Wedding Crashers

Reception

Jackie Burkhart waits eagerly for Steven to return from work. Doing homework in Donna's room has grown tiresome. He'd planned a special surprise for her eighteenth birthday tonight, which passed quietly a few days before with her mom so draped over Mr. Pinciotti she'd seemed to have conveniently forgotten. Dress nice, he'd told her as he buttoned his chef's apron before his shift. This should be your kind of thing. Normally he hated every component of this type of surprise: gifts, dressing up, birthdays. She doesn't have the slightest idea what he could be planning, and it threatens to overwhelm her as she glares at her math homework.

"I can't take it anymore. I'm getting ready" she says to Donna, who lays perched across her bed reading a tattered book Jackie thought looks like it could've come from an orphanage.

Donna rolls her eyes. "Jackie, Hyde's not getting off work for another two hours".

"So? How do you think I got to be the most popular girl in school, Donna?"

Donna laughs at Jackie gets ready, taking her hot rollers out, ironing a floor length sparkly blue dress, and reapplying a fresh coat of lip gloss every two minutes.

"That looks like my old prom dress".

"Oh you wish, you big red lumberjack".
"Jackie, didn't you go to that prom with Hyde?"

Jackie's face lights up immediately. "Oh, thanks for reminding me of that, Donna! Even then, he was so sweet to me". She drops her voice like she's telling a secret. "Even though he claimed to hate me back then, he called me beautiful". The memory of when he'd last called her beautiful, at the mall in a wedding dress, is fresh in her mind, and she can't help but reminisce on the first time.

Donna smiles, happy her friend miraculously found someone as good for her as Hyde. "Wow, I had no idea he was such a romantic" she comments snarkily and pauses, considering.

"I think he's always kind of liked you no matter what he said. Look, if I tell you something can you shut your big mouth for once in your life?"

Jackie rolls her eyes. "Donna, it's me we're talking about? You know I can't do that! It's not in the Burkhart blood".

"Well, you might want to for once. What if this fact-oh, you know, made the surprise better?"

"Fine".

"Okay, I don't know much, but I overheard him talking to Mrs. Forman. I think he's taking you to some kind of dance"

Jackie jumps up and down, squealing with excitement. "He'd do that for me? But I'm on square dancing probation!"

"I told you, he always kind of liked you, Jackie".

--

"Hey" Hyde mutters, reaching over to open Jackie's side of the El Camino. He's in a dark brown suit Jackie got him for Christmas the year before, itching from his accidental conformity to the corporate world. But tonight should be fun, if all plays out as follows.

"So, any guesses?" he asks his girlfriend.

"The Village?" She chooses to play along, not admitting what Donna told her.

He snickers at how wrong she is.

She looks up in confusion when they reach the dim neon lights of the Holiday Hotel. "Steven, you took me to the hotel?". She lights up. "Are you gonna cook for me?"

"Not quite. But you'll love it" he reassures, fighting the worry his plan won't work out.

Jackie and Hyde stop in their tracks in front of the big conference room, which is rapidly filling up with people in similarly formal dress. Chairs are stacked by the side of the room, loud music blaring out of a record player near the open bar.