Chapter 56: Lucky
As though the circus atmosphere backstage wasn’t intense enough, the Elvi had arrived just as Gonzo was being wheeled out. They were greeted in a warm, although slightly frantic, fashion by Kermit, who was nervously shooing people either toward the stage or away from it. Ace, Deuce and Trey watched everything from the wings.
“Thought the show was mighty fine,” said Deuce. He was standing with his brothers in Mabel’s little kingdom and being plyed with hot, buttered biscuits. No matter how many he ate, they just kept reappearing on the plate in front of him. Have mercy! Nashville was heavenly, and picturesque at Christmas, but it was good to be back in Vegas.
“We came to catch the little dude’s ode to the King,” said Trey. “He is not half bad—a credit to the brotherhood.” He ate a spoonful of made-from-scratch apple butter and almost swooned from the flavor. “Sure you won’t marry me, Mabel?” he asked. Mabel humphed and put her noise in the air.
“I got better offers,” said Mabel, “and none of them are worth giving up m’freedom.”
Trey laughed. “Just don’t elope on me, honey,” he said. “I’d pine away without you.”
“You’d pine away without me to feed you,” she said firmly, but she patted his head and poured him more ice-cold milk.
“So—you like the show, huh? They seem like mighty nice folks,” said Mabel. “And they said they knew you.” Something about the wistfulness in her voice made them stop and look at her.
“Gracious,” said Ace. “Somethin's on your mind.”
Mabel played with the corner of her apron, which was as good as a “yes” to those that knew her.
Ace leaned forward and put his big warm hands over hers protectively.
“Somebody botherin’ you, darlin’?” he demanded. “Tell us the story.”
Mabel looked relieved, but it took her a minute to get started. Fifteen minutes later, they had the whole story as Mabel had pieced it together from different crew and cast members, and were sitting in slack-jawed amazement.
“We had no idea,” said Deuce. “You know, if I read the tabloids I’d think there were hundreds of us instead of three.”
“And we’d be married to aliens or caring for Bigfoot’s baby,” chimed in Trey.
“So, how long has this been going on?”
“Best I can figure, since sometime in the Fall,” said Mabel. “And that reporter guy--he was makin’ trouble for them back home and now—I think he’s here. There’s a creepy fella in a trench-coat that I keep seein’ around, but every time I do he’s gone before I can get a fix on him. I think he’s stayin’ here at the hotel, but they don’ have anybody by that name stayin’ here. I checked registration, but he must be under another name.”
“Well, tell Jack—or Frosty or Seymour. They’ll do something about it.”
“The kid’s already working that angle.”
“You mean Scooter?”
“Yeah. But so far, no go. Vegas is an easy place to get lost.” She looked up, suddenly remembering. “Oh hey—you guys know Miss Piggy’s agent? Guy name of Marty?”
The men looked at each other for a moment and burst out laughing.
“Are you kidding?” they sputtered. “That guy is one tough cookie in the business.”
“Really?” said Mabel, pleased and a little surprised. She didn’t know why she was surprised, actually—Piggy usually demanded the best, after all. “Well, he, um, he sent a reporter here to interview everybody—get the real inside story on what’s up with them and the company.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” said Ace. “Who’s coming to polish their brass?”
“Brenda Starr,” said Mabel.
Once again, the men exchanged startled looks.
“Well well,” said Deuce. “Marty’s pulled out the big guns.”
“You want I should see if she’d like to talk to you guys? You’ve worked with Kermit and the Missus before, right?”
“Yes, indeed. One several occasions.”
Mabel nodded and smiled. Gently, she withdrew her hands. “Thanks, fellas,” she said quietly. “That makes me feel a little better.”
After they had gone, Mabel puzzled around the little kitchenette until she caught herself polishing the same countertop for the third time. She threw her hands up in surrender and laughed at herself. What was it about these guys that made her feel so protective and motherly. Why, she’d known them less than a fortnight! But Mabel knew in her gut that she’d really known them her whole life—the goodness, the sweetness, the giving-ness that permeated this odd little cast of characters. Against the big bad world, they seemed ill-matched for survival, but their strength came from each other.
