Shoulder Season
by Henrietta Pertuz
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
And yet, there she was. Still. Trying. Wanting to run out the door but stuck to the hand-woven Navajo-style rug below her feet. She despised herself during these moments but resolved to stay. This was better than drinking alone, swallowing the itch of grief with each gulp of red wine from a box. Or was it?
Even her best friend, Lori, had a stupid boyfriend. He was balding and questionably employed but he was someone. Someone to have a beer with, or hold onto when you’re falling off a cliff.
Cale finished his call and looked around the room.
Ash followed his gaze. Two blondes leaned against Pendleton blankets and oversized tartan pillows. They whispered to each other and threw their heads back with laughter. She felt smarter and dumber, all at once.
“Do you know them?” she asked.
Cale spoke while reading a text. “What? No. I thought I saw someone I recognized.” He ran his fingers through his hair and looked at Ash. “We just opened this place so C-suite is showing up. That means, like, the CEO. CMO. CFO.” He grinned. Ash swore she saw his arm muscles flex inside their cotton-poly blend casing. His company’s logo bulged out with his bicep.
She stifled a moan. “How are things going so far, with the opening?”
Cale assumed a very serious look. “The numbers are insane. Like, we’re already selling rooms out at full price and it’s shoulder season! And this is a soft launch. Only influencers.” He gestured to the clusters of white men and women around the room. Their arms were casually draped over tufted leather sofas, legs propped up on reclaimed wood coffee tables. They tilted their heads at carefully considered angles, pouted, and took selfies.
“That guy works with me,” he said. “He’s part-nepo.”
Ash covered her mouth to avoid spitting out her drink. “Wow. Really?”
“Yeah. I came up with the comms strategy and he helps with socials. Now we have, like, hundreds of thousands of followers.”
“Cool. Why did your company choose the Catskills over, say, Vail?”
“The Catskills are the new Hamptons.”
Ash nodded, not knowing how else to respond.
“We’re going to take over this whole area. I mean, most of it is a shithole. We’ve got plans to, like, make the ski mountain waaaay more upscale. Right now it’s a shithole. But it’s going to be fantastic.”
“You’ve said that twice.”
“What?” He scowled as if his credit card had been declined.
“You’ve called this place a shithole. Twice. I grew up here.”
“Oh, right. Don’t take it personally. But you went to an Ivy, right? That makes you, like, half-townie.” He chuckled and rubbed the thin layer of stubble on chin.
Ash balled her fists in her back pockets. “It might help if you befriend the people who live here. If your plan is to take over the area.”
“Sure. I’m doing that now, right?” He winked.
She smiled tightly as a wave of nausea rolled up and down her body.
“So, how does someone who goes to Brown end up back in the Catskills?”
Ash took a big gulp of her drink and swallowed.
“Seriously! Even Boston is better than—”
“Please don’t say ‘shithole’ again.” She waved at the bartender for a refill. “Personal reasons.”
Cale grimaced. “That stuff is thirty dollars a glass! Slow down.”
“Don’t they comp you here?”
“They do, but I can’t spend my time, like, doing paperwork for reimbursement. My time is gold.”
“Don’t you have an assistant?”
“You have no idea how busy I am. I’m, like, constantly doing deals.” He scanned the room some more.
“Did you help come up with the name?”
“We focus-grouped a bunch of stuff, but Lft just felt right.”
“Do you ever worry that the name of the hotel might make it hard to find using GPS?”
“What?” Cale emitted a well-practiced sigh of irritation. “Why would it be hard to find?”
“It just seems like, I don’t know... the lack of vowels might make it hard to locate? Or the fact that a hotel called Lft, that’s next to an actual ski lift, might be confusing?”
“So you write GPS algorithms now?”
“Sorry. I just don’t understand why every new place that’s opening up around here is missing vowels. They’re useful. I should know, I’m a writer.”
“So you’re a writer now? Your profile said you worked for the local newspaper.”
Ash frowned. “I think that’s the same thing.” She took a big swallow of her second drink. It burned her throat and reminded her that she was living inside of this conversation. “I am a writer. I write the arts and culture—”
Cale held his hand out like a crossing guard. “Listen. I don’t invest in arguments. I also didn’t really want to go out with a townie.” He squinted his eyes like he was choosing an appetizer. “But you have a cute face. Nice brown eyes. Your profile made you look at least ten pounds...lighter. But I can work with what’s here.” He raised his eyebrows and looked her up and down.
