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Ruahnna
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This time, thought Kermit smugly. This time—nothing can go wrong.
Posing for Christmas ornaments had not always played to his particular strengths, but this time, he wasn’t even in the photo shoot—leaving him free to supervise and run interference on pesky photographers. He felt certain this was going to go better.
Once again, he and Piggy had found themselves the guests and subjects of the nice people at Hallmark. Kermit would always gratefully remember their phenomenal support while The Muppet Show was running and their first three movies were being made. Time was you could not go into any Hallmark Store anywhere and not be greeting with Kermit’s smiling face or Piggy’s delectable form.
Speaking of delectable…. Kermit trotted over to Piggy’s dressing room to see how she was faring. Early fittings had not been encouraging.
“I look like the Statue of Liberty,” Piggy had complained, lifting the folds of mint green. Kermit opened his mouth to reassure her but found he could not, in good faith, disagree with her assessment. The dressmaker had been accommodating (as well as awe-struck) however, and had been very interested in Piggy’s input. Never shy with her opinion when it came to fashion, Piggy had made several specific, um, “suggestions,” and the designer and her team of seamstresses had rushed to comply.
She had wanted the gown to look less like a choir robe and more like a ladies ball gown. She had insisted that they raise the neckline—angels must not show, well, anything that would not be appropriate. The dress—especially if the ornament was going to be sculpted as though she were flying—needed a belt if the dress wasn’t going to simply droop from her shoulders. They had not made gloves—she had brought an array for them to choose from, and they had matched her favorite shade of lavender and used it to dye the shoes. They had initially tried it without shoes, but it made the overall impression seem more shepherdess-like than angelic, so Piggy had been obliged to accept yet another pair of lovely shoes (Oh—the burden of it all!) designed just for her.
While she had been adamant about the lack of cleavage shown by the neckline, she had been equally insistent on the topic of the effects of heavenly gravity verses earthly gravity. Appropriate undergarments were procured, and everyone was pleased with the result. The undergarments proved to be more significant than anyone had anticipated when it became necessary to hoist Piggy up into the air as though she were actually fluttering around the Christmas tree. It was absolutely imperative that everything stay exactly where it belonged, from the shoes—which showed a marked tendency to come off—to the dress, which wanted to shift a little on her shoulders. The halo and wings proved to be logistical nightmares of their own. Minute adjustments were made, and spirit gum was liberally applied. The pulleys did their work and Piggy soared magnificently into the air.
Like everyone else, Kermit walked around her raised form admiringly, but when the admiring went on for what seemed to him like and inordinate amount of time, Kermit began to feel proprietary and huffy, glaring meaningfully at anyone whose gaze lingered for longer than he felt was necessary. Unfortunately, no one paid him any mind—including Piggy—and she giggled and flirted shamelessly with this new batch of camera jockeys while they admired her heavenly form.
“Can we get started?” Kermit demanded, almost shouting to make himself heard over the murmur of the crowd. “I know we’d all like to get out of here in time for lunch.”
The mention of lunch prompted two of the photographers to ask—with excessive casualness—about the possibility of squiring Miss Piggy to lunch at a fabulous little restaurant that served the most divine—
Kermit nipped these hopes in the bud by shooing the young bucks along with a look. Piggy waved at the young men coquettishly until they were gone, then shot Kermit a look of complete exasperation.
“Really, Kermit,” she said reasonably. “Moi is fine now. Vous were very sweet to come and help Moi set up, but you can go on back now to…whatever it is you do.”
Inwardly, Kermit groaned. He knew this was payback for his claim that he was “too busy with work” to take her out to Four Seasons last weekend. Piggy had reminded him all week that his work was “too important to spare him” while at the same time implying nothing but disdain for job as executive officer. Kermit would have had an easier time arguing with her ascertains of he had not been so much in agreement with them. A great deal of what he had to do hardly merited a CEO’s attention, but it was all necessary and it all had to be done by somebody. It just so happened that that “somebody” usually ended up being him. In the end, he gritted his hard palate and endured it. Patience was a virtue, and he wanted very much to remain virtuous.
Speaking of virtue….Looking at Piggy’s angelic form, Kermit marveled at the way that she could look so…so very innocent of what it was she was so peculiarly good at. Even to his lack of ears, that sounded vague, but trying to pin down precisely what it was about her face and form that engendered fantasy and fanaticism in the males of any species, what it was about her whims and caprices that lent themselves so easily to abject obedience, was fruitless, and Kermit found himself once more at square one.
