Chapter 1
At 2:10 AM, Fred was staring at his computer. He should go to bed. Daphne had gone to sleep three hours earlier and he had opening shift at the hardware store tomorrow, so he had to get there by 9:00 AM to be checked in a ready to go at 10:00. They had 9 months. Either be bringing in $50,000 per month or close the doors and it was over. He remembered the Youtube channel back when they were teenagers that started it all. With 1,000,000 subscribers, they had brought in $50,000 in a year and they considered it a fortune. Now they had to average at least that every month or their salaries would be reduced. The salaries were set at what he made now at the hardware store with his commissions and it included health insurance. No one was going to get rich. They would make a steady living doing what they did best and what they enjoyed. How many people could say that?
But he needed to have a plan for what if the worst happened? He had two choices: continue on with the hardware store or go to work for Daphne's dad. At the hardware store, his looks, personality, and semi-celebrity status enabled him to make as much from commissions as he did from base salary. Any promotion would give him a moderate boost in salary but not near enough to compensate for the loss in commissions. So, there was no career path there. And he could already see a little more forehead than he had seen last year and it had now been years since the show went off the air. The last of the comic books had gone out of print three years before. His looks and celebrity status were racing to see which would fade out the quickest. He really didn't want to test his personality to see if it could stand on its own.
Working for Blake Industries meant going groveling back to ask for a job for which he was not qualified and at which he had already failed once. It was a guaranteed way to get Daphne an income which would return her to the lifestyle in which she grew up. But he hated it and it would tear him down and that would impact their marriage. He knew from the last time. They had gotten divorced once and he doubted that he could convince her to marry him a third time.
From their relatively frequent fights, he knew the bind he was in. He had a choice between making her life miserable through not having what she considered a normal lifestyle or making her life miserable through having a husbanded who hated his life and blamed her. None of this painted him in the best light but if he got nothing else from the failed marriage counseling before their divorce, he had gotten a certain amount of self-awareness.
The starting of the private detective agency had suspended the fighting. They had a common plan which provided a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe not toward the lavish lifestyle of a Blake, but a comfortable lifestyle where they both spent their days doing something which they enjoyed.
He checked his phone. It was now 2:20 AM and he was not close to sleepy. Maybe he would watch some television to settle down. They had chosen their streaming service based upon it being the one that had paid their old production company for the rights to broadcast their entire catalog of Mystery, Inc. shows. He clicked on the icon and the streaming service loaded. Needless to say, none of the iterations of the show popped up on the opening screen. He would have to find them through the search. Typing in 'Mystery, Inc.' would yield a screen full of options of which their show would not be near the top, so he swallowed his pride, yet again, and typed in 'Scooby.' Their show was prominently featured among the options along with several of the documentaries that had been done through the years about the science behind a talking dog. The movies where the professional actors had been hired to play them was also there but listed as unavailable. Fred hadn't watched any of the old shows since they had all found out in their previous mystery that everything had been a sham concocted by an insane television executive and his equally crazy sister. Now that he knew that, he feared that he would not be able to watch the show without seeing their fingerprints all over it.
It had been so long now, that he could not remember what titles went to which show and the brief descriptions and thumbnail pictures didn't illuminate much. So, he clicked on one which rang no bells at all to see what it was. When it opened up, he realized why he couldn't recognize it. It was one of the scripted episodes that they shot while he and Velma were doing B-roll shots to fill in some of the reality episodes. The had CGI'd the awful Scrappy Doo creation and brought in a little confidence artist named Theo Parlian who they called on the show Flim Flam. He was obnoxious and was generally hated on set and never left Daphne alone. His time on the show ended when he taped mirrors to the top of his shoes.
After his brief time with the show was over, Theo had decided that he was as good of a thief in real life as the writers had made him in the show and ended up being arrested for armed robbery in his first attempt. No one involved with the show would be a character witness and he ended up in prison. As far as Fred knew, he was still there.
He clicked off that episode and scanned through the list and decided to watch one from the third season which had been their best in terms of ratings and had the best memories.
