Rolling clouds scattered across the sky as a mystical yellow light began to dance over the lapping waves.  A distant breakwall stood grey and eerie in the nocturnal glow of a lighthouse winking almost cheerfully upon the waters, its brilliant flashes splashing numerous bobbing shades docked in the marina below.  Above, a small plane painted candy-colored streaks, edging brilliantly the black borders of the night.

        "How wonderful to live in such glorious solitude!" Pretorious exclaimed to himself.  His charcoal grey eyes studied the reflection staring back at him from the sliding glass door of a balcony  overlooking the city.  'What would I look like in a beard?' he mused with a certain uncharacteristic detachment, but as his right hand reached to stroke the imaginary whiskers, Pretorious's 'glorious solitude' was oh so rudely
interrupted:

        "Here she is," a stooge nodded from across the suite towards the blonde he had brought with him into the inner sanctum.

        "What is this?" Pretorious scowled at the pudgy, dowdy, middle-aged woman standing before him.

        "You said you wanted your girl for the night," the stooge replied defensively.  "We didn't know where to look, we just got into town."

        "Girl!" Pretorious sneered, obsessed with the prominent crow's feet near the lady of the evening's eyes.  "She'd make a better candidate for my grandmother."

        "Hey, bub!" the woman shrieked.  "I didn't come here to be insulted."

        "Surely you don't think that you came here for anything else?" Pretorious told her.  "Max!" he boomed to his stooge.  (All stooges of this kind, of course, must be named 'Max').  "Get this whore out of here."

        "Hey!" the woman shrieked again.  "I told ya, I need the money, I gotta get outta town!"

        Pretorious winced at the pouty whine of the woman's voice, near kin to the squeal of a tuneless violin.  "Pay her, Max!  Pay her and get her out of my sight!"

        Pretorious shivered at the thought of actually sharing a bed with such a crude, bovine creature.  Yet, it was an odd idiosyncrasy of his that he was quite unable to sleep alone.  Scowling, he turned his attention back to the city.  It was not an auspicious beginning, Pretorious thought; but someday, and someday soon, all of Springfield's money, and all of its power, and, most definitely, all of its women, were destined to be his.

       The boys burst through the door and raced straight for the fire pole. "You two be careful," Jenna called to them as she held her little baby girl, Fatima, in one arm while holding the door open for her husband, Buzz, with the other as he struggled through it with no less than five suitcases in hand, not to mention the handbag that he grasped with his teeth!  Just as he made it across their domestic threshold, the luggage under his chin slipped away, banging him on the foot and tripping him 
up so that he crashed to the floor, his burden flying in every direction.
"You be careful, too," Jenna said dryly.

        "Thanks a lot, Petula!" Buzz glared up at her.  "You were a big help!"

        "If you'd have just taken two at a time instead of--"

        "We're home!  We're home!" cried Coop and Rocky, and the younger sibling seemed even more delighted at the fact than the elder, though Rocky in truth could barely remember the place at all.

        "Indeed we are," smiled Jenna, the memories flooding in upon her.

        "Back in the old firehouse where we belong, huh, gang?" Buzz said, collecting himself with dignity as he rose from the floor.

        "Where we belong," agreed Coop.

        "Where we belong," echoed Rocky.

        "Where we all belong," beamed Jenna.

        "Right," nodded Buzz.  "So how 'bout lunch?"

        "Eat your vegetables," Buzz commanded his son.

        "I like cheeseburgers!" complained Coop.

        "You look like a cheeseburger," said Buzz.

        "Mom eats cheeseburgers and she don't look like no cheeseburger."

        "'Doesn't look like a cheeseburger', and thank you, Coop," corrected Jenna.  "Now finish your brussel sprouts."

        "You're gonna get fat if you only eat  cheeseburgers," predicted Buzz.

        "Mom ain't fat."

        "'Isn't' fat, and that's 'cause she eats her brussel sprouts."

        "If I eat my brussel sprouts, can I have a cheeseburger?"

        "Look," said Buzz, waving his knife in the air.  "If you have too many cheeseburgers, you'll blow up like a balloon."

        "Mom don't blow up like a balloon."

        "She did twice," said Buzz.

        "Mommie exercises!" exclaimed Rocky.  "She twists herself up like a pretzel!"  And the flexible little fellow proceeded to demonstrate this fact by pulling his right leg back behind his head.

        "That's very good, Rocky, but don't stretch at the table while you're eating," said Jenna.

        The thought of Jenna 'twisted like a pretzel' was enough to
distract Buzz for the rest of the meal...

        "I can't believe how spotless Eleni has kept the place," Jenna commented while washing the dishes.  In the Cooper household, Buzz cooked, Jenna washed the dishes.

        "How do you know it was Eleni?" Buzz asked while drying a fork.

        "Who else?"

        "Right.  Funny, they stocked the refrigerator with food, but they didn't meet us at the airport."

        "Perhaps we should--"

        "I know a card trick!" Coop came running up to his parents.

        "Were you teaching him card tricks on the plane while I was asleep?" Jenna gave Buzz a disapproving poke on the arm.

        "Hey, it was a long trip."

