Cover art by Erin Halfelven
©2026, SammyC

It wasn’t a cauldron and we didn’t throw in a toad but we probably did look like the gaggle of witches in Macbeth. Talia, Elena, Grandma and I surrounded a large pot of boiling salted water in the Lodge’s kitchen. Talia was showing us her recipe for Cold Borscht Soup, which she was going to serve us for lunch on this sweltering Tuesday at twelve noon.

“It takes about 30 minutes for the beets to turn tender. In the meantime, we can chat amongst ourselves,” Talia brightly said.

“Your people were from Russia, Talia?” declared Grandma rather than asked.

“Yes, from The Pale. Mostly Belarus. Although some came from Ukraine.”

“I don’t think Grandma ever made Cold Borscht, did you?” I prodded. “Oh, that smell. It’s like a damp field in the forest.” I made a big show of pinching my nostrils together.

“Silly girl. Stop that. It’s not that bad.” Grandma swiped at my hand. “Forgive Lindsey, Talia. She’s not very domestic at all.”

“I’ll bet she was a real tomboy until her breasts bloomed,” Talia laughed. I blushed.

“I’ve really enjoyed spending these last few days getting to know you girls. That’s why I’m making my signature summer dish for you all as my parting thank you gift.”

“But why leave so soon, Talia? Don’t tell me the Canasta they play in Boca is more exciting than our activities at The Lodge,” teased Elena.

“I can’t help Aaron. The only reason I came was the outside chance that Joey Allen might lend Aaron the money he needed…for old time’s sake. But…he didn’t…so I’m leaving. Anyway, it was you Elena who asked me to come, not my son. We’re barely civil to each other, as obvious as that must be.”

I held up a slotted spoon. “Are the beets done? I’ve got a large bowl ready for them to cool in.”

“Get another bowl so I can strain the cooking liquid through this sieve and let it cool as well.” She turned back to Elena and Grandma as I searched the metal shelves for another suitable bowl.

“I don’t mean to pry but what exactly is the beef between you and your son? Except for a couple of personality flaws like gambling and skirt-chasing, he seems like a fine boychik, if you ask me. Which, of course, you didn’t…”rambled Grandma.

I spooned the beets into a bowl after handing the bowl I’d found on the shelf to Talia. She used a ladle to pour the cooking liquid through the sieve into the bowl. She smiled and thanked me. “Elena tells me Jeremy really likes Borscht. Maybe you can make it for him. I’ll leave you the recipe.” I blushed beet red.

“Stop teasing her, Talia. She’ll give off enough of a glow to light up the kitchen,” giggled Elena.

“In the old country, a girl your age would already be betrothed. Of course, that’s village life. Girls have so many more options in life these days,” Grandma noted.

“You asked why Aaron and I are so distant with each other. I’m afraid I’m to blame. I was the bad one. A bad mother. A bad wife.”

“No! That can’t be!” gasped Elena.

There was more than a moment of silence as we watched Talia whisking the beet cooking liquid, 2 cups of chicken stock, sour cream, half a cup of yogurt, a quarter cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, 2 teaspoons of vinegar, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper into a soupy consistency.

“Lindsey, do me a favor and go over to the counter and peel the skins off the beets. Use a paring knife. Then dice them into medium-sized cubes. There’s more room over there. Thank you, darling.”

Of course, I could still hear their conversation, keeping my head down as I peeled and diced.

“In the late ‘50s, Joey signed a contract to film some sitcom pilots for, I think CBS or NBC, I don’t remember, and he invited us…the three of us…to spend a couple of weeks in Los Angeles with him while he was at the lot during the day. He had just bought this beautiful house up in the hills. I was thrilled to go. So was Aaron. He was 13, turning 14 at the time. But Gabe said he couldn’t leave during the busy season, even for a few days. He left it up to me. Things weren’t going that well between Gabe and me at the time. He had picked up a nasty drinking habit and was irrationally angry a lot. Angry at the world, angry at the staff, angry at me, I guess. So, Aaron and I took up Joey’s invitation. It was our first airplane trip.” Talia gently laughed. She started to cut up some cucumbers, scallions and dill, adding them to the soup.

