Chapter 127: If I Don’t Meet You Here, I’ll Meet You There
“Teeth is never late. He is always the most punctilious man in the band,” said Floyd. “Where do you think he is?” he asked. Janice shook her long hair.
“Like, I don’t know. This is a rully big ship. He could be anywhere.”
“Can. Nast. Stah.” said Animal, and they all turned and looked at him.
“Come again, Animal?” said Floyd, and Animal looked mildly annoyed and said, “Can. Nast. Stah. Can. Nast. Stah!!!”
“Oh!” said Zoot. “Right. Right, man.”
Janice touched his arm. “Like, wanna share with the band?” she said, trying to control her impatience, but at that moment, Dr. Teeth arrived in all his glittery, bling-ish glory. His glitter and bling were well-complemented today by a couple of well-turned out middle-aged ladies whose smooth faces and expensive clothes said, “old money.” Another fashionably slender dowager followed along, chatting with the woman on Dr. Teeth’s right arm.
“Thank you, ladies! I am much obliged for your bodacious help,” said the good doctor cheerily. “Now I am going to earn my keep and lay down some heavy chords for some light listening.” He swept off his hat and beamed at them. “May I reconnoiter with you ladies at the shuffleboard court? B deck?”
“B deck,” confirmed the lady who had only reluctantly surrendered the doctor’s other striped sleeve. “Be there or be square,” she quipped, and they all giggled like schoolgirls.
“Posolutely,” said Teeth, and grinned his big shiny grin. “I would never be square.” He watched them until they had turned the corner, then sighed and turned around to find his band mates staring at him.
“Where you been?” Zoot demanded. “You lingering over the buffet again?”
The glitzy keyboardist laughed. “Something like that,” he said. “Now let’s get this jam on a roll!”
“Oh merciful heavens,” Howard exclaimed. “You look like an absolute tart.”
“It could be worse,” Thoreau said. “Notice how I put a couple of teeny-weeny darts in the back to accentuate the roundness of—“
“It could be better,” Piggy growled, mildly self-conscious about having her assets publically vetted. But here, both men protested.
“I don’t see how,” Howard was saying. “If you’re aiming to knock Kermit right out of his socks, this ought to do the trick.”
“Frogs don’t wear socks,” Piggy corrected automatically.
For his part, Thoreau straightened gracefully and indicated Piggy should move. She twirled, but he mimicked walking fingers, and she obediently strutted the length of the dressing room and back, then dropped a mocking Mary Pickford curtsey in front of them. Howard was scandalized, but Thoreau’s eyes had the lazy self-satisfied look that indicated he was pleased.
“I’ve done all I can do,” he said, “which is saying something. You’ll have to…sell the rest yourself, Piggy.” Howard snickered, and Piggy gave him a look that made him pull himself together rapidly.
“You look tres chic, Piggy honey,” Howard said, appeasingly, “although I don’t think Kermit would let you wear that to the grocery.”
“Moi does not do the grocery shopping,” Piggy said airily.
“Thank goodness,” Thoreau said. “Can you imagine the carnage with all those shopping carts if you wandered down the aisles in this get-up? There’d be wide-spread wreckage. “
“Clean-up on aisle 9,” Howard agreed. “But it’s perfect for the show, and perfect for the interview. If that frog has a thought in his head after he gets a look at you in this, I’ll eat the bear’s hat.”
“I’m thinking of a scene from Gone With the Wind,” said Thoreau, and Piggy said, “I know which one.”
“The red dress-entrance. Yes,” Howard said. “Although I have to admit I love the Carol Burnett parody almost as well as the real thing.”
“That Dinah Shore,” sighed Thoreau. “What a sweetheart.”
Piggy waved their digressions away. “Moi is going to change into street clothes,” she said. “And we are going to go and have ourselves some lunch.” She stepped behind the dressing screen as both men found a seat and sat down to wait for her. She emerged mere moments later and was dutifully zipped up by Thoreau, who approved the smart little nautical-inspired suit-dress with the sailor collar and crisp white piping. Spectator pumps shaped her plump, well-muscled calves, and she reached for a cloche hat.