        "I got three cards, two of 'em red, one black," said Coop. "Pick a card."  Jenna picked one of the cards offered her.

        "Don't look at it," prodded Buzz.

        "Right.  Don't look at it," said Coop.  "Now..."  The boy hesitated a moment.  "I'm gonna turn over a red card."  He looked at the two cards he held and then turned over one of them, a red one.  "Now, the riddle is, if you want the black card, should you keep the one you got, or switch it for this card?" he gestured to the remaining card in his hand.

        "Well, let's see," thought Jenna.  "Yes, it's a good lesson in logic.  There was a 1 in 3 chance that I would choose the black card,you've eliminated one of the cards, so there is now a 1 in 2 chance that I have the black card in my hand.  Therefore, it doesn't matter whether I switch or not."

        "Wrong!" cried Coop with delight.

        "What do you mean wrong?" frowned Jenna.  "I just explained to you--"

        "Why don't you play a few rounds of the game with him while I check things out at Company?" Buzz suggested with a surreptitious wink to his son.  "Maybe you'll be able to convince him that way."

        "I'll try, but I fear he's as stubborn as you are," said Jenna. "Bet you I have us all unpacked before you get everything straightened out at the restaurant," she offered while kissing Buzz goodbye.

        "You're on," said Buzz.

        "And make sure you give Selena bloody hell!" 

It was as if he had stepped into a ghost town.  "Hello!" Buzz called disbelievingly through the empty restaurant.  "Anybody here?"

        A stirring from the kitchen betrayed the first signs of life. "Sele-?"  The kitchen door opened as Buzz reached for it, nearly whacking him on the noggin.

        "Dad!"

        "Frank!"

        "Buzz!" Eleni cried from the kitchen.  "You're coming home today!"

        "We are home today!" Buzz cried back at her.  "Where is everybody?"

        "Dad," Frank embraced his father, affectionately, but with obvious premeditation.

        "Buzz, we totally forgot!" Eleni exclaimed as she rose to kiss her father-in-law.

        "Fine, no sweat, and it's great to see you, too," Buzz greeted them abruptly, "but nobody's answering my question."

        "What question would that be, Dad?" Frank asked.

        "Where is everybody?" Buzz shouted in growing frustration.

        "You mean, like customers?" Frank fished for clarification.

        "All right," Buzz responded, resignedly this time.  "What happened?  Where's Selena?"

        "Selena's gone," Frank nodded to Eleni.

        "Gone," Eleni agreed.

        "She's gone," repeated Buzz.  "Where did Selena go?"

        "Uhhhh...We don't know."

        "You don't know?"

        "Probably to Drew's," Eleni nodded again.

        "She just left without telling anyone?"

        "That's about the size of it, Dad."

        "That's why the place is closed?"

        "Well...not exactly."

        "Not exactly?" exploded Buzz.

        "Not entirely," clarified Frank.

        "What do you mean, 'Not entirely'," Buzz wondered, now feeling like a dentist endeavoring to extract an especially uncooperative wisdom tooth.

        "So....Jenna's pregnant, I hear."

        "We adopted, Frank, why is Company closed?"

        "Company's closed because we can't get any supplies," Eleni finally 'fessed up to him.  "Why we can't get any supplies," she pointed towards a pile of papers lying on a table, "Frank and I have spent all morning trying to figure out."

        "At least I won one bet," Jenna greeted Buzz as he trudged through the door into the firehouse.  "I finished unpacking hours ago!"

        "I took Mommy to the cleaners!" little Coop exclaimed as he leaped into Buzz's arms.

        "Must've got that from Selena," Buzz muttered, kissing his son on the cheek.

        "Seriously, Buzz, I was down $1,000 in monpoly money before I gave up."

        "You're less stubborn than the math faculty at MIT," Buzz complimented his wife.  "I took them for $10,000 real money before they gave up."

        "Oh, right," scoffed Jenna.

        "It's true!  Ask Lucy," Buzz defended himself.  "I worked as a janitor there one semester.  They were smart guys, too, even if they would have been lousy playing 'Let's Make a Deal'.  As opposed to Nadine, who was a whiz at game shows... Hey, where's my other two little brats, anyway?"

        "Fatima and Rocky are already in dreamland, which is where this one ought to be, but he had to stay up to brag to you about giving me a thrashing in this silly game."

        "You heard your mom, time for bed."

        "Awwww!"

        "Don't you 'Aw' me, young man," said Jenna.  "You've had a serious case of the drowsies for the last half-hour."

        "Mommy and I have grownup things to discuss, Coop.  Give us a goodnight kiss and then go on up to bed."

        Quiescently obedient to this command, Coop went upstairs, leaving his parents to sit together on the couch.  "Schrodinger!" Buzz snapped his fingers in a moment.

        "What?" asked Jenna.

        "Schrodinger's Cat!" recalled Buzz.  "That's the explanation one of the professors finally came up with about why you win most of the time by switching cards.  They were good guys, they paid what they owed. Never did explain to me what 'Schrodinger's Cat' was, though.  You know?"

        "No, I don't, Buzz," said Jenna.  "News must have been pretty bad at Company if you're trying this hard to avoid telling me."

