Chapter 13: Matthew's and Chandler's Heirs
David Schwimmer never liked to make conference calls this early in the morning. While he had a savvy head for business that had resulted in him and five of his colleagues becoming multi-millionaires for the rest of their natural lives, he had always found contractual negotiations like this, or even monetary discussions in general, fraught with tension.
The matter at hand now was slightly more bearable since he could almost trick himself into believing it was just a discussion amidst Friends.
"OK, guys. Here's what we do know: Matty's estate was valued at approximately $120 million dollars at the time of his death," David recited from the papers he had laid out before him on this Zoom call. "About one-sixth of that…."
"Because whoever thought fractions could have such irony?" Lisa interrupted, eliciting a few nervous chuckles all around.
David ignored her. "…. Or $20 million is thought to be the result of Friends residuals. Had he died without an estate plan, the probate process would have been a matter of public record."
"So there is a will," Courteney stressed, just to confirm.
David nodded. "Executed in 2009."
In his little screen square, Matt shifted, uncomfortable. "I'm not in favor of this…" he mumbled. "Why don't we just let the county and state follow his wishes however he laid them out?"
"Yeah," Jennifer chimed in. "Besides, it's not like he would have left us anything. What would we have needed? We're all as rich as he is!"
David rubbed his lips together in thought. "Obviously, I'm not expecting anything, but if we know our Matthew, there stands a good chance he may have left us something – if not in money, then perhaps instructions about how his wishes should be carried out that only we could accomplish."
"Schwimmer, come on! What could we do to abide by Matty that the state of California can't?" Matt scoffed.
"Has the will be unsealed?" Courteney asked, desperate to keep Matt's qualms, while understandable, from getting them off-topic.
"To my knowledge, yes," David confirmed. "However, the media has only been given certain pieces of information about what's in it. For instance: Matthew directed that any children he might have not be entitled to his estate assets."
"So disinheritance for any adult child," Lisa mused. "Except Matty had no children."
"That we know of…." Jennifer muttered.
Matt sat back, his burly arms folded. "That doesn't make any sense! Even if he didn't have any, why would Matty cut any heirs of his out of his will? He loved children! And it's not like he was grubby about money. After all, you can't take it with you." He nodded around at the others. "We certainly can't."
Courteney nodded. "Coco is going to get everything from me. She'll be well taken care of."
"Marina too," Matt agreed.
"Eh, I'm thinking of cutting Julian off," Lisa shrugged.
"Floosh!"
"I'm kidding." Though no one else could tell that from her tone.
If David had any plans for how he would provide for his daughter, Cleo, he didn't share them. Everyone's eyes were suddenly going to Jennifer. She squirmed.
"What's everybody looking at me for?"
"You're the only one of us other than Matthew who never had any kids, Jen," David murmured quietly. "Perhaps your last testaments could be informative about how some of his property will be allocated."
Courteney winced. "David, sweetie, I really don't think that's an appropriate…."
"It's all right, Court," Jennifer straightened, brushing some hair out of her face and she took a deep breath. "Well, I'm actually working on some will revision right now, on account of my dad's passing. Both he and Mom are gone. My two half-brothers will be left some funds, but not anything having to do with Friends money." She gnawed on her bottom lip. "I was actually thinking of… maybe dividing whatever's left between you guys."
Lisa snorted, though she appeared touched. "That's gonna be a real problem when you outlive all of us…."
"No, I…." Jennifer huffed out a breath. "I don't mean just you guys. I mean…. I've been considering leaving money for y'all's kids: Julian and the girls."
David now had the same look on his face that Ross did whenever he was happy or emotional about something. "Oh, my gosh…. Jen…."
Courteney choked up. "Sweetie, I love you so much, but you really don't have to do that."
"I want to," Jennifer insisted with a smile. "Your baby – all of your babies… they've been such joys in my life. I'd like to know that they'd be taken care of."
