Chapter 60: The Six Never Quite Made It
That EveningWest Village — A Bar
"Hey, Monica."
A young man with a short beard pushed through the door and dropped onto the barstool next to the woman in red already sitting at the bar.
"Chandler, I have bad news," Monica said.
"Have you met me?" Chandler replied, with the practiced self-deprecation of someone who had made peace with bad news as his default setting. "Nothing shocks me anymore."
Monica smiled despite herself. "The bar is closing. They're converting it into a coffee shop."
Chandler looked around at the familiar space — the pool table, the bar stools, the particular atmosphere of a place that had been exactly the right kind of dingy for exactly the right amount of time.
"A coffee shop," he said. "So we'd just sit there every day drinking coffee and talking?"
"I guess."
"That sounds incredibly lame."
"I know."
"We should complain to someone. If they turn this into a coffee shop we're never coming here again."
Monica gave him the look she reserved for declarations she had no intention of supporting. Chandler registered it and adjusted his posture to something slightly less confrontational.
"How's the roommate search?" she asked.
"Almost settled." Chandler looked pleased. "The photographer."
Monica's face fell. "Not the Italian guy? Chandler, he was gorgeous — those eyes—"
"The photographer's sister is in the film industry," Chandler said.
"The Italian guy had incredible—"
"A very specific area of the film industry."
Monica went quiet, processing this. Then: "The photographer."
"Obviously the photographer."
"I'm going to the bathroom," she announced. "Set up the pool table. I'm going to beat you."
"You're welcome to try," Chandler said, already reaching for the rack.
Monica disappeared. Chandler arranged the balls and chalked his cue, and his attention drifted to a group of three women at a nearby table — put-together, animated, clearly celebrating something.
One of them raised her glass. "To our girl. One year from now, Mrs. Barry Farber, dentist's wife."
The woman being toasted stretched out her left hand with theatrical modesty. A significant diamond ring caught the light.
The other two screamed with appreciation.
The woman with the ring smiled — and then something in the smile didn't quite hold.
"It's like having a boyfriend forever," one of the friends offered.
"I know," the engaged woman said. She was twenty-two, twenty-three maybe. The words came out with a weight she hadn't intended. "I just — I keep thinking about being with Barry forever, and I don't know. I feel like I need one last — something. One real moment before everything becomes permanent. Like, if I just looked up right now and saw someone—"
Chandler dropped the pool ball.
It hit the floor with a crack loud enough to interrupt everything in a six-foot radius.
He straightened up and moved toward the women's table with the energy of a man who had made a decision and was committing to it.
A hand appeared in front of him, bent down, picked up the pool ball from the floor, and came back up attached to an entirely different person.
Chandler stopped.
"What—" He spread his arms.
"Sorry," the newcomer said pleasantly. He held the ball out to Chandler and then glanced at the engaged woman, whose expression had gone through several stages in the last three seconds.
"Is this yours?" he said to Chandler.
"Yes," Chandler said, with extreme precision, "that is mine."
"Sorry about that." The newcomer handed it back and smiled at the table. "You look like you're celebrating something."
The three women looked at him. The engaged woman — Rachel — had the expression of someone recalculating something significant.
"Want to play pool?" the newcomer asked Chandler, already turning back. "If you're waiting for someone."
Chandler looked at the pool table. Looked at Rachel. Looked at the newcomer, who was clearly not aware of what he'd just interrupted, because no person aware of it would have asked that question.
"Sure," Chandler said, with the resignation of a man who recognized the universe's sense of humor. "But if you're also here to beat me, you'll have to wait in line."
Rachel and her friends made a sound.
"...What?" Adam said, looking at Chandler.
"Nothing," Chandler said. "Ignore it. Let's play."
The two moved to the pool table. Adam racked the balls. Both of them kept a small amount of peripheral attention on the table behind them.
"Oh my God," Rachel said quietly to her friends. "Did you see that?"
"Very handsome," one of them confirmed immediately.
The other one, more practical, looked at Rachel. "You're not actually thinking about—"
"I don't know," Rachel said, in the voice of someone who definitely knew.
"Rachel."
"What."
"You were literally just engaged."
"I know that."
"And you believe this is a sign from God?"
Rachel looked at her.
"Rachel," her friend said. "Do you even go to church?"
Rachel didn't have an immediate answer for that.
End of Chapter 60
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