The One With the Tea Leaves

Thursday, 7 March 2002

Rachel invents a story that her boss wants to buy her unborn baby so that she and Joey have something to talk about, and Joey then confronts the boss about it for real.

What happens

• Phoebe reads everyone's tea leaves and tells them that hers promise she will meet the man of her dreams very soon.
• Ross works out that his favourite pink shirt is still at Mona's flat, but he is reluctant to ask for it back because the breakup was ugly.
• Monica suggests that Rachel give Joey a work problem to fix the awkwardness between them, so Rachel tells him that her boss offered to buy her baby.
• The man Phoebe keeps running into all over the city introduces himself as Jim and asks her out to dinner.
• Ross lets himself into Mona's flat with her spare key, hides behind the couch when she arrives with a date, watches her lend his shirt to the date, and is discovered reaching for it.
• Joey marches into Mr. Zelner's office and accuses him of trying to buy Rachel's baby.
• Phoebe's dinner with Jim collapses when he turns crude about her body and his work, and she leaves him at the table.
• Joey tells Rachel he sorted her boss out, and Rachel has to admit she invented the whole thing and now expects to be fired.
• Mr. Zelner apologises to Rachel with a witness from human resources, and the company gives her an extra month of paid maternity leave.
• Mona tells Ross that they cannot work things out because of Rachel and the baby, and Ross takes his shirt back rather than let her keep it.