“The straw one, I believe,” said Thoreau. “Trust me—I know it’s big but it will make the outfit.” Doubtfully, Piggy put it on, but when Thoreau helped her adjust the netting so that it artfully covered one eye, she saw that he was right.
“I defer to you, darling,” Piggy had said, and bussed him lightly on the cheek. She had to hold onto the hat with both hands to do it.
“As well you should,” he said confidently. “Now get your tidy self in gear. I’m ready for a mimosa.”
And Piggy had giggled, and inclined her head. For a moment, she looked like Old Hollywood glamour come to life, then the image was dispelled by her dialing her cell phone.
“Bonjour, mon amis,” Piggy said into the phone. “Je m'appelle Mademoiselle Cochonne. J'ai une réservation pour trois.” She waited. “Oui—trois.” Another wait, then Piggy made a happy sigh. “Merci beaucoup,” she said at last. She hung up and looked up at her friends. “Let’s bag it and drag it, peeps!” she said, and they followed her out the door.
“I don’t care,” said the tough stubbornly. “I don’t want no part of it. I got kids, and the wife ‘ud skin me alive and boil me for dinner if I so much as made a mean face at, um, you know?” He looked nervously over his shoulder.
“Then get one of your little friends,” came the gritted reply.
“Look—my friends may be tough, and some of them may be scumbags, but they ain’t stupid. Touching those guys—it’s the kiss of death. You get caught, you wouldn’t last a day in prison. You know what they do to folks what hurt kids in prison? Yeah? Well, what do you think they’d do to someone who hurt a kid’s—“
“Fine, fine!” snapped the voice. “Stop whining already. I can’t hear myself think.”
The thug, whose name was CB, had a thought that maybe thinking wasn’t the strong suit of his erstwhile employer, but by the time the thought reached his face, it didn’t show. He waited, trying not to fidget. Sheesh—he was twice the size of this blockhead but he was getting the wind up bad. Besides, the job…geez, the job! Who in their right mind would take out a hit on the--
“Look,” said tight voice, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m not asking you to, um, dispatch him.”
“You makin’ fun of my name?” CB asked, trying to puzzle it out. People who made fun of his name figured out quick how he’d gotten it.
“What? No, you idi—“
CB loomed, blocking out the sun.
“I mean, what, no! Of course I wasn’t. I was just, um, saying that you don’t have to, um, eradicate—”
“Huh? I ain’t no English scholar.”
“I’m not asking you to kill him!!!”
“Shhhh! What are you—nuts? Get out of here! No—you stay. I’m getting out of here. It’s bad enough you want someone to do it, but now you’re talkin’ about it—“
“Wait, wait—I’m sorry.”
A well-manicured hand grabbed his arm and it was all he could do not to react. Smart people didn’t put their hands on him, but he’d already figured out he was dealing with stupid—and maybe crazy—so he took a deep breath and tried not to pummel.
“Stop trying to talk like a gangster on tv. Use small words, and choose ‘em carefully or I’m walkin’—got it?” The smaller figure nodded hastily and the hand was removed.
“I just want you to rough him up, okay? I just want to, um, scare him a little—make him think twice about what he’s doing. Don’t tell me a big guy like you is scared?”
“I ain’t scared,” CB said, but in truth he was sweating. “But I can’t help you.”
“I’ll double the price!” This was wrenched from the speaker unwillingly, but it was worth it. CB wavered. “I’ll double the price and you don’t even have to lay a hand on him. I just want him scared out of his wits so he’ll go running off home and never—“
“Fine, fine,” said CB. “Geez, you talk a lot. Okay—look. I know one guy who might do it. He’s big.”
“Bigger than you?”
CB snorted. “Bigger than everybody,” he said. “He doesn’t like to hurt people, but he’s good at…suggesting things to them, you know what I mean? And he’s not put off by these people like I am—like the other guys are.” He hesitated. “I could ask.”
“Ask.” The venom in that voice made CB step back. Crazy was right. He hesitated again, then held out his hand.
“Okay—give me the dough and I’ll ask.”
