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The dim lighting didn’t offer much for the vacant diner. It accented the disheartened hunch of an older woman sitting lonesome on a bar stool, a dark-haired teenager uninterrupted in a booth with his eyes glued to his phone. If anything, the phone only served to cast a solemn glow on a shop that once upon a time had been the spot. It had been long before the technology boom had drawn everyone high school-age in Coolsville back into their houses instead of lounging leisurely at any old-fashioned eating establishment.
The turn had soured both Melanie Rassier’s heart and her profit margin, but she’d kept it running for her husband’s sake. For his. He’d always had his own unending love for the malt shop and had clung to it even still in the short time before he’d passed.
He never would have wanted her to give it up, so it was simple: she hadn’t.
In the late 90’s, it’d still appealed to all of the kids from all over town, doing much more than scraping by. During the summer, it lit up like Christmas in July with the place hopping with activity, staff handing out classically chilled glasses filled with ice cream aplenty and stuffing booths full of laughing teens.
In 2019? That was a long forgotten notion.
The investment had seemed frivolous at the time, after all, it hadn’t been since the 50’s that there’d been high demands for malt shops, ice cream parlors, the like. It’d made her skeptical, forcing her husband and her to mull over the idea over the course of a good many nights and a good many fights. In the end, they’d each signed their name on the dotted line.
It’d been worth every penny since.
The broken bell twinged sadly above the opened door, dragging her eyes upward and pulling her from her revery. It was a bit late for a customer, but Arnold’s policy had always been to never turn away even the latest arriving customer. Back in its hay day, that had meant 10 p.m. closing times that had turned into well past midnight, sometimes even later. Now she occasionally closed as early as 9.
“What can I get you, hon?” She rasped, balling the used rag in her hand and stuffing it behind the counter to unsully the surface, a smile easing onto her lips.
The red-haired woman strode forward, an exhausted knit to her eyebrows. She carried with her a hard-bodied purple bag which she heaved onto the counter, taking a wobbling seat on the creaking stool. “You’re still open, right?” She asked, suddenly hesitating, almost with embarrassed awareness.
Melanie suddenly cast a glance at the switched closed sign and the front door she’d neglected to lock, offering a sheepish shrug. “We are now.”
With self-conscious violet eyes, the woman stood and began to slide the brief case off the counter. “Oh I’m so sorry, I can head out if—“
“Nonsense!” Melanie interrupted quickly, shaking her head. “It was a premature closing. I’ll happily serve you.”
The relief surged across the woman’s face instantly and she sank back into her seat. “Thank you. I could — actually use a pick me up tonight.”
“Will that be a cup of Joe, then?”
“A strawberry malt, actually. Two cherries.” The woman paused, lifting a tentative brow. “You guys still make those, right?”
Melanie broke into a pleased smile, the request warming her to the core. “Never stopped.” She turned to begin searching around for an ice cream scoop and her container of malt powder, busying herself with attempting to remember where it any of that was.
The silence fell over the diner in a weighted wave, not that Melanie was going to have it. She’d finally lucked out enough to have a customer with taste and based on her expression alone, she was holding something on her shoulders that was mighty difficult.
“Are you from around here, hun?” She called to her over her shoulder, finally locating the scoop among a flurry of other things, including the bottle opener she’d been searching for for the past week. Trevor’s organizational skills for utensils were god awful, she thought while shaking her head to herself, withholding a verbal grumble.
The distracted woman looked up suddenly, focus removed from her phone. “Yes. Well, kind of. I used to live here. I moved away a long time ago.”
Melanie hummed her approval, choosing to finish off the malt before she continued the conversation. She turned to return with it, sliding it with a practiced finesse over to her, a playful clip to her lips. “That would explain your order.”
“Do people not order malts here anymore?” She asked incredulously, clasping a hand around the chilled glass, a wave of nostalgia lighting her eyes.
