Like every year, the last few weeks of school dragged on for the teenagers of Point Place, Wisconsin. Everyone was excited for summer so they could sit and do nothing, and that was exactly what Dorothy was doing in Eric Forman's basement. Over the last few weeks of school she had spent more than half her free time with this new group of friends, she still made time for herself and her long term friends, but as the weeks rolled on Dory found herself spending time with every member of the strange group of teens.
A lot of the time was spent with Eric and Steven, she began to realize that the two were somewhat inseparable. For the two being best friends it was odd to Dory that Steven was significantly more quiet when she and him weren't hanging out alone. When smoking after school and passing time in study hall Dory and Hyde always managed to find something to talk about. They would go from rambling about the corruption of the world to laughing at the way each others voices would crack when they tried to smoke and speak at the same time. When other people were around he was hardly vocal other than the occasional burn. To be fair it wasn't easy to join Eric and Dory's debates about super heroes as they usually ended up heated. For the most part Dorothy had fun reading comics but after awhile she would get just as annoyed as the others at Eric's constant comic references. Whenever he would go on about them too long she would start an argument with him about why the hero was flawed or weak, which would often result in him getting so mad that he'd stop talking or briefly leave the room.
Michael popped up more than Dory appreciated at first, a lot of hangouts ended up with her having to smack him for being pigheaded. When Kelso learned that Dory had a dog he switched from interested in her to interested in seeing Toto as much as possible. He would show up at her house all times of the day to run around the yard with the French Spaniel: it was nice to see the side of him that wasn't blowing things up or thinking with his body. All the walks they took together with Toto were much needed to make up for Dory's sweet tooth. She always liked sweets in moderation but with Fez's favorite place being the candy store, Dory couldn't help but to end up leaving with just as much candy as he did.
It took some time to become closer with the girls. Bonding with Donna started when she barged out of the basement as Dory was about to enter, instead of continuing past her Dory asked what happened. After an explosion of rage about Jackie supporting the guys sexist antics the pair bonded over mutual anger about societies expectations of women to become home-makers. It became a regular pastime to sit together and complain about parents, teachers and friends treating them like they needed to be someone different. Once summer started the two had regular sleepovers, sometimes relaxing by putting on a record and eating snacks and other times would stay up sharing talents. Donna would read her stories aloud while Dory would perform songs for Donna. Sleepovers changed though once Jackie caught wind of them spending time together and decided to invite herself.
Dory didn't understand why she would come, for the first few sleepovers Jackie would glare at her, convinced that Toto was an excuse to get close to Kelso and steal him away. When the trio went to Dory's house instead of Donna's, Jackie had a change of heart when she saw that another girl in the group had stuffed animals on their bed. With further investigating, Jackie found that behind the band t-shirts, Dory had as many cute dresses as she did.
Apparently having a girly side saved Dorothy from Jackie's continued hostility. Not that her friendship was much different, instead of death stares and constant insults it was smiles and frequent insults. On the plus side it also meant that she would pay for things and share any gossip she learned from Kelso about the boys, mostly it wasn't that exciting of news though.
Sometimes it was almost fun to be with Jackie, Dory enjoyed dressing up and looking nice but always felt a little out of place when she did it too often, with Jackie it felt normal. Instead of wearing jeans all summer Dory felt more free to wear dresses with Jackie's encouraging. Even with that benefit it was hard to be sure if it was worth it as she would rip the tougher girls away from smoke circles to watch her practice cheer-leading or pick out new outfits.
It was perfect that Kelso was full of energy because spending time with Jackie could be exhausting. It wasn't often that he was quiet, but today after spending all night on the phone with Jackie he was passed out on Eric's couch. She had him read her Nancy Drew until she fell asleep, but each time he heard her start to snore and stopped reading she would instantly wake back up and ask why he stopped. This wouldn't be an issue for the ball of energy if he had gotten to sleep in late the next morning, but instead his mom woke him for the early morning church mass followed by errands. He wasn't missing much by being asleep: Steven, Eric and Donna sat staring blankly at the television, watching reruns of Tom&Jerry while Fez and Dory sat on the floor playing go-fish, the only card game Fez seemed to understand yet.
"This episode has been on every morning this week." Steven complained, getting tired of watching the cartoon animals play tennis against each other. No one answered him at first, knowing full well he was right but having nothing new to offer.
"You could wake up Michael and tell him there's an ice cream truck outside" Donna suggested, remembering that Dory had decided to tie his shoelaces together while he slept. Hyde shrugged, offering a "whatever" in return.
Eric followed his friends nonchalant attitude, "Yeah I mean, how many times can we watch him get hurt before it loses its spark?" All pairs of eyes turned to him, looking at him like he was crazy.
"Never." Donna answered as if it was obvious.
Eric nodded in agreement, stood up and headed to the door, opening it and slamming it shut as if he just came in, causing Michael to wake up at the sudden noise. Eric stopped to look at his fiends, acting convincingly he shouted, "Ice cream man is going down the street!"
Instantly Kelso jumped up and crashed into the coffee table, stumbling over it entirely, causing Fez and Dory to quickly roll out of the way so they weren't caught in the damage. Instead of being deterred, Kelso tried to get outside, crawling out the door and up the stairs in his mission to get ice cream.
