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Linda and Marty were sitting catty-cornered at the kitchen table, quietly eating breakfast—a bowl of fruit and granola for Linda; a glass of orange juice and a plain untoasted bagel for Marty, when Lorraine entered the room.
“Good morning, kids,” she greeted cheerfully, shuffling past them to fix herself a cup of coffee from the pot. “Where’s Dave?”
“Had to leave early. Something about an important business meeting, and time zones,” Marty answered around a bite of his bagel. “’m not really sure.”
“He’s always so vague,” Linda complained to Marty with an eyeroll. “He’s always leaving early or coming home late for ‘business reasons’. I don’t think I even know the name of the place he works at! He just calls it ‘the office’. Ugh, how pretentious.”
Marty matched her grimace, then wore a small smile when she turned back to her food. He had only been integrated into this improved timeline for about a week, and it was comforting to finally be on the same page as someone. The past week had earned him several concerned and confused glances as he tried to navigate through life with simply all of the wrong details.
Lorraine came over and squeezed Marty’s shoulder as she moved to sit in the chair next to him, across from his sister. “I just hope he grabbed something before he left,” she murmured. “I’d hate for him to starve till lunch.”
“He’ll be alright,” he assured his mother. “He took a grapefruit.”
“Just a grapefruit?” Lorraine shook her head and held her coffee up to her lips. “That’s not the kind of thing you can eat on the commute.”
“I think he had some toast, too, before he left,” Linda added. “But Dave would be the guy to figure out how to eat a grapefruit while driving.”
Lorraine masked her giggle behind her coffee cup. “He would, wouldn’t he? He’s got quite the personality, your brother. I hate to watch him overwork himself for a…corporate job…when he could be doing something a lot more Dave.” She frowned at her coffee before reaching forward to grab a bagel for herself.
“You don’t know the name of his workplace either, do you Mom?” Linda asked, a shit-eating grin on her face. The corner of Marty’s lip quirked up as he watched his mother’s eyes snap to his sister. She opened her mouth to rebut, then burst into laughter. Marty’s smile grew. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her look this happy. He wasn’t sure he had ever actually heard her laugh.
“He is very cryptic about it, isn’t he?” she murmured, leaning towards Linda, who started giggling with her mother. Marty found himself staring at the two of them with his glass held halfway up to his mouth.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Linda jeered when she noticed Marty staring at them. For a moment he considered it; he felt he needed concrete proof that his sister and mother could be this happy. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut briefly. “Sorry, I’m just…tired,” he lied. “Spaced out a bit.”
Lorraine turned to look at Marty with a concerned frown. Marty found himself staring at the crease between her eyebrows before meeting her eyes. “Are you not sleeping well, sweetheart?” She reached out to stroke his hair. He didn’t flinch this time, like he had thirty years ago. “You’ve been spacing out a lot more often, lately.”
“I’m alright, Mom. Really.” He offered her his most convincing smile. She let it go with a pat to his cheek. “I’ll trust you. But let me know if anything’s bothering you, okay? I’m your mother, Marty; you can talk to me.”
“Sure thing, Mom.”
The conversation hit a comfortable lull, where everyone sat quietly and dug into their breakfast. Lorraine reached across the table for the cream cheese and started spreading it onto her bagel, humming low to herself under her breath.
“Mhm!” she suddenly murmured around the bite of bagel in her mouth, breaking the silence. She held her hand up as she chewed and swallowed to keep her children’s attention. “Marty,” she started, laying her hand on his forearm. “You know how I always get a weird sense of déjà vu when I do your laundry, but I can never figure out what it is?”
Marty did not, in fact, know this. “Yeah?”
His mother continued. “I finally got it! Every week, I wonder why the name Calvin Klein is so familiar, and last night I realized why: I knew him!”
Marty’s face fell and his blood turned to ice. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. He could feel himself starting to sweat in his panic. What the hell was he supposed to say if she realized it was him? His heart was beating a mile a minute, and he hoped she couldn’t feel the sudden spike in his heart rate where she had her hand on his arm. God, where was Doc when he needed him? Trying to play it cool, he put on his most convincing smile once again and stuttered out a response. “O-oh yeah?”
“You’re kidding!” Linda interjected. This finally pulled his mother’s attention away from him and he sagged into his chair. “There’s no way you knew the Calvin Klein!”
“I’m being serious! I didn’t know him very well or for very long, but I definitely met someone named Calvin Klein when I was in high school.” Lorraine took her hand off of Marty’s arm to hold her chin in her hand. He quickly recoiled his arm so she couldn’t grab it again. He was shaking like a nervous puppy, and she would definitely notice. “It’s silly, but I had the biggest crush on him. We only ever went on one date, to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.”
“You said you went to the dance with Dad,” Marty piped up, his voice cracking. He knew better, obviously, but he had to say something otherwise his mother was going to get suspicious.
“Ugh, Marty, why’d you say that?” Linda groaned. “I don’t wanna hear that story again!”
Lorraine frowned at her daughter, then turned back to Marty. “I guess I’ve never told you guys the full story. Before your father swooped in and saved me from Biff’s tormenting, I was actually on a date with Calvin Klein.”
“Mom, how are you so sure it was the Calvin Klein?” Linda was still skeptical. Marty knew she had good reason to be.
