hearts in a queue

“Come on, it won’t be that bad!”
Sally Whitaker looked at her boyfriend John and then up at the ninety-foot drop of steel girders that her tightly-gripped brochure excitedly hailed as the ‘Texas Star’. “Gee, I dunno about that, Tom. I’ve never been one for heights, y’know.”
Tom grabbed her gently by the arm, pulling her around an excited bunch on teenagers and over to the start of the queue for the Texas Star. Apparently he had already made up his mind about the two of them experiencing ‘the wildest ride in the west’. “It’ll be great baby! You’ll darn-right thank me when it’s done.” He kissed her on the cheek and grinned kindly at her.
Sally was sure that if she really didn’t want to ride then he wouldn’t make her, but sometimes there was just no fighting his enthusiasm. It was his enthusiasm she loved most of all about him. That feeling he gave her that nothing could possibly be bad if you didn’t allow it to be. Maybe it wasn’t enthusiasm at all, maybe it was infectious optimism. Whatever it was, it made her happy to be around him.
“Well I guess it won’t kill me,” she confessed, a nervous smile itching at the corners of her pale lips.
Tom gave her a loving hug as if in reply, but his attention was not on her. He was watching the Texas Star rollercoaster whiz round and round on its tracks, ferrying its screaming passengers from one sharp turn to the next. She shook her head and smiled, returning his hug all the same.