Chapter Twenty One
Fever
"Disco?! Disco blows, Fez!" Eric sighed into his PB+J, barely taking a bite when Fez interjected.
"But we have grown. We can dance."
"But, Fez. We don't want to dance. Especially not to Disco tracks." Hyde commented, throwing his single book and pencil onto the lunch table. "Why? Because we're men. Men don't dance. Men definitely don't dance to Donna Summer."
It was then, Donna and Kelso made their way from the hallway to the table, bee-lining through some of the growing crowds. Eric explained to them the situation and Donna immediately shot it down. Kelso seemed rather excited.
"Oh, man! Yeah! When?"
"Well, they have a Thursday night reserved for Ladies Night-" Fez thought out loud and seemed to calculate mid-air with his finger about whether it would be optimum groove-time.
"So, Thursday it is." Kelso smiled across the table, firing finger pistols at him. "I get to wear my Travola shirt! Man! I've been dyin' to wear it!"
Fez now took it upon himself to persuade Hyde to come along.
"Girls get groovy with you, man! Come on! Please, Hyde? Please, please?" Fez almost begged but Hyde wouldn't give in to it. Things were groovy enough with Jackie on the weekends. He didn't need girls dancing against him. He declined again. It had came to the point where Jackie would appear whenever Hyde thought of her. Was she in his head? He couldn't tell. She sat herself down between Donna and Eric and opened one of her books.
"Hey, Jackie. What say you come to this disco tomorrow night?" Kelso used his smooth words and his best eyelash flutter but Jackie looked up at him.
"Ew. Not with you. But, a disco, sure!" She smiled at everybody else.
"Well, Steven. You will be grooving with Eric and Donna. Alone."
"Fez, nothing you say is going to make me change my mind. Screw disco and screw whoever created it."
"Well, you're not comin' with us. We're goin' to the drive-in!" Eric butted in matter-of-factly. Hyde just grumbled and rolled his eyes.
"Forman. I don't care. With all you guys not here; I can kick back. Don't have to even think about what you guys are doin'. And that's paradise."
"So, Steven. What'll you do instead?" Jackie asked forwardly.
"Relax, man. Watch some TV. Ignore calls from you guys to come out. Maybe order out." Hyde was content in his evening plans and had already thought about how many joints he should roll for his quiet night.
Disco Night came around quickly. Jackie got ready at Donna's after eventually convincing her to come along for only a little while before heading to the drive-in. Hyde and Eric were almost horizontal on the couch with their feet up on the table. Hollywood Squares was on and they were pleasantly high. They just sat together, pointing and grumbling quietly at the TV. Fez sat impatiently on Hyde's stool. He had his best jeans on, his finest loafers and a brand new silk shirt, only half buttoned despite the protesting from Eric to button it up fully.
"I cannot wait any longer. The rhythm is pulsing in me."
"Don't need to know about your pulsing, Fez." Hyde said quietly as his friend got up from the stool and made his way to the basement door. Donna and Jackie made their way in at the same time, shocking Fez.
"Hey. Enjoy it tonight. Fez is pulsing with groove." Eric commented, himself and Hyde still sitting on the sofa as though it were eating them slowly.
"It's your last chance. It could be fun." Jackie tried to entice. Donna was tucking the tag on Jackie's jumpsuit back in, flush against her neck again.
"Donna, man. Disowned. You do the radio, man. The good radio." Hyde muttered and looked over at them slowly, his head resting on the back of the couch.
"I like to dance, too. You can't dance to Zeppelin." Donna defended. Fez nodded in agreement, beginning to usher the girls back outside to wait for Kelso.
"You can't dance, that's true. But you can vibe to it."
"You've gone soft, Hyde." Eric sighed, pulling himself together and going after Donna. "Does this look okay for grooving?"
"It looks fine for a bathhouse." Hyde gave him the thumbs up and Eric slowly went after his friends. Hyde was left alone and he fought internally on whether or not to go with. Physically, his body wouldn't allow him. His stone was too strong. With a heavy sigh and slow, long blink, he gave into the peer pressure and got up from the couch, grabbing his jacket on the way. In his mind, a circle of disco songs went around and he could barely stand it.
Sitting in the back of Kelso's van beside Eric, Hyde almost fell asleep. He was 'vibing' and totally zen with everything. Donna and Jackie were talking about Donna sleeping over after the disco and how they could watch movies and talk all night. Well, Jackie was talking about that. Donna just listened and eagerly watched the road markings fly past the van.
"Hey, when we get there, can we get a burger?" Eric asked quietly.
"Hell, no! If we stop for a burger, there's going to be limited dancing room. We need a table with good access to the floor. I've been practising my moves." Fez was adamant and strong when he explained the situation. Eric sighed and slumped back into his seat. Hyde nudged him and smiled,
"We'll get a burger."
