One S'more Summer

by Beth Merlin

  “Michelle’s sitting OD. I’m surprised you didn’t notice she wasn’t around.”

  “Are you going to sit with me or not?” he asked.

  We sat down at one of the wood picnic benches outside The Canteen. “Fine, my ice cream’s melting anyway,” I said, licking it around the sides.

  “So what is this that we’re eating?” he asked.

  “It’s a Chipwich, kind of like a cookie had a baby with an ice cream sandwich. It’s no beans on toast, but I like it.”

  “Did you have a good time at the social?” he asked abruptly. “I saw you talking to Madison for a while. What was that about?”

  “You know, typical thirteen-year-old girl drama,” I said.

  “And I’m sure one of my boys is to blame. Alex Shane, right?”

  “No, actually, it was one-hundred percent her. Alex didn’t do a thing. Well, he did ask her to be his girlfriend.”

  “And?” He leaned in toward me like I had some big twist to reveal.

  “And nothing. She was unsure about her feelings. She really likes Alex. She just couldn’t wrap her head around the fact he was just as into her.”

  “So she pushed him away? That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Maybe she thinks she doesn’t deserve him.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Speaking from experience?”

  “Right, like I would spill my innermost thoughts to someone I loathe,” I said.

  “You loathe me? That’s pretty harsh,” he said.

  “I don’t loathe you. I don’t even really know you,” I said honestly.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked pointedly.

  “This is your fourth summer working here, right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered quickly.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why come back here year after year?”

  “I told you, I’m working on my thesis,” he answered.

  “How much time could you really have to work on it? We’re busy all day and night. Why not just hole up in some music room at Oxford for the summer?”

  “My thinking is clearer up here. Maybe it’s the air or something.”

  I had to agree. My thinking had been clearer since the minute I set foot at Chinooka. “But still, that’s a long time to work as a camp counselor. Or to be working on your thesis, for that matter.”

  “You think I have some ulterior motives or something?”

  “No, I didn’t say that,” I answered.

  “But that’s what you were thinking, right? Why would an almost thirty-year-old guy come up here summer after summer?”

  “I wasn’t judging you. It was just a question.”

  “You’ve been judging me since the minute you got here.” He looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.

  “Oh, that’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” I countered.

  “If that’s how you feel, why are you even sitting here?”

  “You got me,” I said, standing up from the picnic table.

  “By the way Gigi, this,” he said, holding up the Chipwich, “is absolutely disgusting.”

  “Then throw it in the rubbish bin,” I shouted back at him before walking away.

  Fuming, I headed back to my cabin, passing Michelle and Brooke who were still sitting OD. They were making s’mores in the campfire and laughing about something. They stopped when they spied me and shot me dirty looks as I walked past. I was too tired to care. If Michelle hadn’t copped such an attitude with me earlier, I would have offered to take their place and give them a reprieve. Now, they could sit there all night. I was going to sleep.

  The screen door squeaked as I entered the cabin. I could hear the girls shushing each other and telling Madison to hide something. When I walked in, they were all huddled around a piece of paper that was being passed around along with a flashlight. When the paper got to Madison, she stuffed it down her shirt. “Hi, girls, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” they replied in unison.

  “Maddy, what’s that you stuffed down your shirt?” I questioned.

  “Nothing,” she answered.

  “Nothing? It looked like something.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  I gave her a look that told her I meant business, and she reached down her sweatshirt and handed the crumpled piece of paper over to me. I unfurled it, smoothing it out against the wall as best I could. The minute I could make out what it was, I burst out laughing. How was the Purity Test still floating around Chinooka?

  The Purity Test was a self-graded survey that calculated the participant’s degree of innocence with regard to sex, drugs, and other sordid activities. It worked on a sliding scale, and each act had an associated point value. For example, a kiss on the cheek with a guy could earn you one point, whereas receiving a hickey would earn you fifteen. When I was a camper, we would take it the first night we got to camp and then see how many points we could rack up throughout the summer. The girl with the highest point value at the end was always idolized by the rest of the girls, most of whom barely cracked the single digits.

  I turned the sheet over. On the back were the names of all the girls, with numbers written next to each of them. To my complete astonishment, Emily Zegantz had one of the lowest numbers next to her name and Alana Griffin, the girl I’d pegged as a shy bookworm, had one of the highest. I wondered what kind of points a relationship with my best friend’s boyfriend would earn. My guess was that there wasn’t even a score that could quantify my past behavior.

  The girls looked ready for the lecture they believed was forthcoming. I didn’t have one. Part of what made camp so special was getting to live side by side with girls your own age, who were going through the exact same things you were. It was about experimenting, making mistakes, and knowing you had friends to fall back on when you did. I rubbed my hand against my heart and handed the paper back to Madison.

  “All right, girls, I’ve had a long day, so lights out for real this time, including flashlights, okay?”

  Madison tiptoed over to me. “You aren’t mad about the list, Gigi?”

  “No, not mad. I guess if you really want me to comment on it, then all I’ll say is this: Once you’ve done something, be it on that list or in life, you can’t undo it, no matter how much you might want to.”

