Sorry folks--this one is a little sad, but it will be okay. Promise.
Ever, Ru
Chapter 99: The Summer I Played Juliet
The hotel suite was lovely. Her new boss had stocked it with a fruit basket, a muffin basket and a selection of sparkling water. Kermit had filled it to the brim with flowers and chocolates and balloons. Piggy smiled fondly, plucking the taut strings of the balloons and thinking of Gonzo, and beginnings and—Oh! So many things! There were roses and carnations and, of course, lilies of all sorts, and Piggy buried her snout in one and inhaled the sweet scent. Piggy had not had a favorite flower until she and Kermit had spent that day at the lake. It had been warm, and Piggy—who had dressed to impress with her femininity—was wishing she were wearing a few fewer layers of lace. Kermit had invited her to shed a few layers, only half teasing, and stripped down himself to dive in the cool green water. Watching him swim, his smooth green skin sleek and shining in the dappled sunlight, Piggy had known herself to be deeply in love. If Kermit had only asked her that day, she would have said yes—would have known herself beloved and cherished. But Kermit had not—not then.
Suddenly, Piggy put the flowers down and walked briskly over to the bed. She unpacked her carry-on luggage which contained the necessities—and started toward the luxurious bathroom. Her other luggage, all eight bags of it—sat unopened in the big bedroom. She did not want to deal with it tonight.
Piggy ran a warm bath full of sudsy bubbles, peeled off her travel-rumpled suit and stockings and stepped gingerly into the scented warmth. She thought about lighting a swamp-scented candle, but she didn’t want to get out of the tub, and she didn’t want to unpack or look for one, so she let it go. It would probably just make her blue, anyway—thinking about Kermit, and the swamp, and that day at the lake…. Piggy took a deep breath and sank down until even her satiny ears were wet.
Ahh. This was better. She soaked decadently, until she felt vaguely porcine again, then scrubbed her skin till it glowed, washed and conditioned her hair, shaved and moisturized her legs and pumiced her little piggies that had not liked those cute shoes she had worn. When she could think of nothing else to do, she got out of the tub and let the water drain.
Piggy had brought actual pajamas since she was sleeping alone, and the soft flannel made a brushing sound as she walked across the room to the bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and toweled her hair, moisturized her face, took a deep breath—and called Kermit. She had already texted him her touchdown at the airport, her arrival at the hotel, but she had not spoken to him pig to frog. She had not felt able to, but now that she was here, facing the inevitable, she managed to dial.
“Hello?” The sound of his voice made her blink several times rapidly.
“Helloooo, dearest! It is Moi. My flight was wonderful and the hotel is perfection—especially the chocolates! Thank vous, Sweetie!”
She heard Kermit whisper. “It’s Piggy. She said thank you for the chocolates.”
For a moment—for a teeny, tiny moment, Piggy wondered why Kermit was whispering and who was there with him, then Kermit said clearly into the phone.
“Scooter says, ‘You’re welcome.’”
Piggy laughed her gay laugh. It almost sounded normal. “Silly frog,” she said. “I know they’re from vous.”
“They are,” Kermit admitted, and Piggy knew that if she had been there he would have presented his cheek to her for her kiss, smugly claiming his just due. “Did they deliver the balloons?”
“Oh, were those from you? I thought those were from Gonzo?” Piggy said dryly, and it was Kermit’s turn to feel a little thrill of jealousy.
“Nope,” he said. “Those were one-hundred-percent from the frog. And the flowers. I sent flowers.” She heard him whisper, “I sent flowers, didn’t I?” and Scooter’s voice said, “Yes, Boss. Tons of lilies, just like you said.”
“Oh, good,” said Kermit, and murmured something she couldn’t quite catch.
“What?” Piggy asked, looking at the phone.
“I was just saying, ‘Oh, good,’ to Scooter,” Kermit said. He sounded distracted, and Piggy was equally glad and miffed at his divided attention.
“Well, Moi is exhausted and it is a big day tomorrow. I will call you and let you know how it goes tomorrow at rehearsal!” She tried to sound excited and almost succeeded. Her voice cracked a little on “rehearsal” but she blinked her eyes rapidly and the feeling subsided.
“Yeah, do that, Honey. Call me and let me know how it went.” Piggy heard other whispering and was suddenly anxious to be off the phone.
“Moi will call you tomorrow. Good night, Mon chere,” she said. “Kissy, kissy.”
