Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The fictional band Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

CHAPTER 62
THE THIRD DREDGE-UP

May 7, 1995

Avenal, California

Taqueria and Pescadería
…

Strung across the ceiling of Taqueria and Pescadería were hundreds of chili pepper lights. They shone onto Jackie and Anders's table, giving their food an otherworldly red glow.

Jackie bit into her taco, and the spiced mahi-mahi inside hit her tongue like a firework. She swallowed it easily with no need to chase it with a glass of milk. Her stomach flared with heat, but it was a pleasant sensation. She had a high tolerance for spicy foods and a level of comfort in the town of Avenal that her stepfather clearly did not.

Anders's tall frame was hunched in his seat, rumpling his suit jacket. His eyes flicked repeatedly, perhaps obsessively, toward the restaurant's other patrons. They were a mix of people, over half of whom were likely Mexican-American. Conversations in Spanish or Spanish-accented English made up much of the background chatter.

"Are you all right there, Anders?" Jackie said. He'd barely spoken since they sat down or touched his salad. Normally, he was self-assured, in control, commanding a room. "You kept saying you wanted me to meet you halfway, and this is halfway."

She'd stated both a literal and figurative truth. Avenal was halfway between her home in Foster City and his in Beverly Hills. The location and restaurant had been suggested by Patricia. She had friends here, and Jackie had dropped her off at one of their homes.

"You're very good at pretending," Anders finally said and brushed a hand through his blond hair. "Your security team did a check of the restaurant and is posted outside. That shows an authentic ease with your surroundings."

Jackie's teeth crunched into her taco. She was being purposely loud and what Anders might consider uncouth. "Oh, I have no discomfort around the locals," she said. "They don't care who I am, which is refreshing. It's your soon-to-be-ex-wife I'm watching out for."

"Your mother didn't come with me." His Swedish accent thickened, as it habitually did now, on the words your mother.

"Not physically, but perhaps she's here in spirit." A chunk of sour-cream fell from her mouth. It tapped her chin on the way to the table. "Or in the flash of a paparazzo's camera."

Her mom would be aghast at her lack of refinement. The thought was strangely exhilarating, but Jackie wiped her chin with a napkin.

"Let's speak plainly, Anders. You think I wanted to help my mom lie to you. And I think you're helping her get revenge on me for her lie being exposed, which I had nothing to do with. But in her convoluted brain, I'm sure she believes I'm directly responsible. If I'd never dated Steven Hyde in high school, if I weren't friends with him now, then her secret would still be safe—"

Anders twirled an olive-skewered fork at her. "Are you finished?"

"Dale Fischer."

"Excuse me?"

"Dale Fischer," she repeated and watched his face for a reaction. His eyes narrowed, and his shoulders rose slightly. "Dale. Fischer," she said a third time, straining her throat.

"I've never heard this name."

Her voice flattened. "You've never heard of Dale Fischer."

"No." Both his hands turned palm-side up in supplication. Who is he?"

"You really don't know." She leaned back in her chair. He wasn't responsible for those newspaper articles, but that fact didn't relieve her like it should have.

"Jackie, I don't care that you lied. I care that your mother did. She's a beautiful, cunning woman who played me for a fool. If she'd told me the truth from the start, that she had a daughter, I still would have married her." He shoveled salad into his mouth, making up for lost time. "I need you tell me what her life was like before I met her. Did she have a different career? Did she cheat on your father?"

Jackie stuffed the last bite of her taco into her mouth and began to sweat. The chili lights above would serve well in an interrogation.

"I tried to speak to her," he went on, "but your mother refuses to return my calls. I had no other choice but to file for divorce. Did she raise you in Wisconsin? Why did she and your father divorce? Did she lie to him, too?"

She pushed her empty plate aside as gooseflesh crept up her arms. "Look, I was dragged into all of this. I despised pretending my mom was my sister, and I won't be dragged into whatever war is brewing between you. If you want answers, hire a private investigator."