It’s not like she the only beautiful woman in the world—or even the only beautiful pig, Kermit thought defensively. It wasn’t that she was the best singer he’d ever auditioned, although she could bring home a torch song like no one he had ever heard. And though she might, on occasion, dress like a femme fatale, she might just as easily show up in a Sunday-go-to-meetin’ dress and a big straw hat—her thick blond hair in pigtails. That image made him pause, and he felt back along the thread of thought to see what had caught his attention.
Ah…there it was. He could see her just as she’d appeared in the Beauty Pageant scene in The Muppet Movie—not the stunning winner in a white bathing suit, but the country-girl-all-grown-up and ready for the big city. He thought about it a minute. He had never actually thought of Piggy as a country girl, even though he knew she’d grown up rather rural, but something about the image there was calling him, trying to tell him something if only he could decipher it. What was it about the memory of her in that outfit that was speaking to him here, today, with a much more sophisticated version of the same woman looking like she ought to be adorning someone’s Christmas tree? Completely unbidden, Kermit thought that having Piggy adorn any part of his apartment this Christmas would let Santa off the hook for a long, long time. He stuffed that thought hastily away. Christmas was months away, and he had other things to think about. He tried to pick up the thought again, but it dissolved like a peppermint puff on his tongue, leaving sweetness but no substance behind.
“They’re calling vous.” Piggy’s voice broke in on his reverie. She sounded amused, and Kermit hope, hope, hoped he had not been standing there with a dreamy, dopey smile on his face while he reminisced. He cloaked his embarrassment in brusqueness.
“Oh, um, right,” he muttered, moving off. Piggy half-turned to watch him go, wondering about the look in his eyes. For a split-second, she was contrite about having flirted with the photographers in front of him, but it passed. She smiled wickedly and fluffed her hair. It always passed.
--need you out of the way,” one of the photographers was saying with just enough civility—and no more.
“I’ll just bet you do,” Kermit thought dryly, but he had no intention of leaving his post as dragon, er, um, frog at the gate. Nevertheless, he removed himself from the shot and did his best to look stern and proprietary without giving anything away. He endured several minutes of rapturous ooh-ing, ahh-ing and camera-clicking from the cadre of photographers, then Piggy began to twist unaccountably, and her profile turned away. This presented—askance—a different view of Piggy—and not a bad one at that!—but Kermit was happy that Piggy had been so insistent about the layers and layers of underfluff beneath the gown.
“Helloooo,” Piggy called, even as several men hastened over to assist her. “I’m can’t turn back around on my own.” Her tone was sweet, but that last word came out much like a growl, and Kermit resisted the urge to grin widely. They would find out soon enough how quickly that sugar could turn to spice if she wasn’t happy with the way the photo shoot was going. While they were adjusting her harness ropes, one of her purple pumps came off for about the thousandth time. Despite the flock of persistent helpers around her, or maybe because of them, the shoe went unnoticed. Kermit saw Piggy wiggle her foot, then try to crane around to look, but someone was reapplying lipstick and she was hampered in her movements. He walked over, picked up the shoe, and slipped it back on.
“My shoe is—oh! Oh—thank you, somebody!” Piggy called. Kermit debated slipping off without her knowing it was him, but some impulse made him lay his slim green hand warmly on the back of one shapely calf. Piggy stilled immediately, and Kermit knew she knew it was him. He said nothing, but gave her leg a quick little squeeze and went back to his post. Piggy waited while they messed with her hair and added another sprinkle of blush, patient and still, but there was something restless now in her frame, even in her stillness.
Piggy loved having her picture taken, and she was a master at making the most of a photo opportunity, but she abhorred waiting with a passion. She liked to be in front of the camera—not waiting patiently behind one, for patience was a virtue she had not shown much interest in cultivating. Kermit, on the other hand, had enormous patience. On more than one occasion he had been the only one who could exert enough control to make her wait to start a scene until everything was ready, until everything was perfect when she was usually raring to get on with it. And while she might rail at him—might even, if she felt the situation warranted it, inflict bodily harm—she would usually follow his lead. The thought made Kermit smile. You could lead a pig to the stage, but you couldn't make her--
The touch-up was finished, and they began to shoot again. Piggy smiled, looked serene, and at one point flashed a smile of such devilish delight that Kermit was fairly certain none of them had managed to actually take the picture, staring as they were with slack-jawed amazement. Kermit had been amazed, but not slack-jawed—he was fairly proof against such things after years of long association—but he mourned the loss of what was surely the picture of the hour, if not the day. Piggy held her arms out, then up and finally pressed with great circumspection to her bosom, but that created entirely too much focus on the…um, neckline of the dress.
