Karen never meant to lose touch with her best friends from high school. Life got in the way, she didn’t return a phone call or two, and suddenly forty years had gone by. When Karen meets up with Karl at a funeral reception, he’s no longer the scrawny teen he once was. Karl is now confident, suave, and incredibly handsome. Karen hasn’t even thought about dating since the divorce, but her teenage daughter encourages her to take a chance with the silver fox. Can Karen find the courage to dip her toes back in the dating pool?
Genre: FICTION / Romance / ContemporaryLooking for a fun little project that won't take up too much of your time? Translate this romantic short story about two friends from high school meeting up as older adults. It doesn't take them long to fall in love and it won't take you long to translate their tale!
The distinguished gentleman in the fine black suit offered his palm as she approached him. When he opened his mouth, it was only to speak her name, “Karen.”
“Karl.” She breathed his name, slipping her hand into his. The feel of his skin nearly made her gasp, but she quickly recovered to offer, “My sincere condolences.”
He squeezed her fingers. “I can’t believe Frida’s gone.”
“I can’t believe how long it’s been,” Karen said, relieved to have finally found someone whose depth of emotion matched the enormity of the circumstance. Frida was dead. “Doesn’t it seem like just a couple years ago we were at school together? It’s been more than thirty. Can you believe that? I can’t. It doesn’t seem possible. The years escape us, don’t they? Frida was my closest, dearest friend and I’ve barely spoken to her since…”
She’d come over to comfort Karl—lovely Karl with the kind grey eyes, caring Karl who had just lost his sister—and now she was the one whose cheeks streamed with tears.
“Oh, I’m so embarrassed,” she cried, fishing through her purse for a tissue that wasn’t already soaked with funeral tears.
“It’s only natural,” he consoled her, extending a handkerchief with the initials KHW stitched in the corner.
The sight of those imperfect blue letters seized Karen’s heart. “Frida made this for you. She made it in Home Ec in tenth grade. I remember.”
Karl nodded. “Frida stitched it up for my fourteenth birthday.”
“I was there.” Karen burst at the sudden recollection. “I was there for that birthday, remember?”
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Lisa Pasquinelli
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Maria Lopes
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Laura Narváez
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