Kermie's Girl (ushy-gushy fanfic)

[The Count]

Quick question, is the name of Piggy's NYC cabby "Moisha" or "Moishe" Finkel?

 

[The Count]

So I finished rereading this vonderful novel from start to finish, no, not all in one day.

We know that the next potential plotpoint for Kermit is the Hollywood party he'll be attending on Friday with Scooter at his side. I hope that this party ends up being a nice outing for both frog and gofer, they certainly don't need anything else bad right now.
After that I dunno how long it'll take to fast forward through the weekend and week to get to Wednesday when the frog "should" finally fly up to see his wife on Broadway.

*Waits patiently for the next chapter. BTW: Happy belated birthday Aunt Ru.
*Leaves some pumpkin cheesecake squares, Uncle Deadly has been making a lot of it lately.

 

[The Count]

*Bump.

You know, after reading the fic again, I noticed something I goofed on during reviews/replies. I kept misspelling the name of the starlet family that caused such problems for Kermit during the Academy Awards, I now know it's "Kardashian" cause that's where they got the name of their chain of stores Dash from. All this time I've been writing it as "Kardassian" which I'm surprised Aunt Ru as a Trekkie didn't call me out on for confusing such a "famous?" celebrity family with the race of inhabitants from one of the major player planets in DS9's Gamma Quarter. Oh well. *Waits for next chapter.

 

[Ruahnna]

Chapter 157: Insight Straits

Scooter was pretty much indispensable, and he had been accused of being clairvoyant, but he did not have to be a soothsayer to see that Kermit had had a rough evening. Kermit looked up when he came in with a sack of bagels and smiled wanly. Scooter handed him the bag and Kermit looked inside.
“There’s regular cream cheese and there’s that cream-cheese-and-lacewing stuff they make,” he said, hoping it brightened Kermit’s morning.
“Sounds great,” Kermit said. “Coffee’s on already. Get a mug and we’ll get started.”
“You’re the boss,” Scooter said, and went to get a cup of joe. They had a lot to do today, and he knew—regardless of how he felt—Kermit would plug away at it faithfully. Scooter had seen him work in conditions that would have felled lesser men (and frogs)—when he was tired, depressed or about to blow his stack. He had seen him manage the biggest theatrical scene of the season while wondering frantically if his girl was going to ditch the white satin and give him the slip, but he had somehow managed to get the film and the girl without losing his sanity. No matter what, Kermit made sure the show went on.
Scooter wished that all of the people at the party tonight would see that—would see that Kermit would always live up to his obligations and be true to his word, even if it meant taking the hit personally, even if it meant sacrificing his own happiness. Scooter had seen Kermit leave to put Piggy on that plane to New York without wavering, and he had seen him work like a frog to meet commitments on the movie that had been changed time and again, all the while battling the hostile press and an unseen, adversarial presence that could give even the most stalwart champion a turn. There was a lot to admire about his boss, a lot to aspire to emulate, and Scooter hoped that he was making as good a showing as he could.
Tonight, he’d do everything he could to make sure things went well, and that nothing—nothing—stood in the way of Kermit going to New York next week to see his girl.

Fifteen minutes of awkward, careful politeness was about all that any of them could stand.
“Okay, listen up, peeps!” Piggy growled. “Moi is marvelous. You are all marvelous. But can we please can it and get on with it?”
There were grins and sighs all around.
“Sure,” said Rory.
“Please,” said Kristen.
“Good grief, yes,” said Harrison. “All this politeness is killing me.”
“Tell me about it,” Piggy growled. “I feel like Moi is back in charm school.”
“You never went to charm school, ducky,” said Darcy. “But if you had, I’ll bet you would have kicked butt at it.”
Trudy grinned. “She does that, too,” she said. She waggled her eyebrows at Piggy. “Heard you almost took out that sleazy tabloid journalist.”
Piggy was suddenly busy with her gloves. She had just taken them off—now she put them back on. “Moi…took care of the problem.”
She was aware of Rory looking at her, and knew she would have to tell him, and soon.
Stacey poked her head around the doorway and smiled. “Hi guys—Mr. Lowry wants to do the beauty shop scene, run the intro scene, and then he wants to talk to all of us.”
“Give me a sec,” Darcy said, still lacing up one shoe. “I’m almost ready.”
“We all need to get ready,” Kristen grumbled. “Everybody out of the girls dressing room.” She grabbed Cordell by the arm and Harrison by his cuff, dragging them toward the door. Harrison slipped away with a grin to follow after Darcy, but Cordell had to be walked all the way to the door. “Go on,” Kristen said firmly. Cordell gave his best pollywog eyes, and Kristen grabbed his shoulders, turned him around and pushed him out the door.
The room was suddenly quiet, and Piggy looked up and saw Kristen standing in the doorway, looking back at Rory. Piggy saw them exchange an enigmatic look, then Kristen went out and shut the door, leaving Piggy alone with her stage partner.
Rory leaned against the door and crossed his strong arms across his chest. He looked tough but his expression was gentle.
“Tell me everything,” he said. “What really happened last night?”

