Chapter 130 – The Rose and the Apology Letter
The café door opened and four people came in carrying the specific exhaustion of a long day on set — Bruce still on his phone, Joey pulling off his jacket, Monica and Phoebe close behind, bringing with them the smell of winter air and whatever Monica had been cooking since four in the morning.
"— yeah, just come to the gate and tell them you're my sister, they'll let you through. Drive carefully, the roads are going to be icy tonight. Okay. See you tomorrow." Bruce hung up and found Joey already hovering.
"Was that Jocelyn?" Joey asked. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine." Bruce dropped onto the couch and accepted the coffee Rachel slid toward him. "She and a few classmates from Rutgers want to come watch us shoot tomorrow. Biomedical Engineering students, they've never seen a film set. I said sure."
Joey's posture changed in a way that was immediately and completely legible to everyone in the room. He sat up slightly. His expression reorganized itself into something that was trying to look casual and was not succeeding. "Classmates. From Rutgers. Like — how many? And are they — I mean, what's the general—"
"Mostly women," Bruce said, without looking up from his coffee. "Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers skews heavily female. And before you say anything—"
"I was just going to offer to drive them from the train station! As a courtesy! Because I happen to have a free day tomorrow and it would be a friendly gesture—"
"Joey." Bruce looked at him. "No."
"I'm being hospitable—"
"I know exactly what you're being." Bruce pointed. "Jocelyn is my little sister. Her classmates are her friends. You are going to be on set tomorrow doing whatever you normally do on days when you don't have scenes, which I believe involves craft services and finding people to talk to. That's it."
"And," Bruce added, with particular emphasis, "under absolutely no circumstances are you to say 'How you doing' to my sister."
Joey sank back into the couch with the expression of a man who has been told his greatest talent is not welcome here. "Fine. I was just trying to be a good host. Show some New York hospitality. There's nothing wrong with 'How you doing' — it's a classic."
Phoebe, who had been unwrapping her scarf one loop at a time, looked up and sang, completely unprompted, to no particular tune: "Joey's 'How you doing' is like a master key — it opens lots of doors, but mostly ones you shouldn't go through—" She made a small bell-sound with her mouth. "Ding."
The table laughed. Ross looked up from whatever he'd been staring at, and his eyes found Rachel across the room, who was laughing with everyone else. She looked back. For a moment neither of them looked away — not the quick, careful avoidance of the past three days, but something that held for a beat longer than necessary and then let go gently.
Chandler, who had been watching all of this from his position on the couch, took a sip of his coffee and said nothing. Progress, he thought.
The following afternoon, the café had settled into its quieter mid-day rhythm. The lunch rush had cleared out, leaving behind a couple of regulars with books and the comfortable sound of the espresso machine cycling through its routines.
Rachel was behind the counter working through the coffee machine's weekly cleaning process, moving on autopilot while a portion of her brain was dedicated to the ongoing question of how to end the cold war with Ross in a way that felt natural and not like she was conceding something she didn't want to concede.
She was in the middle of this when something moved.
Fast. Low. Brown. Coming from the direction of the door with the confident agility of something that had done this before and saw no reason to slow down.
Marcel landed on the counter.
Rachel made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a yelp and took a full step backward, nearly taking the filter basket with her. Then she registered what she was looking at — the round eyes, the brown fur, the slightly imperious tilt of the head that she recognized from Ross's apartment — and her heart rate started to come back down.
Marcel sat on the stack of clean napkins she'd placed on the counter and looked at her with the calm, evaluating expression of an animal that has been sent on a mission and is taking it seriously.
In one small hand he was holding a rose. Red, slightly squashed on one side from the commute, but unmistakably intentional. In the other hand he was clutching a folded white envelope, gripping it with the focused determination of someone who has been trusted with something important.
He held both out toward her and made a small, questioning sound.
Rachel stood there for a moment, looking at the monkey holding a flower and a letter on her clean napkins, and felt the last of her carefully maintained irritation dissolve completely. She reached out and took both items carefully. Marcel released them without ceremony and immediately became interested in a coffee sleeve that had been left on the counter.
She opened the envelope.
Ross's handwriting was inside — slightly uneven, the letters pressed a little harder than usual in the way they got when he was nervous and trying not to show it:
Rachel,
I know I've been an idiot. Not just about the Van Damme thing — about everything that came after it. I let jealousy turn into something I'm not proud of, and you didn't deserve any of it.
I've missed your actual face for three days. Not the one you aim at the general area of the room. Your actual face.
Would you have dinner with me tonight? I would like the chance to be significantly less of an idiot in person.
— Ross
P.S. Marcel volunteered for delivery duty. I want that noted.
Rachel read it twice. Then she pressed her lips together against a smile that was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not, and lost the battle with it almost immediately.
She picked up Marcel, who accepted this with the dignity of an animal accustomed to being carried, and walked to the café door.
Outside on the sidewalk, across the street, Ross was standing with his hands in his coat pockets and the specific expression of a man who has sent a monkey with a letter and is now waiting to find out what happens next — trying to look like he just happened to be standing there and not entirely pulling it off.
Rachel looked at him.
She held up the rose.
Ross's face did about four things simultaneously, the net result of which was something warm and relieved and a little ridiculous, which was, Rachel thought, exactly right.
She pointed at him, then pointed at her watch — seven o'clock — and raised her eyebrows in a question.
Ross nodded immediately, with considerably more enthusiasm than was strictly cool.
Rachel shook her head at him, smiling despite herself, and went back inside.
Marcel, still in her arms, made a small satisfied sound and settled against her shoulder like someone who has completed a successful errand and is ready to be thanked.
"Good job," Rachel told him.
Marcel seemed to feel this was the appropriate response.
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