Chapter Text
pink larkspurs — fickleness .
Saturday March 12, 1977
At first, she didn’t even notice the delay in her period.
She was otherwise consumed with all things someone her age ought to have been: social status, schoolwork, and her flighty boyfriend.
The cheer squad and popular cliques had been ruthless ever since Michael had been caught kissing Pam Macy behind the gym in January. Everyone involved in the scandal had a specific role to play in the rumors that were spread throughout the halls of Point Place High.
Pam Macy was the tempting slut that had been impossible for him to resist. Michael was the cheating dog that had given in far too easily. Which left Jackie, the slighted party. However, instead of being interpreted as the scorned girlfriend, people perceived her as the annoying shrew that had obviously driven Michael to cheat. How she somehow bore a portion of responsibility for his infidelity was beyond her, but it was the preferred spin on the story.
As a result, she’d had to spend a majority of her time in the new year cobbling together her pride and maintaining her reputation. And, as if that wasn’t difficult enough, she’d been feeling completely exhausted for the past month no matter how much sleep she tried to get. The unprecedented weariness plagued her throughout almost each and every day—to the point where it was beginning to impact her ability to focus during classes. This, in turn, forced her to buckle down and work harder at her homework whenever she wasn’t busy with cheer or socializing.
That left Michael, her third and biggest distraction.
Not a week after he’d cheated on her and she’d taken him back, she had, perhaps spurred by her insecurities over his infidelity, spontaneously agreed to have sex with him. It had happened after he’d been mistakenly arrested for driving his grandmother’s car without permission, and she had foolishly thought she would have time to wait until his release. She had nevertheless decided to go through with her promise to give him her virginity, to demonstrate the extent of her love for him through the ultimate act of intimacy.
In the end, it had been a brief and disappointing experience, but even more frustrating was how he had spent the following week avoiding her and dodging her calls. He had eventually reached out to her with a stuffed unicorn in hand, claiming that his family’s phones had been getting cleaned.
Initially, she had leapt at the opportunity to welcome him back. The week of no contact after she had given him her virginity had rattled her confidence, which had led to her almost debasing herself entirely by acting like a desperate servant to him. She had never appreciated Donna Pinciotti more than she had when the big goon of a girl reminded her that she didn’t need to cater to Michael’s each and every whim to keep him happy.
She’d begun reasserting herself in the relationship immediately, attempting to correct the power imbalance that Michael had taken advantage of. And after putting Michael back in his place, she’d demanded that he buy her flowers as an apology for his bad behavior. He’d complained about not having enough money to do so (of course), so she’d given him cash and told him to surprise her with a beautiful bouquet.
He’d done as she commanded, but she found whatever ‘power’ she’d achieved over him was variable—and it wasn’t long before it became apparent that he was a lot pushier than she’d anticipated he would be.
In fact, he’d been all over her at every possible moment ever since their reconciliation.
Any time they found themselves alone, his hands would grope for her and his lips would be at her neck. He’d slip his fingers beneath the hem of her shirt or the waistband of her underwear without permission and whisper against her ear—“Why cuddle when we could do it?”—and sometimes his hands would continue to touch her even after she’d asked him to stop. She’d insist, and then he’d pout and complain until she grew sick of it and agreed to have sex just so he would shut up.
Two days prior, the last time she’d fooled around with him, his clumsy, overexcited hands fondling her chest had actually managed to make it hurt. He’d mistaken her cry of pain for a good thing and pinched her nipples in response. She’d slapped his bare chest and told him to stop, which he had misinterpreted to mean he could skip past the rest of foreplay. Despite her asking him to give her a minute, his hands had gripped her hips and pulled her on top of him, bouncing her up and down until he’d finished.
She had braced her hands on his shoulders during, trying desperately to yield any sense of pleasure from being filled by him. A flicker of something had started to build between her legs, but as usual he only lasted about as long as she had come to expect him to—in other words, not very long at all. She’d smacked his bare chest again afterwards, complaining about her sore breasts. He had offered a half-hearted apology, telling her she would probably feel better the next day.
But her breasts had continued to be sore. So, Friday afternoon while studying at The Hub with Donna, she had asked her in a hushed voice, “Donna, do your boobs ever hurt?”