“On your shoulder,” Kermit called from his lean against the wall. Everyone turned and stared except Piggy, (who could not) as they had completely forgotten his presence.
“What? Kermie—is that you?” Piggy said, struggling ineffectually to turn. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I’m here,” Kermit said. “I said, try putting your hands on your shoulder.”
“On my shoulders?” Piggy asked. “I don’t—“
“No—on one shoulder,” Kermit said. He walked over where she could see him. “Clasp your hands like this,” he said, showing her. “Then put them on your shoulder.”
Piggy complied, but Kermit walked up to her and gently moved them to the other shoulder.
“There,” he said. She looked…perfect.
All the photographers let out a collective sigh, and Piggy actually blushed. The cameras went wild, blinking like crazy to capture that blush as Kermit back slowly away. His eyes were locked with hers, and she looked at him with that look he could not decipher at first, then the answer hit with with startling clarity out of the, um, heavens.
Trust. That was the look he saw in her eyes now. It was the look in her eyes when they had first worked together, the look in her eyes in the Fair scene of The Muppet Movie, the look he most liked to see when she looked at him. Though they did not always see to eye on, well, anything, she trusted him not to lead her wrong. Kermit wanted very badly to never betray her faith. He backed up against the wall—out of the scene but still very much in the picture.
“Beautiful,” he said, then his eyes grew mischievous. “Maybe even divine.”
Piggy would have huffed at him, but she was mindful of the cameras, so she contented herself with giving him such a look with her flashing blue eyes that he wanted to laugh out loud.
“Okay,” he chuckled. “Heavenly, then.” His voice dropped, pitched for her ears only. “Heavenly, but certainly not angelic.”
This time Piggy smiled, and that smile was far superior to the impish smile she had shown earlier. Click, click, click went the cameras. This smile was much, much better, thought Kermit, because it had been just for him.
Posing for Christmas ornaments had not always played to his particular strengths, but this time, he wasn’t even in the photo shoot—leaving him free to supervise and run interference on pesky photographers. He felt certain this was going to go better.
Once again, he and Piggy had found themselves the guests and subjects of the nice people at Hallmark. Kermit would always gratefully remember their phenomenal support while The Muppet Show was running and their first three movies were being made. Time was you could not go into any Hallmark Store anywhere and not be greeting with Kermit’s smiling face or Piggy’s delectable form.
Speaking of delectable…. Kermit trotted over to Piggy’s dressing room to see how she was faring. Early fittings had not been encouraging.
“I look like the Statue of Liberty,” Piggy had complained, lifting the folds of mint green. Kermit opened his mouth to reassure her but found he could not, in good faith, disagree with her assessment. The dressmaker had been accommodating (as well as awe-struck) however, and had been very interested in Piggy’s input. Never shy with her opinion when it came to fashion, Piggy had made several specific, um, “suggestions,” and the designer and her team of seamstresses had rushed to comply.
She had wanted the gown to look less like a choir robe and more like a ladies ball gown. She had insisted that they raise the neckline—angels must not show, well, anything that would not be appropriate. The dress—especially if the ornament was going to be sculpted as though she were flying—needed a belt if the dress wasn’t going to simply droop from her shoulders. They had not made gloves—she had brought an array for them to choose from, and they had matched her favorite shade of lavender and used it to dye the shoes. They had initially tried it without shoes, but it made the overall impression seem more shepherdess-like than angelic, so Piggy had been obliged to accept yet another pair of lovely shoes (Oh—the burden of it all!) designed just for her.
While she had been adamant about the lack of cleavage shown by the neckline, she had been equally insistent on the topic of the effects of heavenly gravity verses earthly gravity. Appropriate undergarments were procured, and everyone was pleased with the result. The undergarments proved to be more significant than anyone had anticipated when it became necessary to hoist Piggy up into the air as though she were actually fluttering around the Christmas tree. It was absolutely imperative that everything stay exactly where it belonged, from the shoes—which showed a marked tendency to come off—to the dress, which wanted to shift a little on her shoulders. The halo and wings proved to be logistical nightmares of their own. Minute adjustments were made, and spirit gum was liberally applied. The pulleys did their work and Piggy soared magnificently into the air.