She stood to leave, but he patted the table with his right hand. The gold signet ring on his middle finger hit the wood and sounded like a call to arms. "Jackie, please. Sit down. I have an offer for you."

"You have nothing I want."

He smiled thinly. "Don't be so sure." His hand slipped inside his suit jacket and pulled out an envelope. "This is a check."

"Seriously?" She laughed, clutching her Chanel, half-moon purse at her side."I don't need or want your money."

"No, but you will want this check." He slid the envelope across the table to her. "It contains information you need to see."

Her eyes shut, and she envisioned herself walking out of the restaurant, but her legs wouldn't move. "Information? What kind of information?"

"The kind I'm sure you'll repay me for in due time."

Her eyes snapped open. "By being maligned in the tabloids? That ship has sailed."

"I've seen some of the stories, but I have nothing to do with those."

"Oh, no?" Her pulse quickened, slamming her heart against her ribs, and threatened to expel her lunch. "Maybe you've been setting me up along, souring me even more against my mom so I'll happily divulge her secrets."

"That's simply not—"

"Save it!" She snatched the envelope from the table and ripped it up. "I've let myself be manipulated my whole life, and I'm over it!"

The restaurant's patrons glanced in her direction. Making another public scene hadn't been on her agenda. She crammed the envelope's pieces into her purse as blood heated her face. "If you have nothing to do with the tabloids, then I'm sorry," she said more quietly, "but you did try to use me before."

She wedged a fifty-dollar bill between her plate and her glass of water—the waitstaff deserved a good tip, considering her behavior—and strode from the restaurant. Each step vibrated up her legs, but she couldn't walk fast enough. Anders followed, his voice pleading for her to listen. She shoved open the back door. The gray parking lot spread out before her, but he slipped ahead and blocked it from view.

"You must hear me, Jackie." He clasped her shoulders and held her in place. "I have nothing to do with the tabloids. It's all a—"

His hands sprang off her as Sheila yanked him backward. "That's not how you treat a lady," she said. "You want to try that with me?"

Anders looked her up and down. She matched him in height but outclassed him in muscle. He swore in Swedish, and his gaze moved to the Lincoln Town Car he'd arrived in. It was guarded by his smoking, paunchy chauffeur and had to be a rental. He'd never risk his Lexus or Miata in a town with its own state prison.

"Jackie," Sheila said, with a grip on Anders's suit jacket, "are you done here?"

"Yes, I'm done."

"She's done," Sheila said and let Anders go. She pressed a button on the walkie-talkie attached to her belt. It beeped, and the black-uniformed members of her security team appeared in the parking lot. They'd hidden in plain sight.

"Ninjas," Jackie whispered to herself. Their skill and professionalism often stole her breath. They flanked her as she entered her Miata. The car door muffled Anders's last pleas, but her mind was already elsewhere. Patricia's friend Lucrecia was cooking a huge dinner tonight—including pernil, which Lucrecia explained was pork shoulder, as well as black beans mixed with small potatoes, and white rice—and Jackie had an invitation.

She also had a lot of time to kill until then. She started the car's engine as Sheila sat beside her in the passenger seat. "Could you open the map?" Jackie said, nodding at the car's center console.

Sheila unfolded the road map, passed it to Jackie, and said, "Did you get what you were after?"

"Partly." Jackie's eyes scanned the map and paused on the Gernwin National Wildlife Refuge. She'd hoped to go there someday with Steven, but it was interesting enough to accommodate more than one visit. "He's never heard of Dale Fischer."

Sheila's thinly-plucked eyebrows rose high on her forehead. "How can you be sure?"

"I can't be, not a hundred-percent, but he's not that good an actor. I have to trust my gut on this one."

"So what's your next move?" Sheila's gaze shifted from the windshield to the passenger-side window then back to the windshield. What Jackie shared with her about Dale Fischer last night had put her on high alert.

"Wait and see if I get anything else in the mail," Jackie said. "In the mean time, I'm going to let you do your job." She returned the map to Sheila. "And today that job includes navigating. We're going to the Gernwin National Wildlife Refuge."

