Chapter 151: Keep Your Enemies Closer
“So, how’s everything back in Pleasantville?” Jolalene teased.
Rowlf shrugged. “It’s fine,” he muttered, and sat down at the piano. Jolalene approached him as though she wanted to say something but the rest of the band members were joining them and she returned to her spot.
“You ready Slinker? Malachi? Rowlfie?”
“Hey!” Dizzy protested. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
Jolalene grinned at him. “There’s no point in askin’ if you’re ready, Dizzy,” she said to the drummer with a sly grin. “You’re always ready, aren’t you?”
Dizzy grinned, saluted and played a rim shot, and Rowlf found himself smiling. Once the music started, he felt fine, his bad mood slipping away. Awww, rotten stuff happened to lots of people. No sense getting all up in arms about it, Rowlf thought to himself, his paws flying over the keys. Plenty of trouble for one day without borrowing it from another day. He turned his nose toward the music, shutting out the noise in his head and, after a while, he didn’t have to try so hard. He began to have a good time, enjoying the band, the music. He looked up and saw Jolalene giving him a sideways look and managed a grin. Her own mouth curved into a smile and she seemed to relax. When the chorus started, she really belted it out, and the owner of the bar and one of the bartenders came out of the kitchen and grinned at them. When the song was over, they clapped.
“That’ll sure bring ‘em in,” said the owner. “That’s some good music, that is.”
Jolalene gave a flashy bow, then swept her arm back to indicate the band. “Best musicians on tour today,” she said.
The bartender, an enormous fellow with a shaved head, grinned and revealed a mouthful of fancy bling. “Don’t doubt it, ma’am,” he said. He exchanged a look with the owner, who nodded. “Anybody want a draft?”
“When we finish, you’re on,” said Jo. “Warm me up a seat at the bar?”
He grinned and nodded. “Sure thing.”
While she’d been trading kissy-kisses with Kermit on the phone, Marty had left her a phone message, and she was listening to it when she walked into the theater. She waved at people languidly while she listened, catching the drift of the message. Marty was grudgingly impressed with the way she had dispatched rumors about her “competition” but was also advising caution. “Don’t want to start a war, now,” he said, but Piggy was fairly certain she already had. She sniffed and pouted just a little, shrugging off even this mild chastisement. While she knew she had danced close to the line, she hadn’t crossed it and—besides—it was the first moment in several days when she’d genuinely felt she had the press at her feet and on their knees—where they belonged. Her pout became more pronounced as she remembered the phone call that had started her day and her gloved hands clenched into fists. Darcy, bouncing up to her in the hallway, took one look at her face and backed up.
“I’ll come back,” Darcy said breathlessly, turning to flee, but Piggy reached out and clamped her wrist in a strong grip.
“What?” Piggy demanded.
Darcy's expression was somewhere between “worried” and “terrified” and Piggy realized she was scowling. She stopped, then smiled and batted her eyelashes. “What can Moi do for vous?” she asked in a saccharine voice.
Darcy let out a huge sigh of relief. “Whew—you looked sort of scary there for a minute,” Darcy said. “Everything…everything okay?”
Piggy waved her concern away. “Sure, sure,” she muttered. “Life’s a bowl of cherries. What’d you want to tell me?”
“Um…nothing, um, really. Just wanted to tell you what a good time everybody had at, you know, the party at your place.”
Piggy cut her a sideways look. “Does everybody mean you and Harrison?”
“What? No!” Darcy stammered, blushing. “I just meant that we all had, um, fun and…oh. He was cute, wasn’t he?” Harrison had poached the girls dance line and—not to be outdone—Darcy had joined him instead of trying to oust him. The result was exuberant and silly, with both of them showing off their most outrageous dance moves with a lot of rump wiggling and asset jiggling.
“You mean before I threw him out or after?” Piggy said, and Darcy giggled.
“You did not throw him out,” she protested. “Unless you’re claiming you threw us all out.”
“It was after 2 o'clock,” Piggy said mildly.
“We hardly get started before 2 o'clock most nights,” Darcy insisted.
“Yes, but Moi had to get up early to take Howard and Thoreau to the—“
“Oh!” Darcy cried, all concern. “That’s right! Your friends are gone now. I forgot you had to get up early, Piggy!” She peered closely at Piggy’s face, then shook her head. “No bags under your eyes. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Good genes,” Piggy said complacently. “Moi has naturally even skin tone.”
“But your friends got off okay this morning?”
“Good grief,” said Rory, looming suddenly over them. “Are you the only person on the planet who didn’t see the news today?”
“What?” Darcy said, confused. “What did they recall this time?”
“Nothing,” snorted Rory, giving Piggy a grin. “Our party-throwing diva just started a public relations war.”
“Ho hum,” snapped Piggy. She had not liked it when Marty made something of it, but she didn’t like Rory making something of it either.
“What’s she done now?” Darcy said, and Piggy made a rude noise and tried to go around them to the dressing room. Rory blocked her escape easily simply by standing in the hallway.
