Cover art by Erin Halfelven
©2026, SammyC

“So, when do you expect Aaron’s mom to arrive,” I asked Elena as the five of us (me, Elena, Jeremy, Dad, and grandma) picked at our lunch on the patio by the pool. It was a sweltering Friday in late July, the noon sun ablaze in the sky, heat coming in waves stifling the air. Even so, there was nary an empty table. The din of conversation mingled with the sounds of tables being bussed and servers placing dishes in front of diners.

“She told me she was taking the 9AM flight from Palm Beach to JFK. That’s three hours. The drive up here will take another three and a half hours.” She glanced at her watch. “I told her I’d meet her in the lobby at around 5.”

“Isn’t Aaron going to be there when she arrives? You told him, didn’t you?”

“Oh, he knows. He said he was going to be occupied with greeting Joey Allen and getting him settled in his dressing room—”

“Which dressing room? There’s only two. Ours and Bucky Wilentz’s band has the other one.”

“He hasn’t told you?” Elena arched her brow. “He’s giving Joey your dressing room. At least until his set is over. Apparently he’s leaving immediately afterwards.”

“You, Jack, and Mrs. Azoff can sit at our table during Joey’s stand-up routine,” Jeremy suggested, his hair still wet from his daily session of diving practice. We were all wearing swimsuits but Jeremy had been the only one who’d actually dipped a toe into the water. The rest of us worked on our tans. I smiled at Jeremy but I was trying to hide my resentment at Aaron giving my dressing room to Joey Allen without an iota of discussion.

“Thank you Elena and Jeremy,” Dad said as grandma nodded sympathetically. “Lindsey, it’s the way of the world. Joey Allen is a star. It’s only for one night…”

I turned away from the table, my frown hidden from the others. That’s when I caught sight of Aaron sitting at a table at the far end of the patio, in the shadow of a cantilever sun umbrella. He was wearing a #24 Bill Bradley New York Knicks basketball jersey over his swim trunks. His hair was wet and slicked back. My eyes left his handsome face and landed on the left profile of a pretty blonde woman, sipping a Mimosa from a straw. She was in a blue floral print kimono that framed the white bikini she was filling out rather well.

“There’s Aaron,” I pointed out. “I’ve a mind to go and file my protest with him. At the least, he could have notified us before Joey Allen walked in on us as we were changing.” I got up and made a beeline to Aaron’s table.

“Lindsey, sit down. Honey—” I ignored Dad and only slowed down when I saw Aaron giving this woman a long, lingering kiss. Determined, I called out to Aaron when I was just a few feet from their table.

“Aaron, can I have a word with you?”

“Who’s this, Aaron? I thought you graduated high school a decade ago…at least.”

She made me feel self-conscious for no good reason and I wrapped my cover up tighter around me.

“Very funny, Amanda. This is Lindsey Azoff. She and her father are the headline magic act at the Lodge this summer. Lindsey, Amanda Kellerman.”

“Do you customarily address your boss by his first name, Miss Azoff?”

“We’re very collegial here, Amanda,” Aaron quickly interjected. “I insist on a first-name basis for the working environment here. Makes for a friendly workplace. After all, we’re in the hospitality business.”

“I’ll buy that for a dollar,” she snickered. Turning to me, she asked “What is so important that you need to disturb Mr. Felder’s lunch? Couldn’t it wait until later?”

Aaron sprung up from his chair and took me a little roughly by the arm.

“Excuse us, Amanda. I’m sure it’s something that involves stage lighting or props for their act. We’ll be just a couple of minutes. Order another Mimosa. It’s on the house!” He laughed as he hurried to an unoccupied table near the patio fence, dragging me along.

“Sit down, Lindsey. What’s up?”

“Who is that…that—”

“Bitch? Really, Lindsey. Such language. That’s Amanda Kellerman. Eldest daughter of David Kellerman, Manhattan commercial real estate magnate. You’ve heard of him?”

“No, can’t say I have.”

“Well, Amanda and I are…good friends.”

“Are you two involved?”

