One S'more Summer

by Beth Merlin

  A smile crept across her face. “Yeah, I think we did good. Especially once they stopped short-sheeting our beds.”

  “I almost forgot about that,” I said, thinking back to the torturous first few weeks when we’d been the repeat victims of Bunk Fourteen’s unrelenting assaults.

  “I didn’t. In fact, I am taking that nugget with me to Brown, just in case I end up hating my roommate,” she said, laughing. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to find a boyfriend who has his own apartment.”

  “So things are over between you and Jake?”

  “Our story ends here. He’s heading back Down Under, and I’m heading off to Rhode Island. We’ll always have Chinooka, though.”

  Jordana and I exchanged information and e-mail addresses. I made her promise to update me regularly, and in exchange, she made me promise to design her a dress for her first sorority formal.

  “You’re that confident you’ll get through all the sorority hazing?” I teased.

  “After this summer, piece of cake,” she said, walking out of the bunk.

  I locked up the last of my things in my trunk and went outside for the final Cedar roll call. After all the campers were lined up, I took a minute to thank the counselors and CITs for their hard work. Then, I addressed the almost fifty campers who had been in my care these last eight weeks.

  “I don’t know about all of you, but for me, these have been the longest and shortest eight weeks of my entire life. So much happened this summer. We won The Gordy and Color War. Our trip to New York. But, what I want you to remember most of all are the lifelong friendships you made. Some of the best people you’ll ever know, you met right here at Camp Chinooka. Respect those friendships. Treasure them, value them, and appreciate them. Don’t for one second take them for granted. Be good to yourselves, but more importantly, be good to each other. Nothing else matters.”

  I glanced around and saw a bunch of the girls nodding in agreement. A few of them were hugging each other, while the rest looked teary at the thought of saying goodbye. “I watched you walk into Chinooka as girls, but today, you are leaving as Cedar women. So, in honor of that transformation, let’s hear it one more time. ‘We are Cedar, we couldn’t be prouder, and if you can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder.’”

  By the third verse, all of Cedar had joined in. I led the cheer a few more times until I saw Perry and Jamie walking toward us with their bags in hand. “Okay, as loud as you can. ‘We are Cedar, we couldn’t be prouder, and if you can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder!’” I screamed.

  “You won Color War and the Gordy. Give it a rest, Gigi!” Perry yelled from behind the girls.

  “Not a chance,” I yelled back before leading them through the chant one last time. When we finished, I motioned for the girls to quiet down and then dismissed them to the Great Lawn to wait for their buses home.

  “What time do you want to head out?” Jamie asked, walking toward me.

  “I have to stay until the last bus leaves. Probably around noon,” I replied.

  “What about you?” Jamie said, turning to Perry. “Can we drop you at the airport on our way back to the city?”

  “Thanks, but Gordy ordered me a cab. It should be here soon,” Perry said.

  “Ducking out of your final responsibilities, Head Counselor Gillman?” I teased.

  “Believe me, I wish I could stay here forever,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said

  Jaime interjected. “Well, I don’t, partner. We have a lot of work to get to, and I haven’t had a decent cup of coffee in days.” Clearly, this was his best effort to pull me out of a difficult moment.

  “Well, why don’t you get started by loading your stuff in the car? I’ll meet you up there in a little bit,” I said.

  Jamie shook Perry’s hand, wished him luck, and then left us alone to say our goodbyes. I looked down at all of Perry’s bags. “So you were able to pack the Gordy Award after all? I was worried you wouldn’t have room and might have to leave it here.”

  “I almost had to sacrifice the violin for it, but there was no way that golden treasure wasn’t coming home with me. Luckily, I managed to fit it in,” he said.

  “That word again, home.”

  “Chinooka’s home. London’s just the place where I live for now,” he said softly. “Walk me to my car?”

  I walked him all the way to the front entrance of Chinooka. When we got there, his taxi was already waiting. He pulled me in for a kiss and then whispered in my ear. “The way you changed my life, no, no, they can’t take that away from me.”

  “Irving Berlin?” I whispered back.

  “Gershwin, Gigi, always Gershwin.”

  I smiled and pulled away. “Call me when you get to London? Let me know you got there okay?”

  “I’ll call you from the airport.” The taxi driver honked, and Perry swung his backpack over his shoulder. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to say goodbye to you,” he said, pulling me back in for one more kiss goodbye.

  “Me neither.”

  “Neither,” he said, correcting me with his posh accent.

  “Neither, Neither, Either, Either, let’s call the whole thing off,” I said lightheartedly.

  “Not a chance, Princess. Not a chance. I love you, Georgica.”

  “I love you, too.”

  When I got back to the Great Lawn, most of the buses had already been called, and just a handful of campers were still waiting around. I noticed Madison sitting by herself in the gazebo, her face red and tear-stained. She had her knees pulled tightly against her chest and looked like she was having trouble catching her breath. I sat down and slid close to her. She immediately buried her head in my neck, and I wrapped my arms around her.

  “Did you say goodbye to Alex?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “He just got on his bus,” she said through choking sobs.

  “That must have been really hard,” I said, smoothing her hair.

  She sat up and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. “What do you think will happen with us?”

