Chapter 128 – Hey, Old Friend
Ross and Rachel slipped out of the Brooklyn Fantasia stage while Ben was still running the crew through his fourteenth take of doing nothing in particular, and found themselves in the wide connecting corridor that ran between the studio complex's soundstages.
It was the kind of place that rewarded wandering — heavy doors on either side, each one leaking a different world. Through one they could hear the muffled sound of horse hooves on cobblestone. Through another, what sounded like a thunderstorm being assembled one piece at a time. The air smelled like sawdust and electrical equipment and the particular synthetic fog that film sets use to make ordinary spaces look more interesting.
Rachel had her arm through Ross's and was moving with the bright, slightly overwhelmed energy of someone experiencing something new and enjoying every second of it.
"Think about it," she said, looking at a door they were passing. "Whatever's in there right now — we won't see it in a theater until sometime next year. It already exists, and we have no idea about it yet." She shook her head. "That's genuinely wild."
"It really is," Ross said, and meant it.
They walked in comfortable silence for a moment, and then Rachel glanced at him sideways. "Okay. Serious question. What was your absolute favorite movie when you were a teenager?"
Ross didn't even have to think about it. "Star Wars. Specifically The Empire Strikes Back. I saw it nine times in the theater when it came out."
"Nine times."
"It was a formative period."
Rachel grinned. "And did you have a crush on any of the characters? Be honest."
Ross's ears went slightly pink. He adjusted his collar. "I mean — Princess Leia was — objectively — a very compelling character."
"The gold bikini."
"I didn't say the gold bikini—"
"You absolutely thought the gold bikini."
"I thought she was a strong and complex female lead—"
"Ross." Rachel stopped walking and looked at him. "Your ears are bright red."
He pressed his lips together. "Let's talk about something else."
"Okay." Rachel turned back to the corridor, smiling. "My teenage celebrity crushes were Sylvester Stallone in the Rambo films and Jean-Claude Van Damme in basically everything he made." She said it with the straightforward confidence of someone reporting facts. "I had posters. Plural. They covered most of one wall."
Ross processed this. He looked down at himself — the layered sweater, the academic-standard scarf, the general impression of someone who spent more time around fossils than free weights — and something flickered across his expression.
"Do you ever feel like—" he started, then reconsidered, then started again. "I mean, compared to that — compared to that specific kind of, you know, physical—" he waved a hand vaguely — "do I ever seem like kind of a downgrade?"
Rachel stopped walking. She turned to look at him fully. Then she grabbed his arm with both hands and said, with complete and genuine seriousness: "Ross Geller. You are not competing with a movie poster. I was fifteen. Those were completely unrealistic fantasies about men I had never met and never would meet, and that is a totally different thing from actually being with a real person." She looked at him steadily. "I like you because you're smart and kind and occasionally very stubborn in a way that is somehow endearing rather than infuriating. Not because of your biceps."
She kissed his cheek.
Ross's expression went through approximately five separate things before settling on grateful and slightly sheepish. "That's — yeah. Thank you."
"You're welcome." She let go of his arm and started walking again.
They rounded a corner.
Rachel stopped so abruptly that Ross walked into her shoulder.
On the door of the studio directly in front of them was a production sign for something called Virus Takes Manhattan 2. The door was propped halfway open for ventilation, and through the gap, in the warm light of a full studio setup, standing in a tight combat suit and speaking with apparent intensity to a director who was nodding rapidly — was Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Rachel made a sound that was not quite a word.
"Are you okay?" Ross asked.
"That's Jean-Claude Van Damme," Rachel said. Her voice had gone very quiet and very focused.
"I can see that."
"He's on my wall. Or — he was on my wall. The Bloodsport poster." She had not moved. "He looks exactly the same in person."
"Bigger," Ross said, somewhat involuntarily. He looked down at himself again.
There appeared to be a short break happening inside — equipment being repositioned, the director stepping away to consult with someone. Van Damme moved toward the open door, apparently looking for air.
Rachel walked forward before she had consciously decided to. "Mr. Van Damme — I am so sorry to interrupt, I know you're working, I'm a huge fan, I've seen everything you've done, would it be possible to get an autograph? I completely understand if not, but I just had to ask—"
Van Damme smiled with the practiced warmth of someone who has been doing this for years. He took in Rachel's expression — the genuine, slightly flustered excitement of someone who actually means what they're saying — and nodded. "Of course. My pleasure."
Rachel immediately started rummaging through her bag. "I don't — I don't have a pen, I'm sorry, I have—" She came up with a lipstick. "Would this work? This is embarrassing."
"Not at all." He took it with evident amusement, found a blank page at the back of his script, and signed it in one smooth motion. "And your name?"
"Rachel. Rachel Green."
He wrote To the beautiful Rachel Green, handed it back to her, and then looked past her at Ross, who was standing approximately four feet behind Rachel with the expression of someone trying to appear neutral and not entirely succeeding.
"And this is—" Van Damme tilted his head slightly. "Your brother?"
Rachel blinked, coming back to earth. "No — this is Ross. My boyfriend."
Van Damme looked at Ross. Ross was wearing a wool sweater with a plaid scarf tucked into it, and had the general appearance of someone who spent his professional life in climate-controlled museums explaining things to graduate students.
