Chapter 14: The One with All the New Year's Plans
The week between Christmas and New Year's had its own particular quality — the decorations still up but the urgency gone, the city in a brief suspended state between what it had just done and what it was about to do. Central Perk leaned into it: the tree in the corner, the lights along the window, Gunther having added a small wreath to the counter that he'd clearly put genuine thought into.
Ethan came in from the cold, unwound his scarf, and registered Phoebe on the small stage before he'd even gotten to the couch.
She had her guitar and the expression she wore when she was about to announce something — the specific Phoebe expression that combined genuine excitement with complete unawareness that the announcement might land unusually.
"Okay," she said, into the microphone, with the focused authority of someone who had rehearsed this. "I want everyone to know that I've been writing. A lot. I have twelve new songs." She paused. "Eleven of them are about my mother's suicide."
The room absorbed this.
"And one," Phoebe continued, brightening, "is about a monkey."
Chandler, who had been mid-sip, set his coffee down very carefully. "Phoebe," he said. "I strongly recommend leading with the monkey."
"I was going to build to it," Phoebe said.
"Build to it after the monkey," Chandler said. "Use the monkey as a foundation. Establish goodwill."
Phoebe considered this with genuine openness. "That's actually good staging advice," she said.
"I have layers," Chandler said.
She launched into the monkey song, which opened with the line oh little guy, born to swing and roam / Central Park is not exactly home and then took several unexpected turns through themes of identity, belonging, and the nutritional value of various fruits. It was, as Phoebe's songs always were, entirely its own thing — melody that suggested it knew where it was going and might get there eventually, lyrics that were specific to the point of being almost documentary.
Ethan sat back and listened with genuine appreciation. By the second verse, Marcel — who Ross had brought in his carrier, because apparently Ross now brought Marcel places the way people brought dogs to dog-friendly establishments — had pressed his face against the mesh of the carrier and was tracking the sound with focused attention.
"He likes it," Ross said quietly.
"He has good taste," Ethan said.
Joey was next to them, in a costume that required explanation. He was wearing a red suit that was in the general vicinity of a Santa suit but was clearly not the Santa suit — smaller, slightly wrong in the proportions, with a hat that kept listing to one side regardless of how many times he straightened it.
"Joey," Ethan said. "What's the situation."
Joey's expression communicated several things at once — dignity, resignation, and the specific grievance of a man who felt he had been treated unjustly by a seasonal hiring process.
"I didn't get Santa," Joey said.
"You were Santa last year," Monica said, from across the table.
"I was a great Santa last year," Joey said. "Ask anyone. I had a whole thing with the kids. I remembered names. I did voices." He straightened the hat. It tilted again immediately. "This year they hired a new guy. He's got the beard, he's got the build — I'll give him the build — but his laugh is completely wrong. It's like a laugh that's trying to remember what laughing is."
"So what are you?" Ethan asked, gesturing at the suit.
"The assistant," Joey said, with the expression of a man saying something that cost him something.
"Santa's assistant."
"Santa's assistant," Joey confirmed. "I hand him the list. I verify the names." He paused. "I straighten his hat."
A moment of respectful silence.
"That's a very supportive role," Phoebe said, from the stage, apparently having been listening while also playing.
"Thank you, Phoebe," Joey said.
"The best performances often come from supporting," Phoebe added.
"I know, Phoebe."
"Think of it as—"
"Phoebe, I love you, please keep playing," Joey said.
Phoebe played.
At the table next to theirs, something had been developing for the last twenty minutes. Two people — a man and a woman, clearly on what appeared to be either a first date or the kind of conversation that happened just before a first date was asked for — had been talking with the slightly elevated energy of people who were aware of each other in a specific way.
Chandler had been watching this with the idle attention of someone with nothing more pressing. "He's going to say something," Chandler said. "Look at him. He's been working up to it for the whole time we've been here."
"How can you tell?" Rachel asked.
"The coffee cup," Chandler said. "He keeps picking it up and putting it down without drinking from it. That's a prop. He's using it as a prop while he decides whether to go for it."
"That's very specific," Ethan said.
"I've been that guy," Chandler said simply.
They watched. The man at the next table put down the coffee cup, sat up slightly, and said something to the woman across from him — they couldn't hear the exact words from where they were sitting, but the tone was clear enough: earnest, direct, slightly terrified.