Donna’s brow had furrowed, clearly confused by the random, perhaps inappropriately invasive question. The redhead had contemplated it regardless, before answering honestly with a shrug. “Yeah, sometimes? It usually goes away after I get my period, though.”
“Ah, that’s probably it,” she’d said.
But that morning she realized she was late. Quite late.
And then she remembered the night Michael had ‘bought’ her flowers.
Michael had either forgotten or lost his condom—or maybe he’d intentionally not brought one, since he’d complained about using them ever since they first had sex. He had nevertheless insisted that if she ‘really loved him’ she would do it with him anyways.
Especially after all the trouble he went through to get her flowers.
They had been pink larkspurs instead of roses, but her happiness that he’d done as she asked outweighed her disappointment—outweighed her logic. Where she might have normally reminded him that she paid him to buy her flowers, instead she had felt compelled to appease his petulance.
Michael had agreed—had promised—to pull out beforehand. However, they’d both underestimated the speed with which his climax typically came. Her initial worries began to fade after she’d remembered her cousin Carla telling her that it was impossible to get pregnant eight days after her period, and she had thought that maybe that once without a condom would be fine. Clinging to her cousin’s words of wisdom, she had put the incident from her mind.
But then there had also been Valentine’s Day, just the week after that incident, and she couldn’t remember if Michael had worn a condom that time either. Michael had fumbled on top of her in the front seat of her father’s Lincoln Continental. They hadn’t even fully undressed. She knew she had told him to put one on, but as she strained to recall the finer details of her memory, she couldn’t remember whether or not she actually saw him put one on.
As both memories poured over her like ice-water, the muscles in her stomach clenched, somehow rising and plummeting simultaneously. She launched from her bed and scrambled towards her en suite bathroom. She nearly didn’t make it to her toilet before she threw up her breakfast. Afterwards, she sat on the tiled floor of her pink and white bathroom for a long time, staring at nothing as she tried to parse through the shock that wracked through her body.
But just like she couldn’t keep vomit from ejecting out of her mouth, she felt the horrible impulse one got when they had a huge secret—the desperate need to tell someone about it.
She sat there for a long time trembling, either from the nausea or the fear, before she was able to get up and make herself presentable. She needed someone to know—or maybe she just needed someone to comfort her, because she suddenly felt very close to a shattering point.
Donna had been the first person that’d come to mind, but when she arrived at the Forman residence, she only found Eric embarrassing himself by dancing alone in his basement. She realized she would have to settle for him. He wasn’t Donna, but he would suffice. He was sort of sensitive like a girl, and he had been very sweet throughout his burgeoning romance with Donna. However, he tried to flee from her the moment she sat down on the couch. She called out to him anyway, briefly regretting the way desperation had crept into her voice.
“Eric, can I talk to you?” She wasn’t sure if it was the question that gave him pause or her tone of voice, but he paused his ascent up the stairs. “Look, I’ve always been able to trust you, and God, you’re such a nice guy—”
“No, I’m not!” He blurted out, laughing awkwardly. However, he retreated down the steps and wandered back over to her regardless—because she had assessed him correctly, he was a nice guy.
“Yes, you are,” she told him sincerely. It worked, he sat back down on the couch—though not without rolling his eyes.
“Okay, okay, what happened? Did Kelso forget your birthday or something?”
Instead of reminding him that her birthday was in September, she got directly to the point. “I’m pregnant.”
One might have thought she had just told him he was the father, the way his mouth dropped open with a high-pitched squawk. If her nerves hadn’t been so strained, she might have laughed—because his reaction was truly humorous. In fact, a sound that was almost a laugh escaped her, but it was quickly followed by a sharp inhale as the urge to cry nearly overwhelmed her.
She blinked against the sting of tears welling in her eyes, averting her gaze. She had only meant to tell someone, not fall apart in front of them. Just because she had achieved her goal didn’t mean she wanted to cry in front of Eric Forman. She may have hoped for some comfort, but Eric seemed to be in such a state of shock he was unable to provide it to her, and she wasn’t about to make things worse by intentionally seeking his pity.
Belatedly, she realized that maybe she should have just waited for Donna.
After a long, quiet moment, she was able to swipe away the threat of tears. She stood and moved towards the door, grabbing her coat and purse. “I’m sorry, I just needed to say it out loud, don’t tell anyone, okay? Not until I talk to Donna about it.”
