okay kiddies, here's a bit more to hopefully tie you over the weekend. I gots tons to do and then I got a dentist appt on Monday, for which I will be making up a lot of time, so we'll see how the updating goes for the next week.
We're nearing the end though!
Why was there always so much to do with so little time to do it in?
Miss Piggy found herself scrambling to get everything she could done before she left in just one day. She had finished packing and had said a teary goodbye to her once beautiful dream home; despite telling Gonzo that the entire project had been a waste of time, she just couldn’t bring herself to sell it. On the flip side of that was the fact that Kermit, who also had his name on the lease, could sell it brought just a little more agony to the ache she was already feeling.
She had finally made her decision on where she would be headed – Paris, France. It was a place she had wanted to go, though she had wanted to go with Kermit, and held a fresh new start for her. She had meant what she told Gonzo a few days ago – there was no way she’d be able to stay in the states and certainly not the states they had lived in and loved. While she may have loved both Hollywood and New York, once reporters got a hold of their departure from each other, they would never let her be. On another continent, in another country, they would have to actively look for her and hopefully by then, she could play it off as taking a break from the Muppets to pursue her own devices.
It was a plausible lie, she couldn’t deny that.
She hadn’t mentioned the updated plans to anyone and she wasn’t planning to either. The less everyone knew the better. She hadn’t even told Kermit when she was leaving; instead, she had left him a short and to the point letter that she hoped he would understand and not be too upset with her when he found it. They had stopped staying at the house or rather Kermit did; he was gone during the day, when Piggy spent her time packing and when he returned at night, she was already in her hotel room.
For the next to final day she would spend as a member of the Muppets, she planned on saying goodbye to all her favorite people and even not so favorite people. She had to admit that she was rather touched at the many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that she had been invited to as of late; just last night, Gonzo and Camilla had taken her out to dinner and she couldn’t remember having a more wonderful time.
She had seen her favorite nemesis, Floyd Pepper, earlier and he had invited her to go out the rest of the Mayhem and Rowlf over to Schotsky’s, which was a favorite bar of the group. She and the Mayhem bassist had forged a rather tight knit one-up-manship through the years and the diva surprised herself by feeling disheartened at the fact they wouldn’t be able to continue their friendly insults. But it was only now she realized their bickering had morphed into a weird rivalry of friendship.
“Hey mama,” Floyd whispered, stopping her before she could head to her dressing room. “You need anything or you get into trouble, you let me know, alright?”
The smirk she gave him was the best she could do at holding the tears at bay. The softie. “I’m a big girl, Floyd,” she replied. “I can handle myself.”
“Oh I know you can!” the bassist rasped. “Don’t go breaking any bones now.”
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”
“Keep your nose clean, kid.”
“I will, Floyd.”
The bassist could be a real sweetie when he wanted to be and Piggy found herself deeply touched by the fact he was looking out for her.
She had already spoken to Gonzo and Camilla and she would be seeing Scooter again tomorrow. Their talk yesterday seemed to be a repeat of one that had happened years ago, when the manager had been a moody teenager. She had known during that fateful meeting that he wouldn’t take it well, plus with his own announcement to her yesterday, she now knew why he had been so distracted lately.
But he was Scooter and he had pulled himself together and had told her – in no uncertain terms – that he would be driving her to the airport tomorrow. Piggy had just raised an eyebrow at him; she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had slid her ticket across the table to her. Scooter knew everything that went on in the theater and if by chance he was aware of her destination, he would never reveal it to anyone.
That afternoon saw her heading in the direction of the music studios. She knew that Rowlf spent most of his time there as of late and truth be told, she missed him. If Scooter was her partner in crime, Rowlf was her troublemaker buddy. The two of them, along with Janice, made up the staff of the popular skit Veterinarian’s Hospital, where a patient’s pain met with their pathetic puns. In the beginning, Kermit had given them the freedom to come up with some of those puns; by the time he realized how foolish of a decision that was, it was already too late.
The three of them took the phrase ‘hurricane of puns’ and ran with it, often times not even being able to get through a sketch without laughing. They stopped bothering with a script because it was funnier to see who could come up with the worst one yet; they had even stopped rehearsing the skit entirely, knowing it was a heck of a lot funnier if they just winged it and hoped for the best. Piggy would have never counted herself as a comedic actress, but for as long as she lived, she would owe Rowlf for showing her how to be one.
Before she had even opened the door, she could hear the sounds of a piano – a Beethoven piece, she thought – being played inside. Stepping through the door, the diva paused just to listen to the dog play. It never ceased to amaze her how the five of them had pooled so many talented people together to form the group they had; Rowlf especially had been in the business around the same time Kermit had started and she knew that several of them looked to the two as the true leaders of their motley band.
A small pang of regret hit her. Ever since that unfortunate incident from years past, she and Rowlf had been on egg shells with each other. Since then, she had come to realize that the dog had been just as upset, maybe more so, about Jim’s death than Kermit was; sadly, she had been spending most of her time trying to get the frog to mourn his friend that she hadn’t once thought about one of her favorite people in the world.
He ended the piece with a flourished scale, which she was pretty sure had not been in the original score, and called to her, “You can applaud now.”
