Dan reflects on his junior year of high school, when his friend Handy got a car that everyone called the Black Beauty. Everyone in town thought Handy was so cool with his car, and Dan remembers how he would join Handy at an apple orchard to play football on Saturday afternoons. One day, Handy asked Dan if he wanted to double date at the dance, but Dan replied that he didn’t have a date yet. Handy suggested Flo, who Dan brought to the dance the year prior, but Dan knew that he wanted to take a new girl.  In the hallways at school, Dan saw a girl stumble and drop her books, and he thought to himself that he had never seen such a girl before; she wore a silk blouse and flowery skirt. The girl thanked Dan for helping her with her books, and Dan soon learned that her name was Katie. Handy eventually drove Dan to Katie’s house so he could ask her to the dance, and Dan and Katie spent the fall sitting on hillsides together, sometimes touching shoulders, sometimes holding hands. Handy would sometimes even let them borrow his car, and Dan remembers other times he spent with Handy and other boys as well, riding in Handy’s car together. One November afternoon however, Dan began to talk about the future with Katie in her living room and asked her if she would still love him then. Katie simply said, “How can we know?” and Dan remembers her shivering and a single tear dropping from both of her eyes.