He was unresponsive to her request, but she trusted him to be cognizant enough to at least follow those instructions.
The peculiar energy hovering around their table in The Hub left his skin prickly and agitated, to the point where he felt fidgety. Like he was anticipating bad news of some kind. It was the same sort of vibe he’d had the day his dad had been arrested and sent to jail, or the day his dad had skipped out on him and Edna. The sensation almost reminded him of the faintly electrical scent that lingered in the air before a big summer thunderstorm—the kinds of storms that uprooted trees and broke homes.
He couldn’t quite pin down the source, though.
Well, he at least knew for a fact that it wasn’t because of Fez telling them all about a dream he’d had where he’d been playing the accordion in the nude for The Three Stooges.
“Somehow, the accordion part bothers me more than the nude part,” he said idly, but no one acknowledged his remark.
Forman had basically spent the entire time since he’d arrived staring off into the middle distance, not saying a peep or reacting to anything anyone else said—with one exception. When Jackie had arrived twenty minutes ago, a brief, panicked look had overtaken Forman’s face. Stranger still was how Forman had looked as though he was going to puke the moment she sat down next to Kelso.
Jackie was off, too. As annoying as it was to have become familiar enough with her to notice any irregularities in her mood, she’d become a common enough fixture in their lives the past year that she was predictable. One could always count on Jackie Burkhart to display some combination of chatty, bossy, or snooty attitude. She was none of those things that night, though.
She’d said next to nothing from the moment she sat down, instead sitting there quietly picking at her order of fries. He noticed a few times that her nose wrinkled before she seemingly forced herself to eat something. Maybe she was trying out some new fad diet and she simply lacked the energy to yap at them.
Whatever her deal was, she continued to linger, contributing nothing to the conversation—not even a morsel of her usual gossip or unsolicited fashion advice.
He didn’t know her well enough to get a decent read on her, but that didn’t stop him from trying to puzzle out what had happened between Forman and Jackie to cause them to both act so strangely at the same time. When she had arrived, he had been able to deduce that whatever was bothering Forman had something to do with Jackie. Forman had basically given that away with the perpetual silent scream his expression seemed frozen in—but it was still beyond weird.
He couldn’t imagine it was some torrid love affair between the two of them, since both of them expressly did not find the other attractive. He supposed it could’ve been something like Jackie blackmailing Forman with something embarrassing. She seemed the type to lord something over someone else for leverage. The only problem with that theory was that there wasn’t a lot he imagined she’d want to leverage Forman for. The only other possibility that was available to him was that they had witnessed some horrible crime and they’d both sworn each other to secrecy.
A sharp smack drew his attention to her as she slapped Kelso’s hand reaching for her fries. “Michael, stop it!”
“What I’d do?” Kelso asked, sulking.
“Look, I just need all the food I can get right now,” Jackie explained quietly, despite having not really demonstrated much of an appetite that entire night. An uncomfortable laugh abruptly exploded out of Forman in response.
Hyde’s brow furrowed as he glanced at Forman again, but the guy intentionally avoided his gaze. Moments later, Donna appeared, requesting Jackie accompany her to the restroom. The oddities and suspicious behaviors kept piling up, and he could tell Forman knew what this was all about. He turned in his seat a little to stare at him as the girls disappeared down the hall leading to the restrooms. Forman briefly glanced in his direction before his eyes dropped back to the table in front of him.
“Man, she has been acting so weird lately!” Kelso complained loudly. “I’m telling you guys, I think it’s time I break up with her!”
Forman’s head snapped up at that, and then he pointed a scolding finger at Kelso. “Oh, that’s real nice! Why don’t you grow up?!”
“Forman,” Hyde interjected calmly, “you’re yelling, man.”
“What, I—” Forman glanced from Kelso to him, before looking back at Kelso.
“Yeah, Eric, what’s the big idea? I thought you hated Jackie?” Kelso asked, frowning.
Forman floundered while attempting to answer the question, his hand wavering around to expend whatever nervous energy was bundled up in his body. “No, I do—well, I mean, hate is kind of a strong word—look, the point is, I just think that, maybe, she needs you or whatever.”
“Well, yeah of course she does, I know that,” Kelso said with a laugh and a shake of his head.
“Oh, you do?” Forman said, almost sounding relieved. “So, she already told you?”