“We’re lucky to see people these days at all.” Melanie sighed, eventually coming to stand in front of her. “The demand for malt shops isn’t exactly what it used to be.”
The redhead stirred the mountain of whip cream into the malt, shaking her head. “That’s a shame. My friends and I used to love this place when we were kids.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” She said, a wistful smile rising to her lips.
“So what brought you back to town?” Melanie inquired gently. “Other than my fantastic malts, of course.”
She laughed lightly, her eyes wrinkling at the edges. “The malt was my number one, just so you know.” Melanie nodded her unabashed agreement, but the woman continued. “A — funeral, actually. My dad.”
The smile slid off of Melanie’s lips. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. We weren’t close for many years, you know? It’s — “ She never finished, electing to shrug and sip at her malt instead, morose in her grief.
Melanie pushed away the veil of silence once again despite her faux pas, clearing her throat and leaning forward. “Oh, where are my manners? I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Melanie,” she said.
The woman withdrew a hand from her malt to offer it to Melanie, a firm practiced gesture. “Nice to meet you, Melanie. I’m Daphne.”
While she shook her hand, Melanie contemplated where she’d heard the name before. “Daphne,” she repeated, the shaking slowing until she just held her hand loosely gripped, a squint to her eyes. “And you used to come to the shop, when was it exactly?”
“’95,” Daphne told her. “Well, about ’95 to ’99 if we’re being specific.” She suddenly cringed at how much she was dating herself.
“Hm. Give me a last name. Try to jog this old woman’s memory.” Melanie chuckled.
“Blake?”
Melanie suddenly smacked the countertop, realization dawning on her. “You’re from News 5 Cleveland, aren’t you?”
Though Daphne suppressed the urge to wince, she did confirm with a soft nod. “I am.”
“When I tell you it’s my favorite station, I mean it, I swear.” Melanie insisted, accented with a crooked point in her direction. “Your investigative pieces are very good, very informative.”
“Thank you,” Daphne finally smiled, perking up at the idea of someone actually liking and appreciating her work. It was easy to lose that in the days of searching through comments that ragged on her appearance, ragged on her voice, ragged on what she wasn’t doing and what she was doing that she could apparently be doing better. Her email inbox was a no-go whenever she was off the clock, frankly. She hadn’t touched it since she’d taken a surprising and rare amount of PTO to come back.
“Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you,” Melanie tsked, looking over her shoulder to the same teenager, who’s head was still buried in his phone, his thumb scrolling monotonously over the screen. “Hey! Trevor! Look alive — we have a Coolsville-borne legend in here!” She shouted, the shrill sound reverberating through the near empty shop in a way that made Daphne stiffen from the attention. These days, she didn’t mind blending right into the shadows.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Daphne balked bashfully.
“Oh, but I would!” Melanie refused to let her be modest, even if Trevor had only looked up in disinterest at the announcement before quickly retreating back at his phone. “Not everyday someone from television steps through these doors.” Her foot tapped on the checkered tiles for several seconds. “What was that show you did awhile back? Early 2000’s, I’d say?”
The somber nostalgic wash over Daphne’s face almost made Melanie regret asking. “Coast-to-Coast with Daphne Blake.” But she shook her head, waving a hand. “That was just a silly venture in my career. After the Moonscar Island episode, it never really—“
“Moonscar Island!” Melanie gaped. “That was my favorite! I recorded it on VHS, I’ll have you know. I still have it.” She paused, backtracking as she thought back to the cluttered shelves of her den. “Maybe.”
But Daphne continued to shrug it off. “It ended not long after that, anyway.” She raised a hand to smudge whip cream off her top lip, retreating into herself.
“It was wonderful! Don’t be so modest. With all of the creepy things that have happened to Coolsville over the years, it was thrilling to have something that suggested we weren’t such an odd little town after all. At least we never had zombie people or cat creatures."
Daphne would give her that. She popped one of the cherries in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “It feels like millennia ago.”