“He had his name written all over his underwear. It looked just like what you can buy now.” Marty gulped and sank further in his chair. “I remember thinking it was peculiar at the time.”
Linda brow crinkled. “You saw his underwear?” Her face lit up with realization. “You had sex with Calvin Klein? You said you guys only went on one date! And it was to the dance you said you got together with Dad at—” Her face twisted into one of disgust. “Oh my God, Mom!”
Marty’s face went pale, and he thought he was going to faint. He needed this conversation to end!
“Don’t be so crude!” Lorraine scolded. “Anyway, I didn’t…sleep with him, Linda,” she corrected. “About a week before the dance, your grandpa hit him with the car, and we housed him for about a day while he recovered. I only saw his underwear because, well…” She trailed off with a coy grin that Marty unfortunately recognized all too well, running her index finger of her other hand along the rim of her cup. Marty swallowed uncomfortably as he watched his mother unknowingly reminisce about him. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what exactly happened, but I can assure you that we were not intimate, in any way. He was cute, but your father was clearly the one for me.”
“It’s a shame,” Linda sighed. “You know how rich we’d be if Calvin Klein was our dad?” Marty closed his eyes and shuddered as he thought about how paradoxical and messed up that would be.
Lorraine swatted lightly at Linda’s hand. “Oh, hush. Your father and I have given you kids plenty. You should be grateful.”
Linda pushed what was left of the fruit around in her bowl. “I guess it wouldn’t have worked out anyway ‘cause I’m pretty sure Calvin Klein’s gay.”
Marty’s eyes shot open, and he turned his head so fast he nearly got whiplash. “Oh?” he asked at the same time his mother did.
“Yeah, I think I read that in one of the magazines when I was at the salon last weekend. Also overheard some ladies talking about it at the boutique, too. I think he must’ve just come out, since it’s only now coming up.”
Lorraine raised her eyebrows. “Huh,” she muttered, biting her lip pensively. Marty finally felt relief; surely the conversation would be dropped now, right? Plus, he wasn’t gay, so there was no reason his mother should suspect it had been him back in 1955. He took a drink of his orange juice, finally starting to feel calm enough to hold the glass without dropping it. “That makes sense, actually.”
Marty choked on his orange juice and broke into a coughing fit. “Huh?!”
Both women turned to him in concern. “Marty!” Lorraine snapped. “I will not accept intolerance in this household! Your father and I raised you to be open-minded and accepting of everyone.”
“No, it’s not—it’s not that, Mom,” Marty gasped as his lungs started working again. “It’s just—ah, what makes you, what makes you think that?”
She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, then explained. “Well, for one thing, courting him was a disaster. He acted very nervous around me, and I had just assumed it was because he liked me, but any time I tried to get close, he was just so…jumpy. He also kept talking about George, telling me that I should let him ask me out. It’s funny now, but at the time was really weird to me. Not that your father wasn’t cute, but Calvin was something else.”
“How’d you two even end up going on a date if he was so nervous and weird around you?” Linda asked.
Lorraine grinned. “I asked him out. He surely wasn’t going to ask me, so I had to do it myself! Sometimes, you have to make the first move.” Her grin fell. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out in this case, but it was definitely…educational. God, no wonder he was so nervous on our date,” she said with a slight laugh. “And no wonder our kiss was so terrible!”
“You kissed him?!”
“We kissed exactly one time. I initiated it, like I had with everything else, and it was so awkward and just plain wrong. It felt like I was kissing my brother!” she remarked with a grimace. “Then that’s about the time Biff interrupted us, and soon after your father came in, and the rest is history.
“I would’ve never thought at the time that he was acting that way because he was gay, but that makes a lot of sense in hindsight. Poor guy, he wasn’t even interested in women, and there I was pushing myself onto him! Oh well, he seems to be doing just fine now, right? Look at his career! And from what you’re saying, Linda, he seems to have found himself. Good for him.”
Marty found himself gaping at his mother as she described her fleeting romance with Calvin Klein. She thought he was gay! Well, she didn’t think he was gay, she thought Calvin Klein was, but considering he was Calvin Klein…He turned away from his mother and stared down into his orange juice. He wasn’t gay! But he couldn’t tell his mother the truth—who knew what kind of issues that would pose to the structure of the space-time continuum. God, where the hell was Doc when he needed him?
Lorraine pushed her chair back and stood up with her empty cup. “And I want both of you to know that it’s completely fine if you realize you’re gay. Your father and I will love you kids no matter what, and anyone that tries to give you any trouble is going to have to go through us, first.” She was talking to both of her children, but she was more pointedly staring at Marty, who was still avoiding her gaze. When he finally met her eyes, she gave him a warm, knowing smile and ruffled her free hand through his hair.
She walked up behind both of them to kiss the tops of their heads. “Bring your dirty dishes into the kitchen when you’re done, okay? And don’t forget to scrape the crumbs off your plate into the trash! Oh, and please put the extra food on the counter so I can save some for your father when he gets back from his golf outing. I’ll be doing the dishes if you need anything.”
After Lorraine had left the room, Linda turned to Marty and leaned towards him. “Hey, do you think Calvin Klein had a crush on Dad? Mom said he was always hanging around him and trying to talk about him with her, after all.”
Marty felt faint again.