“Kissy, kissy right back atcha,” Kermit murmured, and she heard a snort in the background and Kermit saying, “Oh shut up!” The phone crackled as he gripped his own phone tighter.
“Love you, Mon Capitan,” Piggy said softly. She felt a tear slide slowly down her cheek, but wiped it hastily away.
“Love you, Piggy. Break a leg, okay?”
“Yes. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Piggy.”
She hit the “end” button and put the phone away. For a moment, Piggy looked around the room, making sure that everything for tomorrow was in readiness. She walked over to the butler stand to check that her rehearsal clothes, her clothes for traveling to and from, and the directions she had written down for the cabbie were neatly laid out. Lots to do tomorrow, lots to do. She walked back over and climbed into bed, slipping her flannel-covered legs beneath the satin covers. Piggy reached over and turned out the light, and stared up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly.
She thought about all the times that she had been away from Kermit, all the times that work had kept them apart. Piggy thought about the many times—before—when she had left in a huff, wanting desperately to outrun the way she felt about him since he so obviously hadn’t felt the same way about her.
She thought about the times when things had gone so spectacularly right, when they had been so in sync that she only had to look at him to smile and know what he was thinking, and what he wanted from her—either on-stage or off. After a moment, Piggy’s little demons whispered in her ear about all the times that things had gone so spectacularly wrong, and she had been convinced that Kermit would never really love her and claim the love that she had for him.
Piggy reached for her ring, BK, turning it around and around and around. Without the satin gloves, the ring spun easily, and she thought and thought about all the times she had wanted and waited and gone to bed alone. Her fingers found her other ring—her anniversary ring—in the dark, touching the cool, brilliant metal, wanting something solid and concrete to remind her that this was not like those other times, was not like all the times she had set out hoping to find her own life, a life where she was adored and wanted, a life without Kermit.
There had been that one mostly awful summer when she had taken a job doing summer theater, only to find—like so many others had found—that the venue was not exactly as promised. She had been one of a loose cadre of wandering performers at a Renaissance fair, and had done that—too proud and too broke to go home, to go back to Kermit, and admit she had been largely unwanted there, too—until she’d gotten a better offer from Marvo the Magician to be his eye-candy assistant. Piggy had done vaudeville acts before, and knew some of the tricks of the trade. She had not minded the skimpy little costume—had actually enjoyed that part of it, since it garnered her so many admiring looks—and she knew how to make Marvo look good while looking stunning herself.
With the money from the Ren fair and the side gigs with Marvo (who was easy to fend off since he was so dependent on her in his act), Piggy was finally making a living wage, and her letters to Kermit had become more upbeat. He had written her, the little fink. He had written just enough and no more, eager to string her along but not eager to wrap her up and take her home, but as the summer progressed, his letters had become a little more tender, a little more earnest. He had written that he was looking forward to seeing her, but not that he missed her. She had not said she’d missed him either, but it had been there between the lines. She told him of her rousing success as Juliet (a blatant lie), of the wildly enthusiastic audiences (children’s birthday parties) and the terrible angst she suffered as she decided whether or not to return to The Muppet Show—and to him—in light of the offers just pouring in. Kermit had written back that she must do what was best for her career, and that he would understand if the theater no longer offered her what she wanted.
Oh, how Piggy had stared and stared at that letter! How many times she had taken it out of its envelope to trace his neat, regular handwriting with her finger and wondered if—when he wrote it—he was trying to tell her not to come back, to move on because he had. Once after they were married, Kermit had found that letter while looking for her second-string pearls in her jewelry case. By that time, it was so worn and creased as to be almost unrecognizable as a letter—but Kermit had recognized it. He had come back into the bedroom where she was dressing for a party, the letter in his hand and an indecipherable expression on his face.
“Piggy…?” he had asked, and Piggy had blanched and gotten up, reaching for the letter.
“Oh, here,” she said, trying to sound businesslike. “Give me that old thing.”
But Kermit had held onto it, looking not at it but at her face.
“This is my letter,” he said. “From the summer you played Juliet.” They were both aware—now—that she had not played Juliet that summer, but she had said so many time, “The summer I played Juliette….” that they both referred to that summer that way.
“I didn’t play Juliette,” she said, hoping to distract him, but he was not distracted. He was frowning, staring at the letter in his hand. He reached out gingerly and traced her name on the envelope, and it was so much like the way that Piggy had touched, and touched, and touched again his signature that she gave a little involuntary cry.