“Oh, honey, you’re telling me.” The older woman groused, half-heartedly glaring at her. “You haven’t even hit your gray hair yet.”
Daphne smiled into her glass.
Melanie sighed, thin lips pressing together. “You know, now that I think about it, I remember your show more than I thought. You had a hunky cameraman, didn’t you?”
The words made Daphne stiffen in a way that made the swallow of her malt go down like a tasteless weighted ball.
“He was a real looker, wasn’t he? Always seemed to have eyes for you, if you asked me.” Melanie suggested with a teasing smile on her lips.
“Now I wouldn’t exactly say-“
“Both of you were a bit googly about the other, come to think of it-“
“No, I-“
“What was his name again?”
Daphne’s answer was halted by the ding of the front door, a tall body stepping through door with a bulky refrigerated bag in his arms, taking all of Melanie’s attention away from her one and only customer.
“Fred!” She called pleasantly. “I didn’t think you made the rounds on Wednesday’s anymore.”
The blonde man’s grin was apologetic, balancing the container and scratching at his chin. “My mom’s got Thursday brunches up and running again at the shelter. Something about easing the Friday crowd?”
The length of their conversation hadn’t moved Daphne, but she’d considered it. Her spine felt bolted straight, her pulse thudding in her throat. Don’t move, she thought to herself, fingers curling around the bag. Half of her was wondering what she’d done to deserve this, how the world could possibly be ridiculous and coincidental enough to make him be here.
“I see, I see.” Melanie agreed with the logic, hands sternly balled on her hips. “Shoulda gave me a ring, you know. I can operate a cellphone as good as the rest.”
“Wouldn’t put it past you, Mel.” He smiled warmly, striding over to set the bag on the counter, just a few seats away from Daphne.
Daphne met Melanie’s eyes suddenly, interrupting as subtly as she could manage. “What do I owe you?” She murmured, opening the latch of her pocket and scouring around for bills.
Her head began to shake, finally turning her attention away from Fred. “Don’t worry about it, hun. A malt won’t break my bank. Consider it compensation for a nice conversation.”
Fred looked between the two of them, only catching the back of Daphne’s head as he gazed at Melanie apologetically. “Oh shit, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you weren’t closed yet.”
Melanie waved him off. “I should have switched off the sign.”
He looked back to the redhead patron. “Sorry about that, ma’am.”
Daphne stood abruptly, still as angled away from him as she could. “No problem,” she said brusquely, lowering her voice as she clipped her bag and grasped it tightly in her hands. She had to get out of this situation. She really really had to.
Melanie remained oblivious to her sudden urgency. “You know, Fred here was a patron here back in ’95, too-”
She offered her a polite smile, but backed up from her seat, curt as can be. “It was nice to meet you, Melanie.”
Fred looked on, his embarrassment slowly washing away at the woman’s apparent discomfort. He could barely hear her. Better to just let her head out, which is what she was trying to do by upturning her collar and clacking her heels in a hurried rush to the door.
Though frowning, Melanie raised a hand that was inevitably pointless to the turned back. “Have a wonderful evening, Daphne!”
Daphne. Fred’s head snapped to the side in almost a painful manner, his lips parting slightly. No, it couldn’t be. He looked at Melanie urgently, almost as brusque as she’d been leaving. “Who was that?” He nearly demanded.
Melanie blinked, taken back by the tone. “Her? Oh, Daphne Blake. You know, from channel 5?”
Son of a bitch.
He made a beeline for the door, running backward and nearly colliding with the door, throwing up five spread fingers. “Give me five, Mel! I’ll be right back! Don’t lock up, okay?” But he didn’t give her the chance to answer. For a fourth time that night, the door shut cold.
[OoOoOoO]
This isn’t happening, Daphne thought to herself, curtly walking to her car, the fall breeze biting in a way that made her regret coming to the shop. That wasn’t Fred, she assured herself delusionally. I’m going crazy-
“Daph!” The single syllable echoed across the parking lot, far enough away to assure her she could get to her car. She picked up her pace, trying not to sprain an ankle.
