Happy Sunday everyone!
Can you believe we're coming up on Thanksgiving (for us 'Mericans, that is)? I'm slowly, but surely updating, so here's to hoping that I'll get something finished for you, so I can start on that mysterious Mupp Adventure I keep teasing you with.
Here's your obligatory summary: After surviving a plane crash, Fozzie Bear learns of the fate of their pilots, setting up not only his and Piggy's appearance at their funeral, but getting their fellow passengers season tickets to the show. Several weeks later, Denise's concern about Kermit's 'obsession' with Piggy causes her to make an announcement that throws Kermit for a loop.
And here's your next section!
The TCL Chinese Theatre was a staple in Hollywood. Previously and still commonly called Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the theatre was still maintained as one of the best movie theatres in the state, showing current and popular showings in both standard and IMAX, with its IMAX screen the biggest in the world. Of course what made TCL/Grauman’s a staple were the infamous concrete signatures of the biggest stars in Hollywood, dating back to the 1920s until today.
Getting into Grauman’s wasn’t an easy feat at any time of day, week, or year, but for some reason, Piggy had managed it on a Thursday night. She wouldn’t say how, but after the constant back and forth on what movie they would see and where they would see it had finally resulted in a quick decision – both she and Gonzo had bowed to Fozzie’s insistence that he would literally die if they didn’t see Jurassic World for the sixteenth time, especially when this would be Gonzo’s third time seeing MI6, so the diva did them all a kindness and just found a place that was showing both and bought tickets, hoping upon hope that Kermit wouldn’t bail on them at the last minute.
And for his sake, he'd better not – she had bought all eight tickets in IMAX, giving them the better movie experience, and none of them were cheap. Not that money was an object, but still; just because she had it, didn’t mean she always wanted to spend it.
Knowing that the theatre would most likely be packed and now needing to wait for Kermit, the trio decided they’d loiter outside, checking out all of the famous handprints that were laid out around the theater. This was what being in Hollywood was all about and one of the reasons people subscribed to fame and fortune in the first place – it was home to things like this; it didn’t matter how long you lived in the city, there were just things that still held them in awe.
Even now, Piggy still enjoyed walking the length of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, if just to clear her head and sometimes, to remember why she was there in the first place. She knew the location of their star – off of Highland and Orange Drive at 6834 – the location of Kermit’s – at 6801 - and she knew the location of Jim’s – 6631 – right off the top of her head and she could literally arrive at each one with her eyes closed. Why the thought of a walk was occurring to her now, she wasn’t sure, but it was something she hadn’t done in an incredibly long time.
Thankfully their movie didn’t start until 8:15 because Kermit was late, which wasn’t like him. After killing time outside, the trio decided to head inside and just wait inside the lobby, which was fun in itself – amid the normal concession stands one finds in a typical movie theatre, TCL/Grauman’s also sprinkled the lobby with memorabilia from classic movies. If their frog had gotten there at his usual earliest, they may have been able to have a look around, but they could probably do so during their intermission between movies.
Finally, ten minutes before their first movie was to start, Kermit came barreling in, making a beeline for them and shaking his head. “Sorry,” he huffed. “Sorry.”
“Almost missed you, buddy,” Gonzo said, concern etched on his face. “You alright?”
“Yeah.”
Handing over both of his tickets, Piggy expressed the same worry their head writer did. “Kermit?”
“I’m fine,” he answered, shortly. Taking a deep breath, he softened the blow with a “I’m fine, Piggy. Can we just…?”
“Frog’s first,” Gonzo said, bowing slightly and pointing the way to the main auditorium. Kermit stalked past them, ignoring their equal looks of confusion and worry as they watched him pass.
[hr]
Kermit had actually already seen Mission Impossible 6, with Gonzo actually during his second time watching the movie; it actually worked in his favor, as he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pay attention to the movie anyway, his mind was still on his earlier dinner with Denise.
He wasn’t even sure what had happened.
No, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly what had happened – his current girlfriend was in love with him. That should have made him extremely happy, wonderful in the notion that he was able to move on from his longest – and if he was honest, greatest – relationship; he should have been able to say the words back to her, but just like when Piggy had told him those same words nearly a lifetime ago, he had frozen. Actually…no. He hadn’t frozen this time.
When Piggy had told him she was in love with him, he had been floored, surprised, and…well, confused. Of all the guys she could have, she chose him? Why? He wasn’t anything special and she was…she was spectacular. He had frozen because, well…he loved her, of course, but she could do better than him; she was a star and he was a nobody from Leland. When he thought back to that time, he had been a fool, a quintessential idiot, but he’d made his bed – as his father used to say – and he had to lie in it, as uncomfortable as it was.