The metaphorical thunderstorm crashed overhead and, like a cloudburst, the information he’d gathered through observing them all since they’d sat down in The Hub suddenly fell into place, sending a chill down his spine as he glanced from Forman to Kelso. He was thankful his glasses were on, because while he was able to keep the majority of his expression in check by leaning into his Zen, he felt his eyes widen slightly at the realization.
“Told me about what?” Kelso’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I was saying she needs me because she loves me, or whatever.”
“Oh.” The single syllable escaped Forman in a whisper, and his gaze fell back into staring off into the middle distance. The table was quiet for a tense moment as Kelso’s brain attempted calculations he would never be able to solve on his own.
“Wait, what’re you talking about?” Kelso asked, blinking at Forman.
“I—I, um…did I say anything? I don’t remember saying anything,” Forman lied, poorly, glancing at him. Perhaps he was looking for help. Hyde’s lips parted, but nothing useful came out. If his assumption was correct, he did not envy the position Forman found himself in, nor did he quite know what to say without clear confirmation. However, Kelso kept trying to fit the puzzle pieces into the wrong spots, never quite connecting the dots.
“Yeah, you did! You said ‘she needed me’ and I said ‘of course she does’ and then you said ‘so she already told you’, and then I said ‘she needs me because she loves me or whatever’, but all you said was ‘oh’, and you didn’t tell me—”
As he saw Kelso spiraling trying to make sense of the situation and Forman’s face flushing under the pressure of the conversation, he finally found his voice and interjected bluntly. “Yeah, Kelso, I don’t think her bein’ in love with you or whatever was what Forman was talkin’ about.”
“Well, then, what was he talking about, Hyde?” Kelso leaned towards Forman in an effort to meet his gaze, but Forman wouldn’t look directly at him. “Jackie told you a secret before she told me? But—why would she do that? What’s the secret?”
“Forman,” Hyde said quietly—mostly because if his suspicion was correct, Kelso had a right to at least know.
“Wh—” Forman looked at him suddenly, and his shoulders lifted to his ears as if to try and make himself smaller, shrinking against his discomfort. “It’s not my secret to tell, Hyde!”
“Eric!” Kelso demanded loudly. “She’s my girlfriend, just tell me the secret!”
Forman hesitated and then relented with a sigh. “Well, she did tell me to wait until she told Donna, which is what’s probably happening now, so—” He shrugged and leaned across the table to whisper into Kelso’s ear.
It made no difference though, Hyde didn’t need to hear it out loud to know his guess had unfortunately been right.
He watched Kelso leap up and stagger back from the table, laughing nervously. “No—no, you’re just trying to burn me or something because that’s,” he said, shaking his head, “that’s impossible! She can’t be—” The word got caught in his mouth and his eyelashes started to flutter.
“Fez,” Hyde said, leaning forward in his chair and gesturing with his chin. “He’s about to pass out.”
“What?” Fez asked, before Kelso collapsed on the ground behind his chair.
She offered to drive Michael home once he was conscious again.
Even though he was able to stand up and walk, as she looked at his face she could tell he was in a state of shock similar to the one she had been in earlier that morning. However, while she had immediately vomited at the realization, it appeared Michael had simply become catatonic.
She made no effort to get him to respond there in The Hub, fearful he might blurt something stupid out and announce their situation to every other patron present. Instead, she waited until after Donna and Eric had helped her take him out to her car and she had climbed into the driver’s seat—then the two of them were finally alone.
“Michael,” she said, and he turned his head towards her slightly. “Michael, are you hurt? Did you hit your head? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes, but didn’t say anything. She allowed the cramped quiet between them to last at least a minute before she broke it—impressing even herself with the level of control she exhibited in restraining the litany of words crowding in her mouth. However, the unpleasant awkwardness between them was not sustainable, not when they had so many things to talk about.
“Michael, I need you to say something!” She blurted out, surprised to hear the panic in her own voice. She had thought she was calm, but somewhere during that brief minute of silence, she must have started crying.
“Jackie,” he said slowly, crumpling forward in his seat to bury his face in his hands, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Okay,” she said through a hiccup, trying desperately to regain her composure. She knew it was big news and that it was a lot to digest. Even she hadn’t fully processed it yet.