Regarding Daphne, Fred had been half right. She had gone to bed three hours ago but had never fallen asleep. Tossing and turning until the bedsheets were wrapped around her ankles, she had kicked herself free and then stood up to rearrange the bed back to some semblance of order. It had been weeks now since Fred said had said the words which haunted her nights, "You know, with the insurance, we can afford to have a baby now."
She had always known this day would come and that Fred would be the one to bring it up first. Her hopes would be that, by the time he did bring it up, her thoughts and feelings on the matter would have changed. And shouldn't it? She was approaching 31 years old which put her a little over a year away from rolling out Daphne 2.0 where she would completely overhaul her fashion, hairstyle, and make-up ensemble from the styles of her youth to a style more in keeping with approaching middle age. So, shouldn't she be hearing the ticking of a biological clock?
There was nothing. No compulsion, desire, or even curiosity about children. It wasn't that she had some deep-seated conviction against overpopulating the planet. Nor was there a fear regarding the world that she would be bringing children into. And she had no doubt that with her willpower and desire, her figure would survive a child or two. She was a Blake, after all.
And that was probably at the heart of it. There must be something in her upbringing which made her shy away from the whole Americana family thing. Why else would there be five daughters all entering their thirties with only one of them – her – being married and none of them having children or the prospect of children on the horizon. It was the one topic that never, ever came up at the weekly family dinner. Maybe she had a subconscious fear that she would be the same type of manipulative, uncaring mother that Nan had been to her and her sisters. Or maybe Nan had trained them all from birth to have no desire for children because she, herself, never wanted the title 'Grandmother'. But, whatever the reason, Daphne had to reconcile herself with the fact that she would never want children. It was just not part of her dream.
And, at some point, she would have to tell Fred.
Fred, who she had been dating or married to (twice) for fifteen years and yet had never – not once – discussed children. How had that happened? For the thousandth time, she replayed the last fifteen years in her head and came to the same conclusion she always did. It had just never come up. How dumb was that? It was pretty dumb and now he had brought it up and she would have to face him in what would probably be the last great epic argument of their lives together. The fight that would irreconcilably destroy their marriage once and for all. Her marriage to the man she loved deeply and always had.
The bedroom doorknob turned and she closed her eyes to pretend sleep as Fred tiptoed past her and slipped into the bathroom to brush his teeth. She continued her ruse as he slid into bed and snuggled up against her back, wrapping his arm around her, and drawing her close. Normally, this was her favorite time of the day, laying snug and warm in Fred's arms. But tonight, it felt sad to know that there were not many more nights like this one in her future.
In a month, Velma was going to turn 30. And she was a freshman in college. And it felt great.
Her plan to complete her PhD within five years of starting freshman year required that she take double the course load every semester. This meant taking twelve classes per semester rather than the requisite six. And the system was not designed to do that which meant that some courses she needed were not offered every semester and a lot of the courses were given at the same time. With classes all being Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Labs on Tuesday, and Thursday for specialty classes, there were too many conflicts to get twelve scheduled. So, she just had nine. This would not set her back since she had tested out of 10 classes and already was considered almost a sophomore on paper. But she needed to be better prepared for next semester's registration to make sure that she did not fall short again.
She had anticipated moving to campus to minimize her commute time and allow her more time to focus on her workload but then she found out that her scholarship did not include housing and gratefully accepted her parent's offer to stay in the apartment above the bookstore – or rather, telephone store.
She had also anticipated not having much time to help the gang in starting up the detective agency. But nine freshman and sophomore level classes were not proving to be much of a challenge and the amount of time she spent on homework was just how fast she could write the answers which were easy and obvious to her. So, she found herself awake and checking through Fred's cost projection spreadsheets for math and equation errors. She did not check his logic as business was not her thing. Several times, as she scrolled through, she stopped and appreciated Fred's level of detail and thought process. The show had always depicted him as a dumb pretty boy as it had depicted Daphne as a dumb pretty girl. Both were very wrong. But then, the show had always presented her as being relatively well-adjusted and free from emotional and social anxiety issues. The show misrepresented a lot of things.
