Chapter 104: Trust
Lana stood near the door for a moment after Andrew had said noon tomorrow for the final time, looking at him with the expression of someone running out of approaches. She checked her watch — eleven-twenty — and the checking of the watch seemed to be what made the decision final. She picked up her bag, straightened her blazer, and left.
Andrew watched her go.
And then, because he'd been followed enough times in the past year to have developed an involuntary awareness of it, he noticed a woman at a corner table stand up approximately eight seconds after Lana left and follow her out.
He stood very still for a moment.
Is someone following Ned Lavie's wife?
He turned this over. Ran the logic. Decided that it was either a coincidence — the woman had simply finished her coffee at a convenient moment — or it was something that had nothing to do with him, involved people he didn't know, and was therefore not his problem.
He filed it under not my problem and went back to the couch.
Chandler was waiting for him with the specific relief of a man who had been stranded at the far end of a social situation and had finally spotted rescue.
"Okay," Chandler said, lowering his voice. "Tell me what's happening because I have been sitting over here for forty minutes trying not to make eye contact with Carol and I deserve to know."
"Someone followed me," Andrew said. "They're coming here at noon to apologize."
"Who?"
"You'll see."
Chandler looked at him. "Is it someone we know?"
"Probably," Andrew said.
"Andrew—"
The door opened.
Monica and Phoebe came in, slightly flushed, mid-conversation, the specific energy of two people who'd been walking fast and talking simultaneously. Monica stopped inside the door, registered the room, registered Carol, and her expression went through a rapid sequence that ended somewhere around I'm going to handle this with dignity and then have words with Andrew later.
Carol looked at Monica with the pleasant composure she'd been maintaining all morning.
"Monica," she said.
"Carol," Monica said.
A beat.
Carol stood, smoothed her blazer over her pregnancy, and walked toward Monica with the specific unhurried quality of someone who had decided what was going to happen. "Can we have a minute?"
Monica looked at her. Looked at her stomach. Made the calculation.
"Sure," she said.
The two of them moved to the far corner of the coffee shop, which had the effect of making the rest of the room go very quiet and very attentive in the way people went quiet when they were pretending not to listen.
"How did Carol end up here?" Phoebe asked Andrew, in a whisper that was several volumes above a whisper.
"Accident," Andrew said.
"A big accident or a small accident?"
"Medium," Andrew said.
Susan, from the couch, caught Andrew's eye and made a gesture that offered to take Carol and leave. Andrew shook his head slightly — it would be more disruptive now than staying.
They watched the corner.
Monica and Carol were talking in the low, direct register of two people who had things to say to each other and had decided this was the moment. It wasn't heated. It was something more controlled than that, which was somehow more interesting to watch.
After about four minutes, Monica came back.
Her face was stern in the specific Monica way that meant she was managing something internally. But her eyes had lost the sharp edge they'd had when she'd first seen Carol. Whatever had been said in the corner had moved something, even if Monica wasn't going to announce what.
"Since everyone's here," Monica said, settling onto the couch next to Chandler, who instinctively closed the remaining distance between them in the small unconscious way he'd been doing for the past week, "let's hear this good show Andrew apparently assembled us for."
She looked at Andrew.
"Well?" she said.
"Yesterday," Andrew said, "someone was following me."
Ross looked up from his coffee. "Again?"
The friends had a collective history with Andrew's stalker situations, which had by this point accumulated into something approaching a pattern. There had been the Robert Durst situation, which had ended badly for everyone involved and which nobody referenced directly. There had been the Lily Eldrin situation, which had introduced a genuinely nice person into the extended social circle. There had been the Rose Draper situation, which Chandler, Joey, and Ross all had opinions about that they expressed through specific facial expressions whenever it came up.
The net result was that Andrew being followed had gone from alarming to, in the friends' collective processing, a recurring narrative feature of his life.
"Someone was following me," Andrew continued. "I found out because I was visiting someone in Brooklyn Heights and their — security noticed."
"Security," Chandler said. "Okay."
"The person following me is Officer Ned Lavie. Some of you have heard me mention him — he handled the Durst situation. He also runs a small law practice on the side, and Lola works there as his assistant."
Monica made a small sound of recognition.
"Officer Ned," Andrew continued, "was following me because his nephew asked him to. The nephew told him I might have — inappropriate intentions — toward his girlfriend."
"Do you?" Joey said immediately.
"No," Andrew said.
"Are you sure? Because—"
"Joey."
"I'm just asking. The last few times someone followed you it turned out to be at least partially—"
"Joey."
"Okay, okay." Joey held up his hands.
