“All right, so as you know, we will be heading to the Coffee Fest in Seattle tomorrow to show off a bit and make our name known in the coffee world. Any objections?” PoMo glanced around at our excited faces and continued. “Of course, all the expenses will be coming out of your pockets, so you’d better start saving some money.” Our groans and complaints were cut off by a glare from the beefy lady. “Any objections?” She icily asked again. This time, everybody shook their heads. “Good. I’ll see you all tomorrow at the airport.” She walked out of the room and left us to our excited yet annoyed comments.

“A trip to Seattle? Dude, this is gonna rock!” Calvin slapped my feeble hand. “This is a perfect time to get to know the others.” He scanned the room. “Especially the girls. I don’t think I know them well enough, man.” I smiled. Calvin was quite the guy, strong, funny, athletic, smart, uh, good looking-ish, but he had one weakness: girls. It was like Superman to kryptonite, except Calvin couldn’t survive as long as Superman. Once a pretty girl was around, he forgot everything else: his name, his friends, his mother, etc. I had been on the receiving end of that many times, and it wasn’t fun waiting for him to return from his euphoric trips, which usually lasted as long as the girl was around, which meant bad news when the girl stayed. He bounded over to the group of girls, leaving me to talk to Jack, who, after his amazing transformation into a man, had become a bit of a cynical miser.

“I don’t understand what girls see in guys sometimes.” He frowned at Calvin’s bouncing figure. “Obviously some guys are lacking in physical strength and modest features. Girls must be blind or something.” I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded and gave him a very fake smile. This seemed to work, as he continued on his rant by rolling up one of his sleeves to his chalk white, bony shoulder. To my surprise, he flexed his um… camouflaged bicep. “If I wore a wife beater, do you think my arms would look more defined?” I choked on the water I was drinking. Not to sound mean or anything, but Jack’s not exactly a “physically blessed” guy.

“Hey guys.” Pam had come over from the group of girls and Calvin, who at this moment was animatedly acting out something apparently very funny, because Karen and Theresa were practically howling. “We were just going to check out Target right now to see if we could pick up some last minute supplies. Do you guys want to come along?” I actually had all my supplies packed already, thanks to my loving, responsible Chinese mother, but here was a chance to go out and actually “hang out” with people other than Calvin. So of course I wanted to go.

Jack however, sneered, “I’m sorry, I actually have to workout tonight. I’m meeting with my abdominal trainer at 24-hour fitness. You guys have fun.” Pam and I watched in shock as he huffily strutted away. That boy was full of surprises!

I turned my attention back to Pam, “Well, I would love to come with you guys. Thank you.” This seemed to cheer her up. “That’s great! The more the merrier! We’ll give you a ride!”

The ride to Target turned out to be one roller coaster ride as Calvin unwisely decided that he would let Theresa “test drive” his mother’s Honda Pilot… with us in it. She had just recently gotten her license in a less dramatic fashion than I had, and obviously loved driving because she tried to drive everywhere. The rest of us knew better and tried repeatedly to make Calvin change his mind; of course he didn’t even pay attention to us as he was talking to Theresa and having a grand time doing so. In the end, we failed to get Calvin to even pass a look in our direction, even when we stepped right between the two of them, as he just kept going, jabbering away- talk about failure! And as grim as that made us, I just got to say that before today, I have never seen teenagers put on seatbelts so fast before. The ride there was hectic and stressful, as all of us in the backseat kept yelling out warnings every time we almost hit another car, even though Theresa could barely hear us with Calvin sitting shotgun, continuing with his epic story. Then when we were halfway there, Calvin must have said something really funny, because it made Theresa laugh so hard that she started coughing, which in turn made her sort of lose control, which caused the car to swerve dangerously from side to side, which I can tell you now, is not a great feeling to have when you’re riding in a tall, unstable SUV. To top it all off, Stanley, one of our expert mocha makers, decided as we were flying into the Target parking lot, that he just couldn’t hold it in any longer and proceeded to barf all over the floor. Needless to say, not many of us were happy campers by the time we entered Target, usually a place of great happiness for most Asian children. No wait, Asian people.

“Okay, so we need toiletries, food supplies, clothes for some of you, and for PoMo, uh…” Karen took out a slip of paper from her pocket. “She wants two people to go get her stuff.” Theresa raised her hand. “I’ll get it, since she’s my aunt.”

I was just about to offer to go with her when Calvin’s hand shot up like a bullet. “I can go too.” I was crushed. I really wanted to go with Theresa, but I was beat, fair and square. Hats off to you sir. Just hope you’ll still be my friend when you’re done fawning over her.

Karen smiled apologetically at him, “Well, PoMo wants two specific people to go and retrieve her items.” Then she looked straight at me.

That’s how I ended up with Theresa in the tool section looking for a large hunting knife for PoMo. Just the two of us. How sweet. Calvin didn’t think so. He pouted the entire time we walked away, waving to her and shooting dirty looks in my direction. And I really hoped that his girl weakness had just blinded him for a moment and he didn’t know that he was glaring at me…his friend, but you know, I was pretty unhappy with him at this point, so I didn’t care.

“Oh, do you think this knife will do?” Theresa held up a mammoth sized saw. I laughed. And laughed. And continued to laugh until she took a closer look at the “knife.” “Wait a minute. This isn’t a…” Then she cracked up too, and we had a laughing fest right there, and it lasted for at least ten minutes, until we were dead tired and sweating.

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I thought that was a knife.” She shook her beautiful head and gave me the raised eyebrow. “Not a word of my mistake to the others, okay?” I snickered but nodded. Of course I wouldn’t tell the others about the wonderful time we were having. I couldn’t put it into words even if I wanted to.

The feelings were so sweeping and overwhelming that all I could do to explain them was smile. That was it! She made me smile because I couldn’t even express the way she made me feel. Goodness gracious I was kind of lame. Oh Theresa, you’re so amazing! Are the feelings that amazing on your end too? Oh I couldn’t hold back any longer. I just had to ask. “Hey Theresa,” She turned. I took a deep breath.

“Do you like anybody?”