“Nearly. Nearly. Look, I can be totally honest with you. She’s got her father wrapped around her little finger. She doesn’t even have to ask her dad to loan me all of what I owe Maranzano. I can get the rest from Joey Allen. Like I told you, Joey’s like part of the family. He even came to my bar mitzvah.”

“You seem pretty sure she can get the money from her father.”

“She’s head over heels for me.” He sat back and ran his fingers through his still wet hair.

“And do you like her…equally?”

“Nah. She’s too much of a spoiled little rich girl for my taste. We don’t move in the same social circles. She’s always cracking wise about me being a Catskills innkeeper for a crowd of village bumpkins.”

“I…I don’t see you that way, Aaron. I mean, you’re a captain of industry to me. I’m just a girl from Central Jersey.” I think I was making googly eyes at him because he abruptly got up and asked me what I wanted to speak to him about.

“About our dressing room…”

“Yeah?”

“I hope Mr. Allen likes it. I’ve tried to keep it neat and clean—”

“I’m sure you have, Lindsey. And I appreciate it. So, I’ve got to get back to Amanda before she has her third Mimosa. I need her to be functionally sober when I spring the question on her. Say hello to your dad and grandmother for me.”

Talia Felder drew back the curtains of her hotel room’s windows and sighed.

“I had no idea Aaron would keep it from you,” Elena said, sitting across from me, at the bistro table in the room.

“Elena, that boy barely speaks to me once a month, never mind actually visiting me in person. Especially since his father passed. I thought things were going well. As well as it could. You know the whole Catskills resort is in a death spiral. The only hotel going great guns is Grossinger’s. Aaron even urged me to sell the place. If we could find a buyer…”

“I surmise, Talia, there’s no way you could come up with the money Aaron owes that mobster,” Elena said.

“When Aaron’s father and I retired, we had a nest egg of about a quarter of a million dollars. We thought that and whatever we’d get from selling the Lodge would keep us comfortable in Boca until the final sunset.”

“Aaron told me he’s got a plan to get the money he needs to pay this guy Maranzano,” I added to the discussion. Talia turned to me and looked me over, slowly and silently.

“I was under the impression that Jack had a son named Lindsey. At least, that’s what I recall. Of course, it’s been a few years.”

“Who ever heard of a boy named Lindsey?” I replied. “Lindsey’s a girl’s name. Right, Elena?”

“Lindsey with an e, not an a. Girl’s name, certainly,” Elena declared as she nodded in my direction.

“Well, you certainly are the very image of your mother. Bless her soul.”

“Speaking of Aaron’s plan, Talia, do you know Joey Allen well?” asked Elena.

“My husband, when he was a boy, was in the junior congregation at the synagogue Joey’s father, Rabbi Shmulowitz, presided over in The Bronx. He wanted to become a cantor. But the Depression came along and he had to find work wherever he could. He started out as a busboy in his Uncle Duddy’s hotel in the Borscht Belt. That’s where I met him, before the war, when he was assistant manager and I was a hostess in the dining room. We got married a month before he went overseas.”

Talia sat down on the bed, her head bowed. Her hands nervously fidgeted in her lap.

“After the war, Uncle Duddy, a confirmed bachelor, died and left the hotel to us. The Lodge started to do well, better than it did under Uncle Duddy. Aaron’s father had an eye for showbiz talent. We were booking a lot of up-and-coming singers, comics, and magicians, you name it. When Joey Shmulowitz became a regular during the summer season, my husband discovered Joey was the Rabbi’s son. We became fast friends and were so happy for Joey when he started appearing on TV and playing clubs across the country. Of course, he changed his name to Allen. Easier for the goyim to remember.”

Talia picked up her handbag and took out her wallet. She flipped through the photos and stopped, her expression softening, her lips slightly quivering, as she placed the wallet in Elena’s open palm.

“That’s the three of us in Central Park. Joey was appearing on The Steve Allen Show and got us tickets to the studio. He even put us up in the Ritz Carlton for two nights. All on his dime. Aaron had to stay home with my mother. Boy, was he mad at us for days!”