Tricia rolled over and made a sleepy sound, but didn’t open her eyes. Clifford bent and pressed a kiss against her temple and she roused a little and smiled, squinting up at him.
“Good morning,” she mumbled.
“It is,” Clifford said. He leaned in for a kiss, hasty but thorough, then padded across the room to the door.
“What time is it?” Tricia muttered, glancing at the clock.
“Early,” said Clifford. “Go back to sleep.”
“Don’t you—?”
“Shhh,” said Clifford. “I’ll see you at breakfast."

The muck-peddler was having a pretty good morning. The boss had been pretty happy about the picture. His article had been two-fifths innuendo, but Fleet was okay with it because he knew that Missy would be okay with it. All it did was imply that she’d been out on the town without hubby but with a well-known (that was pushing it, but what were they—the New York Times?) talent scout. He knew that Strathers was a lightweight—nothing to compare to his old man—but for those who clamored to play the strip, he was a familiar and sometimes necessary evil. Here, Scribbler felt a little bad. Strathers didn’t seem a bad sort—just ineffectual and over-privileged. If some trust fund babies were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, Seymour Strathers had been born with a marquee over his nursery door. All he’d had to do to become a player in the world of entertainment was to grow up. Scribbler felt his mouth twist sourly. Some guys had all the luck.
He’d had to work for everything he’d gotten, and work he had. Fleet’s first newspaper job had been delivering them, and he remembered with a laugh how excited he’d been to finally get a job behind a desk. Obituaries might not be glamorous, but they sure were read. He’d been offered sports and declined—not interested—but when the grand old gal who’d written “entertainment news” for his small-town paper had dropped over in her popcorn, he’d been hauled to the forefront and promoted on the spot. He’d made the most of this strange stroke of luck, and pretty soon he was getting invites from all sorts of theater groups around the region. His boss had been ecstatic.
There were times when, if he were honest with himself, Fleet would admit that he might have simply gotten complacent in that job, happy to be a relatively good-sized fish in a pretty small (and occasionally scummy) pond, but complacency had gone out the window the day he’d first seen Missy.
It wasn’t even a big part. Yeah, yeah—there are no small parts, only small actors, ha ha ha, but Piggy had turned three lines into an art form, and everywhere they went, everywhere they played, she was always mentioned in the reviews. Scribbler’s review had not only mentioned her—he had gone so far as to suggest that the leading actress might want to invest in some walking shoes. He’d slipped the copy in late—he was almost always the last one to turn in his piece—and they printed it without bothering to edit it, just like they usually did. He’d been hoping for that, and well…you know what they say about being careful what you hope for? His boss had not been as ecstatic as before.
When his review ran, the star of the show had pitched a grand diva fit—nothing like what Missy could throw, true—but alarming all the same, and the director had called a press meeting to assuage any rumors that Miss Norwich and Miss Piggy were anything but the best of friends, sharing the stage with a companionability that bordered on sisterhood. Everybody was going to get dressed up and play nice, trade air kisses and fond stories and pump, pump, pump the play.
It was a good idea.
It was an even better idea when Piggy broke script in front of the press and managed to imply that she would never—no, never—attempt to unseat her co-star. After all, her co-star was so experienced—remarkably so!—but of course she had been doing this show for a very, very long time….
Associated Press picked up the story. The play sold out, not just in Fleet’s home town, but for the rest of the tour, and while Piggy never did anything other than her three lines, she made out like a bandit all the same.
He’d seen her off at the tour bus—him and about 65 other members of the fourth estate—but he’d actually been surprised when her eyes had lingered on his for longer than necessary. She’d smiled at him and tossed her golden tresses, laughing at something one of the media boys had said before stepping onto the bottom step of the big omnibus. Again, she turned back, and this time her eyes definitely sought him out, sought him out and drew him forward as though pulled by a winch. Well, a wench anyway!
