Chapter 9: Obviously Struggling

The text pinged into the Friends group chat with little more than a tinkle of chimes, yet the words in the text bubble, had they been spoken, would have blared like a siren.

Criminal Investigation, Matt's text read. A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION!

It was a warm morning in mid-May, just before the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Working at her laptop, Courteney paused to study her co-star's communiqué further. Matt had linked his text to an article in this morning's The Los Angeles Times, headline reading: Matthew Perry's fatal ketamine use under criminal investigation by LAPD, DEA.

The moment she read those words, Courteney felt ice pool in her veins, even as she frowned and briefly tabbed over to Google the acronym meaning for DEA. Drug Enforcement Agency. Of course. Duh.

What was far less clear, however, was what this meant, aside from the obvious: the Los Angeles Police Department was preparing to go down a path of inquiry that could result in criminal convictions surrounding the death of their friend. A path that would lead them right into the dark heart of the LA underworld.

Courteney sighed and bent forward, tempted to stick her head between her knees, if only to keep the living room from spinning around her. She really hadn't needed this today. Coco was just home for the summer after a successful first year of college. Johnny was home here, with her, though he would be departing for his half of the year in London soon.

The group thread was blowing up. More pings from the others, mostly Lisa, peppering Matt with questions in only the way her scientific, analytical mind could ask them. Courteney's advice to her would be to just read the article, which she herself now did, while needing to swipe up and away the pop-ups indicating a new text coming in every couple of seconds: Matt was trying to engage with Lisa as best he could. At one point, Jennifer joined the fray, contributing something cryptic along with a string of emojis that, had they were been words, would have been bleeped off every television station in America. David was being conspicuously silent. Courteney thought back to Christmas, when her onscreen brother had mentioned that he'd asked the LAPD to keep him informed of any new developments in the case, the night the toxicology report had come back to reveal ketamine had been in Matthew's bloodstream. If David knew more than the rest of them did now, however, he wasn't saying.

Unfolding herself from where she'd been bent prone, Courteney attempted to refocus on her work. She really hadn't needed this today. Not when things were starting to…. well, she couldn't pinpoint definitively how things were going, except that recent developments in her career were pretty good under the circumstances: her brand line of home cleaning products, HomeCourt, was launching. And she'd just had a CBS Sunday Morning profile done about her only two days ago….

CBS Sunday Morning ~ May 19th, 2024

Courteney had known the question was coming. It had been not quite seven months since his death, and in any case, media appearances like this almost always negotiated a list of approved questions up-front. The questions her publicist brought before her typically had ones related to Friends take up a significant chunk, sometimes a majority, of what reporters wanted to ask her.

To his credit, Jonathan Vigliotti had waited until the end of the segment to address the elephant in the room:

"You've reflected on Instagram about… Matthew Perry, a member of your family…." She gave a soft hum in response. "What stands out most… in your life? What kind of impact did he have?"

Jonathan's smile was soft and compassionate, showing grace that was hardly typical of most members of the media. Courteney swallowed back a lump in her throat. "I think he's probably one of the funniest human beings in… the world. He…. you know, he's just so funny… he's – he is genuinely… a huge heart – obviously struggled. I'm so thankful I got to work so closely with him for so many years….. He visits me a lot," she confessed before she could second-guess herself. "If we believe in that."

If Jonathan had seemed surprised by this admission, he didn't show it. "I know you're a spiritual person, which makes that statement…. very interesting… So, you still feel his presence."

"Oh, yeah, I – I… you know, I talk to my mom, my dad, Matthew…" She ticked them off on her fingers. "I feel like there – there are a lot of people that are… I think that guide us. I do sense…" She betrayed a thoughtful smile. "Yeah, I – I sense Matthew's around, for sure…"

END OF INTERLUDE

Taping the segment had been one thing. Courteney had been proud of herself that she had only come dangerously close to crying once, and it hadn't even been surrounding the Matthew question. Watching the segment with her daughter and Johnny just this past Sunday had been another experience entirely – the intercut of the sequence had lifted a photo of her and Matthew together from about 4 years back. It had been a lunch she had Instagrammed, just the two of them, pre-pandemic days, not long after Matty had had a scary near-death experience that had resulted in a ruptured colon, a stint on an ECMO machine and a 2 percent chance to live. When the segment had ended, Courteney had quietly told her loved ones that she needed to be by herself for a moment, and had retreated alone to her and Johnny's room. For a time she had sat on the bed, quiet, remembering.

…. Was this how it was going to be, every day of her life, for the rest of her life? Courteney wouldn't call herself a washed-up has-been, not quite yet. She was a millionaire, had been since before she was 40, and though she looked damn good for just being on the cusp of 60, the offers were only coming in sporadically now. The next installment in the Scream franchise would be picking up steam soon – it was legacy media at this point, but still a job was a job, and the script was good.