“Joey’s first words when we set foot into his new house in the hills was: ‘I live alone, Talia. I don’t know many people in this town. I haven’t even met my neighbors yet. Of course, I’d have to scale a 10 foot high fence to say hello but you get the point. There’s barely any furniture in the place. A single man doesn’t know from interior decoration, you know. What I’m trying to say is, this house…this man, me, Joey Shmulowitz, from The Bronx…needs a woman’s touch. Stay with me, Talia. Leave Gabe. He doesn’t appreciate you. You’re just another employee to him. I’ve always loved you. You know that. Look around, Talia. This is the land of milk and honey and Joey Allen is making the big time. I need you…’ I sputtered and lied. I told him I’d never felt that way about him. We were old friends, that’s all. And Gabe was a good husband and a good dad to little Aaron. Joey shook his head and approached me, taking me in his arms. He kissed me passionately. All this time, Aaron was frozen in place, an angry scowl on his face as he witnessed his mother’s betrayal of his father.

In the two weeks we spent in Los Angeles, Joey never stopped trying to seduce me. Well, he succeeded. A late night, after Aaron had gone to bed, a bottle of Pinot Noir in his right hand, glasses refilled as we strolled poolside, looking up at the Western starlit sky. It was so simple, so easy to slip. Joey is Jewish but he’s kissed the Blarney Stone. He could sweet talk anyone, anywhere, anyhow. I fell like a ton of bricks. Of course, Aaron was old enough to realize what was happening. And Joey tried to get on Aaron’s good side with every blandishment he could imagine a 13-year-old boy would appreciate. On successive Sundays, the only days off he got from shooting his pilot, we took Aaron to Disneyland and a Dodgers game at Memorial Coliseum, the first season they had relocated from Brooklyn. Aaron enjoyed the fun days we had but the sullen look on his face returned the moment he was in the backseat of Joey’s Cherry Red Thunderbird as we drove back to the house in the hills.”

I added the diced beets into the soup and, after stirring the completed concoction a few times, Talia covered the bowl with plastic wrap and walked it over to the enormous refrigerator.

“Three hours and it’ll be ready to be served.” She looked at her wristwatch. “Let’s reconvene in the patio at 12:30, everybody.”

“Wait a minute. You haven’t finished your story!” Everyone turned to me, startled by my outburst. “Well, I couldn’t help but overhear. I mean I’m just a few feet away. Anyway, I’m not a child. I’m aware of the ways of the world.” I crossed my arms and looked defiant.

“You’re right, Lindsey. You’re almost an adult. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes. Unfortunately, I acted like a lovesick teenager when I was already the mother of a 13-year-old boy—”

“And a married woman with a good breadwinner for a husband,” added Grandma.

“At the end of the two weeks, I had a stern talk with myself. A strong cup of coffee and a long drag on a Marlboro (‘The cigarette designed for men that women like’) finally convinced me that Joey and I had no future together. It was a silly notion, us being together. He was going places. In a few years, he’d despise me. The middle-aged hausfrau with the adult son stuck out like a sore thumb in a veritable sea of comely, young model-thin bleached blondes with their come-hither looks. I didn’t give Joey a chance to talk me out of leaving. I called for a cab and bundled Aaron and our combined luggage into the backseat, speeding toward LAX, passing Joey in his Corvette returning from the lot. Gabe barely noticed we had come back. He was embroiled in some mishegoss with the staff. Bless Aaron though. He never uttered a word about the whole episode to his father. But he never forgot his mother’s fall off the wagon in La La Land.”

Elena rubbed Talia’s shoulder consolingly. “I’m sure Aaron deep down loves his mother. The hurt fades away with time. It does. You’ll see one day.”

“I’m not so sure, Elena. Well, anyway, I’m leaving after lunch. I’ll be back in Boca in time for our weekly Canasta night.”

“Lindsey, didn’t Jeremy say he was meeting you in the lobby right about now to drive you to Woodstock?” Elena asked.

“Oh, that’s right! Why did I tell him that I was on the tennis team at school? Now he’s got me entered as his partner in mixed doubles for that match at Grossinger’s Friday. I’m such a twit.”