I’m giving up heels for the rest of my life, she thought bitterly at her slow-moving pumps, digging through her bag for her car keys frantically.
“DAPHNE!” The voice boomed, closer and closer.
Goddammit, she continued to fumble through the bag, forcibly stopped at the driver’s door of her SUV. “Come on,” she muttered, finally hooking a manicured nail around the key ring and frantically pressing the unlock button. She had enough time to toss her bag onto the seat before she turned and was met with a panting, in all his glory, Fred Jones.
Her breath hitched in her throat. Her TV smile rolled onto her lips, fingers gripping her door in a vice tight handling. “Fred.”
Still panting, it was hard to think she hadn’t seen him in nearly a decade. He looked the same, aside from darker temples and a grizzly five o’clock shadow coating his face. He didn’t have the smooth skin of a twenty-year-old anymore, but he had those full blue eyes. Those damn eyes. The same eyes she fell for again and again and again when they were kids, teens and young adults.
“Daphne,” he repeated for the third time, this time in a significantly quieter and softer tone. She didn’t even want to linger on that.
She tucked her hair behind her ear, pushing out a breath in an attempt to dispel the clenched feeling in her chest. “It’s good to—“
“It’s great to—“
They both silenced abruptly and looked at each other, tentatively amused smiles coming to both of their lips.
“Sorry,” They both rushed out in another unison.
Daphne shook her head. “It’s good to see you, is what I meant to say.” She rushed out.
He smiled at her. “You too, Daph.”
Daph. The nickname cut her to the core and her eyes drifted back to the inside of her car, desperate to look away from that boyish smile. A million excuses skirted her mind before she settled on one, something about getting back to her parent’s house.
The pause stretched on for too long, long enough for both of them to think about the entire situation, unequivocal awkwardness and all.
“I heard about your dad,” Fred said, frowning. “I’m sorry.”
That triggered a spot that was already sensitive for her, her eyes welling without her control. Still, she rapidly blinked to clear it, swallowing thickly. “Thank you.” They hadn’t been close in the years since she went off on her own, pursuing journalism and mapping her own path, but she’d still loved him.
“He liked you,” she told him, nodding at him. “Maybe not at first, but he did.” She knew eventually he’d become aware enough of how happy the gang made her, Fred most of all. That was at least something he’d known.
Fred smiled a little, stuffing his hands in his pockets. It was the thought that counted. “When’s the funeral? I mean, do you guys need anything. Food or anything? My mom, she still has all her connections,” he offered, words rushed out, stumbling in an offer he knew she’d never take up on. Her mom was pulling out all the stops, like always. No expense spared. In grief, the last thing she was worried about was a deal— even if Fred’s mother always meant so well.
“It’s in a couple days,” she said, laughing a little incredulously at his kindness. “That’s why I’m back in town. You know my sisters were never really good at this kind of thing. They were— more attached at the end.” She lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug, even if the unshed tears remained where they were.
“Well, if you do need anything, you know—“
“I should really get going, I—“
He frowned at her again, this time for a different reason. Even if she was trying her absolute best to sidestep it.
“Did you know it was me in there?” He asked her suddenly, the question coming out like it’d been sitting on the tip of his tongue all along.
Against her better judgment, she looked up to find the warm smile on his lips gone and replaced with a determined certainty instead. He’d always had her pegged. They’d always known each other too well, even better than the others.
Daphne laughed in an airy fashion, rubbing at the corners of her eyes with finger and shaking her head before she could find the words. “What? No. I just had to—“ But his unwavering judgment drew her excuse to starting halt. What was the point of pleasantries?
The truth was a cold, unforgiving wash over them both. For Daphne, her eyes drifted to the ground in guilt.
“Fred, I really have to—“ She began again, adding more head shakes for effort.
“Daphne.” His tone stopped her dead.
She finally looked at him again, this time an unspoken question hiding behind her eyes.