“Moi did not do anything—“
“Yeah,” Rory snorted. “And that ‘nothing’ was all over the internet today.” He cast Piggy a long sideways glance. “Checked your twitter lately?”
“Not interested,” Piggy said. Marty had said something about it, but that was his job, and Piggy hadn’t really listened.
“Well, she’s howling like she’s mortally wounded,” Rory said.
“Then she’ll die from it or get well,” Piggy snapped.
Rory exchanged a look with Darcy. “Somebody got off at the intersection of grumpy and grouchy today,” he murmured.
Piggy swatted him. It wasn’t hard enough to actually hurt him, but it hurt all the same, and Rory rubbed his arm ruefully. Darcy made a face and sidled off down the hall.
“Sorry,” he muttered, trotting to keep up with her as she made for her dressing room. “Everything…okay?”
“Moi is fine,” Piggy said. “Everything is fine.”
“Then why are you so—“
“Is it too much to ask that one day—one day—be normal?” she said. “Today was the day things were supposed to get back to normal, so I am ready for normal. Is that too much for Moi to ask?”
Rory looked at her a moment, at her flushed cheeks and the tight, angry set of her jaw, then reached out and pulled her into his arms for a hug. Piggy made a half-hearted attempt to push him away, but eventually it was just easier to lean against his ribcage and let him envelop her in his muscular arms than it was to argue with him. They stood that way for a long moment, and Rory felt some of the tension and angst leak out of her.
“Tough week,” he said.
Piggy nodded, her snout pressed against his shirt.
“But tonight, you are going to be the most fantastic Betty Rizzo the world has ever seen, right?”
Piggy nodded again, and Rory felt her take in a big draught of air.
“Then that will be normal,” he said. After a moment, Piggy nodded again. Five minutes later, she was laughing with the girls in the dressing room, grounded again. Rory wondered if her frog knew how tough it had been, and how tough she had been and made a mental note to tell him when he got up here.
If he ever did.
Clifford had lost two rolls of nickels and his lunch money, but Mabel brought him a toasted cheese sandwich and a piece of pie on her tab. All the other employees at that eatery came over to say hello and ask after the rest of the troupe. Several of the girls asked, giggling, after Pepe, and Clifford admitted he hadn’t heard much from the little King Prawn in a while.
“Tell him to come in next time he’s in town,” said one of the waitresses, a cute little blonde with freckles. “Tell him we’ll all go dancing again.”
Clifford promised, smiling as he ate his pie. He’d wandered the strip a little but hadn’t found much to hold his attention. His head wasn’t in the clouds, exactly—it was in the recording studio, wondering how things were going. That was the reason he’d come to the casino instead of trailing after Tricia today. They were recording at least one song—maybe two—and he didn’t trust himself to stay out from underfoot while they did. He had been in the studio before, but always as part of an established group, never as a first time, first real shot performer, and he had worried that the excitement of it might have made him try to horn in. He and Tricia had locked horns, so to speak, when she felt like he was edging into her creative control, so he was staying back and lying low. Clifford grinned. He would much rather lock lips than horns, but there would be plenty of time for that after they left the studio.
A shadow crossed his face. Well, there would be some time for that. Before they knew it, The Vittles would be on tour and he guessed he’d be heading back to what used to pass for his life. Even the thought of MC-ing the annual “Miss Cupcake” pageant seemed paltry compensation for losing Tricia to the road.
The thought was depressing, and Clifford frowned. Seeing it, the cute little freckled blonde came over and refilled his coffee, and he summoned up a smile for her. This was silly. The tour wasn’t going to change anything between them. It was only going to be an interruption in their time together, a bump in the road, so to speak, and then things could pick back up where they left off—wherever that turned out to be. Clifford felt his face grow warm, remembering the way Tricia had looked up at him, had returned his ardent kisses…. Whew. They had barely gotten started on their relationship, but they had certainly covered some ground.
“I heard the Mayhem are doing a cruise,” said a curvaceous little waitress with jet-black hair whose curves turned the simple shirtdress uniform into something rather more interesting. Her almond-shaped eyes were wide with interest.
“They are,” said Clifford, trying to haul out his company manners. “Way I hear it they are going to cruise the Islands.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” sighed the waitress. “Of course, anything to do with water sounds nice.”
Clifford smiled. Working in a desert probably got a little old, even if you spent most of it in air-conditioned comfort.
“I’m sure they are making the most of it. You know they’re doing the soundtrack for the new movie?”
“Duh,” she said, grinning. “Waiting for the word to pre-order it.” She looked at Clifford speculatively, and her smile became more personal. “You…you’ve played with them, haven’t you?”
“I have,” said Clifford.
“Wow,” she breathed, leaning forward. “That must be very…exciting.”
For the first time, Clifford seemed aware of her interest and back-pedaled hastily. “That is, I’m not really a part of the EM, but when we’re doing a show, everybody steps up.” He sat up straighter on his stool, and though he doubted it showed, he could feel his cheeks flush hot. “But the band does their own thing when they aren’t doing a show, um, with us.”