Abba was loud and the place was hot, swarming with lively bodies and energy. The air was wet and even the panels of the walls seemed to collect condensation. Kelso had grabbed a booth that had a curtain, much like the other booths. Donna thought it a little odd and a little strip-club-turned-disco-during-the-week. Everybody had crammed into the space that should have only sat four people. Donna was over Eric's legs and partially Kelso's whereas Jackie was small enough to fold up and sit on Hyde's legs independently. It was far too cramped but Jackie had pointed out that they wouldn't be sitting all night, every one of them. Most of them would be dancing and jiving. Fez scoped out the dancefloor only some feet away from their table. Jackie smelled pickles and mustard and looked around.
"Is that you? You stink."
"Yeah. I hid our burgers in my inside pocket." Hyde said, reaching into his pocket and handing Eric his burger. "Bite?" He offered her. She shrugged and ate around the edges where there was no condiments.
"H-Hey, I want a bite." Kelso said quietly defeated.
"I have the fries." Eric smiled, bringing them from his zip-pocket on the front of his jacket. "Fry?" Eric chuckled and Kelso nodded, taking it with force.
"I'd enjoy a burger more."
"Oh, my god. I love this song. Jackie, lets go!" Donna yelped with the Ohio Players coming over the speakers. Jackie wiped down her trousers and got up with Donna, following her wherever she seemed to go.
Kelso moved past Eric with Fez and set out to the groups with the most girls and started doing their thing.
"It looks like they're having a stroke. At the same time." Eric slid around the booth to Hyde, laying the fries out along side the burgers. They ate away, watching their positively masculine friends dance like girls with more twitching and turning. "Hey, speaking of having a stroke, how's Jackie?" He asked and Hyde froze in his seat. He couldn't bring himself to look back to Eric beside him. "She good? I think she's good."
Hyde scoffed with a laugh in his throat and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses before taking them off.
"What are you talking about, Forman?" He asked with his usual defensive manner. Eric just smiled smugly,
"I'm talkin' about Jackie. I don't know, man. She's just... I don't know, different."
Hyde brought his brows together before he cocked one and leaned his elbow on the table, Donna coming back with drinks.
"Hey, you asked him yet?" Donna asked, sliding into the booth, shifting the tray of drinks down the table. Eric and Hyde looked at her quizzically and then at the trays. "What? He said he liked my blouse."
"Hey, asked me what? What is goin' on?"
"Well, Jackie's got this thing about her, now, y'know. This..." Donna snapped her fingers sarcastically before Eric jumped in,
"Glow."
Hyde just looked between them and laughed. Not out of hilarity, out of capture. It was nerves and he took one of the beers from the tray. Without saying a word, he drank it slowly, all in one go as Eric and Donna looked at each other. Hyde came to the bottom of the glass and sat it on the table before wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He cleared his throat and looked between them again.
"What's this glow everyone's talkin' about?"
Donna took a breath, gathering her thoughts together before trying to explain things to Hyde in plain terms. "The 'Glow' isn't so much a light glow. It's like, you know... a change... In attitude. Okay, yeah, change in a girls attitude after-" Donna started to struggle so Eric stepped in, sliding around the table to sit by Donna.
"Basically after a girl has sex for the first time, she isn't as frigid. In every sense of the word. She loosens up, relaxes in ways you've never seen them relax before. Take Jackie for example, she actually engages in our conversations now. She doesn't always bitch."
It was a lot for Hyde to process but now that it was mentioned, Jackie had chilled out a lot.
"Yeah... Yeah, I've noticed that. She doesn't call Donna a giant any more. Or Bigfoot. Or-"
"We get it, Hyde." Donna stopped him firmly.
"Look, we actually like her now. Yeah, she's annoying and still a bitch... Just, not as much." Eric openly said with genuine feeling for Jackie in the group.
"Alright, back to this Glow thing," Hyde changed the topic and circled back to the point, "What about it?"
"Jackie was a virgin." Donna said.
"Is." Hyde corrected quickly, "Is... not a virgin, damn, what gave it away?" He sighed, looking out to the dancing that was going on around them. The place seemed to just keep getting hotter and hotter for Hyde and it was hard to stand.
"Well, the first thing that got us was probably when you room didn't smell like a basement. It smelled like a girl."
"Big woop. It could've been anybody." Hyde protested,
"And Jackie's scarf was lying in the chair." Donna continued.
"Look, that doesn't mean we slept together. People forget things all the time." Hyde was still trying to fight against it but he knew fine well that he was losing when Eric piped up,
"Look, Hyde. I live with you, alright? I pick up things. Like, I don't know- you coming in after midnight when the Hub shuts at ten. Or, maybe, you know, getting lost in the basement at night and walking into your room, which, by the way, I'm sorry about. My mom told me I was sleep walking but, man. After than, I was awake. And didn't sleep for a week."
Hyde tilted his head to the side and he looked almost angry. "I knew it. She called me crazy, man. She called me crazy!"
"Well, you're acting a little crazy right now." Donna laughed
"Maybe because my best friend saw me having sex with a girl and didn't tell me for a month. Man, I knew you were being weird at breakfast the next morning. I knew it."