  “That’s hard to say. Some summer romances are like the summer itself, too short, too perfect, and exactly what we need to be able to go back and face the rest of the year.”

  “What about the other kind?”

  “You didn’t let me finish. Then there are the other summer romances. The ones that are so special, so extraordinary, they outlast the summer and go on maybe even for forever.”

  “What kind do you think you and Perry have?” she asked.

  “Only time will tell.”

  “And me and Alex?”

  “Only time will tell.”

  Madison dried her eyes, and Gordy called her bus number. She stood up to leave but then ran back to give me a last hug goodbye.

  After the final bus pulled away, I was alone on the Great Lawn. I closed my eyes and breathed in the last few minutes of camp.

  “Open your eyes. I need you to help me spot a Starbucks off the highway,” Jamie yelled out the window as he pulled up to me. After we loaded the last of my things into the car he handed me a pair of aviators out of the glove compartment. “Ready to go home, partner?”

  “Not home, New York City,” I said, correcting him.

  He smiled and pulled out onto the dirt road. As we drove out the camp gates, I looked in the rearview mirror one last time, silently thanking Camp Chinooka for giving me a second chance, a new romance, and just one more summer.

  The series continues with S’more to Lose, Book Two in the Campfire Series!

  Releasing December 5, 2017!

  Click here to preorder!

  Four years after her life-changing summer, Gigi Goldstein thinks saying goodbye to Camp Chinooka means saying hello to a brand new life. Now faced with a second chance at her career, she is filled with more hope than she’s felt in a long time. Her design house is taking the fashion world by storm, even attracting notice of Victoria Ellicott, the fashionable British socialite
who just happens to be engaged to the future king of England. When Gigi is chosen to design the royal wedding dress in London, she is forced to confront her ex-fiancé, Perry Gillman, now a successful composer with a hit show on the West End.

  But when Gigi learns Perry’s been dating Victoria’s sister, who rivals her in looks, style and sophistication, Gigi can’t help but feel inadequate in everything. Her world begins to crumble as she develops a creative block so debilitating, she fears that a wedding dress of royal proportions is never going to happen. Even a budding relationship with the handsome, wealthy, and rich Viscount of Satterley can’t make her forget about Perry and her inability to get over him. As the world gears up for the wedding of the century, Gigi is on the brink of buckling under the immense pressure of the uncertainties of her future and failures of her past.

  Will she be able overcome her creative paralysis to design the dress of Victoria’s dreams, or will she break down now that she has even s’more to lose?

  Acknowledgments

  I wrote the first chapter of One S’more Summer sitting on the NYC subway. Over the next ten years, I wrote the rest during stolen moments and any extra bits of time I could find between building a career and starting a family. In all those years, I experienced more than a few setbacks, but I never gave up because of my husband, Mashaal. Thank you for never wavering in your belief I would accomplish my dream. You’ve been my loudest and proudest cheerleader, my willing audience, my most honest critic, my voice of reason, my champion, my rock, and very best friend. Your love and support keeps my half empty glass not only full, but overflowing.

  Thank you to my incredible editor Danielle Modafferi. You believed in this story from the flawed first (second and even third) draft and have helped me push myself in ways I didn’t know were possible. Your support, advice, and guidance has been invaluable to this book and my writing. I am so grateful for our friendship and collaboration.

  I am so appreciative to the friends and family who have encouraged me every step of the way. My brother, Robert, and sister, Leslie, who have shown me through their choices and successes what it is to follow your dreams and live out your passions. My best friend, Alyson Weinick Schwartz, my life touchstone. I will forever be grateful to you for letting me tag along with you to sleepaway camp and about a million other places these last thirty years. My grandparents, Ruth and Bernard Hollander, who unselfishly provided me with so many life experiences. Alice, my mother-in-law and friend.

  I would not be who I am without my mother, Diane Zamansky, my very first editor who would routinely return my camp letters with corrections and revisions, red-marked for spelling and grammar mistakes. You taught me how to write and the value of the written word. Some of my earliest memories are of hearing you typing away articles and press releases on our Panasonic Word Processor at 5am. You inspired me in more ways than you realize.

  A special thank you to my camp friends (special shout out to Rebekah Flig)-- for being nice to me when I had frizzy hair and wore tie-dye from head to toe. Thank you for sticking by my side when we got in trouble. Thank you for keeping my secrets and staying up late at night even when the counselors told us to go to sleep. Thank you for sharing your canteen snacks with me. Thank you for listening to me cry about ridiculous things like the boys I liked or losing out on the lead in the camp play. Most of all thank you for teaching me to embrace my true self and loving me all the more.

  Thank you to my beautiful Hadley Alexandra, the light of my life and the bright spot of every single day.

  And finally, thank you to my father, Arthur Zamansky, who changed everything for the better.

  Beth Merlin has a BA from The George Washington University where she minored in Creative Writing and a JD from New York Law School. She’s a native New Yorker who loves anything Broadway, rom-coms, and a good maxi dress. She was introduced to her husband through a friend she met at sleepaway camp and considers the eight summers she spent there to be some of the most formative of her life. One S’more Summer is her debut novel and the first in the Campfire Series.

  Find Beth at on Twitter or at www.bethmerlin.com.