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.”