“What--? What makes you think I’ll just….” That last came out rather squeaky as CB towered imposingly. Good grief—it was like a solar eclipse. “I mean, here’s half. Get the job done and you’ll get the other half. I don’t care who does it—just get it done. Okay?”
But CB was counting the money, already moving on. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll explain the job to him. He does it, you pay me this much again. He says no….I’ll take this as a nuisance fee for asking. Okay?”
This was obviously not okay, but when there was no answer, CB started to turn back—
“Okay,” gasped the voice. “Just scare him. Make him afraid.”
CB did not turn around. “I’m sure I can arrange it.”
The shakes didn’t hit until CB was out of sight, but then they hit with a vengeance. “I have no doubt you can,” came the shaky reply, but there was no one there in the alley to hear it.
“Well, I feel positively decadent,” said Autumn, settling back into her lover’s embrace on the big brass bed. “I don’t know when I’ve slept this late.”
“Well, I feel positively debauched,” Ed teased. “And you weren’t exactly sleeping.”
“Leave it to you to be literal,” she pouted.
“Leave it to you to be…” His arms tightened around her. “Figurative.”
Autumn laughed and kissed him, then wriggled free again and went to check the coffee pot. She inhaled the scent, which was permeating the spacious suite. “And you don’t want to sample my French Press?” she said. The teapot stood in readiness, but she was asking once more to be sure.
“As delectable as that sounds, no,” said Ed, toeing into his houseshoes and padding into the kitchen. “I’m not a coffee drinker.” He heard her snort and the sound of hot liquid hissing into a cup. Earlier, he had heard the whistle from the teapot, and now heard the rasp of the copper pot being lifted off the burner. He heard the water pour and smelled the heady scent of tea leaves steaming. Autumn placed the tea on the counter just so, and he reached gingerly for the mug handle.
“Well, I like a French press because you get to control how hot the water is, how long you let it steep, how much--.”
“You do like to be in charge of things,” Ed said lightly, and Autumn made a face at him.
“Still complaining because I kidnapped you?” she demanded, but Ed turned and smiled at her.
“I wasn’t thinking of that at all,” he murmured, and only narrowly missed being hit with a linen napkin that she had balled up and thrown. “This is good,” he said, sipping the hot liquid. He sat down on the couch in the sitting area and held the mug near his nose. “Is this English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast?”
“That’s Autumn breakfast,” she said. “From home.”
“I like it,” Ed said. “Strong and yet subtle.”
“I’m good at subtle,” Autumn said. She hesitated, and Ed waited, half-knowing what was coming. “I…Ed, I got a, um, message,” she said.
“If you have to go—“
“No. I don’t have to go.” She said, coming to sit cross-legged on the couch beside him. She reached for his hand, watching his expression. “But I have…something I have to do, Darling. It won’t take long, but—“
“Well, I’m going to take a long shower and shave again,” said Ed, rubbing his budding stubble. His expression was serious. “You are free to do what you need to do.”
“If I’m not back before you’re done—“
“Then I will dress with exquisite good taste and go on to our lunch. You will meet me there?” There was a wistful quality to his voice that Autumn loved.
“Yes, Dearest. No matter what. If I don’t see you here, I’ll see you there.” She leaned forward and kissed him, two warm, flavored mouths working together. Then she stood up and left him to savor the remains of his tea—and his morning—alone.
Leila stared at the little pink phone that sat beneath the counter and impugned her. It was afternoon and Miss Piggy had not come by for it yet, and she was doubting—again—whether or not she should have taken the phone in the first place. The man had seemed nice, but you never knew, did you? She was lost in thought when the door opening sounded the bell. Leila looked up to see an almost familiar face. She knew that man—she did, but from where…?
She watched him wander up and down the aisles and it hit her—all of a sudden—why he seemed familiar. This man had come into the store the day Miss Piggy had crawled down the aisle and made a quiet escape. Was this the guy she’d been trying to hide from? Or was it the guy who had left the phone? This guy didn’t look like a bad guy. He looked like a gentleman, although he was moving rather stiffly, as though his back was sore. His face was boyish but nondescript, his coat well-tailored and expensive. So lost in thought was she that he looked up and caught her looking at him. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and Leila caught her breath. He suddenly did not look either boyish or gentlemanly, then—quick as a wink—he was smiling at her, a charming smile, showing lots of white teeth.