Elena passed the wallet to me and I scanned the black and white photo. It was unquestioningly taken in the mid-1950s. There were people in the background dressed in the fashion of the times. Men in suits or sportscoats. Many with fedoras on their heads. Women in mid-calf length dresses and skirts, purse straps languidly hanging off their slender forearms.

“You were so beautiful, Mrs. Felder,” I gushed.

“That was a long time ago, my dear.”

Joey Allen, displaying a slim silhouette in his tuxedo and black bow-tie, separated the microphone from its stand and leaned into the audience in The Supper Club. He was finishing up his 40-minute set. The capacity crowd in the room was still laughing at his previous string of one-liners. I was seated at Elena Ross’ table along with Dad, grandma, Talia Felder, and Jeremy Ross. I had to admit that Joey was one very funny man. In the back of the room, obscured in the shadows, stood Aaron, his arms crossed, a serious look on his face. It was apparent he hadn’t been raucously laughing at Joey’s comedy act, having other more sober things on his mind.

“As you might know, my father is a Rabbi and one of his quirks was sitting at breakfast every morning and reading the obituaries in the newspaper. He often observed to me, between bites of his bagel and lox or matzah brei: ‘Only in America does everyone die alphabetically.’

But, I guess he passed onto me his obsession with reading and collecting obituaries. Even to this day, people who know me and fans will send me unusual or peculiar obituary notices from their local papers.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a single sheet of newspaper. He mimed having difficulty reading it, moving it back and forth in front of his eyes.

“Here, this is from a recent New York Times. Yes, from May of this year. You know, there’s something that always…well, disturbed me. A pattern. Women live longer than men. Yes, it’s a fact. Let’s see. All of these are from one page on the same day. This gentleman died at the age of 79. It says, ‘left a wife.’ Okay. This man passed at 86. A good age. ‘He is survived by his wife.’ Another man. 84 at the time of his passing. You guessed it. ‘Survived by his wife.’ And it goes on. ‘Survived by his wife…left a wife…he is survived by a wife.’ Eight out of the nine obits on this one page…all on the same day…survived by his wife!”

It’s enough to stop a man from ever marrying! Till death do us part? Which part of us are we talking about? Fellas, this is a warning…”

There was a cascade of laughter from most of the men in the room. I noted that Elena, grandma, and Talia weren’t very amused. My father was trying to sink down in his seat while Jeremy shrugged his shoulders while glancing at me.

Joey reached into his breast pocket again and pulled out a clipping from a newspaper he claimed a fan sent him recently.

“From The Los Angeles Herald. The obituary section. Uh…let’s see…November of last year. Now listen to this. ‘West Point’s oldest graduate dies. Brigadier General…mumble…died at 104. 43 years of active duty. Participated Spanish American War 1898, the Boxer Rebellion, Vera Cruz, World War I, four times awarded the Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, and the French Croix de Guerre.’ What does it say?”

He nodded his head as the laughter started to build.

“’He is survived by his wife.’ Here’s a man took care of Pancho Villa, fought the Indians, survived seven wars! But he couldn’t survive the old lady!”

Raucous laughter crossed the room in waves. Joey replaced the microphone on its stand and held up his index finger while reaching into his pants pocket with his other hand.

“But, ladies and gentlemen, I leave you with this article from a newspaper that a lady sent me along with this nice letter. A recent widow, she tells me that she came to one of my shows and it was the first laugh she’d had since her husband died. She enclosed this clipping. And it reads: ‘Mrs. Vera Cermak of Prague, Czechoslovakia, on hearing that her husband was leaving her for another woman, threw herself from a third story window to end it all. She was taken to a hospital and soon recovered. Her husband – on whom she landed – was killed on the spot.’”

That brought the house down. Despite everything, even I had to chuckle at that one. Joey bowed and waved to the audience, blowing kisses as they applauded. Everyone at our table rose from our seats as Joey left the stage, ripples of applause still redounding in the room. We saw Aaron move toward the backstage area.

“I guess we’re going to convene in Joey’s dressing room?” asked Dad.

“Our dressing room, Dad,” I replied, taking grandma’s arm.