He drifted up to the bus, aware that her pearls cost more than he had made last year, aware of the velvety pink inside her ears, the clean flowery scent of her hair. Her voice, however, was all business.
“Thanks for the assist,” she murmured, and fluttered her eyelashes at him.
“My pleasure,” he stammered then, emboldened, had blurted out. “Any time.”
Piggy had giggled, biting her lip. “Not likely,” she said. “We’re playing every whistle-stop from here to Cali.”
“Cali, then,” he’d said. “I guess I’ll have to catch you in California.”
“If vous can,” Piggy had said gravely, and swept up onto the bus.
He’d packed the next day.
It was still hard to be sorry. There was work to be had in Hollywood, plenty of work. That was the problem. There was plenty of work, plenty of workers and enough starlets and reporters to cover the town like a plague, but he was talented—and hungry. He eeked along making do, trying to make a name for himself, keeping a low-grade radar on Miss Piggy’s career. Things weren’t easy for her in Hollywood either—not at first. She was, first and foremost, a theater actress, but her agent—an old grizzled legend named Marty—kept her in commercials and day work, keeping the wolves from her door. He also did a pretty admirable job of dealing with the wolves that came panting and drooling around her door, and those that slipped in in sheep’s clothing often emerged rather the worse for wear. Piggy didn’t put up with any funny business, and while that raised her in Fleet’s esteem, it didn’t always help her prospects.
They’d seen each other around and he managed, somehow or other, to review everything she did for someone. At first, he’d tried getting some rag to agree to run the article before he’d written it, but eventually he just wrote the article and shopped it around. There was something about the way he wrote about her that made the words seem to leap off the page, and he often found his stories getting picked up by more than one paper. He’d made himself pleasant to Missy, respectful to Marty and had kept his distance. Only on paper did their lives intersect in any meaningful way, and Fleet had schooled himself to be content with that. Truthfully, whether or not she ever became a big star, he’d known from the start that she was out of his league. Miss Piggy was, in all ways, in a league of her very own.
When she’d gone to New York—again—to try to break into theater there, he’d decided he’d had enough of silicone and Silicon Valley and bought a winter coat, a tan, fur-lined trench coat sort of thing which had—just barely—kept him from freezing to death. She’d not been there very long when they’d crossed paths again. She had caught him shivering outside when she walked out of an off-off-off-Broadway theater where she had managed to secure a bit part as a girl at a bar. She had a cute little toboggan on her head—more ornamental than warm—and he noticed two holes in her gloves where her lilac satin gloves showed through. Her boots were sturdy enough, but her coat was not completely suited to New York in the winter. She’d taken a quick, assessing look around—wanting to be aware of her surroundings on the city streets—and had caught him practically on her doorstep without any excuse or camouflage. She’d walked straight over to him, looked him up and down and sighed.
“Can you even afford to buy Moi a cup of coffee?” she’d demanded.
“Just barely,” he’d admitted, and smiled.
Heaven help him—she’d smiled back.

Hard to blame Strathers for losing his good sense last night, Scribbler thought to himself. Hard to blame anyone, (although he somehow managed to make an exception for Kermit). The guy might have strip cred, but he had very little street cred, and Piggy had probably bowled him over just by dithering over the menu and crossing her plump little ankles.
True, the weasel had made a donkey of himself last night and upset Missy, but it was surprising how easy it was to lose your head when she flashed those baby blues and smiled at you. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Strathers had left Missy unprotected with some stalker lurking around Fleet would have felt some genuine sympathy. As it was, he was just a little sorry that he hadn’t popped the guy one, just on general principles. No means no, and let go means let go. He fought back a smile, remembering more than one producer type who’d found his head spinning and his teeth loose trying to put unwanted moves on Missy.
Wanted moves…well, that was another matter.