“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly.
Good breeding will tell, willing or no. “Good afternoon,” Leila answered politely, and smiled her well-mannered shop-girl smile. “Can I help you with anything?”
He almost said, “I’d like some information, please,” but something about the girl’s wholesome demeanor warned him off. Seymour smiled, a practiced smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Just looking,” he said, and when her eyes squinched at him, he amended hastily. “I think you sell umbrellas?”
Leila pointed. She said nothing, but she thought, We both know it isn’t going to rain today. She watched him walk in the direction she pointed and was startled when the doorbell clanged again. She turned to see a big bruin of a guy in a blue suit walk into the store.
“Hey, how ya doin’?” he said, waving a big paw. “I heard you got some of those big cookies—the oatmeal ones with raisins in ‘im?” His face was so comically hopeful that, in spite of herself, Leila smiled back. “Up here at the counter,” she said, and he lumbered forward and looked at the selection eagerly.
“Great!” he said. “I’m starvin’! I just got into town!”
Leila bit her lip. On a turnip truck, no doubt, she thought wickedly. What she said was, “Is this your first time in the Big Apple?”
“Heck no!” he replied, surprising her. “I been here lots of times. I just came to town to do a job.”
Leila looked at him skeptically. “You a dancer?” she asked. There were always dancers coming to town, and they came in all shapes and sizes. This guy didn’t look like a dancer, but you never knew.
“Oh, heh heh. Not really. I’m an actor. But right now I’m working security down at the theater.” He pointed. He pointed to Miss Piggy’s theater.
“Really?” said Leila, trying to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
“Yeah! Got the call early this morning. Say—you got any sammiches?”
Leila helped him load up a paper sack with edibles and a couple of grape Nehi drinks, then rang everything up. He paid without complaint and shuffled off down the street toward the theater. Watching him, Leila became aware of another set of eyes watching him lumber down the street. The gentleman in the nice coat was glaring at his back with something like venom in his gaze, and Leila reached below the counter for the comforting familiarity of the tire iron.
“Did you find an umbrella you wanted?” she demanded. The man looked down, startled, as though surprised to find his clenched hands empty.
“Um, I must have set it down….” He mumbled. He went back, grabbed the first umbrella he saw—a pink one with big gray polka dots—and paid for it hastily under Leila’s gimlet eye.
Leila watched him go, and she had lots of things to wonder about for the rest of her shift.
Scribbler wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and surveyed the bags under his eyes ruefully, then grinned at his reflection. Awww, nobody’s looking at me, he thought sardonically, then his heart all but leapt out of his chest. But somebody is talking to me again! He had hardly slept last night, too keyed up from everything that had happened. In flashes, he had relived the moment he looked up to see Missy struggling with her attacker, his mad dash across the pavement and the brief but intense altercation between him and the man in the dark coat and hat. He had tried until his brain hurt to remember anything specific about the man’s appearance—anything that might give a clue to his identity—but the only face that came to mind was Missy’s, gazing up at him with something like adoration in her big, blue eyes. Something like, he reminded himself. She’s just grateful. But if he closed his eyes and thought about it, he could almost feel her satin-gloved arm around his back, the warm press of her body as she leaned on him for support.
These images were interspersed with other images: the sight of Jonesy behind his desk, his humiliation in his boss’s office, the sweetish smell of…dinner on the breath of his boss and the thugs that had manhandled him. He flexed his arm and winced. Luckily, he would only be wielding a microphone tomorrow, and the thought of it made him grimace.
He used to love the award show crowd. He could look around the crowded causeway and see a hundred different stories, all waiting for his byline, but that had been a while ago, when his name and face were familiar, when people had actually known who he was. His expression grew sad. When he and Missy had been starting out, it had been different. Both of them had been thrilled to be recognized, and things had not been so one-sided. Now, everybody recognized her face and form, and he was wondering with a sense of dread if some of the new stars and starlets would even know who he was.