Fred puffed a breath out, adjusting his stance, vulnerable suddenly. “It’s — been ten years.”
“It couldn’t have been that—“ She denied, because she had to, she couldn’t acknowledge it.
“Ten years.” He said, unwavering again; grim, even.
She smiled just to give her lips something to do. “Wow, ten years.” She agreed. “It really hasn’t felt that long.”
“It has.” He disagreed.
The silence floated right back. It felt like a piercing misery, the perfect partner to her grief. Both could coincide so well next to each other that she realized she could live with that. Live with the feelings she’d pushed aside, the memories that had sat in the back of her mind every time she sat down for a date with someone else, tried to look into anything else. She could live with it all if she could just escape this conversation and he let her go like he had so many times before.
Daphne swallowed thickly, wishing her car door separated them. Anything. But eventually her shoulders sagged, a certain resistance giving way to a rising frustration.
“What are you looking for, Fred?” She asked, resigned. “What do you want?”
“The same thing I’ve wanted for ten years, Daphne—“
“And what’s that?” She snapped.
He almost physically jerked. Almost. His own brows knit in equal frustration. “Answers.”
“To what?” She retorted immediately, defense creeping into her tone.
His gaze hardened. “You know.”
“Do I?”
His own fists clenched at his sides, stepping forward. “Daphne, you can’t just—“
“Oh, but I can—“ She started, haughty.
“You can’t just not tell me why you said no!” His voice boomed suddenly, eyes baleful and open. That was his question, in the open. No more smoke and mirrors. There it was.
“You can’t not tell me why you left,” he continued, voice lowering quietly, brows slanting downwards. “You can’t tell me why I never heard from you again—“
“I can, actually.” She said, as stubborn as ever, pushing away the memories. His mistakes, her mistakes. Everything that kept them playing this will-they-won’t-they game for so many years, torturing each other with petty jealousies and feeding into the idea of them with blind, unwavering loyalty.
He took pause, searching her face all over again, hollowness replaced with an open, vulnerable pain. His desperation was palpable, thick. “Please.”
She could have tried to alleviate it, something, but it almost felt too late. Her lips parted, but no words came. Not the right words. “It was too late.” She said suddenly, simply, almost affronted by the facts in front of her, as she stared back at him so wantonly.
Her answer was met with confusion, something she was so used to from him. It was almost nostalgic. “What-“ he began, trying to understand.
“You proposed too late.” She reaffirmed, voice progressively becoming sterner, harder. The remnants of her own broken heart standing up for her, telling her that she’d been right to stop playing the game. Reasons she didn’t think she ever could tell him came to mind, burning on her tongue like the unforgiving heartache that had always shrouded the name Fred Jones in her head. It all came pouring back.
The waiting, the uncertainty. The years she spent flirting, trying, making an effort. The long nights editing together, the script writing, the exciting leads. Everything that had made her childhood love for him grow to a mature love she knew they could have grown.
She’d known at the time, felt it in the very heart of her bones. She’d been so certain. So goddamn certain. But all of the flirting, the strayed gazes, the touches, the sweetness, it was all layered equally with the brush offs and the hot that could be so goddamn cold— God, she just couldn’t do it anymore.
Daphne couldn’t put herself through it anymore. She’d been so sick of guessing and wondering and thinking yes when he was showing her no.
And suddenly the only important thing for him to do was get her to stay with the network, the show, him. He’d pressed into something he’d avoided and always assumed was there. The same night she was trying to tell him she was leaving, he’d gotten down on one knee and asked her to marry him, a plea, a promise, an escalation because he knew just as well as she did that they’d been nursing the longest undefined relationship of a lifetime.
Because he was certain then, right? But yet all of the years before he hadn’t been?
The weight of it all stole Fred’s breath away, but she found her breath to continue on.