Sheila examined the map before informing her security team of Jackie's next location. The team would follow Jackie in its silver-painted van.

The Miata sped from the parking lot. Its roof was closed, concealing Jackie and Sheila from outside eyes, but Jackie missed the feeling of air rushing past her body. It was a thrill she had to deny herself out of survival, like so many other joys.

But she was sick of just surviving. She finally had a new dream: to wake up excited about the day instead of waiting for sleep to rescue her from it.

May 12, 1995

St. Paul, Minnesota

Baker Street Inn
…

Hyde hadn't shaved since leaving Minnesota. Now that he was back, he needed to leave the vagabond look behind. Ro preferred him without scruff, although she'd probably spit in his face when she next saw it. He'd driven into St. Paul yesterday and spent the night at the Baker Street Inn, a few blocks from his recording studio. Ro hadn't answered any of his calls to their house, but he'd left his whereabouts on her answering machine.

In his bathroom at the inn, he scrubbed excess shaving cream off his jaw with a towel. He'd done a decent job, hadn't cut himself, and finished dressing in the bedroom. A reporter on TV spoke about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Over a 170 countries had agreed to it, and that was good news, but an air-raid siren blared inside Hyde's skull.

Jackie had sounded afraid during their last phone call three days ago. She'd asked about Degenerate Matter's next album and his Chicago visit, but she gave him no space to ask questions of his own.

What she voluntarily told him was optimistic, but terror scurried beneath her words. After a year of friendship, he'd become proficient in reading her. The subtleties in her tone were obvious to him, especially when she hid the truth, and she was hiding a whopper.

The inn phone rang, blending with his internal air-raid siren. He scooped up the receiver, expecting to hear Jackie's voice, hoping to, but the concierge said, "A Ms. Suzy Styrene is here to see you. Should I send her up?"

Suzy Styrene was one of Ro's fake names, an homage to her punk-rock forebears.

"Yeah," he said, and her telltale double-knock vibrated the door a minute later. He let her in, and she sauntered past him, wearing one of his favorite Led Zeppelin tees. It was slashed, and safety-pins held the wounds partially closed. She must have cut it up in fit of rage while he was gone.

"We need you at the studio," she said. "'Magnetar' isn't working musically, and we're reverse-engineering it."

"And?" He grabbed the TV remote from the bed but kept the TV on, in case this reunion went to hell.

"It's your song. If we're going to change it, you have to be there to keep the soul intact."

He laughed and tossed the remote back onto the bed. "Man, you've got your chance to perform an exorcism here. You and Lee can evict my soul from whatever I've given the band so far." A rush of heat tensed his body. He crossed his arms over his chest, as if that would imprison his anger. "In fact, you can evict it from yourself 'cause what you've pulled on me is bullshit."

"There's no eviction sign taped to the door, so say what you have to say." Her voice was calm, and her stance wasn't defensive. She seemed to be listening, finally, and he gestured to his face. The bruising on his cheek and the scrape on his nose had healed, but the injuries went deeper than his skin.

"If you hit me again because you're pissed, we're done."

She took a step toward him. "What if I hit you because I'm horny?"

"Not happening." He put up his hand to stop her from advancing. "We're not resolving this by screwing. You want to yell the fuck out of me, that's one thing. But I don't like being slugged."

She sat on the bed and shut off the TV with the remote. She leaned her back against the headboard, laced her fingers behind her head, and crossed her legs at the ankles. "You said something once about how your ma used to hit you."

"Even if she hadn't, I'm not doin' that kind of relationship." He backed off from the bed until his butt smacked into the room's desk. "I've never hit you, and I sure as hell never would."

"Not with fists, love."

"Can't change how you perceive what I say. Trusting you with my life ain't the same as tryin' to hurt you with it. If you don't get that by now, you won't."

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was facing him now, with her hands on her denim-clad knees. Silence stretched between them like starless space, and he pushed his palms into the edge of the desk.

"You accepted me whole," she said quietly, "and I haven't done the same."