Lisa threw up her hands. "My son's totally gonna piss away his fortune on a boat, isn't he?"
"What's wrong with having a boat?" Matt whined. Everyone shared a laugh.
"Well, at least our kids are more deserving than our exes," Courteney cracked, causing everyone to chortle harder.
"If we can get back on topic…." Though David too was chuckling. "Matty's will did create a revocable living trust, the…." He squinted. "Alvy Singer Living Trust.'"
"Like the character in Annie Hall?" Matt's eyes narrowed.
Courteney couldn't hide a fond smile. "It was his favorite movie…"
"The beneficiaries are John and Suzanne, Matty's half-sister, and his former girlfriend."
"Which half-sister?" Lisa inquired.
"We don't know."
A slight pause.
"Which former girlfriend?" Matt chuckled.
"We don't know that, either. The state knows, but they're not saying."
"What, if anything, does this have to do with the Matthew Perry Foundation?" Courteney finally broke the slight silence.
"The National Philanthropic Trust created the Foundation. It's donor-advised, but I don't believe they were acting in accordance with any wishes Matty may have left for the creation of such a Foundation."
"He would have approved," Courteney murmured softly, and Jennifer nodded in grim agreement. "Helping those fighting addiction was his mission in life." She let out a shaky breath and wiped a tear from her eye.
"Nevertheless, there is no known affiliation between MPF and his estate. Were there, the organization could have offered the estate significant estate tax savings by providing charitable deductions…"
"OK, OK, Schwimm, we get it!" Jennifer lifted a hand.
David popped his lips and shrugged. "That's about all that is publicly known, at any rate."
There was a long pause.
"I don't think any of us expected anything…." Matt murmured quietly after a time. "I mean…. we haven't wanted for anything in like, thirty years!" He shook his head. "It's hard to know another person's mindset after they're gone. And while I never expected anything from him, but…. aw, hell, who am I kidding? I expected something! I mean – we were his family too!"
"Matt," Jenny crooned. "Just because it's something we would have done doesn't mean we have the right to project those choices onto Matty or anyone else."
"Yeah. I know….. I just…. I just find it a bit farfetched that Matty, of all people, wouldn't have left something for his kids."
"He wanted to have kids someday. He said so in his book," Courteney pointed out.
"But he didn't have any kids, so the point is moot – oh, wait, I'm sorry," Lisa smirked. "I meant 'moo'….."
That broke the tension. Everyone burst into laughter. "Shut up," Matt scowled, even around his own body shaking with mirth.
FLASHBACK – December 2003
It wouldn't be much longer now.
Courteney entered the hallway set marking the corridor between Apartments 19 and 20. Smoothing down her top as she stared at the latter door, she took a deep breath, the smile that now blazed across her face anxious yet hopeful.
She had the awareness, at least, to stop and look around. To savor that which, for the past ten years, she had taken for granted. That was the one beauty of it – at least, with this ending, she had been given advanced warning.
… Not every warning was like that. Her father's death, a good four years ago now, came to mind. So did a handful – more than a handful – of other losses she couldn't bear to acknowledge, still, even on this precipice.
She cast her eyes down to her feet, pondering her navel. Then again…. not every beginning had such advanced warning, either. And sometimes, a beginning might occur in which you waited for an ending, but it never came.
Taking another deep breath, Courteney pushed in the door to Apartment 20.
She allowed herself a moment to stand in the threshold of this, Monica and Chandler's home. She allowed herself a moment to observe her five friends, her family. They were her family.
In ten years, they had gone through everything together: Births. Marriages. In the case of Jennifer Aniston, her best girlfriend, likely divorce, if not before the show ended, then before very long.