When Denise had said the same words to him, he had been…he had been…actually, he wasn’t sure. Piggy had scared him to death, most times; Denise…didn’t do that for him. Denise was…a safe bet; she was what he needed after his break up with Piggy. He needed something…safe, something that proved he wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to romance, especially when it seemed he had utterly failed at it with Piggy.
Denise was sweetness and niceness and everything he should have wanted and needed and…he didn’t feel it. He liked her, of course, he really did and…he spent most of the movie and the next digging deep within to find the same emotion he should feel for his girlfriend, that he should be able to call her after they were done and tell her the same thing she had told him. Only…by the end of Jurassic World, he still didn’t have it and still couldn’t find it, but he wasn’t about to let her down. And he wasn’t going to hurt her like he had his previous girlfriend.
He hoped.
“That movie keeps getting better and better every time I see it,” Fozzie gushed, as the four left the theater.
“Well,” Piggy snickered. “We’ve managed to hype up the bear. He’ll never go to sleep now.”
“No worries,” Gonzo chuckled, patting the bear on the back. “We’ll go get him some ice cream and that’ll calm him down. You in, Princess?”
“Are you kidding?” said princess huffed. “Moi is not about to get into a car with Evil Knievel and Miss Daisy over here.”
“I’ll drive you home, Piggy,” Kermit whispered, looking off in the distance.
“Yeah,” Piggy nodded, giving the frog a look. “That’s actually a good idea.” Turning to their companions, Piggy gave them a dismissal nod. “Sniff you jerks, later.”
Piggy followed the frog, sending a nod to Gonzo’s worried glance towards Kermit before turning back to her. If anyone had a chance to figure out what was going on with the frog, it was most likely going to be Piggy or so they hoped. “Why don’t you navigate, Frog?” Piggy said, lifting his car keys from him and pointing him in the direction of the passenger side.
“Once again, I’m glad you’re not a 19th century pick pocket,” he quipped, opening the door and getting in.
The diva chuckled before taking her spot behind the wheel, starting the car, and taking off. As a point, Kermit – and anyone else – always tried to avoid driving with Piggy, on the account that she was a maniac behind the wheel and the chances of living were fairly slim, but the way his mind was in turmoil, he figured a little danger was worth it.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong, baby, or are you gonna sit there in the silence the whole drive?”
Kermit glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “What makes you think something’s wrong, baby?” he answered her.
“Antisocial, bad tempered, distant,” Piggy listed. “Should Moi go on?”
Sighing, he said, “No. Just been a very long night.”
“Well, yeah,” she smirked. “We just sat through five hours of awesome theater madness. Good thing we aren’t doing a show tomorrow; the boss is a real stickler for being late.” If she had hoped for a grin or a laugh, at the very least a smirk for the joke, she was solely disappointed. “Honestly, Kermit, what’s wrong?”
He was half inclined to just ignore her or tell her – again – that he was perfectly fine, but he had already shown he had no problems going against his own advice or even logic. “Denise broke up with me.”
“What?”
“She just…” Sighing again, he shook his head. “Yeah, dinner didn’t go so well obviously.”
“What happened?”
“Do you want the short version or the truth?”
Throwing him a look, she asked, “Why would you even ask that question?”
Kermit nodded. Of course she wanted the truth; hadn’t he told her that they were going to be honest with each other from now on? “She’s in love with me,” he started, noticing the slight swerve that his driver managed to correct without incident. “She’s in love with me and she wants me to stop being friends with you.”
Hearing that information, Piggy wasn’t sure if it had been better for her to drive because both of those revelations managed to floor her at both ends. She couldn’t lie and say this kind of scenario – both of them – hadn’t entered her mind; while she may still be carrying a torch for Kermit, it was very clear that he had since moved on and the only thing she could do was hope for his happiness. The second thing, well…
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” she whispered.
Kermit turned to fully look at her. “That makes sense?” he asked, incredulously. “It makes sense that she wants us to stop being friends, after everything we’ve been through?”
“That’s the point exactly,” she reasoned. “We have a history together. Sure, we’re friends now, but…we haven’t always been.” She dreaded the answer to her next question, especially what the outcome could be. Sure, Kermit was upset now, but if he answered the way she thought he would, it wouldn’t take much for him to move or set aside his objection. “She loves you,” she whispered. “Do you love her?”
She was holding her breath and even some tears to what his answer would be; of course it would be yes, he loved her and while she knew he would do whatever it took to keep both her and Denise in his life, if he had to choose, she was going to be the bigger person and bow out gracefully. He deserved that; she still loved him and he deserved to be happy, even if he was being happy with someone else. So she waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Did he fall asleep? It was a little after one in the morning and if his evening had been as bad as he had said, maybe the stress just took him for a nap. They had a stoplight, which led her to turn and look at him, prepared to see him dozing next to her; instead, she saw his very awake and very agitated profile. “Kermit?”