The woman's expression shifted. Then she smiled.
"Huh," Chandler said.
"Told you," Ethan said.
"You didn't tell me anything," Chandler said. "You just sat there."
"My sitting there was confident," Ethan said.
"Well," Chandler said, watching the couple settle into a conversation that had clearly changed register, "good for him. Genuinely. Takes something to do that in a coffee shop in front of strangers."
"It does," Ethan said.
Phoebe had come off the stage and was now also watching, with the particular expression she wore when she perceived something. "He has a very clear aura," she said. "Very focused. He knew what he wanted to say."
"What's his name?" Rachel asked.
"David," Phoebe said, without hesitation, and then looked slightly surprised at herself. "I don't — I just — that feels like a David."
They looked at her.
Phoebe looked at the man, who was now laughing at something the woman had said. "I'm going to go say hi," she said.
"To the couple who is clearly on a date," Monica said.
"Just to introduce myself," Phoebe said. "As a performer. I performed. It's normal to introduce yourself."
She went. They watched. The interaction lasted about two minutes, and by the end of it Phoebe was sitting at the edge of their table and the couple had become a trio and the man — whose name was, apparently, David — was listening to Phoebe explain something about the monkey song with genuine interest.
Chandler turned back to the group. "Our New Year's plan," he said.
"The seven of us," Ethan said. "Monica's apartment. We voted."
"About that," Chandler said.
Ethan looked at him.
"I called Janice," Chandler said, with the expression of a man who had made a decision he wasn't entirely confident in and was now seeing how it landed.
"Chandler," Monica said.
"She called first," Chandler said. "She called, and she wanted to do New Year's, and I—" He made a gesture. "I can't be alone on New Year's. I've tried it. It's its own category of bad."
"So you're out," Ethan said.
"I'm tentatively out," Chandler said. "With reservations."
"About Janice," Rachel said, "or about being out?"
"Both," Chandler said honestly.
Monica cleared her throat. "I may have also—"
Everyone looked at her.
"Bobby called," she said. "Funny Bobby. We dated for three months last year, and he called, and he wanted to do New Year's, and I thought—" She shrugged. "He's funny. He's available. It seemed like a reasonable plan."
"Funny Bobby," Rachel said. "The one who—"
"Yes," Monica said.
"Is he still—"
"Still very funny, yes," Monica said. "Or so he says. I'll report back."
"So that's two out," Ethan said, doing the count. "Phoebe appears to be developing a situation with David from the next table as we speak. Joey?"
Joey had the expression of a man who had been hoping this question wouldn't get to him yet. "There's someone from the Days of Our Lives audition waiting room," he said. "We talked for forty-five minutes while we were waiting. She has a callback the same day I do. We might—"
"Three and a half," Ethan said. "Ross?"
Ross, who had been quietly attending to Marcel's carrier — Marcel had fallen asleep, apparently unmoved by the New Year's planning process — looked up. "Carol mentioned a party," he said. "A thing Susan's colleagues are doing. She said I was welcome if I wanted to come." He paused. "I haven't decided."
"So potentially four and a half," Ethan said.
He looked at Rachel.
Rachel looked at him.
"I don't have plans," she said.
"Neither do I," he said. "Julia's still in Vancouver."
"So it's us," Rachel said.
"Apparently."
"And me," Ross said. "Probably. If I don't go to Carol's thing."
"The three of us," Ethan said. "New Year's Eve. We'll figure it out."
Rachel looked at him with the expression she sometimes had — assessing, slightly amused, not quite sure what to make of something. "You don't seem worried about this."
"I'm not," he said.
"Why not?"
He picked up his coffee. "Because I have a strong feeling the others are all going to be back by ten," he said.
"Based on what?" Rachel asked.
"Chandler and Janice," Ethan said simply. "The Funny Bobby situation. Phoebe's David is apparently about to find out he has a work thing. And Joey — the woman from the audition waiting room is great, but Joey's going to find something to say that accidentally ends the evening early because that's Joey's pattern on first dates."
"You can't know that," Rachel said.
"I know these people," Ethan said. "Same thing."
New Year's Eve arrived with snow — the real kind, not the dusting that evaporated by noon, but the committed variety that settled and stayed and made the city look like it meant it. By eight o'clock, Monica's apartment was lit and warm, the television on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve in the background, a card game in progress on the coffee table.