Van Damme's expression shifted into something that was technically still a smile. "Wow," he said, with a very specific intonation. "Really. Your boyfriend." He paused. "What an... interesting combination."
He gave Rachel a small, parting smile, handed back the lipstick, and walked back into the studio.
Rachel was carefully folding the autograph. "Oh my God, I can't believe I actually—"
"Interesting combination," Ross said.
Rachel looked up.
His face had gone the specific shade it went when something had landed on him and he was trying to decide whether to let it pass. He had clearly decided not to let it pass. "That's what he said. Interesting combination. As in — what are you doing with this person."
"Ross—"
"You handed him your lipstick. You smiled so wide you could barely see straight." His voice was controlled but climbing. "And then he looked at me like I was someone's assistant—"
"He didn't look at you like—"
"Rachel, he absolutely implied—"
"He was making a casual comment. He was surprised. People get surprised."
"He wasn't surprised, he was condescending—"
"You are being completely irrational right now—"
"I'm being—" Ross stopped, took a breath. "You had his poster on your wall."
"When I was fifteen!"
"That's still a poster!"
They were standing in a studio corridor arguing about Jean-Claude Van Damme, which both of them understood on some level was not really what they were arguing about, but neither of them had yet found a way to redirect toward what was actually happening.
"Ross!" Chandler appeared from around the corner at something between a jog and a run, slightly out of breath, pointing back in the direction he'd come from. "Ross. Stop whatever this is. Come with me right now."
"Chandler, we're in the middle of—"
"There is a monkey." Chandler pointed. "In one of the studios down that way. A capuchin. Brown. About this big." He indicated a size with his hands. "It looks exactly like Marcel."
Ross went completely still.
"Ninety percent sure," Chandler said. "Maybe ninety-five. I did a double-take and kept walking and then turned around and came back and did another double-take."
Ross forgot entirely about Van Damme, about the argument, about everything. "Show me."
He looked at Rachel. "We'll — I'll—"
"Go," she said. She was still annoyed, but something in her expression had softened slightly because Ross's face had done something genuinely vulnerable.
He went.
Chandler led Ross down the corridor to a smaller studio near the end of the row. The door was open. A production banner near the entrance indicated a jungle-adventure film in production, several crew members visible inside adjusting lighting rigs over an elaborate tropical set.
In the center of the set, beside a trainer, sat a brown capuchin monkey.
Ross's chest did something complicated. The size was right. The fur color was right. The way the animal held itself — alert, curious, slightly imperious — was right.
"Marcel?" His voice came out quieter than he intended.
The monkey didn't react. Kept its eyes on the set.
Ross stood in the doorway for a moment. Then, because it was the only thing that felt right, and because he had tried the obvious thing and it hadn't worked, he took a breath and started singing.
"In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."
Chandler blinked. Then he understood. He came in alongside Ross.
"The lion sleeps tonight..."
Their voices were not good. They were not attempting to be good. A few crew members looked over with the patient, slightly resigned expression of people who have seen stranger things on a film set.
The monkey's ears moved.
It stopped what it was doing. Its head turned slowly and precisely toward the door, toward the two men standing there singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight off-key in a studio corridor.
And then its eyes found Ross.
What happened in the monkey's expression in the following two seconds was something that everyone in the room registered and nobody had adequate words for. It was recognition — unmistakable, immediate, the specific quality of a living thing that has just located something it thought was lost.
"A-weema-weh, a-weema-weh—"
The monkey pulled free of the trainer's loose grip and moved with the fluid, certain speed of an animal that has decided exactly where it's going. Across the cables, around a prop crate, and then a single leap that covered the remaining distance.
Ross caught him.
Marcel — and it was Marcel, there was absolutely no question — wrapped both arms around Ross's neck and pressed his face against his cheek, making the rapid, high chattering sound that Ross had heard in his apartment on Bedford Street and had not heard since Carol's veterinarian had arranged the transfer to San Diego.
"Hey." Ross's voice had gone rough. He held on. "Hey, buddy. I know. I know."
The studio was completely silent.
After a moment, the film's director crossed the set and stood in front of them, looking at the monkey — who had not moved and showed no signs of moving — and then at Ross.
Ross collected himself enough to explain. Marcel's history, the adoption, the difficult decision to give him up when the behavioral issues became unmanageable, the transfer to San Diego, the gap since then.
The director listened. He looked at Marcel, who was still draped over Ross's shoulder with the settled contentment of an animal that has found where it wants to be and sees no reason to discuss it further.
"We've had some challenges with him on set," the director said, in the measured tone of someone choosing diplomatic language. "He's talented but—" he paused— "opinionated."
"That's Marcel," Ross confirmed.
The director looked at them both for another moment. Then he made a decision. "Here's what I'll offer. We're in New York for at least six more weeks of shooting. If you want to come by and visit — regularly, if that helps him settle — you're welcome. And if having you around genuinely smooths out the production days, I'll put you in the thank-you credits."
Ross looked at Marcel, who looked back at him with the expression of an animal that has already made its own decision about how this is going to go.
"I'll be here as much as I can," Ross said.
Marcel tightened his grip on Ross's collar, which was as close to a vote as anyone was going to get.
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