“I didn’t know if I would see you again,” Kermit said, and his voice sounded funny, husky and low. “I…I almost couldn’t mail it. I wanted you to do what was best for your career, but I…I almost didn’t mail it.” He looked up at her, and his eyes were so sad with remembrance that Piggy closed the distance between them instantly and covered his hand with both of hers.
“Don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“I thought you were trying to find an excuse to leave me, let me down easy,” he said. “If you had told me there was another man, I’d have come up there and bopped him on the nose, but…you didn’t.”
“There wasn’t. There wasn’t anyone else.”
Kermit continued like he hadn’t heard her. “But your career. I couldn’t compete with that. I know what it’s like to want that, to want to be in front of those lights…I couldn’t say, ‘Don’t. Stay with me and my crummy ol’ theater.’”
“Our theater isn’t crummy,” Piggy said, and because she could not reach him any other way, she kissed him.
After a moment, Kermit came alive in that kiss, and his arms surged around his wife. Piggy kissed him with all the warmth, all the passion, all the knowing that she possessed, and when they finally broke apart, gasping, he had come back to himself.
“I thought you were trying to tell me not to come,” she confessed, and put her burnished head down on his shoulder. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”
“Piggy,” Kermit said, and his voice held such a comical tinge of annoyance that Piggy began to giggle. Kermit huffed, indignant at her laughter without quite knowing why. When her giggling fit had passed, she looked up at him, her blue eyes shining. Like frogs, Piggy took her kissing very seriously, and she kissed his serious mouth gently but thoroughly. Finally, unable to withstand any longer, Kermit began to chuckle and kiss her back.
They never did make the party.
Piggy thought about that, and about all the times since, when they had so misunderstood each other, only to.... She thought about what Jimmy had said the other day, and indulged in a full two minutes of self-righteous misery for trying so hard to let Kermit win. She thought about the last two years, when things had gotten…sad, or flat, or…something. When Kermit had seemed lost to her at times, buried under a weight she couldn’t see and couldn’t lift. But he had come back to her—somehow or other he had found his way back to her and to her love and the love of his friends. It was like he had suddenly awoken, cheerful and recognizable and hers, only to have all of this happen. Piggy wondered what the tabloids would do now—now that she was on one coast and Kermit was on another. She wondered what they would say about her. She wondered what they would say about Kermit. She wondered what Kermit was doing now.
And despite what she would say—had said to Kermit—Piggy thought about Fleet and the time that they had shared before Kermit. She remembered all the hopes of those long afternoons, and how some of them had happened, and some of them had not. She had told Fleet she was changed, was a different sow now—after Kermit—and she fervently hoped that it was so.
Piggy lay in the big luxurious bed and tried to remind herself that this was not like those other times at all, and that Kermit loved her, and missed her and would be counting the days until he could see her again. She tried, but she did not succeed. The old fears and insecurities swamped her, washing over her reason and resolve like a tidal wave. Piggy felt alone and lonely and wondered what Kermit was doing that very moment—that very instant.
Working, she supposed. Working on the movie with Scooter. Filling up his hours with work and…whatever it was he did when he was not with her. Piggy choked back a sob, then threw the covers back and got out of bed again. She turned on all the lights, then went over to the closet and peered inside. Sure enough, a state-of-the-art steam iron was there, along with a full-size ironing board. Glad for something physical to do, Piggy wrestled them both out of the closet and set them up.
Piggy had not ironed for herself in…well, she could not exactly remember, but she did remember how to iron, and she stood and sniffled and pressed her outfit for tomorrow with a vengeance, as though the very thought of wrinkles offended her. When that was done, she unplugged the iron and put it on the big marble sink in the bathroom, then pig-handled the ironing board back into the closet.
If Kermit could see me now…
But, of course, he couldn’t. He was a million miles away in California, and she was here, where she would be until he could come to her. Crying wasn’t going to change that, and it wasn’t helping. She wiped angrily at the tears, turned out the lights, and got back into bed. She wondered what Kermit was doing right that minute, right that second. Piggy reached for her phone and typed in Kermit’s number.
“Love you, Mon Capitan,” she wrote, and filled the little screen with hearts. She hoped he’d get it when he woke up and know that, here in New York, in the middle of the night, she was thinking of him. Piggy pressed, “Send.”
After a moment, when she was certain she had not forgotten anything—anything at all—and that there was nothing left to do, Piggy turned on her side, pressed her face to the pillow, and cried herself to sleep.
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