He clamped his mouth shut, so hard it hurt his jaw. Her admission was jolting, more self-aware than he was used to, but she needed to give him more.

"We've both had our traumas..." She looked beyond him to the window, and her fingers drummed on her knees. "But my philosophy is to show these traumatic events they don't matter, that they have no impact on our present life. I want to help you to live in the here and now, as I always have."

"I get that, man, but—" His hair was extra frizzy from sleeping on it wet last night. It made his cheeks itch, and he pulled it from his face. "But I need to have goddamn support when the past is the present. A kid's mind and body can't always process the shit that happens as it happens. So they store it away it until you're old enough to freakin' deal, and that's what's happening to me."

"You got that from a book."

"So? You keep tellin' me to see a shrink. And I am—in book-form. For now."

She hopped off the bed and approached him by the desk. She stopped when their legs touched. "I can't fix you."

"Didn't ask you to." He spread his legs wider, inviting her inside. She followed his cue, and his hands skimmed over her hips. "The night you carved that scar into my arm, you told me why you feel connected to me..."

His fingers inched beneath her ripped shirt. Her stomach was warm to the touch, and his body ached to merge with hers in peace. With love. "Prove it, Spark. Fuckin' connect with me."

She rubbed the ends of his hair between her thumb and forefinger. "You need a haircut. It's almost as long as Lee's."

"Ro—"

Her hands slid into his scalp but didn't scratch him. She combed her fingers through his hair gently. "How badly did she hit you?"

"Bad."

"Did she ever make you bleed?"

"A few times."

"How'd you hide the bruises?"

"Skipped school and borrowed Forman's hooded sweatshirt. He never got it back."

She stepped out from between his legs and dragged out the desk chair. She patted his thigh, a signal she wanted to sit on his lap. He obliged, and she slipped her arm around his shoulders. "Ever wake up in the morning not able to move?" she said.

"Once or twice."

"Tell me."

He cleared his throat. It had tightened, not with memories but with Ro's willingness to hear them. "She came home drunk and kicked me in the stones. This was a few months after Bud split. The night hadn't gone well for her. I dropped to the floor, and she had a go at my back with a booze bottle. Bourbon splashed onto my face."

He laughed sadly at the memory, and his arms tightened around Ro's waist. "Thought to myself that I'd become a piñata, only the prize wasn't candy but my puke 'cause she'd gotten me to vomit."

"That's not actually funny." She ran her thumb down the bridge of his nose. Her hand had a slight tremor, but he couldn't tell whether it was from nerves or sympathetic anger. "I'll won't hit you again."

He lowered his forehead to her temple, and his eyes closed as months' long weariness overtook him. He'd never expected her to be this receptive, not without sex being involved. Maybe his absence had caused a shift inside her, or she'd talked to someone who'd broken through her defenses. Whatever was the catalyst, it had recharged his connection to her. "Thank you," he said and kissed the top of her ear.

She cupped the back of his head and scratched it tenderly. "Does this mean you've taken down your eviction sign?"

He met her gaze. Her eyes contained a mix of lust and desperation, but he couldn't give her what she wanted. This new dynamic between them was barely five minutes old and fragile. He wouldn't risk it with premature sex.

"This ain't an eviction notice," he said. "My skull just isn't there yet. Not gonna put either of us through that."

She got off his lap but grasped his hands. "Then you keep reading those books of yours, and I'll keep taking care of myself until you're ready."

She yanked him from the chair, and he glanced at the room's paintings. They depicted St. Paul landmarks, like the Wabasha Street Bridge, in the impressionist style. His thoughts were painted similarly, in broken, thick strokes that conveyed the essence of his next move but not the specifics.

His thumb rubbed over her engagement ring and initiated their reuniting ritual, trying to communicate his feelings for her in a look. "This is only for you," he said, but his blazing hot core swelled like a red giant through his whole body.

She pressed his hand to the center of her chest. "My heart belongs to you," she said in Scottish Gaelic.

Her words shot into his core, but the dying star inside him engulfed it in a red haze, disintegrating the love they should have inspired.