“Oh can I?” she retorted, full entering the studio and walking towards him. She placed her hands on his shoulders, dropping a kiss on his head, before taking the offered seat next to him on the piano bench. She couldn’t lie, she missed this; missed sitting next to him on that piano bench, going over different songs or even just playing around. Rowlf was one of only a handful of people that she would defer to; he still managed to surprise her with the wealth of knowledge he had about music, their artists, remakes, samples, etc.
“Hello.”
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” she sighed.
“Pretty soon, huh?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Only a day away,” he chuckled, causing her to punch his arm lightly. He always managed to sneak a song lyric into some part of his sentence, sometimes just to see if anyone was paying attention.
“You don’t think this is a dumb idea, do you?”
“I have never known you to base your decisions on what other people think,” he countered.
“Humor me.”
“Honestly?” he asked. “I think you’re doing the right thing.” She obviously didn’t think he would agree because she turned to look at him, surprise written all over her face. “What? Look, sometimes you just need to take a break from things. There’s nothing wrong with that; you step back and take a look at the bigger picture, that’s all. Maybe you’ll come back to it, maybe you won’t. Like a hobby or something. What could it hurt?”
“I could find a new hobby,” she replied. “Or someone to enjoy it with.”
“And that’s bad because?”
“Rowlf,” she said. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting what she thought he was. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” he said. “Finding someone different is bad because…?”
Truth be told, Piggy hadn’t really thought about that. Oh, she had gone out of her way to show her interest in someone else, but only to make Kermit jealous. The very idea that she could fall in love with someone else? “I’ve been in love with Kermit for so long…” she began.
“I didn’t say anything about falling in love,” he said. “But if that happens, then it happens. I’ll back you up no matter what.”
“Really Rowlfie?”
“Always the tone of surprise,” he chuckled.
“You’re Kermit’s friend, too.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And if he fell in love with someone else, I’d back him up too.” Taking note of the look he received, he added, “I’d warn her first, of course…”
“Right.”
The two were quiet for a time, allowing Rowlf to fill in the silence with some piece he must have been working on. “As long as we’re sitting here,” he started. “I think it’s important we leave things on a high note, right?”
“Sure.”
“Good,” he nodded. “Because I would hate to let a…recent unpleasantness color our friendship.”
“Oh.”
Rowlf murmured. “As…unfortunate as that was,” he continued. “It happened. I’m not going to apologize for it happening, however I am sorry you had to find out the way you did.”
Piggy nodded. Those days, weeks, months, and even years after the loss of Henson had driven everyone crazy it seemed. The diva hadn’t seen Rowlf in days and just happened to come by the studio looking for him, when she found something she wanted to block out from her mind instead. It wasn’t that she had told Rowlf he couldn’t date Foo-Foo, but then the pianist had never expressed any interest in the small dog before; in fact, he had outright stated that they had nothing in common.
So to walk in on what she had walked in on….well…
“I forgave you for that a long time ago,” she answered.
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” she insisted. “I know you can’t seem to help yourself.”
“I am irresistible.”
“I was gonna say you were a dog…”
“Of which I am,” the brown dog retorted. “But I have a feeling you didn’t mean it the same way that I did. And I prefer the term ‘stud’, if you don’t mind.”
The diva couldn’t help but laugh at that. Standing, she wrapped her arms around Rowlf’s neck. “I’m gonna miss you the most,” she said, sighing sadly.
“Liar,” he chuckled. “Unless I’m green or have red hair and wear glasses, I’m probably third on your list. However, I will happily accept third place if I have beaten out Gonzo and Pepper.”
“For your information,” she huffed. “You happen to have moved up to the second person I will miss the most, right in front of the weirdo and the beatnik.”
“Then my job here is complete.”
[hr]
Piggy’s day continued as it started, with her saying goodbye to people. She promised to write or call and keep in touch, but even as she said it, she didn’t really mean it. If this was going to work, she needed to make a clean break of things and she couldn’t escape Kermit if she couldn’t equally escape the Muppets at large.
That decision of course killed her. While she was happy in the notion that she had plenty of people to turn to besides Kermit, she wouldn’t be able to turn them when she was gone. She was aware that none of them would ever betray her confidence, but this was about starting over and not being reminded about what she had left behind.
Their current movie production continued to sluggishly churn along, almost as though the frog was willing it to do so. She knew a ploy when she saw one; Kermit was a workaholic and when he was stressed or burdened, the first thing he turned to was work. It was something that Piggy had gotten used to, even going so far as recognizing the task within herself. That wasn’t the problem; the problem was the fact that this movie was heading nowhere.
Everyone knew it and really, it seemed as though they only showed up to work in order to give Kermit something to do. Even Piggy did it, knowing full well that if Kermit wasn’t working on something, he’d be sitting in that house with her and they’d be arguing the entire time. Or worse, he’d be at the studios by himself, moping about. This was certainly the better way of getting them both in the same place within having to be in the same room, at the same time, and it allowed everyone to keep an eye on both of them.
Saying farewell had never been so hard before; maybe it because they all knew she’d be back and everything would be the way it should. The only problem was she wasn’t coming back.