"I don't have inappropriate intentions toward anyone's girlfriend," Andrew said to the room at large. "I want that on the record."
"Andrew," Susan said, from the couch, with the tone of someone being genuinely supportive. "I believe you." She paused. "But if she's very young, I do think you should consider—"
"She's not — there's nothing — " Andrew pressed his fingers to his forehead briefly. "I am not the story here. Officer Ned is the story. He ran unauthorized surveillance on me because his nephew had a feeling."
"So what did you do?" Phoebe said.
"I told him he and his nephew needed to come here today and apologize. In person. Then it's done."
"That's it?" Ross said.
"That's it."
"And they agreed?"
"Ned agreed. His wife came this morning to try to negotiate Paolo out of—"
He stopped.
A beat of silence.
"Paolo," Monica said.
It wasn't a question. It was the sound of a piece landing in a space where a piece had been missing.
Andrew looked at her.
Monica's expression did a careful, controlled thing.
"Paolo told his uncle I had—" She stopped. Started again. "Paolo, my Paolo, went to a cop because he thought you were—" She stopped again.
Carol, from the armchair, said nothing. But she looked at Monica with an expression that contained a very specific I told you without deploying the words.
"Monica," Andrew said.
"I'm fine," Monica said, in the tone that meant she was processing.
"I wasn't going to tell you until—"
"No, I'm glad you told me now." She folded her hands in her lap with the focused precision of someone organizing their feelings into manageable categories. "I'm fine."
Chandler, beside her, said nothing. He put his coffee down and was simply there, which was what was available and which was, Andrew thought, the right call.
"He's coming at noon?" Ross said.
"Yes," Andrew said.
"And we're all here to—"
"You're here because I thought it would be a moderately interesting thing and I didn't expect it to be this complicated," Andrew said honestly.
"It's very complicated," Phoebe said.
"I'm aware," Andrew said.
Joey was eating another piece of coffee cake and watching the door with the alert attention he brought to situations where something was about to happen. "Is that them?"
The door opened.
Ned came in first. He was in street clothes again — civilian, deliberate. He looked at Andrew, gave a brief professional nod, and then turned back to the door and made a gesture toward the window outside.
A pause.
Then Paolo came in.
He looked the way Andrew had expected — put together on the surface, the natural ease of someone accustomed to rooms going well for him, but underneath it the specific discomfort of a man doing something he'd rather not be doing and had run out of alternatives for avoiding.
He came to stand next to his uncle, found Andrew in the room, and then found Monica.
His expression when he saw Monica sitting there was the expression of someone who had not run this particular scenario and was recalibrating in real time.
Monica looked at him steadily.
The room was very quiet.
"Andrew," Ned said. "As agreed."
Andrew stood. "Thank you for coming, Officer Ned." He looked at Paolo. "Paolo."
Paolo looked at him. Then at Monica again. He was doing the math — what Monica knew, what she didn't, what the next sixty seconds were going to require of him — and the math was not resolving pleasantly.
"I owe you an apology," Paolo said. He said it to Andrew, directly, which was something. "What I did — going to my uncle, the investigation — it was wrong. I handled it badly."
His English had the texture of someone who thought in another language and translated carefully. In this moment, Andrew thought, the care was visible and genuine.
"I appreciate that," Andrew said.
He meant it. Paolo had shown up. Had said the actual words. The thing Andrew had wanted — a real conversation, a direct acknowledgment — had happened.
"That's it?" Paolo said.
"That's it," Andrew said.
Paolo absorbed this. Looked at Monica again.
Monica was still looking at him with the expression of someone who had several things to say and was choosing the time and place.
That conversation, Andrew thought, was going to happen later. Without an audience. On Monica's terms.
Which was exactly right.
"Ned," Andrew said. "Thank you."
Ned nodded with the manner of a man who had fulfilled an obligation and was relieved to have it behind him. He put his hand briefly on Paolo's shoulder and steered him toward the door.
They left.
The door closed.
The room held its breath for a moment.
Joey said: "So was his girlfriend pretty or not?"
"Joey," everyone said, simultaneously.
"What! I just want to know if the whole thing made sense!"
Carol made a sound that was almost a laugh — the real kind, surprised out of her. Susan looked at Carol with the expression of someone who found their wife's laugh the most disarming thing in any room.
Monica, after a moment, also laughed. Not fully — the afternoon had too much in it for fully. But something genuine, released through the specific absurdity of Joey asking the question that was going to be the last word on the situation.
"Yes, Joey," Andrew said. "She's very pretty."
"Then it makes sense," Joey said, satisfied, and finished his cake.
[Observation (Proficient): 87/100]
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