  The room was quiet for a moment, and then the girls went in separate directions to get ready for bed while I lay restless in my own.

  The bunk was stifling hot, and the clip-on fan on my nightstand wasn’t doing a thing to help. It was unnervingly quiet in the cabin, and I wished there was a TV I could turn on to distract me from how uncomfortably warm it was. I reached under the bed and pulled my phone out from an empty shoebox. I’d tried not to use it in front of the girls in order to show them it was possible to have fun at camp without any modern conveniences. Tonight, though, I needed a diversion. I scrolled to the new Adele album, closed my eyes and waited for sleep to wash over me, but my mind kept replaying my conversation with Perry. We’d had our fair share of spats, but this one felt different—as if I’d hit a real nerve this time.

  Like me, he was obviously using Chinooka as a refuge. But from what?

  Chapter Eleven

  The following morning, my phone and fan batteries long dead, I was awakened to Lee Greenwood’s ‘Proud To Be An American’ blasting over the camp’s loudspeaker. It was the Fourth of July, and one-hundred degrees, with one-hundred percent humidity. I woke up drenched in sweat.

  July Fourth was always a special day at camp. Each year, the different age groups battled it out in a series of events for Gordy points. The competition was followed by a cookout. Then, the whole camp would go down to the lake to watch fireworks before the Rope Burn Battle. The girls were already complaining about the schedule I’d taped to the wall the night before. Now, with the heat wave, they were really moaning. I was less than enthusiastic myself. July Fourth was one of the few days t
hat I enjoyed spending in the Hamptons. Every year, my parents threw an over-the-top party for their friends and the other partners at my father’s law firm. The grounds of the house were immaculately decorated, complete with white tents and ice sculptures. At night, the guests would all gather on the shore of Georgica Pond for a bonfire and fireworks.

  Every year, Alicia and Joshua came as my parents’ guests, but last year, Joshua had come alone, as mine. Certain Alicia was moving to London after all, we’d planned on concealing our relationship just a bit longer, and then coming out to her the next time she was in town. Just being able to sit side by side with him, eating lunch out in the open, had made me feel for the first time that we wouldn’t always have to hide. She’d see Joshua and me together—her two oldest friends having fallen for each other—and wonder why she hadn’t seen our chemistry all along. It was delusional, but I’d been so in love with Joshua that anything seemed possible.

  Still, we weren’t ready to go public, so every chance we got, we’d stolen away to dark corners of the house or garden and then returned to the party as if nothing had happened. Under the party tent, he kissed me on the forehead and pulled me in close to his chest. We stood that way for a few seconds before reality, and my mother’s voice had pried us apart. We couldn’t escape quickly enough, and she cornered us.

  “Gigi, I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Where have you been?”

  “Right here,” I answered.

  “Thank you so much for inviting me, Mrs. Goldstein,” Joshua said from behind me.

  “For the millionth time, it’s Kathryn. Is Gigi showing you a good time?”

  “The best,” he answered.

  “I’m glad. Gigi, I want to introduce you to someone,” she said, pushing a good-looking man in my direction. “This is David Mincher, a new associate at your father’s firm. David, this is my daughter, Georgica.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, extending my hand.

  “David went to Columbia Law School like Daddy. Gigi was accepted to Columbia. She’s weighing her options right now.”

  “Where are you deciding between?” David asked me.

  “I’m not really sure law school’s for me. I’ve been designing for Diane von Furstenberg’s line.”

  Joshua chimed in, “Gigi’s really talented. You should take a look at this month’s issue of Vogue. There’s a feature on her as an up-and-coming designer.”

  “Up-and-coming isn’t the same and there-and-established, though,” I said modestly.

  “She’s selling herself short,” Joshua said. “Her stuff’s incredible.”

  “I’ll have to check it out,” David said. “This month’s Vogue?”

  “Page seventy-nine,” Joshua answered for me.

  David took out his phone and typed in the page number. “There. Just sent myself a reminder to check it out.”

  “Wonderful,” my mother replied. “So I’ll leave you two to talk. Joshua, why don’t you come with me? I know Mitchell wanted to talk to you about a few investments.”

  My mother pulled Joshua over to talk to my father. Even though she had no idea there was anything going on with us, any woman could see that no other guy could stand a chance in his presence.

  “Nice party,” David commented after my mother walked away.

  “It is,” I said, looking around.

  “So the invitation asked all the guests to wear white? Sort of like P. Diddy’s White Party, right?”

  It wasn’t sort of like P. Diddy’s White Party—it was exactly like P. Diddy’s White Party. Every year, P. Diddy, a neighbor of my parents’ in East Hampton, threw a huge blowout on July Fourth and required all his guests be decked out in only white clothing. My mother had read about the party and decided to require the same of her guests. Every year, in protest of the sheer absurdity of my mother thinking she could compete with an international superstar, I bucked the dress code and showed up in an obnoxious bold color or print. That year, I’d opted for a tangerine dress.

  “Yeah, it’s a nice touch,” I replied. “I didn’t exactly follow the dress code, though.”

  “I think you look great. Did you design your dress?” he asked.

  “No, not this one, it’s from a vintage store.”