Mabel thought—not for the first time, that Scribbler was half stupid. He was hitting at the heart of their little family by trying to alienate Kermit from the one’s he loved, and the ones who obviously loved him. If he could hurt Kermit like that….
But…but what was the motive? Mabel wondered. The senselessness of it all gave her a headache. Who would want to hurt Kermit? Who would want to hurt Piggy? Who was even now living under the same roof with them that wished them so much ill? Mabel felt tired. She wanted to go home and put her feet up and think about nothing.
She might have actually done it, but there was that matter of a batch of cookies that she promised Robin…. Mabel wiped her hands on her apron and went back to her work.
The instant intermission was called, Janice rushed into Piggy’s dressing room in something like a panic.
‘Mr. Thoreau,” she said urgently. “I tried it on but there’s something wrong—can you take another look at it?”
Thoreau would normally have been deeply affronted, but the look of dismay on Janice’s earnest face made him match her urgency with his own.
“Of course, darling,” he said, hustling her behind Piggy’s screen. “Put it on and we’ll take a quick look-see.”
Janice rushed to comply, and by the time Piggy arrived in her dressing room to slip out of her dress, Janice was just emerging from behind the screen.
Even Piggy was caught up in the loveliness of form and function that Janice brought to Thoreau’s creation, and she stopped and gave Janice the privilege of her very expert eye for fashion.
“Lovely,” she said, bowing her head to her dressmaker. “Never has so little done so much for…so much,” she said. Janice beamed at her, and Thoreau accepted her praise with flushing pride, but he was moving over to where Janice had half-turned, displaying the charms of the back view.
“Something’s pulling here,” said Janice. “I can’t see it, but I can feel it, and when I was taking it off in my room, I thought I heard a little tear. Oh—I hope, like, I didn’t hurt it—it’s so perfect.”
But Thoreau’s practiced eyes had noticed the almost undetectable pulling and his sensitive fingers felt gingerly along the seam.
“Ah,” he said, and all three of them let out a deep breath. This was a good ah—the ah of comprehension, not the ah of dismay. “It looks like one of the threads has gotten caught in the underseam,” he said briskly. “Go ahead and change and I’ll just get my shears and clip that—“
“Piggy? Can I come in?” Three blond hands whipped toward the door in a panic.
“Don’t come in!” Piggy called. “I’m not, um, dressed yet.”
“You just went in there,” Kermit said dryly, his voice muffled on the other side of the door. “And besides, I don’t see how it matters whether or not—“
“And, um, Janice is in here.”
“Why is Janice changing in your dressing room?”
“Her, um, ah, zipper was stuck,” Piggy lied. Piggy could tell a whopper with the best of them but she did better with a little lead time to prepare. There was a skeptical silence on the other side of the door.
“Piggy, what are you and Thoreau up to? And why is Janice suddenly living in your dressing room?”
“I don’t know what vous are talking about,” Piggy stalled, but she was casting frantic looks at Thoreau, who was throwing them right back at her.
“Piggy—I don’t care what you have going on, but I need to talk with you about the second half. Better unstick whatever’s stuck cause I’m coming in there!” Kermit insisted, certain she was hiding something. They saw the knob begin to turn.
“It’s okay,” Janice’s voice carried clearly. “Let him in, Piggy. I’m sure, like, Kermit has seen me naked lots of times before.”
Kermit hastily withdraw, as intended, and Piggy had to stifle a giggle. Behind her, Thoreau heaved a sigh of relief.
“Um, I’ll just wait here until you call me,” Kermit said meekly.
“Yes, Sweetie,” Piggy called gaily.
“Good thinking,” Thoreau whispered, but Janice just looked at him, utterly guileless.
“What?” Janice asked, mildly. “What was good thinking?” And she laughed as she disappeared behind the screen again.
“It’s official,” Gonzo said gloomily to his best bud. “I am the most pathetic creature on the face of the earth. Even Doc Honeydew has a date.”
Rizzo tried valiantly to remember some of the things that Gonzo had said to him when he and Camilla had planned a night on the town and Rizzo was the one sitting home. After a minute, he gave it up and shot from the hip.
