It all started because Emily had a cold.
It was a disappointment in more ways than one. First, having a cold sucked. Nothing tasted right, everything hurt, and overall, she was miserable.
Second, she loved going to Youth Group on Sundays. All of her favorite friends were there. Having been home schooled since second grade wasn't conducive to making much of a circle of friends, so the group at Sea Coast Baptist Church was her social life.
Third, today was a special Sunday; it was the first Sunday of the new month after her 18th birthday, and that meant she "graduated" up into the older half of Youth. She cursed having to wait so long, as her birthday was early in the month, so she'd had to wait almost a full four weeks until she could move up to the next class.
The younger class was teens aged 13-17; the older 18-21. She was terribly excited to be part of the "adults". She was the last of her circle of friends to make the move. Kayla was the oldest; she had moved up last fall. Amy and Tawny went right after the new year. The last friend to leave her behind was her best friend Sierra, in the summer. It was fall now, and she had finally caught up with her besties.
Fourth, and maybe the worst part, being home sick meant not only missing Youth, it meant not being in the presence of the incredibly hot Mister Carson.
Ted Carson had joined the staff at SCBC two years ago and immediately stirred things up at a rather tepid church. He was a dynamic leader, charismatic, witty, very liberal-minded (for a Baptist church at least), and yes, very good looking. Literally every girl in Youth had a tremendous crush on him. Married, in his late forties, he had the graying good looks of a George Clooney.
Insisting right away that everyone in his class call him "Mister Ted" or just "Ted", instead of "Mister Carson" or "Brother Carson" scored him plenty of Cool Points with the youth, and stern disapproval from the elder, more traditional members of the congregation. What they couldn't deny though, was that in just a few months he had taken a tiny handful of semi-attending kids and grown the group into one of the largest youth programs in their side of town.
He introduced community projects, out-of-town trips (all paid for by aggressive fund-raising drives), and a music program that included a choir and a praise band. This growth spilled over into the church as a whole, and if there was one thing that made Baptists happy, it was a full church (with plenty of tithing members). So, despite his liberal, unconventional attitude, Ted Carson was a very popular staff member at SCBC.
So, Emily was not happy at all.
The sore throat was the worst of it; it made eating torture, so she had deliberately avoided food at all costs, and that had made her even weaker. Now she was in bed, nursing a glass of Gatorade and browsing MySpace on her laptop.
Every Sunday afternoon the church's page posted video clips of the service (another innovation suggested by Mister Ted) and Emily kept checking the page hoping to catch the praise band, and a glimpse of Ted. Emily had a thing for him, just like all the others, and she was hoping he had done a solo in today's praise band music, so she could see a close-up.