Velma found two typos, corrected them, and e-mailed the spreadsheets back to Fred. Which left her sitting in her apartment in the wee hours of the morning. This was not the daunting prospect that it had been just a few weeks before. The main psychological demon that had haunted her solitary hours was vanquished and she was back on the road to a scholarly career. Her relationship with the gang remained imperfect but had been reclaimed from the cliff's edge and her relationship with Shaggy was… confusing. Which seemed like as it should be. A relationship between a neurosis-riddled woman recovering from a decade-long effort at brainwashing and a former stoner whose best friend was a talking dog should be confusing – on its best day. So, the abnormality of their relationship was probably the most normal thing in her life. Which is the kind of philosophical claptrap that comes to mind when one is sitting alone in their apartment at 2:00 AM. She should really get to sleep.
But, tonight was one of Scooby's Government nights which he spent at the Annunaki Research Facility and she and Shaggy had taken the opportunity for a date at Shaggy's restaurant which was beginning to bounce back a little as Covid protocols were being lifted. And when eating with Shaggy, it was hard to maintain her rigorous dietary regimen and she had snuck half a roll from the mound on Shaggy's plate for herself. She had even added honey butter. Which meant that sleep was not possible until she had burned off at least 200 calories through focused exercise. She was completely aware that this was a part of her self-image neurosis but that did not change the compulsion and she spent twenty minutes in an intensive work-out session. It was good that the telephone store was empty and she was not disturbing any neighbors below.
After the exercise, her endorphins were elevated which made it still impossible to sleep until she had settled down. So, she made herself a cup of chamomile tea without sugar and sat some more at the small table in the small kitchen and let her mind wander to tomorrow. The gang had deliberately made their first official day of business a Thursday to allow her to participate. They were all going to meet up at Daphne and Fred's house at 7:00 AM and just wait for telephone calls, e-mails, and website queries to come in based on the advertising and phone calls which they had purchased.
Given that she now had four hours before she had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready for a business boom, she had to get to sleep. She curled up into her blankets on the bed and was sound asleep within two minutes.
Scooby had gotten back from the Government lab in a foul temper. Apparently, a dog has a prostate. Which meant that Scooby had a prostate. No one had ever mentioned this before or seemed to care. But now that Scooby was approaching 20 years old, the doctor's were unsure whether his prostate health would align with his dog-years age or his people-years age. So, they had decided to go poking around with his prostate. And, in terms of prostate health, poking around means poking around. He was grouchy, wired-up, and wide awake when he got in at 11:00 PM.
This worked well for Shaggy since he was up worrying about the restaurant. Eight weeks ago, Scooby had looked at the books and determined that the restaurant would be closing its doors in four weeks if revenue didn't increase by a set number. Shaggy had come up with the idea of packaging some of their more popular recipes by putting all of the required groceries and spices together in a bag and include the preparation and cooking instructions. People would call in and he and the staff that he had been able to retain would package it up and meet them out in the parking lot and make the sale. This had increased revenue over the straight take-out and delivery but not by the number set by Scooby, so when Scooby had done the last monthly books four weeks previously, the same forecast had been true. Now, it was time for the latest month's books. Business had been okay but they were still Covid-limited on the number of people they could seat at once. He had called the mayor earlier in the day and been told that the plan was to announce the lifting of all restrictions if there were no notable Covid spikes in the next six weeks. So, Shaggy wanted to know if they had enough money to keep the restaurant operating at half capacity for six more weeks. If they could do that, then the restaurant might be saved.
"Scooby, are you awake enough to go through the month end books and see where we stand?"
"Rokay, rust get me a chair and two pillows."
"Two pillows? Why do you need two pillows?"
"Ron't ask."
Two hours later, they had projections which showed that the restaurant could break even for the next six weeks until they could fully open again for the public. At 1:20 AM, Shaggy sent out five e-mails to the staff he had been forced to lay off to tell them that, if they were interested, he would be able to hire them back in six weeks. Two responded immediately and the rest by 9:00 the next morning. Hopefully, he would be able to send out more e-mails like them in the next two months.