“You’d think two good-looking bachelors like us could scare up a couple of dates for Friday night,” said Rizzo.
“You’d think,” said Gonzo, but he didn’t sound as chipper about it as he usually did. For the past few months, Gonzo had been…well, more normal than usual, which was, on the face of it, just weird. Rizzo worried about him a lot, worried that somewhere in the Weirdo’s furry blue chest there might be a broken heart.
“So…what d’ya think? Pizza and a movie tonight?”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll let you put sardines and frosted flakes on your half.”
“Strawberry milk in the cola and you’re on,” Gonzo replied enthusiastically.
Rizzo shrugged. It all ended up the same place anyway. “You know best,” he said. “So—what’s good? Anything you particularly want to see?”
Gonzo shrugged, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
“What?” said Rizzo. “Go ahead—what?”
“Just…no love stories, okay? I’m…not up for that tonight, buddy.”
“Sure. No problemo. Anything else?”
“Um…no sequels, if you don’t mind. They’re usually disappointing.”
“Depends on whether or not you’re in them,” Rizzo muttered.
“What?”
“Nuttin’—just thinking out loud.” He looked up at Gonzo. “Want to get a cab?”
Gonzo shrugged. “Plumbing truck’s out back.”
Rizzo hesitated. Visibly. “When’s the last time you—?”
“Oh…Tuesday. It’s fine. Hardly any smell at all.”
“Whatever.”
“What? I’m right here.”
“Never gets old,” Rizzo said, and pushed Gonzo out the door ahead of him.

“So…he…that little muck-peddler came to your rescue—again.” Rory had initially exploded with surprise and consternation, but he’d managed to tamp it back down by now.
“Yes,” said Piggy. She looked up, her blue eyes wide. Rory sighed, knowing how irresistible that look could prove. “He…I was…I was trying to text you,” she admitted.
“Me? Then how…?”
Piggy had steeled herself for this. She had already admitted he was right about Seymour being both useless as a protector and creepy in a clingy sort of way, and though Rory had had the good grace not to gloat, she had seen the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. Now this…. She decided to grit her teeth through the worst of it and tell him about the little pink phone too. She did so, stammering only a little as she explained. To her surprise, Rory had not seemed to mind as much as she thought he might.
“You need to tell that frog of yours what’s really going on,” he had said unhappily, and instead of disagreeing with him, Piggy had nodded at once.
“Moi is going to,” she said earnestly. “As soon as he is here in person.”
“If you tell him now, he’ll probably get himself up here sooner.”
“He is coming,” Piggy said petulantly. Rory ground his molars, but managed not to say any more.
“Piggy—look, I—that brings up something else. What do you think happened with your phone and keys? Why were they on the floor?”
Piggy looked down and he thought, at first, that she wouldn’t answer, but she made a gesture of resignation and sighed. “I suppose Seymour—that is, Mr. Strathers must have picked them up when they fell out of the side pocket of my purse.”
“Do you know they fell out of the side pocket of your purse?” Rory asked. “Or do you think he took them?"
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Piggy said, clearly uncomfortable. She had admitted Strathers was a creep, but there was no reason to be paranoid. Clearly, the casino owner was a little infatuated, but he was hardly a real threat. She had acted—well, Fleet had acted as much to save her reputation, tattered though it currently was—more than her person. He had already acted once to save her from whoever had tried to pignap her, her conscience reminded her. Piggy had been dodging unwanted male attention for most of her life—it was no big deal. If it had come to it, she certainly could have just swatted Strathers into oblivion if she’d needed to. I could have, Piggy argued to herself. I could have if I’d had to. She just hadn’t had to.
Because of Fleet.
To her surprise, Rory didn’t argue. He just reached out and touched the back of one of her velvety ears, stroking the soft skin and then giving it a sharp tug.
“Ouch! What was that for?” she demanded, hands on hips, flame in those blue, blue eyes.
“Hard to not be silly over you, Piggy,” Rory said. “You’ve got your frog, your dressmaker, a reporter, a former boss, your current boss and your cabbie all wrapped around your little finger.”
“And you?” Piggy asked wistfully, though it hardly needed to be asked.
“And me,” Rory sighed. He pulled her in for a hug—a sorry-we-fought, what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you sort of hug.
“Don’t forget Chad,” Piggy said against his chest. She had him wrapped around her little satin-gloved finger, too.
“Don’t think for a moment I have,” he said with a sigh, and then it was time to go out on stage.

