Edward Hermann on Gilmore Girls, and when Hermann had died in late 2014, nearly a decade ago now, Kelly had spoken of going to visit him in the hospital. In fact, Edward's real-life spouse had apparently referred to Kelly as Ed's 'second wife.'

Another TV pairing came to mind: that of Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni on Law and Order: SVU, a show that was about to celebrate 25 years on the air. Though they both were married to other partners in real life, Mariska too had come to be viewed as Christopher's 'second wife' almost, given what close friends the pair were off-set.

…. Was she, Courteney Cox, in a sense the wife of Matthew Perry? The wife he had never gotten to have in real life? Certainly, she had never been tied so closely to any of her other co-stars whom she'd appeared opposite as a love interest - not even on Cougar Town.

As she considered it, Courteney felt a bit of sunlight burning through the window of this reception hall, at the same instant that she felt a wellspring of peace and…. acceptance wash over her. Yes. Suzanne had spoken true. For the rest of her days, Courteney would be associated most closely with a man who wasn't her partner. A man she had only been married to on the screen, but had never given vows to when the cameras were off. She found herself at peace with this knowledge.

After a moment, she smiled at the mother of her television husband, which she supposed made the former aide to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau her quasi-mother-in-law. "You know something, Suzanne? …..You're right…. And it was the honor of my life to be a wife to him."