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one, something reminded Erika of Ben, and she said she just had to show Hallie and Gert what had happened on Challa’s Web site that day.
    Gert had sighed. Erika had the attention span of a Chihuahua.
    Standing in Hallie’s room by the big bed, they waited for the Web site to load. Hallie’s bedroom was mostly black, with a black comforter over the bed and black furniture. She still had the same purple telephone from college, Gert noticed, and she wondered if it still had the same sticky goo around the push-buttons.
    Across the computer screen flashed a page with a rich blue background and the words “Challa’s Corner.” A gliding pastiche of photos swirled across the screen, most of them of Challa, Ben and their baby. On the left was a list of links to things like the Weather Channel and Elle magazine.
    Gert had to admit to herself that it looked cheesy.
    And at the bottom of the screen was the bane of Erika’s existence: The Web log.
    Standing in front of Hallie’s computer, the three women read that day’s blog entry from Challa.
    Last night was cold out, and we stayed in and put the baby to sleep and made dinner. I cooked linguine and mussels, and Ben tossed a salad. It was soooo romantic!;) We polished off an entire bottle of red wine LOL!!!
    Gert suspected that deep inside, all of the women were thinking that mussels and wine sounded a lot better than soda and popcorn at 11:00 p.m. Gert almost felt her body ache, remembering the effort and passion that went into something as mundane as preparing dinner together.
    Erika returned to the home page and clicked a link that said, “Message board.” That was where Challa’s friends could leave comments like: “Hi, Chall!” “Hey, girl, love the new pix!” “Thanks for helping me waste time at work.”
    But recently Erika had started to leave messages, too.
    She’d used all seven of her America Online screen names to create aliases to post things. Some were meant to annoy Challa, and some were just meant to confuse her. She told Hallie and Gert that Challa deserved it. Why did Challa have to shove everyone else’s face in her and Ben’s bliss all the time? Erika said that if she herself were married to someone as passionate and artistic as Ben, there was no way she would waste her free time writing blog entries about it.
    The three of them read what Erika had posted on the message board that morning.
    â€œYou are banal,” Erika had written under the screen name Mr. HushPuppy. (She chose screen names completely at random, based on whatever she happened to see from the Internet café while she was typing. That day, someone had walked by in Hush Puppies.)
    â€œYes, she is, isn’t she?” Erika had responded to herself, this time using the name LadyAndTheTrump. “She started a wholeWeb site dedicated to herself. Sweetie, you don’t need TOO much attention, do you?”
    â€œChalla’s a ho and a slut,” Mr. HushPuppy wrote.
    â€œHo, ho, ho, Merrrryyyyy Chall-mas,” wrote “JenDurr.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t surprise me if Challa did name a holiday after herself,” Mr. HushPuppy wrote. “Too much attention isn’t enough for this girl. She should be lucky for what she has, not clog everyone else’s cyberspace with her binary spittle.”
    â€œYou’re a sick girl, Erika Dennison,” Hallie said, laughing.
    What really got a rise out of Erika and Hallie that evening was that Challa, who previously had been ignoring the posts, was now getting into fights with the “writers.”
    â€œCan’t you at least say something meaningful between your insults?” Challa had written back to Mr. HushPuppy. “If you hate me so much, then please don’t read this board. I didn’t invite you. At least LadyAndTheTrump sometimes has something meaningful to say.”
    â€œAh,” Erika said aloud, triumphantly.