(a week later)
NYC
8:45AM
Jackie allowed herself to sleep in on a Sunday. She had it in her contract that she
would always have Sunday's off. It was one of the benefits of having a manager that
tried desperately to get her in the sack. She put on her blue facial mask before
going to bed. She did everything she could possibly do apart from going under the
surgeon's knife to stay youthful. She was thirty-eight years old and in a business
where the top stars were getting younger and younger beauty care was no longer a
fun little thing to do while watching TV it was a necessity. This wasn't how she
pictured her life doing musical theatre at supper clubs for senior citizens and bored
tourists. She was on her way to being a super-not-just model when she was
promised the moon. This could lead to commercials. Yeah, one local one, which for
New York City was a very lucrative market, but it only aired twice and was a
advertisement for a local mini mart store. She was crushed because they decided
to use the owner's younger, blonde, and buxom daughter to star
in the ads and so much for the commercials can lead you right into your own TV
series advice. She rinsed the hardened mask off her face as the coffee perked in
the hotel coffeemaker. She hated her life. First she was a stupid
naïve young girl when the gorgeous yet dim-witted Michael Kelso entered her life.
She loved the attention and the popularity from her peer group that the insecure
cheerleader was dating a cute upperclassman. The money, the emotions, and the
time she wasted on him still made her want to jump off the balcony. Then there was
her Zenmaster the emotionless Steven Hyde. The one who was to supposed to save
her from the last time she was going to let Michael break her heart. It was the last
straw when he and Donna ran away and went to California. Making out on the sofa
while no one was around does not a relationship make. She tried with Steven. She
even forgave him when he cheated on her with that nurse. There was something
about the relationship that Jackie couldn't put her finger on, but now that she was
older it made perfect sense. He always had these little put-downs for her. They
might have been said "under the guise of love" but she still didn't want to be
anybody's joke. She wanted to be displayed like a flower. She didn't want the rut
that Steven Hyde was happy to live his life in, but she was going to accept it
because she thought she could mold and shape him into her specifications. He'd go
to college and be something, pick a career that he was good at, stop smoking pot,
get married, get a perfect little house, and then the babies would come. But it didn't
quite work out that way when not only did Donna leave Eric she ran off with Steven!
At least Eric could say, "In retrospect I saw it coming", but she never pictured that
Steven would do that to her. After all he put down his ice cream and got out of Red's
comfortable yet ugly pea soup colored recliner to get her a Vogue. Kitty told her to
"pick her battles", but Steven was not Red. Red came from a generation where
people stayed in their relationships and it helped that he and Kitty actually loved
each other. Eric was a wonderful friend to her and they were both surprised that the
geeky treasurer-secretary from the AV Club and the Cheerleader actually became
friends. She tried to seduce Eric once and he refused her. Nobody refused Jackie
Burkhart, but then again she only slept with guys that she loved not put notches
above the bedpost like Michael.
"I want us to be friends."
Yeah, he said it. And it wasn't until days like these that she realized that Eric was
right. He tried to get her to go out with Fez but Fez was the one that she wanted to
be friends with. After his marriage to Laurie was annulled, he moved away, taking a
lesson from the Donna and Steven bail book he just moved out of the Erdmans
house to get the rest of his belongings including his giant panda bear from his
cousin in Hong Kong without a word to anyone. As time went on she was glad to
have Eric Forman as her friend. The only one from the basement gang that she
could confide in and Donna turned out to be a backstabbing bitch who didn't care
about her feelings at all when she went traipsing off to a 'happily ever after' with him.
"Everyone knows that Donna was a bitch." Eric told her once when she visited him
on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. She didn't know if that was for
his benefit or hers—or maybe the both of them, but it certainly made her feel better.
Jackie didn't bother to get dressed; she just sat on the chaise lounge in her knee
length silk emerald green robe with the pink rose on the lapel. She wondered how
Eric could allow himself to stay in such a loveless farce of a marriage and it probably
would have been that way if it were Donna…WAIT! She almost jumped to her feet.
She had the answer that Eric needed and not only would it help him, but she was
certain it would benefit his son and her godson Jacen in only the most positive of
ways.
She walked over the desk to take the phone book out of the drawer. She didn't
know whom to call at first and then she figured those stores that deal with vintage
comic books would know.
The things you do for your friends.
"A month from now in Chicago?" she repeated back
"Yes." The pimply faced adolescent answering the phone seemed pissed off that
she was invading his precious video game time.
"And that's the closest one to New York?"
"Yes!"
"Thanks." She hung up before he could.
Now it was on to call her manager. She was going to need a week off from her
performing duties next month and she didn't care what was in her contract. Let him
fine her. Let him fire her. She was rich. She didn't care. She was Jackie
Burkhart.
And it was a lesson it almost took a lifetime to learn from the former self absorbed
me-me-me little girl:
Because sometimes your friends, especially your best friends, come first.