Work Text:
There's nothing like a Friday. All she wants is to get to her weekend and the work just keeps piling up, with everybody in the company emailing `one last question' before the close of business. Well, they'll just have to wait, Rachel Green sighs as she signs off her computer. At this point in her career, she thinks she should have someone to do her grunt work, but Ralph didn't exactly jump for joy when she left for Louis Vuitton at the drop of a hat and then came crawling back, asking for her old job. Her old job was taken, but she was welcome to a position two grades below where she had been. Message read loud and clear.
But none of that matters as she steps out of the Ralph Lauren building on Madison Avenue into the beautiful Indian summer October evening. She drapes her jacket over her cream suede Prada tote (not everything in her closet can be Ralph Lauren) and cuts through the park en route to the best part of her day. There is one thing that makes all of the bullshit at work, all the bullshit in the world, inconsequential. Rachel switches on her I-Pod, flipping to Colbie Caillait's "Bubbly" and smiles as she feels the tough, professional facade she wears all day cracking.
* * *
"I thought Daddy was picking me up," Emma says, trouncing through piles of leaves in the park on their walk home. The statement is a question, but Rachel knows her daughter already knows the answer.
"He had to work late tonight, honey," Rachel answers. Emma shrugs and takes another leap into a pile almost waist deep on her. "He's going to take you out tomorrow, with your brother."
Emma stops and asks cautiously, "Where r'we goin'?"
"Bowling, honey. Don't worry. You'll have fun."
To the deep chagrin of her father, Emma is terrified of dinosaurs. When she was a baby, he gave her a stuffed animal dinosaur. It was light brown and cuddly, and Emma loved it. She called him Darwin. When she was old enough to understand, Ross planned a big day at the museum and he was going to teach her about each dinosaur, just the two of them. Emma was terrified. The big monsters with their nasty teeth were nothing like Darwin, and Ross had to carry her outside, her eyes shut tightly and her little arms wrapped around his neck for dear life. After that, poor Darwin went in the trash and Emma refused to sleep in her own bed for a week.
It's not to say that Emma and Ross don't have a good relationship. Emma adores her daddy and she's got him wrapped around her little finger. But Emma's favorite way to play is by trying on every single pair of Rachel's Manolo Blahniks and running around the house playing `red carpet'. She forces her little cousins to play `modeling agency' with her and she knows the backstory of every Days of Our Lives character, but runs away from the snakehouse at the zoo. Emma is her mother's daughter, without a doubt.
* * *
She and Ross barely lasted six months. She should have known. It was a cliche, but she and Ross just couldn't do with or without each other. After he brought her home from the airport, things were great for about five weeks, and then all of their old bad habits fell into place. They didn't understand each other's point of view on anything, they had no common interests, and all they ever seemed to do was fight. They fought about where to go for dinner, what Emma should be watching on television, what corner of the room the sofa should be in, whether to sleep with the window opened or closed, and all too often, all too soon, they fought about what they were doing together in the first place.
The time had come to just end it. It was an old nostalgia that kept them together anyway. The tenants in Monica's old apartment flaked on their lease and Rachel was able to move in. She would always think of it as Monica's apartment. The walls were still bright purple, she still used Monica's `fancy' blue wine glasses for company, and she still slept in the smaller bedroom she had occupied for years, on the lower level. Auntie Monica came over and helped Emma paint and decorate her `princess' bedroom. The puffy pink `E' Joey bought when Rachel was pregnant held a place of honor over Emma's bed.
Emma plays telephone with her daddy through the living room window and she and Rachel have all sorts of fun in their `girly' house. They bake cookies (with instant cookie dough), Rachel gives her daughter manicures and pedicures, and Ross is close enough to take Emma to school most days, as his university schedule is less rigid than Rachel's office. They've made a good life together, and all of the divorced parents from Emma's school commend their arrangement.
But an `arrangement' isn't what Rachel gave up Paris for.
* * *
"And this weekend, Cheri's going to the Hamptons to ride her pony, and Jane's parents are taking her to the ballet and when are we going to see Auntie Monica again?" Emma has a habit of completely switching gears mid conversation. Ross says it's just a by-product of being six.
"Um, maybe next weekend?" Rachel answers, swinging the arm connected to Emma. "I'm going to have to go into work for a few hours when you're out with your dad and your brother."
"Good, I want to show Julia my new purse." And Rachel has to smile, proud of the fashion sense her daughter has cultivated early on.
When Chandler and Monica moved to Long Island, they'd sworn that they'd be back in the city once a month to have an afternoon in Central Perk. They hadn't been to the city in over a year.