“Well, you aren’t pathetic just because you don’t have a date,” he tried, hoping that would help. “Lots of folks don’t have a date tonight but their coming out to dance anyway.”
“Hmphf,” said Gonzo, peeling off his spandex suit and changing into his fatigues.
“Hard to argue with that,” Rizzo muttered, and gave up. Gonzo was going to mope around, mooning after Camilla and feeling sorry for himself until he was quite done, and nothing Rizzo had said had made a dent in his gloom. “But you’ll have the room to yourself, okay? Why don’t you kick back and watch some ol’ Christmas movie, order a little room service?”
“Maybe,” Gonzo said, brightening a little. “I think Santa Claus Defeats the Aliens is on just after midnight.
“There you go,” said Rizzo, relieved and feeling guilty. “That’s the ticket.” He reached for his own camouflage pants and pulled them on.
“Thanks, Buddy,” Gonzo said after a moment of buttoning buttons. Furry hands and buttons are often an unfortunate combination. “Sorry to be such a mope.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Rizzo said, meaning it. “It’s okay to be blue—but you’ll bounce back. You’ll see.”
“Blue at Christmas,” Gonzo said thoughtfully. “Yep—that’s me.”
“Ten minutes, Johnny,” Sal said, consulting the clock on the wall. “Then you’re third on after intermission.”
“Okay,” Johnny said, and the offhand way he said it made Sal wonder if he’d actually heard him. Sal worried it for a moment and decided he’d try again at five minutes till. He looked over at Johnny Fiama, and his little primate heart swelled with pride. His idol looked calm and collected, and what’s more, when he had returned to the room all atwitter about what he’d seen, Johnny had met him with a cup of cocoa and a cannoli. The most recent box had arrived that afternoon by parcel delivery service, and Sal had never appreciated the culinary artistry of Mama Fiama more than he had at that moment. He intended to eat about four more when he got back to the room.
“I sure do like your Mom’s cannoli,” he said dreamily.
“Yeah—she’s somethin’ else, my Ma,” Johnny agreed. He looked over at Sal and found his little black eyes watching him closely. “And you’re something else, too, you know? You did a very nice job on my shirts today,” Johnny said off-handedly. “You always make me look good Sal.”
“Oh!” Sal cried, delighted. “That’s easy Johnny. It’s so easy even I can do it.”
“And you don’t think I looked far in the grey suit?”
“No way,” Sal said, opening the door and ushering Johnny toward the backstage. “I think you looked fine—but then, you always….”
The door swung shut on silence. Johnny Fiama had left the room.
The Electric Mayhem had taken no prisoners with their rough-riding rendition of Jingle Bell Rock, and Janice’s dress had made it’s usual sultry statement while she belted out lyrics.
There had been another near-disruption in the same aisle as before when Robin appeared in his Kermit-Santa pajamas, but the disruptee’s seat-mates seemed to have wrestled her back into her seat, where she sat in dazed and contented silence as the young frog sang.
Kermit and Piggy were obviously having fun with their non-speaking role in this song, and Kermit’s unsteady legs did not need embellishment to be believable.
Suavely, Johnny sang and moved and shot his finger coolly at people while the audience ate it up. When he sauntered off the stage, Piggy was out of her silk pajamas and into her slinky dress, waiting for Kermit to start the song.
The wild applause that follows settled down easily as Rizzo stepped out and began their song. The audience remained reverent and quiet as the entire staff came out for the final number.
A couple of impromptu encores, and they were free muppets, one and all.
Autumn and Ed waited in comfortable silence as the theater cleared. It was pleasant just to sit and soak in all that they had experienced, leaning against each other in the padded seats. At last, however, Ed turned languidly to Autumn and smiled.
“That was wonderful,” he said. “What a wonderful present.”
He could hear the laughter in Autumn’s low voice. “So, seeing me isn’t enough? Is that what I’m hearing?” She was teasing him, her lightly accented voice lilting over the words, but Ed entered into the game with relish.
“Not at all,” he returned smoothly. “What I meant was that it was a wonderful beginning to our evening.”
Autumn shifted, and he could feel the force of her gaze on his face.
‘That sounds promising,” she said, and though her voice was grave he could feel the barely suppressed mirth that threatened to bubble out. “What did you have in mind?”