In some corner of her mind where logic still existed, she could acknowledge that maybe they just needed some time to sit with the information. However, his reluctance to even ask how she was doing or feeling, let alone assure her that he would support her, smashed through her like a hammer. Pieces of herself instantly splintered and broke into tiny, unidentifiable fragments, and the lack of comfort he offered felt the same as him scattering those pieces of her to the wind. The feeling of disappointment and worry was quickly becoming overwhelming. It was much too much to cope with the possibility of having to make all the decisions for her and her child alone.
She felt herself smile as a hysterical giggle bubbled out of her.
“We—we just need a day or so to think about things, right?” She suggested then, in full denial of any possible future in which Michael didn’t at least take some degree of responsibility for what had happened.
At first Michael only sighed into his palms and didn’t lift his head, his lack of response another blow that left her feeling vulnerable and exposed. However, at her goading, he eventually made an effort to play into her fantasy. “Yeah, sure, I think a day would be great.”
But he said nothing more during the drive back to the Kelso residence, and she didn’t have the energy or confidence to keep trying to badger him into promising her he was going to help her. Instead, her hands flexed on the steering wheel and she tried to focus on getting him home and stopping herself from sobbing. By the time they’d arrived the tears streaming down her face had eased to small, quiet rivers and her sobs had settled into periodic catches in her breath.
As she put the Lincoln into park, she risked a glance at him. He was half-turned away from her, looking out the passenger window. That he seemed unable to even look at her stung at first, before she felt a rush of resentment flood her senses. After all, it wasn’t as if she had gotten herself pregnant all on her own! Her mouth opened to spit something unkind out at him, but he finally spoke.
“Have you told your parents yet?” He asked, and the negligible amount of interest he displayed in their current predicament mollified her anger somewhat.
She blinked at him a few times. “N-No, not yet.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said, and then he chuckled a little. The sound of his laughter was like kindling to the flame of her temper. “We don’t know what we’re doing yet, and the last thing I need is your dad trying to strangle me, or worse.”
Or worse.
Anyone with half a brain could figure out that he’d meant the idea of her father forcing him to marry her was somehow worse than being strangled to death. Her anger fully reignited. The only trouble was, she knew she was going to start crying again and she didn’t want to expose her weakness to him that evening anymore than she already had, so she couldn’t even scold him in the way he deserved. Instead, the next best thing was to be away from him.
“Get out, Michael—now!”
“Jackie—”
“We’ll talk later Michael, just go home!” She interrupted him, and suddenly she was the one who couldn’t stand the sight of him. She turned her face away, staring at a burgundy Oldsmobile Cutlass parked across the street.
“You know, you’re not being very nice to me about this, Jackie!” He snapped at her. “This is a lot for me to handle right now!”
She grit her teeth, but refused to look at him. “Get. Out.”
“Fine,” he said dramatically, as he opened the door, “but just so you know, I’m not calling you later tonight!”
“Fine!” She screamed at him. “I don’t want to talk to you right now anyway!”
“Fine!” He yelled back, before slamming the car door shut and storming into his house.
She pressed her foot on the gas and peeled down the road, driving a few blocks before she was forced to pull over. She knew, as her vision had begun to blur and the deep, shuddering sobs overwhelmed her, she needed a moment to collect herself before she went home. The last thing she wanted to add to her current list of problems was crashing her father’s vehicle. She didn’t pay attention to how many minutes passed, her eyes staring ahead vacantly at a streetlight cycle through green, amber, and red colors, before she had finally settled down enough to head home.
For once, she was grateful for the quiet of an empty house when she arrived. It made collapsing onto her bed in complete and utter exhaustion a lot easier.
Sunday March 13, 1977
“This is scary, man,” Kelso said, shaking his head, “I might have to get married!”
“Not just married,” Hyde added, looking down at him. “Married to Jackie—that’s freakin’ terrifying.”
Jackie Burkhart was one of the most abrasive chicks he’d ever met and he could only imagine that’d get worse once she had a ring on her finger and a kid hanging off her hip. He’d concede that this whole ordeal was probably more terrifying for her, though—she was the one who actually had to physically have the kid, after all.
Regardless, proposing to her was about the only honorable thing Kelso could do in his situation. She would have a hard enough time just being pregnant at her age, if she was also unwed and pregnant she’d be even worse off. She might have been about the most annoying chick in all of Point Place, but she was still going to be the mother of Kelso’s kid. It went without saying that the guy had an obligation to look out for the kid, and her by extension.