        "Pretty bad," admitted Buzz weakly.  "Pretty damn bad." 

        "Did you find Selena?" Jenna wanted to know.

        "Selena has apparently left town," said Buzz.

        "Left town!  Then who's taking care of Company?"

        "Nobody--Just give me a chance, okay?" Buzz pleaded, looking so down-hearted that Jenna could only settle down to listen to him.  "Frank and Eleni were over at Company when I got there.  They were the only ones at Company, the place is closed.  It's like that telegram said, Selena hasn't been paying the suppliers.  They were tryin' to go over the books to see exactly how bad it is, but Selena seems to have gotten kinda confused in her bookkeeping."

        "She stole everything," groaned Jenna.

        "I don't think so.  There wasn't that much left to steal.  You see, according to Eleni, Selena had this habit of running off at a whim and leaving the restaurant empty during lunch and dinner hours; eavesdropping on the customers and then screaming at them when they complained; ransacking their rooms--"

        "Ransacking their rooms!" cried Jenna.

        "Frank said that only happened once!  Anyway, she pretty much drove away all our customers, and then she split."

        "Is it hopeless?" Jenna inquired simply.

        "It's never hopeless," said Buzz.  "But we are in a hole."

        "Right."  Jenna paused to rub some of the strain from her eyes. "Don't worry, darling," she put her arm around her crestfallen husband. "We've been in money crunches before."

        "Never when we had three kids before."

        "Yes," Jenna sighed.  "Picked a great time to adopt a child, didn't we?  Oh, well.  At least Fatima's used to living in a cave... It's just a bad joke, Buzz," Jenna responded to the pained expression that clouded her husband's face.

        "Very bad," Buzz muttered darkly.  "You know... Frank and Eleni are actually feeling guilty about letting this happen.  As if it's anyone's fault but mine."

        "It's my fault, too," said Jenna.

        "How you figure that?"

        "I know perfectly well how thoughtless you get when an idea like, 'Let's go off on a honeymoon' flits into your brain; I know you have absolutely no judgment when it comes to bleached blondes who are down on their luck; and I know that, at best, you're incapable of planning beyond next week.  It was completely irresponsible of me to let you do things as you wished."

        "Gee, thanks, I feel better about it now."

        "That's what wives are for," Jenna replied seriously.  "All right!" she suddenly perked up, briskly rubbing her two hands together. "Enough of this feeling sorry for ourselves.  What is it that we're going to do now?"

        "Well...not much point in tracking down Selena--"

        "Totally agreed!" interrupted Jenna.  "No reason to ever think about that woman again!  So how do we go about paying our debts? Perhaps I could sell all my nightgowns and jammies?" she slyly  suggested in an effort to cheer her husband up.

        In spite of himself, Buzz grinned at her.  "I don't deserve that kind of reward," he admitted gratefully.  "Actually, the first thing that comes to mind is--We could take out a mortgage on the firehouse."

        "Oh, Buzz!" Jenna buried her head in her hands a moment.

"Well!" she made a valiant effort to rally her spirits.  "If that's what we have to do, we'll just do it, that's all."

        "But the second thing that comes to mind..."

        "Yes?" Jenna prompted him.

        "We could just sell Company."

        "Sell Company?"

        "Yeah.  I mean, we wouldn't have much left after paying off the morgage and the debts, but--at least the kids wouldn't starve to death."

        "Oh, I'd make certain they wouldn't starve to death under any circumstances," said Jenna.

        "What's that supposed to mean?"

        "It means what I said, neither more nor less," she replied firmly.

        "Hey, I'll take care of my kids without my wife going out and doing anything FOOLISH, y'know what I mean."

        "Yes, what need I do anything foolish while I'm married to you? And what are we going to do, Buzz?  Perhaps you wish to use the proceeds from Company to rebuild the Diner?"

        "No!" Buzz cried.  "Forget about restaurants!  I'm sick of running restaurants!  That's what I ran away from for twenty years!"

        "You ran away from a wife and two children as well."

        Buzz stared at Jenna in something like horror.  "That's not going to happen again," he said at last.

        "I'm sorry," Jenna faltered miserably.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to say--"

        "Why shouldn't you mean it?" Buzz interrupted her apology. "I've screwed up everything else in my entire life.  Why shouldn't you think I'd screw us up, too?"

        "Because I know you," said Jenna.  "I know who you are.... This conversation has taken a ridiculous turn and I think we should get back to reality.  Actually, this is a good time for something like this to happen; jobs are plentiful now, and... well, perhaps Dirty Dottie is in need of some assistance again," Jenna suggested with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

        "Tell me you'd be happy back at Dottie's!" Buzz immediately challenged her.

        "I'll be happy so long as I'm with you," Jenna insisted to him.

        "You really believe that, don't you?"  Buzz looked at his beautiful wife long and hard.  At the top of the stairs, little Coop, who had been eavesdropping on his parents all this time, finally slippedaway back to his room.  "Actually, there were two possibilities that occurred to me that might be a bit more pleasing to you, and certainly would be more pleasing to me.  When is Harley getting back from New
York, anyway?"