“Dinner—maybe dancing…?”
“Yes to dinner,” Autumn said thoughtfully. “Let me think about the dancing.”
“Of course,” Ed said immediately, but he was surprised.
Slowly, they stood, arms twining as they walked up the auditorium aisle. Ed was silent, and thoughtful. He worried that her disinterest in dancing might mean that the demands of work had made themselves known, and she would have to spirit away. As if divining the reason for his quietness, Autumn smiled up at him.
“I’m not going anywhere, darling,” Autumn said with a smile. “I’m just trying to think if dancing is the best use of our time…”
There was a reassessing silence, then Edward’s voice returned. “But…dinner first…and then we can decide.
“Yes,” said Autumn happily. She leaned her glossy head on his shoulder. “Dinner first, and then….”
The noise and lights of the casino swallowed them up, but Autumn’s companion was aware of very little beyond their little circle of two. Yes, a wonderful evening indeed.
The show had been amazingly well received. Full of restless energy and mindful of the value of time, Kermit and Piggy had acquiesced rather gracefully to Brenda’s suggestion that they go back upstairs to the The Frogs suite, rustle up some grub and try to hammer out some more of this interview.
In an odd sort of way, it was less uncomfortable talking to Ms. Starr now, with the memory of the show buzzing in their brains, that it had been the last time. Some of the stiff veneer had been stripped away from their lives, and Kermit did not feel the same sort of claustrophobic tightness when he thought about talking about his personal life.
Nevertheless, Kermit looked uncomfortable. “I mean, I’m a private kind of frog. When Piggy and I were dating, we could hardly go out for an ice-cream cone without scads of reporters following us. Of course, it helped that Piggy provided them with itemized itineraries of our evenings….” Kermit teased.
Piggy gave a sharp yelp of surprise and indignation, and her mouth fell open in surprise.
“Oh—that is so--! Kermit, you are soooo not being fair.”
She turned to Brenda beseechingly. “One time—one date!” she cried. “We were supposed to do this article for a magazine—“
“Which Piggy forgot to tell me about!” Kermit continued to tease. “In fact, Piggy had forgotten to mention that we were engaged.” He crossed his arms across his chest and smirked at Piggy fondly.
“I did not!” Piggy insisted. “Oh, Kermit—I did not forget to mention that we were engaged because we weren’t—I mean, we hadn’t—“ Her cheeks were scarlet with embarrassment and ire
“But all of the reporters seemed to know it,” Kermit finished. “Everyone but me.”
Piggy’s glare was all-too-real for Kermit to ignore. He checked his internal swat-o-meter gauge and determined that he had better desist before he found himself flattened. He subsided but found Ms. Starr grinning at him with such undisguised delight that he grinned back. Piggy looked from one to the other huffily, then took matters into her own gloved hands.
“Oh, for goodness sake,” she protested. “Kermit had asked me out on a date, and he said there was something important he wanted to talk to me about. When I was talking to my, um, to one of my many admiring reporters he mentioned that he would love to do a nice little photo spread about the social life of one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples. I was going to mention it to Kermit.” She looked over at Kermit, daring him to contradict her, but instead he laughed and took her hand while he took up the narrative.
“So, I go to pick Piggy up and she’s acting all keyed up and nervous.”
“More so than usual?” Brenda asked dryly, and Piggy let out a little yeep and tried to pull her hand away. Kermit did not release her hand, patting it absently with his other one, but otherwise ignoring Piggy’s attempts to distance herself from him.
“Well, yeah. Piggy kept looking over her shoulder, like she was watching for something. And I have to say that, in spite of the fact that being with Piggy was pretty distracting all by itself, I had kindof noticed that there seemed to be a lot of the same people wherever we went.”
Piggy cheeks were flushed at the unexpected compliment. Somewhat mollified, she stopped trying to pull her hand away and looked at Kermit from under lowered lashes, wondering what he would say. After all these years, he could still surprise her.
“So, all through lunch and our stroll through the park, Piggy keeps trying to act like nothing odd is happening.” He turned and looked at Piggy out of the corner of his eye, but she sniffed and ignored him. “Finally, I asked her point-blank if she knew why all these reporters were following us.”