But Missy knew him. When it was dark and late and the frog had disappointed her yet again, she had called. She had been tentative at first, uncertain, but she couldn’t talk to him for any length of time without being aware of how he felt about her, and her divahood began to reassert itself. She had been imperious, demanding that he stop writing unkind articles about Kermit or their marriage. He had not promised—he had dodged as artfully and as skillfully as he ever had—but he had been surprised—a little, at least—to realize how much his stories had hurt her. Time was she’d enjoyed being the focus of his article—any article—no matter what it said. When he’d written those things about the frog, he had been glad to get a little of his own back, but he had not anticipated how distressed she had sounded about them now. He wanted to feel triumphant at having gotten his jabs in, but now he just felt mean. She wasn’t his target, and he thought that she’d believed him when he’d said it. He presumed she knew that meant that Kermit was, but there they had reached an impasse. He could not tell her what his boss was about—he did not actually know what his boss was about—but he could mind his manners while they were on the phone. He had promised that—she had made him pinky swear, albeit through the phone—and it had brought back a bouquet of things he had willed himself not to think about.
Missy standing in his living room, asking his approval on her audition outfit…Missy calling him, crying, from the bus station when she hadn’t gotten the callback…Missing letting him make them drop biscuits and tea in the eensy little kitchen because there wasn’t any grocery money until payday. Scribbler swallowed. Missy, crying on his shoulder, because that stupid frog had been mean to her again.
“Never you mind about the frog,” he had said, setting her back from him and handing her an almost clean handkerchief. “One day, the frog will be begging you to come back to him and star in his shows,” he had said, and Piggy had raised her tear-stained face to his.
“Pinky swear?” she had asked, desperate for reassurance, and Scribbler had twined his little finger with her satin-ensconced pinky and grinned.
“Pinky swear,” he said. “Easy to bet on a sure thing.”
He had been sure.
And he had been wrong.
She hadn’t called him. When it had mattered most, it had been the frog after all, and she had not called him. When her dreams had come true, his had ended. He stuffed the thought away, shying from the way it could make him feel.
But last night, she had called him, and hope had flared once again. In his mind, Scribbler pictured that hope like a nuclear cloud over his dingy apartment.
He had told her about the phone, explained about the phone. She had been wary at first, noncommittal, but he was pretty sure that—if the frog ever made it up to see her, which Fleet doubted he would do any time soon—she had come to the same conclusion he had come to: it wouldn’t do either of them any good for their secret little talks to become known. Missy had promised to pick up the phone from the sundries shop—nothing more—and he had had to be content with that. Scribbler smiled and began to unpack his shaving kit. He had learned to be content with a lot less than he’d once supposed it took. He was the king of doing without, and it had all started when he had started doing without her.
“No, really,” said Scooter. “I didn’t mind coming in. Sara’s working today because I made her promise not to work tomorrow night. I want her to come and enjoy the Academy Awards—not work them—so she practically ran out the door when I told her I was going to come in.” Scooter smiled at Kermit’s obvious discomfiture. “Besides,” he teased. “Aren’t I usually the one who shanghaies your schedule?”
“Well….”
“You’re entitled.”
“I’m nervous,” Kermit admitted. “Work makes everything else go away, but when I’m not working, I’m worrying. I worry about what the tabloids are going to say about her there and me here and I don’t want her to, you know, have to face all that garbage when I’m not with her.” Kermit looked down, bumping his fingers together anxiously.
“She seemed to survive opening week pretty well,” Scooter said earnestly. “Everybody loved her.”
“Yeah,” said Kermit glumly, and Scooter had a minor bubble-pop as he reasoned out why that might make his boss morose.
“Look—you can’t take all that tripe seriously, Boss. Really. Miss Piggy may be the new darling of Broadway but she’s always going to be your girl.” Scooter waited a beat to be sure Kermit was listening. “Miss Piggy’s always going to want to be your girl.”
Kermit looked up at him hopefully and almost smiled. “I sent the bracelet and the shirt,” he confided, feeling shy, but Scooter thumped him roundly on the back.
“Thataboy,” said Scooter. “I told you Sara would know what to do. When she opens them, Piggy will be a puddle on the floor. We’ve just got to get you through this next, um, week? Maybe? And then you can go up there and mop up, okay?”
