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independent; if something went wrong with the car, he would have only himself to blame.
    “By the way,” Lorraine said. “That girl Jennifer called…wants you to call her back.”
    Marty nodded.
    “I think her last name was Parker.”
    “I know her last name, Mom.”
    “But it could have been another Jennifer, couldn’t it?”
    “Yes, but I don’t know any other Jennifers right now.”
    “Sorry,” his mother said, scooping up the remains of her potatoes with a crust of bread. “Anyway, I’m not sure I like her. Any girl who calls up a boy is looking for trouble.”
    Marty and Linda exchanged a meaningful glance. Had their mother lost her marbles?
    “Oh, Mother,” Linda muttered, “there’s nothing wrong with calling a boy.”
    “Well, I think it’s terrible,” Lorraine persisted. “Girls chasing boys—whoever heard of such a thing? I never chased a boy when I was your age. I never called a boy, or asked a boy for a date or sat in a parked car with a boy…”
    What a dull childhood, Marty thought.
    “Because when you behave like that, boys won’t respect you, Linda. They’ll think you’re cheap.”
    Linda rolled her eyes. She’d heard it several hundred times already, although it probably seemed like at least one million.
    “Then how are you supposed to meet anybody?” she asked.
    “It’ll just happen,” Lorraine smiled. “Like the way I met your father.”
    “But that was so stupid!” Linda whined. “Grandpa hit him with a car.”
    “It was meant to be.”
    “Maybe you should hang around the emergency wards,” Marty suggested.
    “That wouldn’t do any good,” Lorraine said, unaware of his sarcasm. “You see, you’ll meet Mr. Wonderful in a certain way that you can’t make happen. And you won’t be able to avoid it either. It’s just bound to happen, like the sun’s supposed to come up tomorrow morning.”
    All the metaphysics did not impress Linda. “I still don’t understand what Dad was doing in the middle of the street,” she said.
    Dad, oblivious to the entire conversation, did not look up from his work, so Mom raised her voice to get his attention. “What was it, George?” she asked. “What were you doing there—bird-watching?”
    George shook his head like a person coming out of a coma. “Huh?” he muttered thickly. “Did you say something, Lorraine?”
    “Never mind.”
    “He was probably just a very incompetent hitchhiker,” Marty offered. He really wasn’t interested in hearing how his parents had met.
    Lorraine was interested in telling the story, however. “Anyway,” she went on, “Grandpa hit him with the car and brought him into the house. He was completely unconscious…”
    “Like now,” Marty interrupted.
    Lorraine shot a chiding glance at him. “He seemed so helpless…like a little lost puppy. And my heart just went out to him.”
    “Yeah, Mom,” Linda smiled. “You’ve told us a million times. It was ‘Florence Nightingale to the rescue.’“
    Lorraine leaned back in her chair, her eyes dreamy with nostalgic thoughts and pictures. “The very next weekend,” she continued, “we went on our first date. The ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ School Dance.”
    “Under the sea?” Marty interrupted again. “You mean everybody came dressed as a clam or an oyster?”
    His mother ignored him.
    “I’ll never forget it,” she said. “It was the night of that terrible thunderstorm. Remember, George?”
    “What’s that, dear?” George McFly mumbled.
    “The night of our first date.”
    “Mmm. It was raining.”
    “Worst thunderstorm before or since,” Lorraine elaborated. “People still talk about it. Anyway, your father kissed me for the first time on the dance floor…and that was when I realized I was going to spend the rest of my life with him.”
    “That really must have been some thunderstorm,” Marty smiled.
    “I can’t believe Dad actually got up enough nerve to kiss you in public,” Linda said.
    Lorraine flushed.