Brenda turned her eyes politely to Piggy, who looked flustered and defiant at the same time.
“And I told him…” Piggy faltered, distinctly uncomfortable. “I told him that I had brought along a reporter to capture the ‘something important’ that he had mentioned.” Piggy’s face was carefully averted and her voice had grown husky. “But he didn’t—it wasn’t….”
Brenda kept her face politely interested, but her heart began to race. Oh my! She had a picture in her head of the sort of bombshell this must have been to Kermit.
It was Kermit’s turn to squirm. A slim green finger from his free hand pulled uncomfortably on his collar, and he looked at Piggy, who was not looking at him.
“I—I had wanted to talk to Piggy about a couple of script ideas that Jim had. I didn’t think how it might sound—look!” He tugged on Piggy’s hand, the same sort of gesture that Robin used when he was insistent on Kermit’s attention. Piggy looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. Her face was carefully neutral, a tactic Kermit knew meant she was usually hiding some strong emotion. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know, then, what it would be like to be um…married to you Piggy. If I had known, I…I wouldn’t have…” He tugged again on Piggy’s hand, his tone wheedling. “So, I panicked and had a fit, and we had a big fight and the reporter ended up taking pictures, all right.”
Brenda remembered. This was before the internet, before the proliferation of cable stations, but the pictures and the accompanying article had still made the rounds with impressive proficiency. People and periodicals had taken sides, some blaming Piggy for being pushy, others characterizing Kermit as an insensitive stringer-along. Everyone had wanted to know what this meant for one of America’s most-watched couples, and the truth was that no one yet knew—not even the “happy” couple. Brenda’s mind gave a little hiccup—the reporter equivalent of her Spidey sense tingling—and she stopped and tried to figure out what had tweaked her memory. The thought ran away, laughing at her inability to follow, and Brenda gave an inward sigh. It would come to her—it always did.
“But you survived,” Brenda said, making it more of a statement than a question.
“Yes,” said Piggy, brightening.
“Of course,” said Kermit. He smiled at Piggy shyly, and she managed a smile back. “We always—it, um, I think it helped that each of us thought that the whole stupid fight was our fault. So…we made up. We always made up.” If there had been a thermostat in the room, it might have registered the sudden jump in temperature as Kermit and Piggy both blushed, remembering that particular episode of making up with perfect clarity. After a moment, Piggy began to giggle, then Kermit joined in.
Kermit put his hand over his face, looking sheepish but not exactly embarrassed.
“Oh, sheesh, Brenda—I hadn’t thought about some of this in…well, in a long time. I—we’ve been on the other side of this for so long. I forgot how…how it was before. I was a different frog then.” He leaned over suddenly and kissed Piggy on the cheek. “A lonelier frog.”
Piggy looked at him, her hand flying involuntarily to her cheek, and her eyes were shining.
“Oh, Kermie,” she said softly. “Moi too.”
Brenda had long ago mastered the ability to take rapid notes without being obvious, and her pen was positively flying over her little notepad.
“So—do you ever fight now?”
They stared at each other, momentarily caught off guard.
“Um…” Piggy said.
“Er…” Kermit began.
Brenda let the silence ride, then looked at them mildly.
“Never,” Piggy said.
“Well, sure,” said Kermit. “I mean, who doesn’t--?”
“What?”
“What?”
“Um, sometimes,” Kermit said, over-riding Piggy’s fierce look. “We’re both—we’re both very, um, passionate about our work. So sometimes we don’t agree on how a scene should play, or how a scene should look. But that’s okay, you know? It means we—“
“—have to shoot things several times before Kermit does them my way,” said Piggy primly, but there was such an obvious bait in her posture and tone that Kermit did not rise to it. He contented himself with making a scrunchy face, a face that was oh-so-familiar to his fans.
“Or,” he countered. “Or—we end up wasting a lot of time before Piggy figures out what she’s doing.”
“Oh!” said Piggy. But she was biting her lip, trying not to smile.
Brenda had no such compunctions. She grinned broadly and shook her head.
“Are you always like this?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes!” said Piggy.