It could have been worse, he supposed. As parties went, it wasn’t as horrible as they could be. His hostess appreciated the fact that he was currently hot news, but not enough to actually grill him on the state of his relationship. Everyone wanted to talk about the movie, or Piggy’s latest picture—or his—or Broadway or Piggy and “did he know that this bachelor-or-other was in New York for a season” or…. Kermit gritted his hard palate, smiled and nodded and tried not to snap at people who gave him looks that plainly said they couldn’t imagine what Piggy had seen in him in the first place. He consoled himself with the fact that he was going to talk to Piggy again soon—she had promised to call after her show to hear how things were going and shower him with sympathy.
“You okay?” Scooter murmured, slipping up to him and handing him a grasshopper. Kermit looked at it, obviously debating, and Scooter grinned. “Go on—I don’t think one drink is going to make you lose your senses and jump into the pool with a bevy of starlets.”
“One starlet would be enough, with Piggy in New York,” Kermit said, but he took a sip of the drink gratefully. “What’s the word where you are? People asking about the movie?”
“People asking about you and Piggy,” Scooter said honestly. “But yeah, about the movie, too.” He hesitated, then plowed on through. “Um, there’s a charity thing tomorrow, and a couple of folks are trying to drive up celebrity attendance tomorrow—think you could go?”
“What and when?”
“Pediatric aids,” Scooter said. “For the kids. Tomorrow at 2:00—you could go by for a little?”
Kermit nodded at once. He would endure almost anything for the sake of children. “Sure. Put me down and tell me when to show up.”
“Thanks, Boss,” Scooter said gratefully. Although his main interest—like Kermit’s—was the kids involved, he thought it wouldn’t hurt for his boss to remind people of all he had done for children and children’s television.
Kermit shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to ask again, but finally gave in.
“So…people are asking about the movie?”
Scooter played a whole game of table tennis in his head, debating giving specifics. “It’s not too bad, actually,” he finally said. “Most people here don’t really believe what they read in the tabloids—they’re too aware of how to manipulate them or how much of what they print is crazy or wrong. Mostly they just want to know if you guys are…okay.”
Kermit frowned. “Define "okay",” he muttered.
“Just—you know, are you two still, um, happy. Um.” Kermit was giving him a look that made him blurt out everything at once. “And are you, uh, are going to see her soon and if she’s going to stay on Broadway while you, you know, stay here and make movies.”
“Scooter, that’s just—”
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Scooter said quickly. “I know. I know. It’s a stupid question, er, stupid questions but…well, people wonder.”
“Sorry,” Kermit said, patting Scooter’s arm. “I’m just…I feel like people are looking at me and wondering why on earth Piggy would want to come back to California to be with her grouchy, dictator of a director-husband.”
“Except for the ones wondering why you’d want her back.”
Kermit’s mouth dropped open and he stared at Scooter, dumbfounded. Scooter shrugged, uncomfortable and cleared his throat.
“Miss Piggy is…well, she’s…um…a little—”
Here, Scooter stalled. Miss Piggy was not “a little” anything, but he debated the wisdom of speaking so frankly. Kermit looked at him, waiting him out, but his expression wasn’t annoyed—it was worried and sad and uncertain.
