Chapter 37: The One Where Joey Does Science
The Saturday morning had the particular quality of a weekend that had decided to be generous about it — the light through Central Perk's windows doing its best work, the coffee smell doing the rest, the couch occupied in the familiar configuration that meant everyone had arrived without coordinating and found their usual spots anyway.
Ethan was on his second coffee and the good part of a crossword when Joey sat down across from him with the expression of a man carrying a secret that had become too heavy to carry alone.
This was a recognizable expression. Joey's secrets had a specific weight to them — not because they were dark, but because Joey was constitutionally unsuited to holding information for extended periods. He was built for sharing.
"Okay," Joey said.
Ethan looked up from the crossword.
"I need to tell someone something," Joey said.
"Okay," Ethan said.
"It's about how I'm making money right now," Joey said.
Chandler, who had been reading something at the other end of the couch, did not look up but became visibly more attentive in the way of someone increasing their listening radius without changing their posture.
"The Days of Our Lives filming doesn't start for three weeks," Joey said. "And the Fox project doesn't pay until pre-production properly kicks off. So in the meantime I needed something."
"Okay," Ethan said again.
"I'm participating in a medical study," Joey said.
"What kind of study?" Ethan said.
Joey's eyes moved to the left in the specific way they moved when he was deciding how much detail to provide. "A fertility study," he said. "At NYU Medical. It pays seven hundred dollars over two weeks."
Monica, who had been in the kitchen end of the counter conversation range, set down her coffee with the careful precision of someone managing a reflex.
"Joey," she said. "Tell me the study requires only your time."
Joey had the expression of a man who understood what was being asked and was navigating the most diplomatic available answer. "The study," he said, "requires a contribution."
"What kind of contribution," Monica said.
"The biological kind," Joey said. "The non-invasive kind. The kind that takes about—"
"Okay," Ethan said. "We have it."
Chandler had put down his reading material entirely. He was now looking at Joey with the expression he wore when something had exceeded even his considerable expectations for Joey-related news.
"You're donating—" Chandler started.
"Contributing," Joey said. "To science. It's a legitimate medical study. NYU Medical. Very reputable. They have good magazines in the waiting room."
"Of course they do," Chandler said.
"Joey," Phoebe said, from the armchair, with the genuine warmth she brought to things she found both surprising and completely consistent with who someone was. "That's actually very generous."
"Thank you, Phoebe," Joey said, with dignity.
"She's not wrong," Ethan said. "Fertility research is legitimate and underfunded. The science matters."
"Thank you, Ethan," Joey said. "Finally, someone who—"
"I'm also going to say what everyone else is thinking," Ethan said.
Joey's expression shifted.
"You're seeing someone," Ethan said. "The woman from the fruit stand on Bleecker."
"Sandra," Joey said.
"Sandra," Ethan confirmed. "Does Sandra know about the study?"
Joey's expression cycled through several phases. "Sandra," he said, "knows I'm doing medical research. She does not know the specific parameters."
"The specific parameters being," Chandler said.
"That for the next week," Joey said, "the study requires a certain — abstinence. From anything that would, you know. Interfere with the data."
The table absorbed this.
"So Sandra," Rachel said, arriving from behind the counter on her break, reading the room in the two seconds she had, "wants to spend time with you."
"She's been very—" Joey searched for the word. "Enthusiastic. About spending time."
"And you have to tell her," Rachel said.
"I cannot tell her," Joey said. "I can't tell her I'm doing a fertility study. That's — that's a whole conversation I'm not equipped for right now."
"Joey," Ethan said. "You're going to have to tell her something. You have seven days."
"I'm telling her I have a health thing," Joey said. "A temporary health thing."
"That's not a lie," Phoebe said helpfully. "It is a health-adjacent thing."
"It's science," Joey said. "I'm contributing to the advancement of human understanding."
"At seven hundred dollars," Chandler said.
"Science costs money," Joey said. "I'm helping offset that."
Rachel looked at Joey with the expression she wore when she was simultaneously exasperated by him and genuinely fond of him, which was a combination she'd developed into its own specific register over the past year. "Joey," she said. "Just be honest with her. Sandra seems like a reasonable person."
"You've met her once," Joey said.
"She bought you a sandwich the first week," Rachel said. "Unprompted. She's reasonable."
Joey looked at Ethan.
