Katie smoothed out her poodle skirt as she walked into the malt shop.

The soda jerk gave her a smile and made his way over.  “What’ll it be, tonight?”

Katie half smiled.  “You ask me the same question every Friday night, Joe.”

Joe shrugged.  “I just think maybe that it’s time you…”  Katie’s ice-cold stare stopped him mid-sentence.  “Chocolate milkshake, with one straw, coming up.”

Tommy always ordered two straws.  He wasn’t a square or anything, he was just polite that way.  Katie wasn’t one of “those” girls she just wanted Tommy to at least attempt to kiss her.  They had been going together for three months. Tommy even took her to the homecoming dance in his dad’s new Chevy. Still, he always kept a polite distance.

Katie sat there staring at the glass while the shake melted.  She could feel the weight of the eyes on her.  A few of her girlfriends had attempted to cheer her up the first Friday night but now they kept their distance.  Once in a while, a guy would approach her to see if he had a chance with her but they may as well have been talking to the sweetheart chair that she was sitting on.  All that she could see was that straw, that single straw.

That Friday in winter, she thought she might be brave and take a chance.  She insisted they get a chocolate milkshake even though it was twenty degrees outside.  She “accidentally” dropped her straw on the ground.  When Tommy offered to get another one, she smiled and told him there was no need.  When he smiled, she knew that Tommy finally got the hint and Katie’s heart fluttered.  He stole just one kiss before he dropped her off at her home, but she was walking on cloud nine as he drove off in that Chevy.

“That damned Chevy”

A few people, around Katie, shifted uneasily but she didn’t take particular notice.  She just stared at the straw.  Of course, it wasn’t her fault or the straw's fault, but why did he pick that night to slide on the ice and wrap that Chevy around an oak tree?