Shoulder Season
by Henrietta Pertuz
part 1
The color of the sky pulled Ash out of bed that morning. It was bright, like white chalk had been smeared over the usual mushy gray. She stood by her tiny bathroom window and looked at the patches of dead grass that broke through balding snow, revealing shoulder season to the world.
But shoulder season didn’t matter to Ash. It mattered only to the weekenders and transplants who had the luxury of looking forward to things. “Shoulder season” was a fun term that belonged to the people she wrote about and interviewed, whose pearly smiles she secretly wanted to graffiti with red pen. But she needed them to talk, or she wouldn’t have a job.
Ash yanked the window open and let the taffy-colored light warm her cheeks. Slivers of dusty beige paint fluttered down and landed on the pink tiles. Remnants of her late mom’s ginger hair, a shade too pumpkin to be natural, still appeared from time to time, camouflaged. No matter how much Ash mopped, the grout would always be gray.
She stood next to the window, half asleep, not yet beholden to the sticky grip of a workday at a dented metal desk. She wouldn’t let her mind slip to the hollow soundtrack of clacking keyboards, watered-down coffee, the intrusion of someone’s reheated lasagna. Ash was going to be optimistic today.
The sun was out, and it was Thursday, the back end of a workweek, the day her arts and culture column ran. She knew no one read it. The winning lotto numbers were more interesting to most who looked at the local paper, but she had a byline. Even if someone used her words to collect bacon grease, her name was undeniably there. That was something.
And she had a date tonight. Her heart swung, back and forth, the short thrill of doing something different that might feel good. Or at least a little bit better.
His profile included too many vanity shots at the gym, but he looked kind of cute, and Ash had been paying for an app she barely used. Sometimes she lurked, marvelling at the abundance of joyful faces that beamed from her screen. Were they really that happy? As daylight came and went with terrifying speed, she told herself it was time to at least try. And he’d suggested meeting at a new hotel bar that Ash had never visited because the drinks cost more than her hourly wage. He worked for the company that built it. She accepted, curious and buoyed by the assumption he would cover the tab.
She splashed icy water on her face and gently dabbed her skin, an attempt at vanity. She pulled her mom’s face cream out of the cabinet and dug her fingers into the thick paste. It was crusted along the edges of the round blue container and smelled like the hospital, but it was all she had. And as she rubbed it across her freckled cheeks, a nice glow appeared. She gathered her thick dark hair like a sheaf of wheat, pulled it back into a low ponytail and smiled awkwardly at the mirror. The person who looked back at her wasn’t used to pretending.
Ash added a dash of black mascara and some raspberry-tinted lip gloss. She might as well make use of the stuff she hadn’t thrown out. The lingering presence who hovered in the cramped apartment appreciated that.
“Put it out there!” Her mom had said it countless times. Ash preferred to use pen and paper, while her mother had used her voice, the rusty roar of someone who shouted without shame. Her advice was often accompanied by a cigarette hanging for dear life on the edge of her lower lip, carcinogenic snowflakes falling on shit-brown shag carpet. “Put it out in the suckin’ universe, doll!”
Ash popped her lips at her reflection. “Puh!” Lip gloss counted. Ash was putting it out there.
She threw on a sweater and jeans, careful not to mess up her face. She stomped down the staircase to start a new day. Each step of her rubber soles released the sour smell of Mr. Carson’s eggs and toast. His morning was trapped in the carpet fibers, just like everyone else’s in the building. Ash held her breath and swung the door open. Its snap enunciated the thoughts in her head. Today could be different. It really could.
* * *
Ash’s version of a bar — the earthy tang of Marlboro Reds, Carhartt doused with body odor and greasy peanuts worn with age — was nowhere to be found later that evening when she arrived at the meeting spot. A low-grade discomfort settled on her shoulders as she waded into the stylish hotel lounge. She touched her nubby periwinkle crewneck with disdain. Like she had anything else to wear. Her heart thumped, the desperate drumbeat of someone lost in a forest without a map.
She approached the bar with caution. Blown glass bowls and Carrara marble boxes filled with neatly stacked, crisp white cocktail napkins lined its quartz surface. The hotel’s black and gold logo — a cartoonish rendering of a tree — was proudly embossed on each tidy square. The drawing looked like it had been created by someone who hated trees.
Ash stuffed a handful of fancy nuts into her mouth. Her eyes watered, overcome by rosemary and thyme. Her lunch, roughly five hours earlier, had been a stale bagel with cold bits of tasteless butter and a lukewarm coffee. She’d grabbed both at Stewart’s on the way to an interview with another rich urban transplant who had recently opened an eco-friendly children’s store inside the old-but-new textile mill. More off-white walls and smooth blond wood, stripped of its soul but free of splinters. The woman had stood her up and texted, three hours later:
Sorrryyy!!!! I had to meet with my contracter! Hes never on time. Next week? Tomorow?
Ash hadn’t responded yet, in solidarity with those who valued spelling and grammar. She’d started to reply a few times but put her phone away. She knew the woman would cancel again and again and again. Why bother?
She glanced at the bartender. He poured drinks with nonchalant precision, occasionally lifting his hand to adjust his tousled man bun. She stuffed her hands in her back pockets, not knowing what else to do with them. It was hard to figure out where to put these things that were very useful, but always in the way, especially in uncomfortably foreign but familiar places.
No one around her seemed to have this problem. The crackling logs in the twenty-foot tall fireplace snapped in cadence with the melody of their loud voices. Ash heard confident complaints about the lack of good customer service and fresh vegetables in the area. She gritted her teeth and quietly wished that weekend visitors would try to understand why these things went hand in hand. Because they did.
The town’s current condition — swallowed up by addiction and the swift decline of American self-sufficiency — was something people willfully ignored. Why, then, did they actually pay to be here? She wanted to tap the guy next to her on the shoulder and whisper, “Shouldn’t you be in Aspen? I’m sure they have salads there.” But she held back, knowing that her local’s perspective made her an imposter these days.
A figure appeared that matched her date’s profile. He sat down on a stool next to her and spread his legs.
“You must be Ash.” He spoke without enthusiasm as his cobalt eyes quickly scanned her body. “Cale.” He motioned for the bartender.
He’d said his name like it was a perfume brand. Ash told herself to ignore this. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
Cale stared at the bartender’s back. “My God. The service in this town.” He shook his head.
Ash exhaled and ordered the most expensive bourbon. Cale began his monologue about himself. He informed her he’d graduated from Princeton? She confirmed that she’d heard of it. As he continued, did he suspect she might be replaying the last episode of Love Island in her head? Did he care? Her heart slowly dipped. She hated herself for thinking this one would be any different.
The chorus from “Empire State of Mind” blared from his front pocket. He put his pointer finger up. “I gotta take this.” He stood up to dig the phone out of his jeans and placed the phone next to his ear like it was a call from Elon Musk.
Ash did some box-breathing as words like “crushing it” and “hyper-local” and “macro” dappled the air between them. His wavy chestnut hair was streaked with an alarming shade of gold. It had looked much thicker in his profile pics. The warm lighting couldn’t hide an unsuccessful attempt at facial stubble.
Copyright © 2026 by Henrietta Pertuz