"Tell her," Ethan said. "Not everything. Just enough. Something like: I'm in a medical study that has some temporary requirements. She'll ask what kind, you say a fertility thing, she'll either think it's funny or think it's considerate that you're telling her. Either way, you're not lying."
Joey sat with this for a moment, doing the calculation that Joey did when he was deciding whether advice was correct and usable or correct and unusable.
"What if she thinks it's weird?" he said.
"Then that's information about Sandra," Ethan said.
"What if she thinks it's—"
"Joey," Chandler said. "You once told a woman on a second date that you'd been a butt double for Al Pacino. Sandra already knows who you are."
Joey pointed at Chandler. "That's actually a good point."
"I have them occasionally," Chandler said.
"Okay," Joey said, sitting back with the settled expression of a man who had made a decision. "I'll tell her. After I tell her, I'm going to need moral support. Someone available by phone."
"I'll be available," Ethan said.
"What if she—"
"Joey," Ethan said. "Tell her. Then call me."
Joey nodded, picked up his coffee, and looked at it with the specific expression of a man who had resolved one problem and was aware that the resolution had its own upcoming complications.
"Seven hundred dollars," he said, to himself.
"For science," Phoebe said.
"For science," Joey confirmed.
Ethan left Central Perk at eleven and walked to campus, which was the Saturday version of going to work — unhurried, the route familiar enough that his mind could run parallel to his feet. He was thinking about the defense, which was done, and the paper, which was submitted, and the next thing, which was a question he was actively forming an answer to.
Professor Aldridge's office light was on, which was either a Saturday anomaly or the natural state of a man who had been in this building for thirty years and had stopped distinguishing between weekdays.
Ethan knocked.
"Come in."
Aldridge was at his desk with a coffee that looked like it had been there for a while, reading something, and he looked up with the expression he had when something he was expecting arrived at roughly the right time.
"Sit down," Aldridge said.
Ethan sat.
"Two things," Aldridge said. "First — the microplastics paper. The journal came back. They want revisions, but the kind of revisions that mean they're accepting it. The methodology note in section four, they want more supporting data. You have it."
"I have it," Ethan confirmed.
"Good," Aldridge said. "Six weeks, they want the revision. That's manageable." He picked up his coffee, discovered its temperature, set it down again. "Second thing. I had a call from the NIH last week. The Human Genome Project is convening an international strategy meeting in Bermuda in February. They're bringing in team leads from the major sequencing centers. Watson's team, the Sanger Centre people, Whitehead Institute."
Ethan waited.
"They want a representative from Columbia's biology department," Aldridge said. "Someone early-career, specifically — they want the next generation at the table for the strategy conversations, not just the established names." He looked at Ethan. "I put your name forward."
Ethan looked at him. "Bermuda."
"February," Aldridge said. "The meeting that shapes the back half of the project. The sequencing decisions, the data sharing protocols, the international framework." He paused. "If the project goes the direction they're planning, the people in that room in February are the people who will define what modern genomics looks like for the next thirty years."
The office was quiet for a moment.
"February," Ethan said. "That's nine months."
"Nine months to have something worth saying when you're in the room," Aldridge said. "Which I don't think will be a problem." He looked at Ethan with the assessing expression he'd had since their first meeting, the one that had been recalibrating upward at intervals ever since. "Do you want to go?"
"Yes," Ethan said, without hesitation.
"I thought so," Aldridge said. "Confirmation will come through officially in the fall. In the meantime—" he picked up a folder and passed it across the desk "—this is the preliminary agenda. Read it. Start thinking about what you want to contribute."
Ethan took the folder. It had the specific weight of something that mattered.
"The paper revision first," Aldridge said. "Then the Bermuda prep. In that order."
"In that order," Ethan agreed.
He stood to leave. At the door, Aldridge said: "The Fox project. Is that moving?"
"Pre-production," Ethan said. "They've cast the lead. Joey Tribbiani has the supporting role."
Aldridge looked at him with the expression of a man who had known Ethan long enough to accept that his life had an unusual range. "The actor friend," he said.
"The actor friend," Ethan confirmed.
"And the script is yours," Aldridge said. "Original."
"Original," Ethan said.
Aldridge was quiet for a moment. Then: "Good. The science needs people who can tell stories about it." He picked up his coffee again, discovered again that it was cold, and this time drank it anyway. "Go do the revision."
He drove back to Monica's in the early afternoon with the folder on the passenger seat and the particular feeling he got when two things were happening at once — the near-term work and the longer-horizon thing that was taking shape behind it.