“She’s a little high-maintenance, okay?” Scooter said, then rushed on. “Not that she doesn’t seem to be worth it, because she is, I get that. And, whew, when she brings it home on stage—”
“Or when she brings it home at home,” Kermit murmured, and smiled. Scooter sighed his relief and smiled back.
“Yeah—it’s usually a good day for everybody when that happens,” Scooter said. Kermit blushed and they grinned like truant schoolboys. “But not everybody, um, sees that part, you know?”
“I know,” Kermit said. “It took me a long time to see it—even longer to admit it.”
Scooter spoke without thinking, something he rarely did. “Yeah. A lot of people remember how long it took. They seem to remember you talking a lot about being too busy to be involved in a relationship.” Kermit looked thunderstruck and Scooter rushed in to clarify. “Back in the day, I mean—before you guys tied the knot.”
Kermit clapped a hand to his forehead, seething. “Seriously? After all this time? Am I going to pay for everything I said when I was dating for the rest of my life?”
Scooter was too smart to open his mouth, but his face said it all. Probably, his expression said clearly.
Kermit glared into his drink, trying to keep his temper under control.
“But most everybody seems to think it will all work out in the end.”
“It’s working out now,” Kermit cried irritably. His voice was a little louder than he meant it and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Everything is going wellnow.”
"Don’t have to tell me, boss,” said Scooter. “Front-row seat, remember? But I think people just, you know…you guys have been together for a long time. A lot of young couples look up to you. A lot of Hollywood couples don’t make it as long as you guys have.”
“That’s right,” Kermit said. “Haven’t we proven…I mean, don’t they know that…oh, sheesh.” He took another gulp of his drink. “What does it matter?”
Scooter’s voice was earnest. “It does matter,” Scooter said. “Not what they think. Not what anyone thinks. But it does matter. You two matter.”
Kermit looked at him, not sure what Scooter was trying to say.
“What you two have—that’s what matters. That’s what’s important.” He shook his head, feeling like he was doing a bad job of explaining himself. “When I came to you guys—well, when I was dumped on you guys by my uncle, I felt pretty unwanted. I didn’t know what it would be like to have a family that…you know, cared about me. Not just because I was useful—I tried really hard to be useful—but because somebody, you know, liked me. Wanted me around. You…you guys…practically adopted me. I used to trail after you like a puppy dog.”
“You used to trail after Piggy like a puppy dog,” Kermit corrected, grinning, but Scooter’s grin widened even more.
“True. Miss Piggy left better crumbs,” he said. “She included me in all of her—well, most of her schemes to get you to admit you liked her.”
“You did all sort of gang up on me.”
“Darn tootin’,” said Scooter. “Do you have any idea how grumpy you are when you’re jealous?—cause I do.”
“But what does this have to do with what people are saying about—”
“Because—in the end, it wasn’t what people said that mattered. It wasn’t about what anyone else thought or bet—”
Kermit’s eyes glinted dangerously. Nothing had sent his blood pressure through the roof like catching wind of the weekly odds on whether he’d fire Piggy, propose to her, or both!
“Scooter—”
“It wasn’t about what anyone else thought—it was about what you two felt. That’s it. Nobody gets to decide what you feel except you.”
Kermit looked at him a long time. “You’ve got your mother's smarts,” he said at last, and then they both laughed out loud.