“You toyed with me, for years.” She said slowly and certainly, the bitterness defined and biting. “You made me think that you cared, that I was more than just Velma or Shaggy, that I was more than just a co-worker, that I was more than your goddamn co-host.” She stopped, gathering her composure. “But I was wrong.”
He struggled for words. “Daphne, that wasn’t—“
“It wasn’t?” She repeated, a razor shrill cutting through the evening wind that had gone still. “Then what was it, Fred? What were those late nights?”
The late, passionate nights where he’d made her feel loved and cherished and wanted. How he’d touched her and kissed her and cared. It’d been everything she’d ever wanted. Everything that had kept her anchored to him, committed to him. All for nothing but heartache.
“What was the denial?”
But each morning had come with an unanswered question, the shuffling of clothes and the avoidance of breakfasts. That same hovering on the precipice that had always been there since they’d called it off back in high school.
Daphne shook her head in short bursts of movement that only elevated her pounding headache. Her carefully disguised temper unrolled to a blazing inferno of pent up feelings. “What were we?” She dared to ask.
But, per his usual, he lacked an answer. He just stared at her with those baleful eyes. Goddamn him.
“That’s what I thought.” She nodded, disappointment as tangible as her frustration, as she turned her back to him and moved to step back into her car and get the hell out of here.
In a flash, that wasn’t an option. Instead, she found herself encased in familiar — older — arms that simultaneously pulled her and pressed her against her own backseat door. Her eyes shut on contact, the stiffness melting into aching familiarity. The arms she’d missed for so many years. It wasn’t a rough embrace, it was just — desperate.
Her shoulders dropped with an emotional heave, feeling the way his forehead dropped to the side of her head, nose pressing fiercely into the side of her head, inhaling. She shifted, gradually, testing the press of his arms until she could swivel and get a good look at him.
Daphne didn’t immediately look close enough, hadn’t thought to, or wanted to, but now that she peered up through her eyelashes, their noses only a few inches away, she could faintly see the sheen of tears.
Her own hands that had shifted to seize defensively on his shoulders had eased, exhaustion weighing on her face as she appraised him. He did the same, searching her face, trying to find whatever he was looking for.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he uttered solemnly, understanding.
She let it hold for a few seconds before her emotions gave way and tears slowly made their way down her own cheeks, an onslaught of her entire life falling a part in the past few weeks, bringing back sweet memories and bitter memories and all of the relics of her childhood, her teenage years. Her time in Coolsville and away. Her time in college, her time on the road, her time solving mysteries and running from monsters and loving a man so fiercely that even with time, she’d never ever been able to let it go. The time she could have spent more with her father or her father had she not been so bound and determined to seek out the world independently, combating the silver spoon she’d been born with in her mouth.
The only sound she made was a soft sniffle, wanting to bottle her emotions inside and lock them up like she had for ten years about this. But it was impossible.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again, his own voice wavering. “God, I’m so sorry—“
“Stop saying that,” she almost whimpered. She hated how weak she still was for this game. She hated it.
One of his hands raised to gently, tentatively, brush a thumb over her cheek and smudge one of the drops. He wiped it away with a care she hadn’t felt in a long time but remembered so acutely it made her chest ache.
Yet she found herself leaning into it, absorbing it, her eyes closing just briefly to will the own heartbreak writ all of his face away. She found herself raising a hand to clasp the back of his neck, to really feel his skin again, to bring his head closer until their foreheads slid against each other in a way that would have been uncomfortable if she didn’t feel so distracted.
They held it for many tear-stained seconds, savoring the moment she felt they’d almost anticipated year after year to no avail.
Until one of their mouths found their way onto the other’s and the mood shifted. Limp limbs became desperate in another way entirely, winding around each other and gyrating for more touch, for more body. Both of her hands clambered to the back of his head, dragging him to her as he held her waist tight to him, thumbs digging into the wells of her hips.
The kiss was hungry, angry, frustrated, heartbroken.
It roused sighs and murmurs and whispers and groans.
By the time it was done, it’d managed to break the silence.