Laughing along with her friends Donna confirmed that it never got old to watch Kelso run around like an idiot, "That was better than I expected."
Fez stopped laughing suddenly, "Wait, there is not really ice cream, yes?" The thought of missing out on the chance to have something sugary worried the foreign boy, but the smiles and head-shaking of his friends made him feel more at ease that it was indeed a lie.
It was fully confirmed though as Michel came back inside, shoes in hand, without any treats. Kelso looked like a little kid as he plopped down on the couch, examining his scrapped elbow with a pout as he whined about never getting anything good.
Fez tried to convince him that he was well off instead of dwelling on what he didn't have, "You have a woman, that is good. Who needs ice cream when you have a lady?"
As if her ears were burning Jackie burst through the door, "Guess what!?"
She stood, waiting with open arms for someone to respond to her, Jackie Burkhart wasn't going to make an important announcement unless she knew everyone's attention was on her. Rolling his eyes Hyde spoke up for the collective, "What Jackie?"
"Steven Carfagno's parents are out of town and he's having a party late tonight! He said I could bring whoever I wanted." Jackie nodded her head like it was a big deal that he gave her permission before gasping, "Dory, come help me pick out an outfit!"
Glancing at the clock Dory's stomach dropped, it was barley 1 in the afternoon and Jackie surely expected her to sit and give complements all the way up to the start of the party. Playing dress up lost its fun after an hour or so.
The guys cackled at Dorothy's clear dread, glad that they didn't have to be a part of it.
"Michael, you too." Jackie demanded, cutting through the laughter.
"What? Why do I haveta'?" he was one foot stomping away from becoming a toddler.
Jackie glared at him, ready to punish him for treating precious time with her as if it were a burden, "Now Michael!"
He stood up and dragging his feet went to join his lady at her side, causing her to smile widely before looking expectantly at Dory. She knew better than to argue, besides at least she would have someone with her to divide Jackie's need for attention with.
Before they walked out, leaving a room of grinning friends behind, Jackie stopped and turned to Donna, "You should come too, so you can see what girls are supposed to look like."
Donna scrunched up her nose in annoyance, "I'll pass".
Displeased with yet another friend resisting her directions Jackie used the ace card up her sleeve, "Fine, then none of you are going to the party. There's going to be alcohol" she looked to Hyde then over to Eric and Fez as she continued, "and drunk cheerleaders, but none of you will get to enjoy."
Fez looked at the spunky girl with wide-eyes, "Ohh cheerleaders, how I would love to go the the party" He turned to Donna, a pleading look in his doe eyes.
"Come on Donna, take one for the team" Eric pushed, eager to do something other than sit in the house all day and night.
As much as she hated the idea of giving in to the pressures, Donna was excited to hear about the party before getting the ultimatum and had no desire to sit and do nothing again. Sighing she stood up and joined her two equally unexcited friends as they trudged up the basement stairs, Jackie clapping in success behind them.
Getting ready with Jackie took just as long as Dory expected and unsurprisingly it ended with them going to the mall. Even with three people giving opinions and complements, it still took Jackie 2 and a half hours to decide on a hair-do and outfit, and even when she found the perfect dress she couldn't find a pair of shoes in her large collection that matched perfectly.
Instead of leaving the shoe store with one pair of shoes to go with her outfit she left with three, figuring to was better to have more options. Now satisfied with her outcome Jackie decided to focus her attention on her friends.
"Dory, since we cant both wear paisley pattern, you should wear that floral mini dress, with the long bell sleeves. Your arms are looking a little fat today so you shouldn't try to draw extra attention to them with small straps."
Donna and Dory exchanged a look, both understanding what it's like to be on the receiving end of Jackie's insults, and knowing that sometimes it was just easier to let her go on instead of flicking her or insulting her in return.
Dory didn't really care what she wore though, Jackie could dress her in a neon pink and yellow jumpsuit as long as it meant getting free alcohol and having fun, "Sounds good."
Jackie then turned to Donna and smirked, "You should dress up too Donna, look pretty for your lover-boy Eric."
"Jackie!" Donna looked peeved at her small friend, not wanting anyone to know she liked Eric. She figured that everyone might know about the kiss they shared but since nothing was serious and nothing had happened since then she didn't feel comfortable with Jackie running around telling people she had a crush on him. Eric hadn't shown any extra signs of interest and Donna wasn't sure if that was because he was a dillhole or because he wasn't interested anymore. Jackie talking about her feelings when Eric and she were still just friends could cause an awkward situation if he didn't feel the same.
"What!?" Jackie replied with a snap
Kelso came to the aid of his girlfriend, assuring Donna that Jackie wasn't saying anything new, "Relax Donna, everyone knows, you're basically a couple now."
"Yeah, whatever." Donna didn't have anything to say, at least nothing she could say comfortably. Donna was mostly worried about losing her friendship with Eric if they started dating, too many people lose friendships when they break up and Donna didn't want that. There was also a worry that with Dory being around so often, Eric would start to question his feelings for Donna. The confident redhead knew that he liked her, and had shown interest in being with her, but it wasn't hard to notice the way he checked Dory out. After thinking about it during the ride home from the mall, she decided that maybe she would try to make another small move on Eric tonight instead of waiting for a shy boy to act first.