And Then There Were Three Read Online Free PDF Page B

chica with her fiery Latino personality.
Every few months in college like clockwork she would go through a
public breakup with a boyfriend. We would have to intervene as she
spat, Spanish curse words for all to hear. It was absolutely much
more entertaining with her around. Cordelia, a lawyer, had panache
for the finer things in life and a passion for women. Surprisingly
she never developed a crush on any of us. We weren’t sure if we
should be hurt or relieved, we didn’t want anything impeding our
friendship.
    Monica our resident drama queen worked as a
manager of a popular upscale restaurant. At one time her friendship
had been in question when she developed a huge crush on Mark. It
took some time for me to trust her around him, as her flair for the
dramatic could be downright irritating. Eventually she realized
that nothing she could do would sway Mark and sought love
elsewhere. Thankfully she was happily married with two children of
her own. Stacey was our computer expert and pretty much personal
Geek Squad. She could build a computer out of the same equipment
used by MacGyver. What she did for a living was still a mystery to
us. She had top-secret government clearance. We could only
postulate that she stopped terrorist by building supercomputers for
the government that spied on our everyday lives, or something along
those lines.
    Last but certainly not least was Uwimana,
pronounced oo-wee-mah-nah. Having arrived in the US as a political
refugee from the war stricken country of Rwanda in 1994, she was
saved by an uncle. Uwimana was hidden for weeks until her uncle
secured passage for her to Zaire and then to the US, in the early
days of the conflicts before the thousands of refugees would later
follow suit. Her parents had been slaughtered and she was left to
fend for herself. Thankfully, her uncle had served as ambassador to
Rwanda and was safely within the US borders when the fighting
reached its crescendo. Uwimana operated a non-profit foundation
that helped survivors of the Rwandan conflict now living within the
US. My husband and I contributed heavily and regularly to her
cause.
    These seven women were not just my friends
but sisters. Our lives would take us all over the country and back
again we always found a way to keep our connection strong.
Generally we conversed in some fashion on a daily basis utilizing
technology to keep a direct link to one another. When that failed
we had to call in a Seventh Wonder, which was an emergency meeting.
It usually involved a weekend spending lots of time at a spa, lots
of food, lots of drinking, lots of talking, and lots of money, lots
of dancing, and lots of fun. After one of these events you needed a
day or two to recover.
    With the new book, while not receiving rave
reviews from critics, did something none of my books had done in
the past. The fifth book in my series made several very popular
national best sellers lists. The now increasingly popular e-book
format gave my previous four books a rebirth in the literary world.
Mark and the children were very proud of my accomplishments as my
pen name made some minor headlines. Mark Jr. was off to a summer
football camp for four weeks. Celeste was enjoying her time at a
sports day camp while Sabrina gave Nicole’s six week intensified
dance camp a try. I was feeling on top of the world considering the
previous weekend was our Seventh Wonder, when I dropped Sabrina off
to dance lessons. Talking to Nicole felt like second nature and I
blamed my jovial mood on my weekend of fun with my best friends. I
accepted an invitation for lunch and shopping from her without a
second thought.
    Looking back I can see how that was what
truly brought this whole thing to the forefront. Accepting this
date and telling Mark, who reacted with a lackadaisical response, I
see how naïve we both were. The lunch and shopping was great fun as
we fought off potential suitors, choosing to enjoy one another’s
company. With my best friends settled back