The Spice of Life (The Transformation #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the leap. I said I would meet you...now where are you?
     
    By evening, when Kelli returned home from work, there was still no reply. She knew it was irrational of her to feel irritated, yet she was annoyed and frustrated. She had worked her way up to this and now it had stalled.
     
    She considered writing again -- just a line or two to check in -- but quickly discarded the idea. It seemed far too attentive and needy.
     
    The final straw came when it occurred to her to check and see if EnjoyLifeNJ had signed into the website. She checked and saw that he had indeed been online in the past 24 hours. Why hasn’t he replied?
     
    Kelli felt increasingly upset and annoyed. Her annoyance was the top layer of a deep sense of disappointment. None of this was really working out. She knew it would turn out like this. It had just been a foolish idea in the first place, doomed to fail. She was married to Paul, would stay married to Paul, and would suffer through the next two or three decades of joyless, sexless, dissatisfied existence. That was how it was. She wouldn’t break the girls’ hearts by leaving their father. She’d just stagnate, like old water in a pond.
     
    *ping* Kelli jerked her head up and stared at the screen. That sound meant she had a new message. Yes, there was something in her mailbox! It must be EnjoyLifeNJ. She felt far too eager as she opened it. Oh. Her heart sank. It was a message from someone called Sexgod11, and read:
     
     
Your a real fox. I’d like to see if you’re sexy tale is bushy and red to match your pretty hair.
     
    Ugh. Who ARE these people? This guy obviously had an IQ of 60. Kelli was done. She quickly went to the “Accounts” tab and selected “Disable/delete account”. Enough was enough.
     

{ 2 }
     
     
    When Nina called, Kelli was thrilled to hear from her old friend. She had no idea that she was back in town. Nina had been in California for the past year or so, working as a banking recruiter. Kelli had seen her once or twice, but for the most part they were both busy with their lives.
     
    Nina was one of Kelli’s oldest friends. They had met the first week of their freshman year in high school and had been nearly inseparable. After graduation, Kelli and Paul had been struggling, especially with Kelli’s pregnancy, and needed all the help they could get to pay the bills on their tiny apartment in Clinton, NJ. Kelli, Paul and Nina decided to share the apartment while Nina pursued her career in marketing and sales, and Kelli continued to work her way through graduate school.
     
    Nina was wild, and always had been. She possessed a Marilyn Monroe figure with long, luscious, black curls, full features, and latte-colored skin. She had led Kelli through all kinds of crazy escapades. Once, Nina had suggested that they go out in Greenwich Village and bar-hop while posing as obscure European royalty. She’d even come up with the unique accents for each of them. Kelli had been Romanian, and Nina, Croatian. They’d both drawn all kinds of attention to themselves; Nina absolutely soaked it up. Kelli enjoyed Nina’s pranks but had always been content to enjoy them in tandem, and usually being the more sober of the two, she often rescued Nina from all sorts of compromising situations.
     
    On the answering machine, Nina’s message was typically enthusiastic:
     
    “Kelli! My bodaciously beautiful goddess! How ARE you? I’m in New York for a few days. We really must go out. It’s been far, far too long. I have so much to tell you! CALL ME!”
     
    It was perfect timing. It had been a few days since Kelli abandoned her online adventure, and she’d felt morose and slightly depressed since then. Before she’d gone on the site, she was still able to convince herself that there was some kind of hope for her and Paul. But since she’d come clean with herself and realized that the spark was completely dead, her married life had become almost unbearable. She could hardly stand to be in