Rachel didn't blame them of course. The twins and all their activities made their schedules air-tight. The suburban life with the white-picket fence had been Monica's dream for a long time; she'd never really been cut out for city life. Phoebe was the real shocker.
Rachel would never have thought Phoebe would sell her grandmother's apartment, pack up with Mike and move to Montauk. But when she became pregnant, all Phoebe could see in the city was her own harsh childhood, and didn't want to raise her kids anywhere near it. Plus, when she found out she was having twins, she was convinced that her girls were the second coming of herself and Ursula, and Phoebe refused to let her sister's poison be anywhere near them.
Rachel can feel little undercurrents of judgment when she visits Long Island for coffee or to bring Emma to play with her cousins and Phoebe's girls. Why is she still in the city? Why don't she and Ross bring their daughter into a better school district, a safer neighborhood, fresh air?
She's still in the city, because...it's her home. She'd never felt in place on Long Island, and in the city was where she'd found herself, her passions...It's where Emma was born, and she's a Mama's Girl if there ever was one. Rachel can't take her out of the school she loves, away from Central Perk where she follows Gunther around like his little helper, away from seeing her brother a few times a week.
And then there's that other reason...That there is no her and Ross. And one day Emma is going to be a teenager and not want to come home from work every day and paint her nails with her mother, and the thought of Rachel coming home to a big empty house in the middle of a development and heating up tv dinners (because why would she cook for only herself?)...was terrifying.
* * *
"Joey!"
Emma takes a flying leap across the lobby as Rachel checks the mail. Joey catches her with one arm, balancing a pizza box in his other hand. "Hey, Bitesize!" Joey hoists Emma up against her shoulder and smiles at Rachel as Emma chatters in his ear about her day at school. She's always this excited to see him, whether it's been ten minutes or two days.
Joey came back after a couple of years in LA. He just wasn't cut out for it. There's New York people and there's LA people, he had said, and there's no mistaking who Joey Tribbiani is. He bought their old apartment across the hall. It's funny how she will always think of it as `their' apartment.
"What kind of pizza didja get, Joey?" Emma tilts her head at the box.
"Your favorite."
"Bacon and anchovies?" Emma squeals and Rachel winces. She hopes that Emma grows out of those tastes before the painful high school years and girls can be cruel about going outside of the norm. Emma should be one of those girls, not their victim.
"Yup, and half plain cheese for your mom," Joey answers.
"What, no hot date tonight?" Rachel asks, following him up the stairs, flipping through her mail. Bills, bills and more bills. Ooh, and Netflix. "Hey Emma, The Princess Diaries came in."
"Yes!" she pumps her fist in the air, as if she hasn't seen the movie twelve times already.
"Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews? Sounds like a good Friday night to me," Joey says, unlocking his apartment door and bringing Emma inside with him. He doesn't ask Rachel to follow him, but the spicy smell of the gooey pizza is enough to entice her.
"Joey, are you sure?" Rachel asks, even as she sets her bag down on one of the breakfast stools and slips her heels off. God, it feels good to wiggle her toes in her pantyhose after a long day. She knows he's sure. Neither one of them has been on a date in three years.
"Rach," he smiles at her, and her stomach does little butterflies. After Barbados, they never tried to be More-Than-Friends again. Well...not really. After she and Ross finally broke up for good, Joey flew home. She fell into his arms, a trembling mass of tears, and he loved her the way she always imagined Joey Tribbiani would. They spent the weekend in bed, but late Sunday afternoon, they heard Ross' voice on the answering machine saying he was brining Emma home and something changed between them. It was unspoken, but they both seemed to realize if they crossed that line...nothing would be the same. Either they would be isolated from the rest of their friends, or Ross would drop out of their life.
And they just couldn't do that. They couldn't cut the last ties to their little family. So, they kept it as Just Friends.
Emma's taking out the paper dishes and napkins from the lower cabinets. Joey put everything she uses when she comes over in her reach. She knows how to program the tv to the dvd setting, too. Rachel settles in her old barcalounger and gathers Emma's blond curls back into a ponytail to keep it out her face while she's eating. Joey joins them a moment later with juice for Emma and Pepsi for himself and Rachel. When Emma falls asleep after the movie, he'll mix them a couple of margaritas and they'll play Texas Hold `Em for nickels.
Neither one of them has been on a date in three years. And Rachel is certain they'll go another three, maybe another decade. Because if movie nights with Emma, and pretending to be a family is all they're going to get...That's enough.
After all, it has to be.