“Well you can’t play tennis in a t-shirt and blue jeans, dear. They’ve got some cute outfits in the sports shop on Tinker Street. Jeremy’s been there before. His older sisters bought their outfits from that store.”

“Oh, Lindsey’s quite the tennis player. She used to beat all the boys from the other schools,” remarked Grandma brightly. “Oh my, I’m getting senile. I meant she used to beat all the girls from the other schools.”

Woodstock is an hour’s drive north from The Lodge. Hard to reconcile the thought that just 3 summers before they’d held that iconic music festival in some farmland a few miles outside the town of Bethel. As Jeremy and I walked down the main shopping drag of town, Tinker Street, there were no head shops and other hippie establishments to be seen anywhere, as I had expected. Rather, it was the high street of an upper-middle class bohemian, artsy-fartsy, undeniably bucolic enclave in Central New York. The pedestrians wore Foster Grant sunglasses, mostly plain white or black clothes, and Birkenstocks in the blazing summer sun. These weren’t the types who would stay in a Catskill resort.

We entered Woodstock Sports Outfitters to the loud tinkling of wind chimes hanging from the top of the front door. The interior of the store looked like any sporting goods store I’d ever been in. The wind chimes were cute though. After a moment, a woman in her late forties/early fifties strode out from behind a partition in the rear of the store, a welcoming smile on her matronly face.

“Can I help you? Looking for anything in particular?”

Jeremy spoke up before I could answer her. “Mrs. Shapiro, don’t you remember me? Jeremy Ross. My sisters and I always buy new tennis outfits every summer from you.”

“Oh, yes. My, my, you’ve grown like a sprout. Hard to believe the young man I see before me today is the same little boy whose mother had to scold for running around the store, crashing into things.”

“Gee, Mrs. Shapiro, you’re embarrassing me—”

“In front of your beautiful girlfriend, I see.”

“This is my friend, Lindsey. She’s my partner this year for the mixed doubles match at Grossinger’s. My sister Rachael decided to take a Mediterranean cruise with my parents instead of staying at The Lodge. Lindsey played tennis on her high school team.”

“You’ll want the whole schmear then. Tennis dress, shoes, socks, racquet, etc. This might burst your budget, Jeremy.”

Jeremy held out Elena’s Amex card. “It’s my grandmother’s treat.”

“You must be one special girl, Lindsey. You’ve already won Mrs. Ross over.”

“Do you mind if I leave you in Mrs. Shapiro’s capable hands, Lindsey. I want to check out the Byrdcliffe Guild Gallery down the street.”

“I didn’t know you were interested in art, Jeremy,” I remarked.

“Oh, I think he appreciates beauty when he sees it,” Mrs. Shapiro smiled. I blushed.

The last thing I picked out was a tennis dress, after spending almost a half hour looking at shoes, socks, and racquets. Mrs. Shapiro was surprised at the racquet I selected. I went for something I was accustomed to. A heavier weight, longer length, and a larger grip size. “That’s a men’s size racquet! You must be deceptively strong for your size,” she marveled.

“Mrs. Shapiro, I’ve been thinking I’d like to pick out an outfit similar to what Chris Evert wears.”

“Oh, those are very popular these days! We can’t keep them in stock for long. In fact, we just reordered yesterday. But I’m sure we have something in your size. You’re a 4, right?”

“I guess. I’ve gained some weight in certain places recently so I’m not sure,” I explained.

“Of course, you’re still growing.”

I was about to take the dress Mrs. Shapiro had taken off the rack to the changeroom when I stopped, hesitated, and then decided to ask her if she carried Chris Evert’s unique ruffled panties. Her face brightened and she ran off to a corner of the store, returning with a pair of ruffled panties in my size.

“Try it on. I usually don’t allow customers to try on underwear but I’m sure this will fit you perfectly! Go on and put everything on, shoes, socks and all. Go!”

I emerged from the changeroom a few minutes later and positioned myself in front of the full length mirror on the adjacent wall. I turned around and around. I wanted to get a good look at my ruffled panties. I managed to turn my back to the mirror, bending over slightly, and looked over my shoulder at my reflection. The wind chimes tinkled loudly.

“Wow, Lindsey. You look great in that outfit!”

I saw Jeremy standing beside Mrs. Shapiro. I blushed. Again.