“What about your parents?” Dr. Gaulle asked.
Piggy shrugged. “What about them?”
“Did you get along with them?”
“Yes, well, mostly. Like most young piglets, my father—died—when I was young. My mother didn’t want a farm life for me. She had so many litters of piglets, but out of all of them, she chose me. She said I had the best chance.”
“The best chance for what?”
“To escape—to become something more than just a tired old sow on a farm. She started entering me in contests. It started out as just county fairs; then I made it to the nationals as a piglet. She invested all of her savings to deck me out like a princess.”
“And what happened to the prize money?”
Piggy looked away, frowning. “I’m not sure. I know we moved off the farm into a little house, so some of it must have gone there. But—I won so many contests, almost all of the ones I entered. Then of course, I did not understand, but now I know, it must have been a lot of money. I don’t know what she did with all of it.”
“Do you still speak to her?”
“Hmm…oh, no. She died—a few years ago. I went to the funeral, saw a few of my siblings, but—I didn’t like it.”
“Do you think your mother was happy?”
She was still staring of into the distance, but this jolted Piggy back to awareness. “Oh, yes, that is, I’m sure—she would have said something, but, well, really I suppose I don’t know. I didn’t talk to her often; I was afraid she would want me to—”
“To come home?”
“To leave my home,” Piggy corrected her. “I don’t know why I thought that—it seems so silly now.”
“It makes perfect sense to me.”
Piggy gave her a grateful look. “We didn’t always get along, you know, but she always wanted the best for me. She wanted me to have everything I wanted.”
“What about love?”
Piggy blushed. “Yes—she wanted me to marry someone rich and handsome, in that order!” She laughed a bit, thinking back on her mother’s admonition. “She always said—when you get to Hollywood, don’t let yourself be fooled by a pretty face—you be that pretty face!”
“It sounds like she always believed in you.”
“Yes…I wish…” she paused. “I wish I had thanked her.”
“I’m sure she understood, Piggy.”
“Yes, but sometimes you assume people understand things, and they really don’t understand at all…”
Dr. Gaulle stared at her for a minute, then said lightly, “It doesn’t sound as if you’re talking about your mother anymore.”
Piggy flushed again. “It always comes back to Kermit, I guess.”
“Why do you say that?”
She thought about that for a moment. “I guess because he’s the special one.”
The doctor waited a minute, until Piggy stared to shift uncomfortably. It was almost a relief when she finally spoke. “Tell me about why you left.”
Piggy gasped, staring at her in mystification. “How did you—how did you know I left?”
She smiled self-deprecatingly. “Call it intuition. You left because you had to, didn’t you?”
Piggy nodded. “At first, I thought it would be different. Everything was going so well after the film. We’re always at our best when we’re filming.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Piggy gave that a little thought. “I guess because it’s always a romance, and we can’t get carried away by an argument because we’re stuck with what’s on the page. It’s safe. But…it also isn’t real. It’s all scripted.”
“But Piggy, if you knew it wasn’t real, why…?”
“Because he wrote it!” Piggy shouted. “All those kisses and buggy rides and rendezvous’—and why would he keep writing it over and over if he didn’t mean it? And, and he would take me out all through the movie—working lunches, he said, but it was all champagne and talking about old times, and sometimes he would bring flowers, and what was I supposed to think?” Piggy demanded. “But then, when the film was over he would just sort of fade away—stop asking me to come by or meet him, stop calling me, stop meeting my eyes, and no matter how hard I tried to hold on to him, he just slipped away.”
“What about that last time, after the last film.”
“I—I tricked him. I thought, if we were married, he couldn’t leave, so I switched the ministers. I know it was crazy and desperate, okay, I know that!” Dr. Gaulle remained silent and Piggy finally continued. “I built a house and Kermit was going to move in—he wouldn’t admit we were married, but it was technically true—technically” she added defensively.
“But then you fought?”
“Yes—I, we had a fight. We fought a lot but, this was…it was different from usual. He caught me decorating one of the rooms in the house—” She cut herself off, then swallowed an continued almost defiantly, “It was a nursery.” She began to cry then, choked little sobs into a delicate purple handkerchief.
“What else?” Dr. Gaulle asked gently.
Piggy pulled herself together, dabbed at her eyes, and forced herself to sit up and remember she was a diva, not a damsel. She sniffed. “Moi told him that she wanted to marry him. She built him that beautiful house, she said—she wanted to have tadpoles with him—” Piggy’s voice broke again and she stopped.
“Do you think he felt pressured?”
“He said—he said moi was not his wife and would never be. That I didn’t ask him what he wanted; that I never asked him anything. I just did what I wanted and expected him to go along with it.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think if I had asked him, he would have said ‘no.’ If I had waited for him to ask me, nothing would have ever happened at all. Oh, he will flirt with me and he will kiss me when no one is looking and he will live in a house with me—and sometimes we would—” Piggy broke off, blushing furiously.
“Make love?” Dr. Gaulle asked.
“No!” Piggy said immediately. “Not exactly.” She sighed miserably. “I would have, that is, I wanted to, but he never would. He always said, ‘We can’t get carried away.’ Maybe he just didn’t want to get carried away with me.”
“But you still love him?”
There was a long moment of absolute silence. Then, in a small, lost voice she said, “I will always love him. I wish I knew how to stop.” Then the tears came, hot angry tears poured out of her, almost choking her with the intensity.
Dr. Gaulle moved to the chaise to wrap her arms around her. “It’s going to be okay, Piggy. I know this is hard, but you’re going to get through this.”
“How?” Piggy wailed through her sobs. “How can I get through this?”
“Because,” Dr. Gaulle said firmly, “I’m going to help you.”
Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
Not to mention the slight hint of our loveable green man, er frog, missing in action. To be quite blunt: Very well done!
ALso, what would you like your nickname to be? Everyone basically has one on this website, so what would you like?
P.S. If your looking for good ush gush, try Kermie's girl by Aunty Ru (Ruahnna) or Under the mistletoe( it's not as good as Kermie's girl, but it's nice)
I really like how you give some real depth to these characters. Now I have a question, does this scene with the arguing and nursery really happy in the movie? I haven't seen it yet, so that's why I am asking. It's very tense, I can feel it!
I always new that's what happened in: The Muppets take Manhattan, I knew it, hokay?!
>Waits anxiously for more<