It was Ethan, Ross, and Rachel.
"This is your New Year's plan," Rachel said, looking at her hand of cards, then at the snow falling outside the window. "Cards and cocoa."
"Cards, cocoa, and excellent company," Ethan said.
"You're one of the excellent company," Rachel said. "You can't compliment your own plan."
"Ross is excellent company," Ethan said. "I'm just here."
Ross looked up from his cards with the expression of a man who had decided to embrace his New Year's situation rather than resist it. "I'm genuinely fine with this," he said, which was true — he'd declined Carol's party, fed Marcel and left him with a neighbor who had agreed with the casual trust of someone who'd never met a capuchin monkey and didn't yet know what they'd agreed to, and arrived at Monica's with wine and the expressed intention of having a low-key evening.
"You said they'd all be back," Rachel said to Ethan. "By ten."
"By ten," Ethan confirmed.
"It's eight forty-five," Rachel said.
"I stand by the timeline," Ethan said.
At nine-fifteen, Monica's key turned in the lock.
Rachel looked at Ethan.
Ethan looked at his cards.
Monica came in still wearing her coat, snow on her shoulders, with the particular expression of a woman who had sat through two hours of a man being performatively funny and had tapped out.
"Bobby," Rachel said.
"Bobby," Monica confirmed. She took off her coat, hung it up with more precision than the action required, and sat down on the couch. "He's very funny," she said. "He told me the same joke three times in two hours. A different version each time, but the same joke. And each time, he looked at me like I should be more impressed than the time before."
"What was the joke?" Ross asked.
"It doesn't matter," Monica said. "Twice was already too many." She looked at the card game. "Deal me in."
At nine fifty, the door opened again. Chandler, slightly windswept, with the expression of a man who had made a decision and executed it and was at peace with the execution.
"Janice," Ethan said.
"Janice," Chandler confirmed. He sat down, took someone's cocoa without asking, and drank from it. "She has a laugh," he said, after a moment.
"We know," everyone said.
"It's not that the laugh is bad," Chandler said, carefully. "It's that the laugh is—" He stopped. "It's a lot of laugh."
"It fills a room," Ethan said.
"It fills a room and then expands into the hallway," Chandler said. "I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying I need to work up to it. In smaller doses. Over time." He paused. "I left after dinner."
"Did she know you were leaving?" Monica asked.
"I said I had a thing," Chandler said. "She asked what thing. I said this thing." He gestured vaguely at the apartment. "She seemed to accept that."
At ten-twenty, Joey arrived, still in his coat, with the expression of a man replaying a conversation and identifying the exact moment it had gone sideways.
"The audition waiting room woman," Rachel said.
"Her name is Caitlin," Joey said, sitting down with the dignity of a man naming someone he had wronged. "And she was great. She's really great." He was quiet for a moment. "I talked about the butt double thing."
"Joey," Monica said.
"It came up naturally," Joey said. "We were talking about big breaks, and it's part of my story, and I'm not ashamed of it, and—" He stopped. "She had a different reaction than I expected."
"How did she react?" Rachel asked.
"She got very quiet," Joey said. "And then she remembered she had an early morning."
"At ten-fifteen on New Year's Eve," Chandler said.
"An early morning," Joey confirmed. "On New Year's Day." He picked up a cookie from the plate on the coffee table. "She's still great," he said. "I might call her. I'll lead with something else."
At ten forty-five, Phoebe arrived, pink-cheeked from the cold, guitar case over one shoulder, with an expression that was doing the thing where several feelings were present simultaneously and she hadn't finished sorting them.
She sat down, set the guitar case against the wall, and looked at her hands for a moment.
"David," Rachel said softly.
"David," Phoebe said. She looked up. "He got a grant. A research grant. In Minsk."
"Minsk," Ross said.
"Belarus," Phoebe confirmed. "He leaves in two weeks." She was quiet for a moment. "He asked if he could call me when he gets there. I said yes, obviously. It's just—" She made a small gesture that contained a lot. "Minsk is very far."
"It is," Ethan said.
Phoebe looked at him. "He was really nice," she said. "He listened to the monkey song the whole way through and asked questions about it afterward. Real questions. Not polite questions."
