"And instead of a jacket, it's a pile of garbage."

----------

"Hey, what are you guys looking at?" Phoebe came over to us as we stared out the window.

"Ross and the second most beautiful girl in the world." Joey answered. From the corner of my eye, I could see him staring at the side of my face.

"Yeah, come to Papa." Phoebe agreed. After Ross and his new girl kissed goodnight, he came inside. We all kind of followed him with our eyes, a similar look of confusion on everyone.

"I know!" He exclaimed the way Monica does.

"Probably the only time I'll ever say this, but did you see the ass on her?" Monica asked the rest of us.

"No, I wasn't looking there." Joey spoke up.

"Where did you...? When did you...? How did you...?" Chandler stuttered out, but once Joey hit him upside the head, he could speak again. "How did you get a girl like that?" He furrowed his brows.s

"Yeah, so, what is she...like, a spokesmodel? Aerobics instructor, what?" Rachel guessed, clearly jealous.

"Actually, she's a paleontology doctoral candidate specializing in the Cenozoic area." He clarified for us.

"The only word in that sentence I understood was 'she'." I placed my hands on my hips.

"Okay, but that's, like, the easiest era." Chandler shrugged his shoulders.

"I've seen her at work, but I always figured..." Ross let out a snort. "But, uh, I made her dinner. We had a great time. And we're going out again tomorrow." He sat down at the small table but almost fell over.

"Maybe she and her friends are having a contest to see who brings home the biggest geek." Rachel shot back.

"Fine by me. Hope she wins." Ross retorted.

"Suparna, someone left this for you." Gunther handed me a beautifully wrapped present.

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, open it!" Phoebe bounced up and down.

"Alright, alright, hold your horses." I chuckled and carefully untied the bow before lifting up the cover. I gasped when I pulled out a set of earrings from the jewelry store down the street.

"Looks like you have a secret admirer." Monica nudged my arm.

"Maybe it's Michael from the marketing department." I gasped.

"He's been after you for years." Rachel agreed.

"Or it could be someone else. Someone you know." Ross spoke up, making us four girls glance over at him.

"What do you know about guys?" Rachel scoffed.

"Plenty. I'm dating the hottest one." Ross smirked victoriously.

"Second hottest." Joey blurted out. The next day, I went over to the girls' apartment to see Rach and Pheebs.

"Do you want to help me develop my new universal language?" Phoebe glanced back at me.

"Uh...sure." I joined her on the couch. "But how did you come up with the idea to, you know, create a whole language?" I looked over at Rachel, who just shrugged her shoulders.

"It just came to me one day." Phoebe replied.

"Hey!" Monica came in with her little trolley of food from the catering gig.

"Hey, how'd it go?" Rachel inquired after we greeted her.

"Oh my God! It was the best funeral ever!" She cheered. "I mean, everyone loved the food. And guess what? I even got another funeral tomorrow—the dead guy from today's best friend. I mean, it is like I am the official caterer for that accident." She pumped her fists in the air.

"Congratulations!" I smiled proudly.

"God, I am so happy for you!" Phoebe went over to her.

"Oh, thanks. And check out my new catering stuff." She set down her coat. "Look at this! I'm an omelet station! 'Omelet made to order'." She held up two pans.

"I'll have one, please. Plus my money." Phoebe answered.

"Oh. Well, I didn't realize you needed it back right away. I mean, you told me to go be a caterer." Monica let out a nervous chuckle. "So I went. I be'd. I–I used it to buy all this stuff." She confessed. "But look. I got another job tomorrow, so I'll pay you back with the money from that." Monica assured her.

"Oh! Okay. Ooh, sorry I acted like a bank." Phoebe apologized to her.

"Now, can we move onto something important? The way Joey kept referring to Ross' new date as the second hottest girl in the world." Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe all turned to look at me.

"Maybe he's talking about Kathy." I grabbed a random magazine off of the coffee table and flipped through it.

"Yeah. Because he would compliment a girl when your brother is standing right next to him." Monica scoffed.

"Even Joey's smarter than that." Phoebe backed her up.

"He wasn't talking about me, alright? We had a nasty breakup, but thankfully we're both strong enough to not let that affect the group." I leaned against the couch.

"Guess she's moved on." The three of them sighed.

"Well, duh. Did you not see that beautiful pair of earrings my secret admirer left me?" I reminded them.

"Speaking of, where are they?" Rachel posed to me.

"I put them on." I moved aside my hair to show them the diamond studs, perfectly sized for me.

"They look beautiful." The three of them gasped in awe.

"Whoever picked this out has great taste." I went back to my magazine. "Monica, why the hell do you have a baby magazine in here?" I questioned her since I know she's in charge of decorating the apartment.

"Just spicing up the reading material in this place." She answered. The next day, Ross and I were with Joey in his apartment, talking about Ross' new girl.

"So you just left? Her place was really that bad?" Joey didn't seem to believe him.

"You know how you throw your jacket on a chair at the end of the day? Well, it's like that, only instead of a chair, it's a pile of garbage. And instead of a jacket, it's a pile of garbage. And instead of the end of the day, it's the end of time, and garbage is all that has survived." He ranted.

"Wow." Joey's eyes widened in surprise.

"That's...that's really something." I nodded my head slowly.

"Stupid tie. I don't know how to do this." Joey almost choked himself.

"Why don't you help him, Suparna?" Ross looked over at me. My eye twitched as I got up and stalked over to Joey.

"Move your hands." I cleared my throat, looking anywhere but his face and eyes. He did as I said before I carefully untied the tie. I lifted up his collar and wrapped the tie again before making the proper knot. Once I finished, I folded his collar down and tightened the tie a bit.

"Thank you." He said.

"What's the tie for?" I asked him softly.

"Job interview." He blurted out in response. "So, uh, what happened?" Joey looked up at Ross.

"What do you mean? Nothing happened. I had to get out of there." He replied.

"Alright, so, next time, you take her to your place." Joey shrugged his shoulders.

"No, I tried that. She says it has a weird smell." He whined.

"Smell? What kinda smell?" I furrowed my brows.

"I don't know—soap?" Ross spat out.

"Speaking of soap, I need to go grocery shopping." I headed towards the door. "Do you need anything in here, Joey?" I glanced back at him, my heart breaking. Every time one of us went grocery shopping, we would get the other whatever they needed.

"Nothing." He shook his head. "Just you." He barely whispered.

"Did you say something?" I turned around in hope.

"No, no. I said nothing, and then I said thank you." He replied.

"Oh. Okay." And I left him and Ross.