  “It looks great on you,” David said.

  Poor guy. He was trying hard, and there was nothing wrong with him. If the timing had been different, I may have even been interested. But, right then, I was so wrapped up in Joshua that nobody would have been able to get my attention. All I could think about was how I was going to ditch David and get back to the dark corner behind the gardener’s shed to pick up where Joshua and I had left off.

  I spotted Joshua talking to my father and some of his cronies by an ice sculpture of the American flag. He kept stealing glances at me. I could hardly concentrate on anything David was saying.

  “If you’ll excuse me, David, I think my mother needs some help,” I said.

  He looked around at all the servers. “Your mother has an army of help.”

  “Time for me to report to duty,” I said, giving a mock salute. As soon as I was alone again, I caught Joshua’s eye, then walked behind the gardener’s shed to wait for him. Within minutes, he met me.

  “How’d you manage to escape?” I asked him.

  “I told your father I had to go meet up with a client who needed my undivided, very close, very personal attention,” he said before kissing me. “You’re making it tough in that dress, Gigi.”

  “To what? Restrain yourself?” I teased.

  “To be discreet. Bright orange in a sea of white.”

  “Tangerine,” I corrected.

  “Tangerine,” he conceded. “I got you something.” He pulled an unmistakable blue Tiffany box out of his pocket. “I saw it and instantly thought of you. Of us.”

  I took the box from him and slowly undid the white satin ribbon. Inside was a dainty diamond key pendant on a thin chain. He pulled it out and put it around my neck.

  “It looks beautiful on you.” He kissed my neck. “Maybe you should go show it to David. See if he likes it.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Who could blame me?” he said, never taking his eyes off of me.

  “Well, don’t be. I have my sights set on someone else.”

  Joshua scooped me up in his arms. We went at it like two teenagers behind the bleachers of a high school football game and eventually returned to the party like nothing had happened.

  Later that night, my mother stopped me and complimented my necklace.

  “Were you wearing that earlier?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “It’s sweet.” As far as my mother was concerned, that was a compliment. “So David’s very nice, don’t you think?”

  “Very,” I replied.

  “He seemed taken with you.”

  “I think he’s just taken with this party, which, by the way, Mom, is beautiful this year.”

  “Gigi, you’ve been at every single one of our Fourth of July parties since you stopped going to summer camp. They’re always beautiful.”

  “This one seems especially nice. Just accept the compliment. I don’t have any ulterior motives in giving you one.”

  She smiled. “Would you mind starting to direct people down to the pond for the fireworks?”

  I ushered the crowds away from the bar and down to the grass fields that surrounded our portion of Georgica Pond. As soon as the sun completely set, the first set fireworks went off. Joshua came up behind me, and I leaned back on him slightly. Not enough for anyone to notice, but enough to feel the steady rhythm of his heart. We stood and watched with everyone else until the last burst fell from the sky. Slowly, the crowd made their way back up to the party tents, but Joshua and I stayed behind. When everyone had gone, he pulled me close and kissed me like we really were the living embodiment of the tragic star-crossed lovers I’d only ever come across in great romantic novels. Deep down, though, I co
uldn’t ignore the small voice in my head telling me my happiness wasn’t that different from the magnificent fireworks we’d seen just moments before—a brilliant explosion of passion and color that would eventually fade into nothing.

  Now, a full year later, I reached up and touched the dainty diamond key I hadn’t once taken off since Joshua had given it to me. In the thick heat on this July Fourth morning, it was like a noose around my neck. I groped for the necklace’s clasp and struggled for a few seconds, trying to unhook it. When it was finally off, I opened the tin of Band-Aids on top of my nightstand and slid the necklace inside. It was time to close up whatever Pandora’s box that key opened a year ago. All I could do was hope, for Alicia’s sake, that Joshua and my secret stayed hidden inside.

  After a quick and refreshingly freezing shower, I went to the horseshoe for roll call. The girls eventually emerged from the bunks, dressed in Chinooka T-shirts. It wasn’t any cooler outside than it was in the cabin. If anything, the sun made it even hotter. In an effort to rally the girls for the day’s events, I did my best version of Mel Gibson’s rousing speech from Braveheart, which was almost entirely lost on them. The only time I noticed them slightly perk up was when I mentioned the possibility of the day’s events being canceled in favor of an all-camp swim.

  They got their wish. Halfway through breakfast, Gordy announced that because of the heat, Field Day was canceled. All the campers went back to the bunks to change into their swimsuits and head over to the waterfront or pool. I divided up the counselors between the two areas and decided I’d also split my day. I went down to the lake first and parked myself under a tree, which did little to alleviate the heat. I took off my shorts and T-shirt and found myself in a bikini that was skimpier than I remembered. Suddenly, what seemed appropriate on Georgica Beach was completely obscene on the shores of Lake Chinooka. I noticed some of the waterfront staff looking at me and put my shorts back on.

  “I just don’t get you, Gigi,” Tara said from behind me.

  “What’s that?” I said, sitting up on my towel.

  “You had all those guys’ attention and you decide to cover up?” She pointed to the center of my neck. “What’s that?”