"That's rare," Ethan said.
"It is," Phoebe said. She straightened up slightly with the particular Phoebe resilience — the kind that came not from not feeling things but from feeling them and continuing anyway. "He said he'd be back in the spring. Maybe." She picked up a cookie. "Maybe is something."
"Maybe is real," Ethan said.
"Yeah," Phoebe said. "Okay."
By eleven-thirty, everyone was on the couch or on the floor or in the armchair, in the configuration that happened when the group was all in one place and had stopped trying to manage it. The card game had dissolved into conversation and then into comfortable silence with the television doing the work, Dick Clark's voice filling in the background, Times Square doing its annual thing.
Monica had made cocoa for everyone and something with pastry that she'd produced from the kitchen at eleven with the casual confidence of a woman who had made it hours ago and had been waiting for the right moment.
Joey had the remote and was being monitored.
"I'm just looking," Joey said.
"You're looking at the sports channels," Monica said.
"Checking scores," Joey said. "It's tangential."
"It's New Year's Eve," Monica said.
"Sports happen on New Year's Eve," Joey said. "That's not my fault."
"Give Rachel the remote," Ethan said.
Joey gave Rachel the remote with the expression of a man surrendering something under protest. Rachel immediately switched back to Dick Clark and held the remote in her lap with the settled authority of someone who intended to keep it.
On screen, Times Square was doing what it did — the crowd, the lights, the ball at the top of One Times Square, the countdown clock doing its thing. New York being the version of itself that got broadcast everywhere, the version that looked like the idea of New York rather than the actual texture of it, which was both less and more than the idea simultaneously.
"One minute," Ross said.
The group settled. The television counted. Outside, the snow was still coming down, the city muffled and lit, the night doing its New Year's thing.
"Okay," Chandler said. "For the record — this is better than wherever I would have been otherwise."
"Agreed," Joey said.
"Obviously," Monica said.
"Same," Rachel said.
"The universe arranged it this way," Phoebe said. "All the other plans falling through. That's not accident."
"It's Ethan," Ross said. "He predicted it."
Everyone looked at Ethan.
"I know you people," Ethan said. "That's all."
"Thirty seconds," Rachel said, reading the screen.
The countdown started — the room joining in at ten, the way rooms do, because even people who are being low-key about New Year's can't quite resist the countdown.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
Marcel's neighbor had apparently given him something to watch on a small television, because Ross had checked his phone and reported Marcel was fine.
Seven. Six. Five.
Phoebe was humming something that was almost but not quite "Auld Lang Syne."
Four. Three. Two.
"Who's going to kiss me," Joey said, looking around with genuine uncertainty. "It's midnight. Somebody should—"
"Not Ross," Rachel said immediately.
"Why not Ross?" Ross said.
One.
The television erupted. Times Square exploded in the way it did. The ball came down. The city outside Monica's window — the real city, the one that was actually there — did its own version of it, quieter and truer, the horns in the street, a shout from somewhere nearby, the snow still falling.
Ethan sat back and looked at all of them — Monica and Rachel on the couch laughing, Chandler and Joey arguing about the kiss situation, Ross pointing at the television with the particular joy of a man who had chosen the right place to be, Phoebe humming her almost-Auld-Lang-Syne with her eyes closed.
He thought about Julia, in Vancouver, whatever time it was there, probably also watching a countdown somewhere. He'd call her in ten minutes.
He thought about the year ahead — the PhD, the final stretch, the paper trail, Watson's words in the Cold Spring Harbor hallway. Finish your PhD. Come find the project.
He thought about the script on his hard drive, the ideas in the folder labeled Later, the conversations that were still to be had.
He thought about this room, these people, the very specific version of things that he couldn't have known in advance and had to be here for.
"Happy New Year," he said, to no one in particular and all of them at once.
"Happy New Year," they said back, in the overlapping way of people who all meant it and didn't need to coordinate it.
Outside, the snow kept falling on the city, quiet and unhurried, covering everything in the particular gentleness of a thing that doesn't know or care what year it is and keeps going anyway.
That was enough.
More than enough.
Next: January. The PhD enters its final stretch. Joey gets the Days of Our Lives role. Phoebe writes David a letter she isn't sure she'll send. Ross tries to teach Marcel to high-five and this goes better than expected. Rachel applies for something in fashion.