Courteney's eyes shifted to the man hunched on the one ottoman, studiously perusing the papers in his hands. One of the final Friends scripts. Getting in just a little more rehearsal, between takes. Courteney's smile grew fond, tender, with a little bit of anguish mixed into the upturn of her lips. How such a man could still be so handsome, so damn funny, when he himself had been in such indescribable pain – still was, in some respects – she could not fathom. Matty was doing much better. Turned a corner – hopefully, for good. He'd been sober for much of the last year, and nominated for his first Emmy last season – an honor that was well deserved. Courteney couldn't even be that upset that she was now the last of the six standing who hadn't gotten an Emmy (award or nomination) for Friends.
No…. She had gotten something else. Something better. Something that was worth more than every single damn stupid little golden statuette ever passed down since the dawn of the small screen age.
Jenny was the first one to spot her, followed quickly by Matty. Courteney's heart swelled with warmth at the tousled grin her TV husband gave her. Jenny rose from her perch on the apartment couch.
"Hey, honey…" She crossed the set and embraced her best friend. "There you are. We figured you didn't need another line run, when you didn't show…."
Courteney smiled breathlessly. "Just in my trailer. And dressing room. Needed some time to myself."
"Yeah?" Jennifer leaned back out of the hug. "About what?" The blonde searched her castmate's eyes and her face fell, at the same moment that tears began to prick at her irises. Jennifer drew a shaking hand to her mouth. "Oh no…. Oh, no, honey…. Did it….? Tell me it didn't happen again…."
By now, Courteney was silently crying too, yet the smile had not left her face, and she shook her head. "No. It…. it's OK…." She smoothed down her top again. "I just received the news…" Jennifer looked somewhere between crushed and baffled. Courteney now beamed around her tears, tears that Jennifer had yet to realize were happy ones. "I'm pregnant. And…. I'm three months along!"
The underlying murmur of conversation from the others died down. Four other heads turned and stared; Lisa was rising to her feet.
"You mean…. It isn't….? You made…?"
Courteney nodded, holding back an exultant sob. "I made it past the first trimester. The doctor says that come June, by the time we wrap…. I'm going to have a baby."
For a moment, there was silence. Then the Apartment 20 set exploded in a flurry of motion and noise.
Schwimmer and LeBlanc were hooting and hollering, tossing seat cushions from the couch into the air and tumbling about the set. Lisa let out an elated shriek and actually vaulted over the couch to tackle her dear friend in a hug, before all three girls began squealing and dancing around in a circle. Jennifer was now sobbing unabashedly, stroking and touching her best girl friend everywhere she could reach.
"Oh….. Oh, God….. honey….. I'm so thrilled for you, I could pop!"
"Hey!" Courteney smirked. "If anyone's doing the popping, it'll be me!"
Jennifer whimpered and nodded eagerly, through an emotional smile. The women embraced.
"You'll be godmother?" Courteney whispered.
Jennifer sucked in a breath, and now began to quietly bawl. "Yes! Yes!"
Scwhimmer and LeBlanc were still whooping, as they now rounded the couch. Matt's million-watt grin was very Joey, and so wide, it was nearly breaking his face. "Kiddo….!" He and Courteney buzzed cheeks. David just patted her shoulder in dazed wonder.
Everyone now glanced back to where one person hadn't moved or spoken in any way. Courteney bit her lip nervously, smiling weakly.
"Matty? Sweetie….?"
Matthew Perry appeared rooted to the spot, frozen where he stood. It would seem he couldn't speak. His eyes were only for his TV wife, whose eyes now searched his tremulously. She found that, though he had about as little claim to this child as any of their other co-stars, what he had to say about it mattered more, to her, than any of her loved ones.
Then, suddenly, Matthew was across the room in three strides. His strong hands were cradling Courteney's face, tilting it up, and then he was kissing her, kissing her breathless.
After a decade as really close friends, six of which they had play-acted at being romantically involved and three of which they had pretended to be married to each other, this kind of heightened intimacy was par for the course to Courteney Cox. It was the same for all the others – they had become the kind of close friends whose bond was strong enough and carried such understanding that they could kiss each other like this, even off set, and it was implicitly understood as being totally platonic, if such expressions of affection could be.
