George nodded briskly, looked the words over, his lips moving softly. “O.K.,” he said finally.
“Good. Relax. Just go and ask her. It’ll all be over in a minute. Unless she invites you to spend tonight at her house.”
George blushed. “No chance of that,” he smiled.
A moment later, he was in the store. He took nearly a dozen steps directly toward Lorraine, then suddenly veered off to the counter. The counterman appeared, waiting for his order.
“Gimme a milk,” George said. “Chocolate.”
He hoped it would take a long time, but the milk arrived with disappointing speed. He took a slurp to fortify himself, then literally hurled himself toward the booth where the three girls sat.
“Uh, Lorraine,” he began in a rapid, strident voice. “My density has brought me to you.”
Lorraine looked up, heard the words almost before she realized who had delivered them. She recognized the young man whom she’d been introduced to yesterday by Marty.
He looked approximately the same, except that now he was wearing a brown mustache of chocolate milk. She did her best not to giggle.
“I beg your pardon?” she managed to say with feminine dignity.
“Oh,” George muttered. “What I mean to say id—”
“Id?”
“Is…”
His mind a blank, George reached in
to his pocket for the notepad.
Lorraine filled the conversational void. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?” she asked.
George smiled broadly. So far, she had neither thrown up nor laughed and he was optimistic. If he could just remember those words!
“Yes,” he replied. “I’m George. George McFly. I’m your density. I mean, destiny.”
Now Lorraine did giggle. Babs and Betty joined her. But to George, the sound wasn’t as demoralizing as he thought it would be. The errant notion even crossed his mind that they might think his goofing up was part of his normal routine, that he actually intended to amuse them. Their laughter was, after all, relatively noncommittal. Those seated in nearby booths probably thought he had said something quite amusing to the girls and admired him for it. For the first time since he had awakened in a cold sweat an hour earlier, George actually believed he had the help promised by the creature who had appeared to him last night either in a dream or in the extraterrestrial flesh. A surge of confidence took hold of him. Say it, his mind urged. Just tell her you want to take her to the dance and it’ll all be over in a second.
“Lorraine,” he began, the word emerging with a tonal strength that surprised even George. “I want—”
“McFly, I thought I told you never to come in here!” a familiar voice bellowed, interrupting George’s speech as effectively as someone yelling “Fire.”
Biff Tannen and his henchmen were at the door, leering at George, their hands on their hips. Slowly, deliberately, like gunfighters taking over a small Western town, they strode into the store toward George McFly.
Marty had seen them arrive just at the worst possible time—when George actually seemed on the verge of popping the question to Lorraine. “Damn!” he muttered.
He then did the only thing he could—walked in behind them so that he could help if necessary.
George, his resolute and happy expression melting into his usual mask of misery, stared slack-jawed at the approaching Biff.
“Well, your showing up here after I told you to stay out is gonna cost you, McFly,” Biff grated, making no attempt to keep his voice down. “How much money you got on you?”
It was blatant bullying and outright extortion but no one in the soda shop made a move to come to George’s assistance. After a long moment, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet.
His beefy hand outstretched, Biff took several long strides toward George, a look of malicious greed on his face.
Then, suddenly, his face had disappeared from view and was resting against the tile floor.
Marty withdrew his foot, inwardly congratulating himself on the best-timed trip he had ever executed.