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A New Outlook 
“So, this blogging thing, do you think it’s worth it?”Sally sighed and quietly sipped her espresso. Her eyebrows rose as she swallowed. “Doesthis espresso taste a little richer to you?”Natalie sighed and took a sip of her own drink. She took her time savoring the coolingliquid before nodding. “Yes, a bit. I wonder if that was one of the changes they madewhen they closed down the other day.”“Maybe,” Sally replied and took another sip.“So, back to this blogging thing.”Sally carefully placed her cup back onto the coffee stain she had created earlier. Theliquid had sloshed over a bit when they first sat down, trickling scalding brew onto herfingers. The stain was drying quickly.“I’m beginning to think, no, it’s not worth it.”“But, you’re one of the most popular bloggers in the ‘sphere, why would you think that?”Sally watched a young mother juggle a toddler on her hip in the Starbucks line. Shesuddenly missed playing referee to her two girls. “You know, I never asked for this gig,”she began, sidestepping her friend’s question. “I just happened to be in the right place atthe right time.”“But,” Natalie chuckled in disbelief, “who wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. I mean,here you are, staying home with the girls, doing what you love to do and you’re makingmoney at it. So much money in fact, you can afford a housekeeper.” This last was saidwith just a touch of jealously.Sally lifted a hand toward her friend and allowed it to slap back onto her thigh. “See?That’s what I’m talking about.”“What?”“The whole jealously thing, it’s insane.”“Who says I’m jealous?”“You don’t have to say anything, I can just tell from your face, from the tone of yourvoice. And I know you, Nat. We’ve been friends since high school, YOU’RE the onewho wanted to go on and be a writer and now here we are, I’m writing, doing somethingyou would love to be doing, and you’re a stay-at-home PTA mom.”
 
 Natalie stiffened. “Are you making fun of me?”Sally tucked a few strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail back behind her ear. “No,I’m not making fun of you. Hell, let’s switch places. I’m ready to call it quits.”“What?” Natalie laughed and shook her head. “You’re crazy. You have the sweetest gigever.”“Yeah, to you. You don’t have to deal with the crazies, with jealous bloggers, with familymembers who now refuse to talk to you because you reveal way too much on your blog.Being popular,” she said, putting quotation marks around the word popular, “not onlysucks, it’s lonely.”Natalie’s eyelashes, heavy with mascara, brushed over her high cheekbones andtemporarily hid her soft green eyes. “Lonely? How can you say that? You have yourhusband.”“Who I think is cheating on me.”“Wh … what?”Sally issued a long-suffering sigh and sat back, her fingers idly caressing the hard plasticof her cup. “Oh, I don’t know that he is, I just have a feeling. We haven’t …” she pausedand looked around at the other café customers. Most were busy minding their ownbusiness, but there was one man, a rather heavyset man with thick curly black hair, whowas staring at her. She shifted in her seat and turned her back somewhat on the man tolean in closer to her friend. “We haven’t exactly shared the same bedroom in nearly threeweeks.”Natalie’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an “o” of surprise. “Really? Why?”“It’s this damn blog!” she said. The espresso machine picked that precise moment to stop.Her words hung in the air like an early morning fog. Patrons glanced up from theiractivities and looked at them curiously. Sally noticed the man who had been staring, wasnow making notes.She cleared her throat and tossed out a timid smile to the crowd before turning herattention back to Natalie. “I’m not sure I want to talk about this. If word gets out there’strouble in paradise, it’ll likely spook my sponsors.”Natalie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I’m confused. Start at the beginning.”“There is no beginning, just an end. An end to this whole blogging personality. I mean,”Sally shifted, “you know me, this is NOT me. I’m a sarcastic, wild, impatient personality.Where the hell did this slightly cynical Martha Stewart person come from? Some days, Ican’t even look at myself in the mirror; I’m so disgusted by the whole thing. People
 
perceive me as one thing and I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. I haveproblems. I have serious problems. Not the sugar-coated inconveniences I portray on theblog. My marriage is falling apart and yet, I can’t talk about it, not without pissing off alarge number of people. I’m just so sick of the whole thing.”“So, quit. Do something else.”“I don’t think I can. Not because I don’t want to, but because my name is nowsynonymous with the whole mommy blogger persona. And I like what I’m doing, I justfeel like I’ve become a person I no longer recognize.” She paused to take a calmingbreath. “Maybe I just need a break.”Natalie nodded and took a sip of her coffee.Sally regarded her for long moments, her expression serious, thoughtful. “I have an idea.”Natalie groaned and sat back. “I can tell by your expression that whatever it is, I’m notgoing to like it.”“Take over for me.”“What? Take over what for you?”“My blog. Pretend you’re me for a while.”“But I can’t write like you.”“Precisely.”“Huh?”Sally chuckled at her friend’s confused face. “Pretend you’re me for two weeks. Yourstyle of writing is not all that different from mine, but it’ll be different enough that when Icome back, I can start to subtly change my image into something a bit more … real.”“I can’t be you,” Natalie sputtered out with a laugh. But then she paused and tilted herhead. “Can I?”“Who knows me better than anyone?”“Well, me.”“Exactly.” Sally squirmed in her seat with excitement. “The more I think about this, themore perfect I think it is. Here,” she grabbed a pad and pencil from her purse. “I’mwriting down my sign-on information and email address. You can post for me and answerall of the email, even the nasty ones,” she grinned, her eyes sparkling with a hint of 
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