The show had been a smashing success that night. Ho hum, thought Piggy. She had been her usual charming self on stage, and her devastatingly charming self with the fans, and now she was pretty much done with everything required of her tonight. She had begged off being taken out dancing by her friends—she’d had quite enough sociability this week—and was actually relishing the quiet backstage. Well, relative quiet.
Once the audience had cleared out, the set builders had gotton down to brass tacks. Well, crystalline staircases, as the case may be. The workers could be heard hammering and pounding away in the theater proper, building the newest addition to the set. That afternoon, she had watched and listened from the wings as Mr. Lowry and Lainie Kazan talked about the changes that would be made to the set and the choreography for “Beauty School Dropout". Piggy wasn’t in that scene, but it was interesting to see how they changed it for each new beauty school “angel". That part was even more of a revolving door than her role, and this was the last weekend they’d have with Pat Benatar. After that, Lainie Kazan was ready to debut.
Pat Benatar had been a very energetic angel-godmother, but Lainie was going for a more old-style Hollywood glamor approach. They were building a new glassine staircase that she was going to descend in her four-inch sparkling heels, which Piggy had roundly approved. Piggy had lurked in the wings and hoped she’d get a chance to talk shoes and fashion with their newest co-star before the show that night.
The chance had not quite materialized. Ms. Kazan and Mr. Lowry had been very absorbed in their discussion, and then, without warning, Ms. Kazan was allowing Mr. Lowry to kiss her gloved hand before disappearing down the theater aisle. Piggy had been a little disappointed, but had looked forward to seeing Ms. Kazan when she actually joined the cast. While they had been talking, Piggy had very much admired her soon-to-be co-star’s languid, graceful movements, her throaty, sexy laugh. Mr. Lowry had seemed equally enchanted, and Piggy had had to smile. Her newest boss obviously had a thing for divas, from babes to grande dames.
It’s no wonder he thought of Moi, she had mused happily as she’d taken her mark for the opening scene run-through. Although Piggy would have been loath to admit it to him, she liked the fact that Mr. Lowry was always tweaking the show. The rehearsal that afternoon had been wonderful, and Piggy thought again how much she liked the immediacy of live theater. You got energy off other performers, like an electrical current, and when you were all on…it was incredible, amazing. Not only that, but each performance was nuanced and different, so you were continually creating new art.
That was not to say, Piggy mused, trying to be fair, that there was not also a thrill in getting a scene down just so for a movie, to be forever immortalized on the silver screen. That was its own kind of wonderful, and she allowed herself—for a moment—to be grateful for Kermit’s insistence that Rainbow Productions venture into feature-length films as well as theater. They had been lucky, to have found success in both venues—phenomenally lucky. More to the point, she had been lucky.
Working had always been a great panacea for difficult or uncomfortable emotions. She had used it in the beginning to fill up the great hollow inside herself, to substitute for the approval and affection she had craved but not always received. It had been easy, at first, to thrive on the outpouring of love she had received from fans, but that kind of love is usually love from afar. It wasn’t long before she recognized that what she really wanted, what she really needed was the kind of love that blooms when you are close to someone—close enough to be seen for who you really are. Knowing and being known are, perhaps, the highest forms of love, and even more important when you lived and worked in a world where most everything was artificial or make-believe.
Fleet had known her, Piggy mused. Known her and—but she pushed the thought hastily away. She would not think about Fleet now. She wanted to think about Kermit, and she couldn’t seem to think of both of them at the same time.
Kermit was, from the beginning, one of the most genuine, most fundamentally decent beings she had ever known. It was his sincerity as well as his decency which made it possible for him to be honest with her (and the other performers) about their performances. While she hadn’t always liked it, she had always recognized that he would do what was best, even if it meant sharing unpleasant truths. She had fallen for him with a suddenness and a violence which had sometimes alarmed her. It had certainly
alarmed Kermit!
What she hadn’t realized for a long time was that Kermit was, himself, avoiding an unwelcome if not unpleasant truth: he had fallen in love with her. Only her insecurity and his natural deference had kept that truth from shouting itself from the heavens. As it was, it had been, as Jane Austen would have said, “Every day implied but never spoken.” Piggy had come to believe that she was reading too much into what he felt because her own feelings were so overpowering. She had found her emotional equilibrium (more or less) as an actress playing on stage every day while her heart was breaking in two. Sometimes she had channeled that angst into trying to break Kermit in two, but mostly she had used it as fuel for her performance.
Kermit’s party was tonight, and—though her co-stars had begged her to come out dancing with them, she had already decided that she’d had more socializing than she wanted this week. After the show tonight, she was going to talk to Kermit, go home and sleep like the dead. She’d not slept well the night before—too many unsettling emotions all churning around in her gut—but she felt confident that they had smoothed the rough edges away and everything was going to be better. Talking to Kermit had helped—oh, how it had helped!—even though he’d sounded irritated at her for a bit. Piggy felt vaguely discomfited, knowing it was probably her own guilty conscience that was making her sensitive, but Kermit had known what to say after all. She hoped she had not burdened him too much with her own loneliness when he was missing her, too.
She heard a noise outside her door, shuffling and whispering, and went over to shoo whoever it was along. None of the workers—indeed, no one, had any business in this part of the theater now. She reached for the knob—