“I heard you.”
“Then I’ll take your very long silence as a no.”
“I never said that,” he insisted.
“True,” she countered, hitting the gas once the light had turned. “But if you did, you would’ve answered immediately.”
“Would I?” he asked, sarcastically. “According to you, I don’t exactly have a good track record in answering that statement right away.”
Well, that stung. And wasn’t it just like him to strike at her heart when he was upset? And upset about something that technically didn’t have anything to do with her!
“Touché.”
They only had another five minutes before they were to reach Kermit’s apartment and it was silent all the way. Pulling into the complex, Piggy made her way to the one story townhome he was renting, pulling up in front of the door, figuring that as soon as she stopped, Kermit would get out and he’d have his answer for Denise before he’d walked through the front door.
“Piggy, I didn’t mean that.”
“I know you didn’t.”
Turning to look at her, he said, “I do love you.”
“I know you do,” she answered, giving him a smile. “Kermit? If I could give you some advice, as both your friend and your ex?”
“Of course.”
Taking a deep breath, she said, “No woman wants to declare her love for someone and not hear the words back. If you don’t love her, then you need to man up and tell her.”
There were times, a lot of them actually, when Miss Piggy managed to throw him for a loop. He had totally and completely expected her to be upset when he started dating Denise; he’d seen that coming. What he hadn’t seen was the depth of feelings the diva had for him – she could have easily made life at work horrible, for both him and his girlfriend; instead, other than the normal flare ups that happened around them and between them, she had been an absolute brick about things. And now, she was sitting there across from him, telling him that he needed to be a man and tell his girlfriend he either loved her or not.
He hadn’t expected that.
What he had expected was for Piggy to rail with him against Denise’s unfounded and unwillingness to accept that Piggy was a part of his life, always had been and always would.
How many times had he underestimated Piggy, just for her to come around and surprise him?
“I don’t want to hurt her,” he sighed, his composure nearly crumbling. As much as he complained about their previous relationship, he wasn’t stupid; Piggy had hurt him as much as he had hurt her and in that, he wasn’t about to do the same to someone else who loved him.
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “But what do you think is worse? Hearing that you don’t love her or stringing her along and making her think you do?”
Something in either her voice or the sentence as she said it hit harder than he liked to admit. Were they still talking about his current girlfriend? Or the previous one?
“Are we still talking about Denise?”
“Of course.” It took a full second before she answered, but she had answered. Pointing past him at his door, she continued with, “Door to door service, as requested.”
Nodding quickly, Kermit left the vehicle, turning back when he heard Piggy’s, “You need to talk to her, Frog.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, I will. Go get some sleep.”
“You too,” she said, giving him one last smile before starting forward and heading around the corner in order to leave the complex.
He watched her go before heading towards his front door, knowing he wasn’t going to be sleeping well, not with the thoughts in his head. He knew what he had to do, he just didn’t want to do it and either way he looked at it, someone was going to get hurt and he was going to be the executioner. Reaching for his door knob, his hand hovered over it as a thought occurred to him.
“Little minx,” he muttered, grabbing his phone and dialing a familiar number.
“Just can’t enough, can you?”
The cheek! Honestly! “You realize you’ve stolen my car, right?” he asked.
Piggy chuckled. “Well, how else was Moi supposed to get home?”
“That’s cute,” he deadpanned. “As you have my car, I would also like to remind you that you also have my keys. As in, you know, to my house?”
“First of all,” she stated. “You don’t lock your door, even when Moi tells you that’s an open invitation for someone to rob you and second, even if you managed to actually lock the door, your spare is hidden in the flower pot. Which, BTW, is also one of the first places robbers look for spare keys.”
Sighing and shaking his head, Kermit opened his very unlocked door, grabbing said spare from his flower pot while at it, and stepped inside. “Well, seeing as you have both sets now,” he said, sometimes regretting the decision to give her the second set. “You are picking me up tomorrow. In my car.”
“Of course, Mon Capitan.”
Hanging up, Kermit couldn’t help but smirk at the audacity Piggy had sometimes. The half grin left his face soon after, however, knowing that tomorrow the last thing he wanted was for Piggy to tag along with him when he went to speak to Denise or vice versa. Ironically, if Piggy did pick him up…he could at least get her part over with. He didn’t want to admit it, but both pigs were right – he and Piggy did have a history together and, if he was honest, this was probably the first time they really had been friends with each other.
This whole situation had brought to light things Kermit had been scared to admit, even to himself, but it looked like no matter what he did, he’d have to make a decision and it needed to be made soon.
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