“Speaking of doing your own thing…if you aren’t doing anything at—“
Mabel bustled by and she stopped abruptly, to Clifford’s great relief. Although he was too embarrassed to admit it, he was thrilled by the mole’s unwitting interference but looked up just in time to see her wink at him. His blush deepened and he stood.
“You didn’t finish your coffee,” said the raven-haired beauty. Clifford downed it in a gulp.
“It-was-super-gotta-go-see-you-after-work-Mabel!” Clifford said in a rush. He fled the restaurant and walked through the casino toward the doors. Might be a good time to go see Circus, Circus, he thought, and suited action to words.
“—think there’s anything else we haven’t thought of?”
“Oh, I’m sure there is,” said Scooter grimly, “but we’ll just have to wing it when we get there.”
“Glad to have you as my co-pilot on this,” said Marty, mildly, but Scooter flushed at the compliment.
“Er, thanks, Marty. I’m just—“
“Doing your job. Yeah, yeah. And Piggy’s just a regular gal. Let me know when there’s any white space on the frog’s calendar, okay?”
Scooter grinned, then grimaced. Hearing it, Marty paused and looked at the phone. “Everything okay? Something else I should maybe hear before I read it in the tabloids?”
“Nothing like that,” said Scooter hastily. “I—it’s just—“
“C’mon, kid—spit it out. No white space on the calendar?”
“Um…no green space in the budget,” Scooter said, his voice as neutral as he could make it.
Marty’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Piggy made plenty of money—he should know!—but he didn’t get the impression that Scooter was talking about Kermit’s gold card. “What’s going on? Film going over?”
“Not yet,” said Scooter. “In fact, we’re holding really close to the original budget. This is…I just mean….” He fell silent and stayed that way until Marty prompted him.
“So, what’s the story? At least give me the headline.”
“No story—just a headline. We, um, got a snarky letter from our accountant. They cut the credit limit on our expense card.”
Scooter hoped desperately that Marty would simply snort, mutter and make light of it, but he did not.
“How much?” Marty asked.
Scooter told him, and it was his turn to wait for Marty to talk.
“I don’t like this,” Marty said at last. “I don’t like this at all.”
“We’re not especially wild about it ourselves,” Kermit’s personal assistant muttered. “I mean, we’ve got other means, but it’s inconvenient not having a credit card.”
“You talked to Kermit about it?”
Later, Marty would swear he heard him squirming through the phone. “I—of course. He said it was probably, you know, a misunderstanding. Lots of folks get antsy waiting on the next hit movie.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Marty muttered. “Look, has Kermit talked to—“
“No. Not yet. We didn’t see any point in telling Miss…in telling her.”
“Good plan,” Marty said, then strove to make his voice heartier. “No sense in worrying her, you know? And Kermit can just buy his own plane ticket to go see her, right?”
Scooter had never really been a yes man, but he knew his line now. “Sure,” he said. “Piece of cake.”
“Any idea when that will be?”
This line was purely improv. “Soon,” Scooter said quickly. “Very soon.”
“Good to know,” Marty said into the phone, and hung up. Alone in his office, he stared moodily at the phone, thinking. “Kid, never say piece of cake in the Labyrinth,” he muttered, and put his feet up on the desk to think.
He was glad he hadn’t gone. One look at the footage of her pouty face had convinced him that she'd already been so incensed by the situation that, had he gone she would have launched herself at him or turned him to stone with a glance. Still, he had a job to do and he couldn’t wait forever. He waited, carefully out of sight, until she’d entered the theater, then sidled up to the door.
“Take a message?” he asked the woman behind the glass.
“No.” Her voice and her demeanor were flat and unfriendly.
“How come?”
“We’re not supposed to.”
He waved a bill. “I’m willing to pay.”
The bill disappeared, and the woman pulled out a notepad.
“Your message for Miss Piggy?”
“You don’t know it’s her.”
“I know.”
“How could you?” Scribbler argued. “It could be anyone.”
“It’s not—it’s her.”
“Fine, it’s her.” He took the pad and wrote a line. “Make sure she sees it,” he said tersely.
“She won’t read it.”
“She might.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you’re clogging up my line.”
“There’s no line,” said Scribbler. “And you don’t know if she’ll read it or not.”
“Look, if you aren’t going to buy a ticket—“
“I might buy a ticket—“
“We’re sold out,” she said, bored.
“You don’t even know what show,” Scribbler argued.
She looked him up and down, but stopped short of rolling her eyes. “Don’t have to,” she said. “You’re here to see the diva.”
“What makes you so sure?” He was unsure what had “made” him, and curious to hear what she’d say.
“The trenchcoat,” she said dismissively. “It’s not the trenchcoat she liked—it’s the frog who wears it. You guys will never learn.”
And that, Scribbler could not argue with.
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