The real story was that the letter T almost died while the frog stood by and blubbered; the real hero was this yellow queen from an apartment upstairs who used his boyfriend’s rubber ducky to plug the largest stab wound.

Lying, making a bad story good: typical Kermie. He’d promised her fortune, her name in lights. He’d delivered for a few years, bought her talent and boobs. What did she have to show for it now? The fake tits had hardened like bowling balls while her jowls sank and flopped like her ma’s. She lived in a trailer and her closest confidante was the drunken closet case on her sofa. All her old friends were dead or in rehab again. While the goddamn frog got a lifetime achievement award.

Jermaine shrieked like a little girl.

She abruptly realized she’d done a karate chop on the TV during her reverie and was bleeding. Great, she’d have to go to the vet again, and he’d lecture her about her weight.

“I was watching that,” Jermaine said. Idiot.

“The dish was about to go out anyway,” she replied.