“No!” countered Kermit. “Sometimes we’re worse!” He laughed silently, his mouth wide.
Piggy inclined her head, agreeing with him but unwilling to do so verbally. “Of course, this show is live,” she added. “So we all listen politely to what Kermit has to say, and then do it our way!”
This was actually close enough to the truth to make Kermit “hmmmm” wryly, but it was mild.
Brenda’s next question caught them off guard once again.
“Do you ever fight about things besides work?”
Kermit and Piggy looked at each other, eyes wide, trying to figure out how to get their stories together.
“Sometimes,” Piggy said uncertainly.
“Never,” insisted Kermit. He crossed his arms across his chest and looked suddenly implacable. It was one thing, Brenda supposed, to talk about old fights or professional differences, but Kermit had a definite sore spot about anything that implied less than transcendent domestic bliss. He had shown a determined ability to withstand jabs about his temper, professionalism and directorial duties (and tendencies), but he did not tolerate speculation about their relationship well. Ironically, the stories implying Piggy’s potential unfaithfulness did not seem to trouble him at all; in that quarter, he was very secure, but if there was a chink in Kermit’s armor it was that he could not comfortably entertain any thought that they were not perfectly, completely happy.
Piggy’s cheeks were flushed and she kept darting little looks of distress at Kermit while trying valiantly to do it unobtrusively. She licked her lips and shot Brenda a pleading look, but there was no comfort there. Brenda Starr was on the story, and she intended to get it.
“You hit a rough patch about a year ago,” Brenda said gently. “Want to tell me what that was about?”
Piggy had shot to her feet, eyes blazing, looking betrayed.
“You’re supposed to be helping!” she cried. She sounded amazingly close to tears. “You’re not supposed to be—“
“It’s true,” Kermit said stiffly. “But it was totally my fault.” He looked defeated and tired, but his expression was earnest.
Both women turned to stare at him. Brenda’s face was composed, interested, but Piggy was having a hard time keeping her jaw from falling open. In all their years of making up and breaking up, Kermit had become a master of the non-apology—always managing to soothe her feelings and patch up her wounded pride without ever admitting fault. Piggy didn’t know quite how to take this, and it made her flustered.
For his part, Kermit felt enormously better for having said it. He was so far into these murky emotional waters that he didn’t know how to swim out except to go forward. When Brenda had thrown him a line, he’d taken it and held on. The relief and sadness in his voice were genuine, and Piggy’s heart gave a great lurch of protectiveness.
She shot a murderous look at Brenda and scooted over on the couch so she could put her arm around Kermit’s shoulders. When she did, Kermit leaned against her briefly and literally felt her strength seep into him. His hand found her free one blindly again, his bulbous eyes intent on Brenda’s face.
“We had a period there where I felt like we were losing our focus. Some of the projects we’ve done recently weren’t really, well, us.” He grimaced. “Not out best work,” he muttered. “And, well, I was burning my candle at both ends trying to fix it and get us back on track.” Kermit paused and cleared his throat nervously. “I don’t suppose I was very easy to work with during that period, and I know I couldn’t have been easy to live with.” Piggy made a small sound of comfort and Kermit’s face broke into a wry smile. “But sanity returned at last. And I was very lucky.” He squeezed Piggy’s hand again. “I am very lucky,” he said firmly. “I—it was like stepping out of my life for a little while, forgetting what was really important. That’s not going to happen again.”
Brenda smiled at Kermit. “If I was the betting type, I wouldn’t bet against you,” she said softly. Piggy looked slightly mollified, but continued to rub Kermit’s shoulder absently with one satin-gloved hand.
“No,” she said. She was talking to Brenda but she was looking right at Kermit. “That’s not going to happen again.”
Kermit was returning the look, but he paused for a moment and turned back to Brenda.
“Do you think maybe we could finish up another time?” Kermit said. His eyes strayed back to Piggy’s and held. “I’m…sortof tired and we’ve got a…a big day tomorrow….”
Brenda doubted that fatigue was driving this sudden change of plans, but she gathered her things with alacrity.
“Certainly,” she said, and made a hasty departure. She was already roughing out her article in her head.