The apartment had the Saturday afternoon configuration — Monica in the kitchen, Chandler on the couch with the legal pad he'd been carrying everywhere for three weeks, Rachel with her Madison materials, Ross in the armchair with the particular exhaustion of a new father who had been awake since five but was choosing to be here rather than sleeping.
"The paper's being accepted," Ethan said, dropping his jacket on the hook.
Monica appeared from the kitchen doorway. "The microplastics one?"
"The microplastics one," he said. "Revisions first, but the kind that mean yes."
"Ethan," Rachel said.
"It's the first one," he said. "With my name on it."
"That's a big deal," Ross said, from the armchair, with the specific warmth of one academic recognizing another's milestone.
"It's the first one," Ethan said again, because saying it twice made it more real.
Monica came out of the kitchen and stood in front of him with the expression she wore when she was about to mark an occasion whether he was ready or not. "I'm making dinner tonight," she said. "You don't get a vote on this."
"I wasn't going to argue," Ethan said.
"Good," she said. "Seven o'clock. I'm calling it a first-publication dinner and everyone's coming."
"I haven't published yet," Ethan said. "The revisions—"
"First accepted dinner," Monica said, which was Monica handling the technicality and moving on.
Chandler looked up from his legal pad. "What's the other thing?" he said. "You came in with two things on your face."
Ethan looked at him. "The Bermuda meeting," he said. "Human Genome Project strategy session. February. Aldridge put my name forward."
Chandler put down the legal pad entirely. "Bermuda."
"Bermuda," Ethan confirmed.
"That's—" Chandler stopped. "That's the thing, isn't it. The room where it happens."
"It's the room," Ethan said.
Ross had leaned forward in the armchair. "The Bermuda Principles meeting," he said, with the specific recognition of an academic who followed adjacent fields closely. "Watson's been talking about it. They're going to decide the open-access framework for the sequence data. That's—" He stopped. "Ethan, that's genuinely historic."
"I know," Ethan said.
"Historic in the actual sense," Ross said. "Not the way people use that word."
"I know," Ethan said.
The room sat with it for a moment — the particular weight of something that was far enough away to still be hypothetical but close enough to be real.
"Bermuda in February," Phoebe said, from the other end of the couch, with the specific expression she wore when she'd perceived something true. "And the paper. And the script." She looked at Ethan. "Everything's arriving at once."
"It tends to work that way," Ethan said.
"Is that good?" Rachel said.
"It's a lot," Ethan said. "Whether it's good depends on what you do with a lot."
"What are you going to do with it?" Chandler said.
Ethan picked up his coffee. "The revision first," he said. "Then the prep. In that order."
"Aldridge?" Chandler said.
"Aldridge," Ethan confirmed.
Chandler nodded, with the expression of someone who recognized good counsel when he heard it. He picked up his legal pad again, and Ethan caught a glimpse of what was on it — not the first page, not the outline stage, but actual lines. Actual sentences. The thing was taking shape.
He didn't say anything about it. Chandler would say something when he was ready.
That was how it worked.
Joey called at four-thirty.
"I told Sandra," he said.
"And?" Ethan said.
"She laughed," Joey said.
Ethan waited.
"Not in a bad way," Joey said. "In the way where she said — and I'm quoting — 'Joey, only you would tell me this on a Saturday afternoon with complete sincerity.'"
"That sounds like it went well," Ethan said.
"She said she appreciates that I told her," Joey said. "She said most guys would have just made something up."
"Most guys would have," Ethan said.
"She wants to wait until the study is done and then have dinner," Joey said. "She said—" He paused, and in the pause Ethan could hear the specific Joey thing that happened when something had landed better than he'd expected and he was still calibrating to it. "She said it's kind of sweet that I'm contributing to science."
"It is kind of sweet," Ethan said.
"I know," Joey said, with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had done the honest thing and been rewarded for it, which was always slightly surprising even when you knew it was the right call.
"Seven hundred dollars," Ethan said.
"For science," Joey said.
"And dinner with Sandra," Ethan said.
"And dinner with Sandra," Joey confirmed, and he sounded, Ethan thought, genuinely pleased.
Next: The first-publication dinner. Chandler shows Ethan what's on the legal pad. The Bermuda folder sits on Ethan's desk and he reads it three times. Ross finally, actually says something to Rachel — not the big speech, just the first real thing.
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