Ash stepped back a couple of inches. She stared up at the domed ceiling and thick pine beams. The light fixtures were buttery cylinders connected to faux deer antlers. The glass looked so thin and delicate, like it might break any minute.
Cale furiously typed on his phone. He looked like he was trying to kill it.
The top-shelf bourbon worked its way through Ash’s veins and made her skin tingle. She’d been back for almost two years, and nothing had changed. But why had she expected anything different? She pitied herself and everyone around her, every time she scraped ice off her windshield and prayed the heat would work, or ate cold pizza alone on her mom’s threadbare Barcalounger, or hyped another event that no one could afford. Debt and illness and unfairness took up all the space they had. Maybe if she started writing about the stuff that mattered, people might actually read it. It might matter more to her, too.
She swallowed the last of her drink and slammed the glass down on the counter.
Cale looked up and smirked. “You want another one now, I presume?”
She shuddered at his word choice and straightened her shoulders. “Nope. I gotta go. Have a nice night.”
Cale grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. “Woah! Listen, we got off on the wrong foot. I’ve had a crazy busy day. Let’s—”
“Not.” Ash removed his fingers from her forearm. She noticed his palms were sweating. “I have some work to do.”
She sashayed past the bar and smiled as she felt Cale’s eyes on her backside. Ten pounds too heavy, my ass. Ha! The glass doors, etched with the resort’s name in a slender gold font, slid open as she approached.
Frigid air slapped her in the face as she rushed outside and opened the driver’s side door of her mom’s old red minivan. Seasons had battered its shine but the engine still worked. It still got Ash from here to there. She started up the car, rolled the window down and screamed into the chill of night. She howled until her throat was raw. Her eyes filled with tears as she peeled out of the parking lot, past giant patches of snow that might never melt.
She pressed the accelerator and drove through the dark of night. Broken florescent streetlights dotted the mountain road, its slopes and curves freshly paved for the wave of Teslas that would arrive the next day and every weekend after that.
She parked in her usual spot, grabbed her office key and unlocked the door. She smiled at the uneven line of staff photos on the wall and the welcome mat, its dark rubber faded by rock salt and still wet with slush. She ran up the staircase two steps at a time, busted through the door and switched on the light. Her cramped office floor transformed into a bright, yellow space, like the sun had spread itself across the ceiling.
Ash started a pot of strong coffee. She looked at the clock on the wall. It said 11:02pm, which was probably wrong, but she didn’t care; eleven was her lucky number.
If she was going to call herself a writer, she needed to write what she knew. Ash turned on her computer. Her heart thumped with each second it took for the clunky device to power on. She burned with a certainty she hadn’t felt since she’d left for college, before she’d tucked herself back inside the pages of an old book.
Her fingers danced across the keyboard.
A Call to Actionby Ash Leon
I know a lot of people who read this paper don’t usually look at my weekly column, so I’m hoping the title caught your eye. I know you’re too busy to care about the upcoming children’s production of Seussical or the new yoga studio on Main Street. Guess what? I don’t really care, either. I do care deeply about our town and I know you do, too. You care because you grew up here, like me. You’ve watched people you love more than anything be born, grow up and grow old or get sick and pass away. Our river’s current still rushes. It’s a living thing, just like us. Sid’s pharmacy and Maddie’s café are living things, too. They’re part of our hearts. We can’t sit by while evil monsters threaten our heritage and livelihood. We need to take back our town.
Ash stopped, took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. She’d need to think about her word choice and finesse the point a bit. She was still tender from her date. But she was on her way. She grabbed a chipped blue mug from the drying rack by the sink and poured herself a big cup of coffee.
She closed her eyes and thought about everything that meant too much to her to ever forget: throwing candy from a float in the Halloween costume parade, the fire station barbecue in July, booths full of belly laughs at Lou’s Diner. Her mom, and the strong women like her who stood on their feet eight hours a day, serving coffee to people who asked how you were doing. Now patrons only asked if the coffee was fair trade or if the baked goods were organic and gluten-free.
Ash sat up in her chair and typed:
It was going to be a long night.
It was going to be good.
It was going to be great.
Copyright © 2026 by Henrietta Pertuz