This was it.
As the former leading lady sat in her dressing room, the realization of what she was about to do suddenly hit her. She was leaving them, she was leaving him, she was leaving all of it. And there was a very good chance that she would never see any of them again. There would be no more Monday office meetings; no more script readings; no more brainstorming ideas; no more raucous music from the Mayhem; no more jazz or classical pieces by Rowlf; no more wildly inappropriate conversations with Gonzo; no more scheming with Scooter; no more horribly funny comic routines by Fozzie…
As though saying his name, the very subject of her thoughts suddenly barged in, a trait so very unlike him, and proceeded to ramble about…she wasn’t even sure, but he seemed on the verge of hysteria and about one sentence from completely collapsing in tears on her floor.
“Fozzie…” she began, noticing that he just ignored her and continued. Standing, she took him by the shoulders and shook him once. “Alright, knock it off! Now in ten words or less, tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“Please don’t be mad!” he blurted.
“Well,” she said. “That’s less than ten words. Why would I be mad?” Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “What did you do?”
‘Please don’t be mad’ was never a good conversation starter. It always came before someone told you some horrible news, like your evening gown had been shredded in a freak dry cleaning incident or that the song you had been practicing for two weeks had been cut or that you now had a canon sized hole in your new house’s roof.
Those four words were especially bad when Fozzie said them. Almost helpful to a fault, the bear did more sinking than he did swimming when it came to putting him in charge of things. Kermit was always leary about letting Fozzie run the production when he was gone, especially when Scooter, Rowlf, Piggy, and Gonzo couldn’t be around to supervise. And even when they were, the bear could always incite some sort of calamity by his very presence.
“He’s my best friend!” the bear cried. “I couldn’t not take his side!”
“Fozzie, what are you…?”
“I don’t even know how the whole thing started,” he continued. “Before I know it, Scooter and Gonzo are calling me a traitor and I wasn’t thinking about your feelings, but see, Piggy, I was thinking about your feelings! But I couldn’t choose! You know how much I hate conflict. I’m horrible at conflict!”
Piggy didn’t know if any of that made sense to her or if she had just known Fozzie long enough to understand him, but she ultimately got the point. “First of all,” she began. “I’m not mad at you.”
“But…”
“Fozzie, I’m talking,” she interrupted. “Second…I would never make you choose between me or Kermit. Besides, I know who would win that battle anyway.”
“You see!?” the bear exclaimed. “Everyone thinks that I wouldn’t be on your side, but I am! I just…”
Piggy sighed. If she were to ever get married – to anyone – she was going to make sure it was a marriage that lasted. She was beginning to sympathize with those couples who got divorced! First Scooter and now Fozzie; she was starting to wonder if she had missed an argument with Kermit where they discussed who would get custody of the ‘kids’.
“Fozzie,” she began, placing her tone as though she was speaking to Kermit’s little nephew. “Let me put your mind at ease. Neither Kermit nor Moi am mad at you. In fact, what’s happening between us has nothing to do with you.” Oh good heaves, we are getting a divorce! “I’m sure Kermit appreciates your support in all of this and I, too, am grateful that both Kermit and I have such friends who feel the very need to align themselves with either one of us.
“I don’t think any less of you because you happen to want to support Kermit. The very fact that this whole thing is obviously tearing you up proves to me just how good of a friend you are.”
“Really?” he asked, that boyish grin adorning his face, the one that even Gladys wasn’t immune to.
“Really really,” she whispered. “Now go on. I’m sure Kermit’s lost without you and I need to actually be doing something of importance.”
The comic nodded, his mood already lifted by the short, but important conversation. Piggy turned, sighing as she did. Sometimes hanging out with Fozzie was a lesson in parenthood, he always seemed to surprise her…
Kinda like now.
Five minutes hadn’t even gone by when she felt the fuzzy brown arms wrap around her shoulders in a reverse bear hug. “Kermit’s my best friend,” she heard him say. “But I love you, too. And I’m gonna miss you.”
The retort she had for him quickly died on her tongue; sometimes Fozzie just killed her. Kermit may have been their leader, but Fozzie was every bit their heart. He always gave two hundred percent in everything he did and even when he was horrible at it, his very persistence and determination made him such a likeable guy.
Patting him on the arm, she told him, “My life has never been the same since I met you, Bear. And I’m all the better for it.” Hearing his muted sniffle, she patted his arm again, saying, “Okay, come on, no crying. Now, go on, get outta here. Adults have business to take care of.” She felt him nod before he let go, not trusting himself to say anything, and leaving as quickly as he had barged in.
Piggy had to swallow her own sniffle. Ugh, that bear! But if she didn’t love him like the annoying brother he was...
“Silly old bear,” she muttered, smiling.
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Good grief!
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MORE! MORE!
Lay it on me.
What's up next?
Am I gonna need a hanky. 
tells him about his hero. Nervous Fozzie = the bear in a moment of vulnerability that belies his boundless boyish optimism. Piggy departing for parts unknown (okay, we know where she's going) = a pig cut off from the very family she's built, but if the frog won't say or do anything to stop her...