This time Kermit did grin. “Okay. It is going better,” said Kermit. “I felt a little silly asking for more security, but I think it’s keeping the traffic flow down, at least.”
“Yeah,” said Scooter, “although with all the extra bodies, you have to get your cheese doodles early in the week or they’re all gone.” They had stopped in front of the vending machine and noted the empty cheese doodle queue sadly. Suddenly, he grinned and pointed. “Look—honey puffs! Fozzie will be happy. Oh, and hey—how come Bobo didn’t come today? There was some new guy this morning. I thought it was strange but he seemed legit.”
Kermit looked at him and Scooter’s face flamed scarlet. “I, um, ran his ID to be sure. After the freezer thing….” Both men shuddered. “But I thought it was strange that Bobo didn’t show up. He’s usually happy to pick up some extra hours here with us.”
Kermit looked evasive. “He’s, um, busy, I hear,” Kermit muttered.
Had his boss not looked so furtive and guilty, Scooter would never have pursued it, but Kermit’s demeanor caught his eye.
“Boss? What do you mean, busy?” he asked. He frowned and put his hands on his hips. “You look like you’re up to something.”
“Um, no,” said Kermit, completely unconvincing. “I’m, you know, not hiding anything.”
“Boss…?”
Kermit caved. He’d obviously been dying to talk to Scooter about it all along, but needed a little arm-twisting to get it out. “Um, Marty called early this morning. He wanted to tell me he was going to try to put some security on Piggy.”
Scooter looked skeptical. “She’s not going to like that.”
“I know. I know,” Kermit said. “But Marty said he’s got the willies…well, he said something like that, but the gist is he thought Piggy should have someone on the ground looking out for her.”
Scooter looked around, then stepped closer to his boss. “Do you think he heard about the, um…?” He trailed off but jerked his head toward the freezer.
“Um, I don’t think so,” Kermit said. “We’re usually pretty blunt with each other. I think he would have told me if he knew about the freezer.”
Scooter felt a rush of affection for Kermit, who—despite his business acumen and fantastic people skills—could be very naïve. “You think Marty tells you everything?” he demanded.
Kermit started to say “yes.” He wanted to say “yes.” But he couldn’t.
“No,” he mumbled. “So he might have known and just figured he’d better cover his bases if it was, you know, not accidental.”
“It wasn’t accidental,” Scooter said evenly. “But—but what does this have to do with Bobo not coming—oh. Oh.” Scooter’s eyes were wide behind his glasses, and he looked at his boss with amusement and respect. “So you sent Bobo to watch out for Miss Piggy.”
“No,” Kermit said firmly, also looking furtively over his shoulder and whispering. “I did not send Bobo to Piggy. Marty sent Bobo to Piggy.”
Scooter grinned. “The unstoppable force meets the immovable object,” he deadpanned. “If Piggy doesn’t want him around, he’s too big to karate chop, but he obviously adores her, so she probably won’t mind. Too much.”
Kermit’s expression was smug. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“Won’t he, you know, drive her nuts, though?”
“Probably,” said Kermit. “But he’s as big as a, well, a bear and if Marty tells him nobody gets in to bother Piggy, well, chances are good nobody will get in.”
“And you don’t have to be the bad guy.”
“And I don’t have to be the bad guy,” said Kermit. “I’m the, um, expensive bracelet and snuggly shirt guy.”
Scooter’s expression was wry. “I bow to your superior understanding of women,” he said, but at this, Kermit drew the line.
“I don’t know anything about women,” he confessed. “I just know my girl.”
(Let the typo hunting begin....)
Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
Vhich is to say, he approves of everything.
And WHAT is it exactly Autumn does? Her needing to do "a job" right on the heels of CB and BigUggy's chat is...suggestively twisted. Hmmmmm.
HEY!
Aaaah) Autumn's profession vaguely up to Ru as she sees fit to write.
So what's a rat gotta do to get some grub around here?
The mystery continues afoot!
well...
Blammo?
(to whoever's playing the roles of Kristen and/or Stacey, will you please sign my fish?
He's after the silly creature?