Like everyone else, Kermit walked around her raised form admiringly, but when the admiring went on for what seemed to him like and inordinate amount of time, Kermit began to feel proprietary and huffy, glaring meaningfully at anyone whose gaze lingered for longer than he felt was necessary. Unfortunately, no one paid him any mind—including Piggy—and she giggled and flirted shamelessly with this new batch of camera jockeys while they admired her heavenly form.
“Can we get started?” Kermit demanded, almost shouting to make himself heard over the murmur of the crowd. “I know we’d all like to get out of here in time for lunch.”
The mention of lunch prompted two of the photographers to ask—with excessive casualness—about the possibility of squiring Miss Piggy to lunch at a fabulous little restaurant that served the most divine—
Kermit nipped these hopes in the bud by shooing the young bucks along with a look. Piggy waved at the young men coquettishly until they were gone, then shot Kermit a look of complete exasperation.
“Really, Kermit,” she said reasonably. “Moi is fine now. Vous were very sweet to come and help Moi set up, but you can go on back now to…whatever it is you do.”
Inwardly, Kermit groaned. He knew this was payback for his claim that he was “too busy with work” to take her out to Four Seasons last weekend. Piggy had reminded him all week that his work was “too important to spare him” while at the same time implying nothing but disdain for job as executive officer. Kermit would have had an easier time arguing with her ascertains of he had not been so much in agreement with them. A great deal of what he had to do hardly merited a CEO’s attention, but it was all necessary and it all had to be done by somebody. It just so happened that that “somebody” usually ended up being him. In the end, he gritted his hard palate and endured it. Patience was a virtue, and he wanted very much to remain virtuous.
Speaking of virtue….Looking at Piggy’s angelic form, Kermit marveled at the way that she could look so…so very innocent of what it was she was so peculiarly good at. Even to his lack of ears, that sounded vague, but trying to pin down precisely what it was about her face and form that engendered fantasy and fanaticism in the males of any species, what it was about her whims and caprices that lent themselves so easily to abject obedience, was fruitless, and Kermit found himself once more at square one.
It’s not like she the only beautiful woman in the world—or even the only beautiful pig, Kermit thought defensively. It wasn’t that she was the best singer he’d ever auditioned, although she could bring home a torch song like no one he had ever heard. And though she might, on occasion, dress like a femme fatale, she might just as easily show up in a Sunday-go-to-meetin’ dress and a big straw hat—her thick blond hair in pigtails. That image made him pause, and he felt back along the thread of thought to see what had caught his attention.
Ah…there it was. He could see her just as she’d appeared in the Beauty Pageant scene in The Muppet Movie—not the stunning winner in a white bathing suit, but the country-girl-all-grown-up and ready for the big city. He thought about it a minute. He had never actually thought of Piggy as a country girl, even though he knew she’d grown up rather rural, but something about the image there was calling him, trying to tell him something if only he could decipher it. What was it about the memory of her in that outfit that was speaking to him here, today, with a much more sophisticated version of the same woman looking like she ought to be adorning someone’s Christmas tree? Completely unbidden, Kermit thought that having Piggy adorn any part of his apartment this Christmas would let Santa off the hook for a long, long time. He stuffed that thought hastily away. Christmas was months away, and he had other things to think about. He tried to pick up the thought again, but it dissolved like a peppermint puff on his tongue, leaving sweetness but no substance behind.
“They’re calling vous.” Piggy’s voice broke in on his reverie. She sounded amused, and Kermit hope, hope, hoped he had not been standing there with a dreamy, dopey smile on his face while he reminisced. He cloaked his embarrassment in brusqueness.
“Oh, um, right,” he muttered, moving off. Piggy half-turned to watch him go, wondering about the look in his eyes. For a split-second, she was contrite about having flirted with the photographers in front of him, but it passed. She smiled wickedly and fluffed her hair. It always passed.
--need you out of the way,” one of the photographers was saying with just enough civility—and no more.