If he didn’t, well, he’d be one of the scummiest types of guys that existed.
Kelso was too busy focused on his own shock, though, and was losing sight of the more problematic variables—the grandparents.
The Kelso family was used to taking care of lots of kids, so they’d probably be at least capable of helping out with a newborn baby—maybe even enough to allow the two of them to finish high school. Her family was a wild card, though. He didn’t know much about them besides the fact that they were disgustingly wealthy. If they disowned her that would leave her in an even more of a lurch, but if they helped her out then at least she would probably be okay financially. Either way, it was easy to see that she was in a tough spot.
It was a little off-putting how much he was ruminating on a girl he considered nothing more than a reluctant acquaintance—especially one that he usually considered a nuisance. But given his own personal circumstances, he supposed it was hard for him not to feel sympathetic for their situation. He felt badly for the accidental ‘bundle of joy’ to-be mostly, though. Her and her future kid’s predicament was tugging at his rusted over heartstrings, eliciting a painful, uncomfortable twang that vibrated down to his core. Between Kelso, Jackie, and their oops-baby, he knew firsthand whoever that kid ended up being was going to have it the hardest out of all three of them.
He shook his head a little and tried to refocus on the conversation the rest of the guys were in the middle of. After Fez had expressed a weird interest in large, swollen feet, Kelso had declared to them all that he was never having sex again. Forman, still being a virgin, had responded with a lazy sense of scorn. A back and forth between the two of them ensued, and as he picked up on the state of the bickering, they were still going at it with neither making any useful progress.
“Kelso, trust me,” Hyde interjected sharply, “you’re gonna wanna have sex again—and hopefully next time you’ll use a condom.”
“But it feels better without one…I mean, I forgot, all right?” Kelso blurted out defensively, clearly interpreting his words as blame.
Based on Kelso’s statement, it appeared that maybe his words should’ve been delivered in such a way that they assigned blame. He knew that both of them had been virgins before they’d had sex, but Kelso was older than she was—not to mention he had been subjected to Mrs. Forman’s educational pep talks about condoms and safe sex like the rest of them since the age of fourteen. Mrs. Forman was pretty progressive that way, and with her being a nurse she wasn’t exactly shy about bringing it up. Yet another reason why Kelso should’ve known better.
“You’re a moron,” Hyde said, shaking his head.
“Come on, man, it’s not my fault! She should’ve been on the pill, that’s on her!” He continued to whine. “And I mean, every guy should get at least one freebie, am I right? It’s so unfair! Why does this have to happen to me?”
“You know,” Hyde said in a low tone, finding his temper elevate the more he listened to Kelso moan and complain about it, “if you don’t shut the hell up, I might have to kick your ass.”
“Hyde’s right,” Forman said, and they all glanced at him. “I mostly mean about the moron thing—I’m not gonna kick your ass.”
“Everyone’s against me,” Kelso grumbled, folding his arms across his chest and pouting like a child, rather than someone who might be having a child.
“No one’s against you, it’s just she’s the one that has to be pregnant,” Forman tried to explain, tried being reasonable, as he stared off into the middle distance again. “Come on man, you know it’s worse for girls, Kelso.”
No one said anything for a while after that. While Kelso had been so busy complaining about people not being nice enough to him about what was going on, Jackie was having to face the reality that there were no real means of keeping this a secret and she would in all likelihood become a social pariah. The students would treat her horribly, the teachers would probably judge her, and wherever she went in public people would stare. Kelso didn’t have to worry about any of that, though—not unless he was going to roll up his sleeves and get into the muck with her, and do whatever he needed to do to shield her from the worst of it.
“Well,” Forman exhaled after a minute of contemplative silence, “I have a new appreciation for my mom constantly harping on about condoms and safe sex.” Hyde glanced down at Forman and met his gaze, before giving a brief nod in agreement.
He glanced back down at Kelso then, who seemed to have shut his eyes with a sigh—as if in physical pain. But he wasn’t in pain in the traditional sense, it was just that he’d come to a decision to do something he clearly didn’t want to do.
“Ugh, fine,” Kelso said, wincing through the words, “I guess I have to marry Jackie.”