For the rest of her days, in every interview, was she going to be asked about her onscreen husband? It wasn't as though she minded – on the contrary, Courteney would gladly talk about her lost love until she no longer had the ability to draw breath. What was leaving her pensive now was the knowledge that, by virtue of what they had helped create together – a beloved TV show, by virtue of their characters' marriage, she and Matthew Perry were bound together now, forever. The Matteney craze had only cemented it further. Courteney already knew that, if anyone was to even so much as Google her name, then add an 'and' behind it, the hits would not come back as: 'Courteney Cox and that dude who fathered her kid' or 'Courteney Cox and that rock band frontman she's dating.' The first hit would inevitably link her with her dead television husband: 'Courteney Cox and that guy she was married to on TV.' Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry. Monica and Chandler, from now until the end of time.

Back here on the living room couch, she was lifted out of her musings by Johnny strolling into the room. Courteney could hear Coco's laughter coming from the kitchen. Her phone was left open on the coffee table, and Johnny picked it up before she fully became aware of his presence. Courteney glanced up to him as he studied the opened article, and the text pings from the freak-out that was occurring in her Friends group chat.

"Bloody hell!" Johnny tssked. He cast his eyes to his partner, the emotion in them understanding and kind. Pained on her behalf. "I'm sorry, love." He scanned the article again. "I thought ketamine wasn't a drug."

"It's not," Courteney stated. "Well…. not really. It's…. oh, screw it…. From what I understand, it's a drug that helps treat depression."

"And it's dangerous?"

"In the quantities they found in Matthew, it can be."

Courteney's phone suddenly buzzed to life in Johnny's hand. Courteney leaped up to check the Caller ID.

"Oh, J, honey, sorry, I gotta take this!" She gave him a drive-by, absent peck on the check before charging out towards the back patio. "Hello?"

Jennifer's bitter sobs were making the phone static crackle. "They…. they killed him! They fucking killed him!..." She was hissing, practically spitting, in her anguished rage.

"Jen….. babe, baby, you've gotta calm down…."

"I will not calm down! I just read an article discussing how the cops are going to determine whether or not our dear friend – our brother – was MURDERED!" Jennifer was seething, the snarl in her voice all but bleeding through the phone.

Courteney sighed. "We don't know how this is going to shake out. The LAPD is going to follow the evidence wherever it may lead."

"They'd better!" Jennifer grumbled darkly. "So, what, are they saying that he got those quantities of keta – ketam – ketamine from some dealer?"

"I don't know," Courteney crooned helplessly.

"CC, he'd been sober for over a year and a half! That's what they said! How could this just have…?" Jennifer's voice cut off sharply into an alto and bitter sob. When she regained her composure, her timbre was steely. "Whoever did this to our Matthew…. has to be hunted down. I want them found now. Not tomorrow, not 'after breakfast': NOW…..!"

Courteney managed a wan smirk. "You watched Shawshank recently, didn't you?"

Her best girlfriend ignored the question. "Oh! And that jury in Manhattan better the HELL find that traitor guilty!" The historic hush money trial of former President Donald Trump was expected to reach closing summations following the coming long weekend.

Courteney grinned, hopeful. "They will. Autistic Adolf can't have that many of his Special Needs Nazis in New York, can he?"

Jennifer barked out a laugh. "No indeed. But one or two of them could have forked-tongued their way onto the jury as sleeper agents. Let's hope they're not so retarded that they don't actually know how to disseminate evidence."

Their group rarely ventured into political discussions. They hadn't back in the 90s and 2000s. Not because a clear fault line of disagreement had been sensed – in their line of work, which involved showing empathy and exploring the multi-facets of the human condition, almost everyone the Friends had known in the business was liberal. The contours of their profession as laid out had meant that the conservatives in the industry just stuck out all the more due to how they moved through the world, somehow not showing empathy in a profession where that was all but demanded: Jon Voight, by now senile and cray-cray, came to mind. Tim Allen – Courteney had worked with him on a much-maligned superhero movie back when Coco was a toddler. They'd played opposite each other as love interests, but at least she hadn't had to kiss the guy. Had the script called for that, she probably would have backed out of the job. Hell, she still should have backed out of the job – Zoom was so bad that when she'd finally deigned to show it to her daughter, they'd laughed their asses off.

Shaking her head to clear it, Courteney returned to talking her surrogate sister off the ledge. "We're going to find out who did this, Rache," she promised, employing the pet name that Monica would use for her best friend. "Whatever happened, we'll avenge our dear, sweet Matty."

She could almost see Jennifer smiling wetly through the phone. "Damn right we will. Thanks…. Mon."

Courteney grinned. "Anytime." She hung up, staring out into the brilliant spring sunshine of her backyard. She felt the tears roaring to the forefront, and knowing her back was turned to the house, such that her daughter and her lover couldn't see, Courteney dropped her chin to her chest and bitterly wept.