Just the same, the passion of her dear friend's kiss threw her, and she giggled a little into his mouth, as the couple-on-TV staggered back into Monica and Chandler's kitchen table. Her lips curling into a smile, Courteney held the kiss, suddenly feeling the absence of his lips as they now blazed along her cheeks, then dipped earnestly into the soft curve of her neck. Matty was peppering her face with kisses.
She also felt something else on her face, something wet, and it couldn't be, because Matthew Perry was not crying…..
"Matty!..." Courteney chuckled, bemused. "What are you doing….?!"
"That's…. that's wonderful…." Matty croaked, a sob clearly hitching his voice. "Congratulations…. I love you…." And her gave her another big hug and a kiss. A beat, and then, beaming around the moisture clinging to his cheeks, he quite suddenly and exuberantly, picked her up and swung her around. "I knew you could do it! I just knew you could!" Courteney blasted out a laugh, bewildered and pleased by his enthusiasm.
"Oh, Court….Thank God…. Oh, God… Let – let me look at you…." And gracefully setting her down, he stood back to admire her figure, his blue eyes, piercing as flint, making an appraisal of her. Courteney smirked.
"You need proof?" And she lifted up the midriff of her shirt to reveal the slight swell to her belly. Matty stared and he fell to his knees at her feet in rapture. Stunned, he brushed a finger oh so delicately along her stomach before leaning in and pressing a kiss to it, cradling the spot where her baby lay within in his hands.
Matty swallowed. "…. Boy or girl?"
Courteney beamed down at him, a tear slipping from her own cheek. "It's a girl…." she whispered.
Matty clenched his fists in relish and started to wiggle in excitement.
"Don't do the dance," Courteney admonished him, her best Monica voice bleeding out. He didn't, though it was a close thing. Her onscreen spouse was grinning from ear to ear.
"A girl…." He shook his head in wonder. "If she looks anything like her mother, she'll be a heartbreaker!" Courteney smirked in amusement and tousled his hair.
Matt turned to Lisa. "Is he high again?"
Lisa snorted. "If he is, I'll have what he's having…." Courteney tossed a confused frown over her shoulder.
Behind the pair, Schwimmer was watching the scene with something like curiosity, even suspicion. "Huh. From the way our Matty's carrying on, you would think it was his child she was carrying…."
"David!" Jennifer swatted at her pretend love interest, stunned and appalled.
"Well, you can't blame me for wondering! I mean, unless it comes out looking like Arquette wrapped pretty in pink…."
"David!" Jennifer practically squealed in admonishment, her blue eyes expanding in shock.
"What? I'm just saying…."
"Shut up," Lisa cut across him, her delivery so brusque, it was as though she'd fallen back into character as Phoebe. She strode up to the expectant mother and her celebrating co-star, glancing between them. "It is Arquette's, isn't it?"
"…. Yes!" Matthew and Courteney said at the same time, her jaw dropping in offense; Matty's face was scrunched up in his best Chandler-when-disturbed impression.
Lisa pursed her lips and shrugged. "Well, all right, then."
Matty got up off his knees, grumbling. "Everyone thinking the baby is mine…" He glanced around at them all, and let out a self-deprecating bark of a laugh. "Trust me – no one wants that!"
That wasn't entirely true, as sensible a thing as it was to say. In the tiniest corner of his mind, Matthew found that just a tiny part of him wished that….
No, no. He was letting himself get lost too much into the world of the show, this fantasy land in which he was wed to the incredible, stunningly beautiful woman before him. Besides, in that world, that fantasy, Monica could not be pregnant – the writers had made her infertile.
"…. Is it OK if I'm just a tad bit bummed they haven't actually, you know…. done it?"
Jennifer stomped over and thwapped LeBlanc upside the head. "Matthew Stephen LeBlanc, I swear to God….!"
END OF FLASHBACK