 

[The Count]

One last chapter before I leave huh? This is all fabu and I have marked what little corrections need to be made, but it will simply have to wait until I return from vacation. Till then, thank you as always for sharing your magnifique writings with us Aunt Ru.
And don't think I didn't notice that little cliffhanger at the end of the chapter either.

 

[lady piggy]

Oh look! It's a new chapter from one of the loveliest stories on MC. I totally liked this chapter Miss Ru, very interesting and enjoyable to read. A couple of quotes that i loved

"He drifted up to the bus, aware that her pearls cost more than he had made last year,.."

Ahah that made me laugh so much , i can actually imagine Piggy strutting her stuff with her signature and expensive pearls. But again, i found it to be very humorous that her pearls were worth more then what he made last year .

"Miss Piggy was, in all ways, in a league of her very own."

Oh that line , i can not agree more with it . Yes indeed , Piggy is in a league of her own . I mean why shouldn't she be ? Piggy is definitely something special , something about that pig ( i use that term lovingly ) just captives people ,draws them in as if they were flys and she's the beautiful bright light bulb .ahah well ya get the general idea ahah.


"Can you even afford to buy Moi a cup of coffee?” she’d demanded.
“Just barely,” he’d admitted, and smiled."

Ahah i love how she " demanded " , no not asked but demanded ahah so Piggy.
And his response,ahah well he's honest and not to mention broke ahah.
Thanks a bunch for the new chapter Miss Ru , i can wait to read what happens next.^-^

 

[WebMistressGina]

So...this whole week, I've been seeing this story on the fandom front page and going, "no way Ru went and did an update and the MC didn't tell me" and lo and behold *points* there it is.

Of course, I can't tell you enough how much I'm enjoying this, from character development to the mystery of who's trying to sink the production to who's trying to kidnap Piggy (OMG, cliffhanger! It's totally Seymour!! Run, Piggy, run!!).

I do have to say, gleefully, that I liked Kermit's last comment to Scooter, about having his mother's smarts. Now, he could have been speaking about Scooter's actual birth mother, but - and this could be me coloring the sentence - I'd like to think Kermit was talking about Piggy.

If I hadn't before, I must again thank you for the image and growing seed in your interactions between Scooter and Kermit and Piggy, especially in Scooter's confession that he was and felt like the unwanted kid who was suddenly adopted into this big crazy family who have loved him forever. Those little glimpses is basically what started and colored many of my scenes between those three (especially the Monday and Pool Hall series) and made me go, "huh. these guys are really just a big ole family, with Daddy Kermit and Mama Piggy"

I am on pins and needles for Piggy, however; where's my sassy kick butt, take names diva? These scares are gonna reduce her to nothing, nothing, I tell you! But yes, please continue. I am enjoying this

 

[ReneeLouvier]

....omg, I finally have a chance to get fully caught up.....and I'm left with a cliffhanger!!

I don't know what's worse: Undertaker's Wrestlemania streak being defeated last night by Brock Lesnar.....or finally catching up to one of my favorite stories and its latest chapter end on a cliffhanger!!!

 

[The Count]

Dang, I knew I should have contacted you Sara before leaving to see if we could meet up, yes, I too witnessed in person the shuddering abomination that was the ending of The Streak rendering my newly acquired shirt null. (That should pretty much tell you where I was theis whole last week on vacation at).

PM if you want to chat further on that subject Sara.

Will return to go through the latest chapter tomorrow as I work my way through various fanfics here and at fanfiction.net that have accumulated in my absence.
*Leaves pecan prailine candies for everybody.

 

[The Count]

Okay, finally did some typo-cleaning and can move on to reviewing mode.

Absolutely love when there's a scene with Tricia, she's become one of my fave fic characters. And the relationship between her and Clifford is always a highlight.

The contrast between Fleet's first boss and his current boss is interestingly played with in this chapter. Also, while I was away, I kept thinking of the entertainment reviewer/film critic who died, giving way for Scribbler's ascendancy within the journalistic ladder. And I kept thinking, that grand old gal would fit in quite nicely with the rest of the clients waiting for Juno in the Neitherworld waiting room. *Reference to Beetlejuice, the movie version. So my brain started thinking her name could be Cornelia Reddenbacher what with she'd still have that boxy bag of popcorn with her even in the afterlife as a sign of her means of death, much like the rest of the ecclectic clientelle.

Another thing that you should be proud of is Scooter's frankness and the way he explained himself to Kermit's anger and frustration during their little chat at the party. Unfortunately, I forsee that this time the photo of Kermit without Piggy at his arm will be true, unlike what prompted the gofer to sprint with fiancée in toe off to Vegas back in Chapters 15-17.

But the little bit of suspense at the end when Piggy reached for the knob of her dressing room door…. Your evilness is showing once again, much like when Kermit gripped the door before leaving the studio, I think when Jerry as the beaver first showed up for security detail. At any rate, I know she'll be safe. For now.
Thanks for posting. *Leaves pecan prailine candies from NOLA.