When the door clicked shut behind her, Kermit and Piggy both fought to be the first one to speak.
“You didn’t—“
“I’m sorry—“
“No, don’t—it doesn’t—“
“Matter. No, it doesn’t matter.”
There was a long pause where there were no sounds of talking at all, just little murmured endearments interspersed with kisses. Soon the kisses became interspersed with giggles, and there was a sudden laughing rush for the door. Piggy won by a hair, which Kermit could not do, but before the night was gone, both Mr. and Mrs. The Frog would count themselves lucky indeed.
Kermit and Piggy weren’t the only ones making up that night. Scribbler had done a great deal of making up, but it was carefully woven around mere thread of truth and had the appearance of a whole if slightly moldy cloth.
“Well, well….” His boss’s voice held more than a hint of grudging admiration, but Scribbler didn’t need anyone to tell him that his latest copy was good. He knew it was good. It had flowed out of him with poisonous precision, a thing of awful beauty, of terrible splendor. He could write the sort of tripe the tabloid he worked for printed in his sleep, but during the least few months, he had perfected spinning half-truths and nasty implications into an elaborate web of lies into to something that approximated an art form. Nevertheless, the admiration was short-lived, and the mocking voice came again. “Looks like you put a little extra effort into this.”
“I always do a good job,” Scribbler insisted, the compliment making him unreasonably defensive.
“Yes…yes,” mused his boss thoughtfully. “But this smacks of some particular…feeling.”
The down and out reporter was now distinctly uneasy.
“I’m beginning to think this assignment has some distinctly personal overtones.”
“Wow,” said Scribbler, his voice dripping with insincere awe. “Congratulations! When did you start thinking?”
Two well-tended hands slammed flat on the desk and Scribbler couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh—or flee. The wide mouth was twisted into a sneer, and the dark eyes were blazing.
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate your efforts,” said his boss with a visible effort at remaining calm. “And I applaud your efforts to draw blood with your…little sword. Do what you have to to get the job done—but remember, when it all comes down, the frog is mine.”
He did not like the sound of that. Scribbler was perfectly willing to wound Kermit emotionally, maybe even permantly, but there were times when he doubted they were talking about the same kind of wounding. That last had sounded oddly sinister and he hesitated, not sure whether or not to offer a rebuke.
“Run along now,” said his boss dismissively, and reached for the phone.
Fuming, Scribbler snatched his hat up off the desk and stalked toward the door, but the next words stopped him dead in his tracks.
“And when that does happen, I guess that leaves one little Piggy just for you.”
Scribbler stopped, debating running from the door, but something oily in the voice warned him to play this very, very cool.
“Guess so,” he said, wishing he could keep the muscle in his jaw from jumping.
“Funny how that worked out, isn’t it? You help me eliminate Kermit, and poor Piggy will be left all alone and lonely….”
Eliminate? Scribbler thought with alarm. What were they talking about here?! He opened his mouth to protest, but the next words robbed him of thought—and breath.
“I guess that will seem like old times, won’t it? I know you do have a history with little miss Pork Rind, don’t you?”
Scribbler felt the sweat break out under his armpits and scalp. He’d been so certain that no one had known, no one had guess about the nature of his relationship with Piggy.
“That—that was a long time ago. Before—“
“Before Kermit?” Scribbler could hear the wide smile that was spreading behind his back. “Yes—before he came along and ruined everything. Before the love of her life arrived and destroyed everything you’d--”
Scribbler whirled, fury on his face. “It wasn’t like that,” he said fiercely. “You don’t know anything about it. What happened happened because I, because we—“ He mastered himself with an effort and clenched his jaw shut. “We had something special going—it could have gone on, but—“
“Oh, spare me! Don’t tell me you’re going to defend her!”
“I’m not!”
“She abandoned you! Dropped you flat!”
“She didn’t! I mean, I wasn’t—“ Again, Scribbler tried to shut himself up and, failing, slammed his hat down on his head and made for the door again. He put his hand on the knob and took a deep steadying breath.
“I’ll help you do what you want, but leave my personal life out of this.”
The only answer he received was the mocking laughter that followed him all the way down the hall.
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Christmas Music
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Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
