Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine Cavalcade Issue of NKLCM | Page 73

Anita l. Roseboro Sweet Summer Breeze Story Note My process for this story wasn’t the greatest. I started this story many years ago with different names and a different scenario. After developmental editing, the story took shape into more than I could’ve dreamed. Now reading the story in the final stages and growing from the input from veteran au- thors in the project, I’ve become stronger as a writer and am applying what I’ve learned to a work in progress. Summer gasped at the sound of her voice, wondering how could a dead woman be on the other end of the line? “Summer, are you there?” Summer was shaken. Karen Reynolds had been her best friend since middle school. They were tight as sisters and could pass as twins. They shared everything until one day Karen took it too far and thought sharing extended to Summer’s boyfriend. “What the hell do you want?” Summer said, sitting up in bed, thoroughly awakened in the middle of a good night’s sleep. “You need to know why I disappeared.” “I’m more interested in why you reappeared,” she snapped. “I can give you directions to my house. I’ll be here waiting.” “That’s not necessary,” she replied. “I made an appointment in your office for tomorrow.” Summer had checked her calendar before leaving and was sure Karen’s name was not on the list, only a Charity was penciled in, a woman who’d been cagey about her reason for wanting to see Summer, but had cancelled multiple times. “Is this personal or business?” “Personal and business.” Karen’s phone disconnected. Summer rushed downstairs to the lower level of her townhouse, opened her laptop, after a few clicks and searches, brought up the article about Karen’s car crash. Now she had to wonder who was in the car because Karen was somehow on this side of the grave. At exactly noon, Summer’s assistant escorted Charity into the office and gently closed the door upon her exit. As suspected, Charity was actually Karen, with a little cosmetic surgery and nearly fifteen years thrown in. Summer pulled the papers and slid them across her desktop. She had grown tired of this masquerade, thinking it was time to play a little of her hand. “Karen, do you want to tell me why you’re really here?” Charity was silent for a long time, then she let out a long sigh, “Here I thought I had you fooled, but all along I’ve been the fool.”