“I’ll just bet you do,” Kermit thought dryly, but he had no intention of leaving his post as dragon, er, um, frog at the gate. Nevertheless, he removed himself from the shot and did his best to look stern and proprietary without giving anything away. He endured several minutes of rapturous ooh-ing, ahh-ing and camera-clicking from the cadre of photographers, then Piggy began to twist unaccountably, and her profile turned away. This presented—askance—a different view of Piggy—and not a bad one at that!—but Kermit was happy that Piggy had been so insistent about the layers and layers of underfluff beneath the gown.
“Helloooo,” Piggy called, even as several men hastened over to assist her. “I’m can’t turn back around on my own.” Her tone was sweet, but that last word came out much like a growl, and Kermit resisted the urge to grin widely. They would find out soon enough how quickly that sugar could turn to spice if she wasn’t happy with the way the photo shoot was going. While they were adjusting her harness ropes, one of her purple pumps came off for about the thousandth time. Despite the flock of persistent helpers around her, or maybe because of them, the shoe went unnoticed. Kermit saw Piggy wiggle her foot, then try to crane around to look, but someone was reapplying lipstick and she was hampered in her movements. He walked over, picked up the shoe, and slipped it back on.
“My shoe is—oh! Oh—thank you, somebody!” Piggy called. Kermit debated slipping off without her knowing it was him, but some impulse made him lay his slim green hand warmly on the back of one shapely calf. Piggy stilled immediately, and Kermit knew she knew it was him. He said nothing, but gave her leg a quick little squeeze and went back to his post. Piggy waited while they messed with her hair and added another sprinkle of blush, patient and still, but there was something restless now in her frame, even in her stillness.
Piggy loved having her picture taken, and she was a master at making the most of a photo opportunity, but she abhorred waiting with a passion. She liked to be in front of the camera—not waiting patiently behind one, for patience was a virtue she had not shown much interest in cultivating. Kermit, on the other hand, had enormous patience. On more than one occasion he had been the only one who could exert enough control to make her wait to start a scene until everything was ready, until everything was perfect when she was usually raring to get on with it. And while she might rail at him—might even, if she felt the situation warranted it, inflict bodily harm—she would usually follow his lead. The thought made Kermit smile. You could lead a pig to the stage, but you couldn't make her--
The touch-up was finished, and they began to shoot again. Piggy smiled, looked serene, and at one point flashed a smile of such devilish delight that Kermit was fairly certain none of them had managed to actually take the picture, staring as they were with slack-jawed amazement. Kermit had been amazed, but not slack-jawed—he was fairly proof against such things after years of long association—but he mourned the loss of what was surely the picture of the hour, if not the day. Piggy held her arms out, then up and finally pressed with great circumspection to her bosom, but that created entirely too much focus on the…um, neckline of the dress.
“On your shoulder,” Kermit called from his lean against the wall. Everyone turned and stared except Piggy, (who could not) as they had completely forgotten his presence.
“What? Kermie—is that you?” Piggy said, struggling ineffectually to turn. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I’m here,” Kermit said. “I said, try putting your hands on your shoulder.”
“On my shoulders?” Piggy asked. “I don’t—“
“No—on one shoulder,” Kermit said. He walked over where she could see him. “Clasp your hands like this,” he said, showing her. “Then put them on your shoulder.”
Piggy complied, but Kermit walked up to her and gently moved them to the other shoulder.
“There,” he said. She looked…perfect.
All the photographers let out a collective sigh, and Piggy actually blushed. The cameras went wild, blinking like crazy to capture that blush as Kermit back slowly away. His eyes were locked with hers, and she looked at him with that look he could not decipher at first, then the answer hit with with startling clarity out of the, um, heavens.
Trust. That was the look he saw in her eyes now. It was the look in her eyes when they had first worked together, the look in her eyes in the Fair scene of The Muppet Movie, the look he most liked to see when she looked at him. Though they did not always see to eye on, well, anything, she trusted him not to lead her wrong. Kermit wanted very badly to never betray her faith. He backed up against the wall—out of the scene but still very much in the picture.
“Beautiful,” he said, then his eyes grew mischievous. “Maybe even divine.”
Piggy would have huffed at him, but she was mindful of the cameras, so she contented herself with giving him such a look with her flashing blue eyes that he wanted to laugh out loud.
“Okay,” he chuckled. “Heavenly, then.” His voice dropped, pitched for her ears only. “Heavenly, but certainly not angelic.”
This time Piggy smiled, and that smile was far superior to the impish smile she had shown earlier. Click, click, click went the cameras. This smile was much, much better, thought Kermit, because it had been just for him.
