by Beth Merlin
“I get it. We go way back. Look, whenever you want to have dinner, we can have dinner,” I said.
“Fine, how’s now?” he asked, calling my bluff. He loosened his tie and slipped it off.
“Now? Now’s great. Just let me go change.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be waiting,” he said, picking up the remote off the couch cushion.
I didn’t have a single clue what to put on. Nothing I owned seemed right. I finally settled on a fitted white tee, low-rise jeans, a blue-gray velvet blazer that matched my eyes, and a pair of slingbacks I’d wrestled away from another girl at a sample sale. When I finally walked back into the living room, Joshua was setting our small kitchen table.
“What’s all this?” I said, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice.
“I called for some takeout. It should be here in a few minutes,” he said, laying out the flatware.
I took some of the dishes out of his hand. “So what’d you order?”
“Well, there’s this incredible Mediterranean place right around the corner.”
“La Mer?” I guessed.
“Yeah, you have eaten there?”
“It’s one of my father’s favorites, actually.”
“Alicia wouldn’t ever go with me,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. She doesn’t like spicy food.”
It was strange talking about Alicia without her being there. It was like we had to bring her name up every few minutes just to keep the conversation from coming to a screeching halt.
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a few things to try,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, looking for a bottle of wine in the very back of the refrigerator. “I knew we still had one. Is white okay?”
“Yeah, white’s great,” he answered.
While I was uncorking the bottle, the door buzzer rang and Joshua ran to answer it.
“I have cash in my wallet,” I said, yelling from the kitchen. “Just take whatever.”
“I got this,” he replied, signing the receipt in the doorway while the delivery guy waited.
I helped empty the food containers into bowls and set them on the table. Everything smelled wonderful. I sat down next to him, and he raised his glass for a toast.
“To us and our first dinner together as friends,” he said.
“Cheers,” I said, clinking my glass with his. I took a long sip before setting it down. “This all looks really great,” I added.
“You look really great, Gigi. I should have told you that when you walked back in here,” he said.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
“No, really. You look different. What’s different about you?” he asked.
“Nothing’s different,” I answered.
He turned his chair toward me and pushed some hair out of my face.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing. I couldn’t see your face,” he said, turning his attention back to the food. “How incredible is this humus? You seeing anyone?” He leaned farther back in his chair.
“What? No, just sort of dating. Nobody special,” I said, admitting the embarrassing truth before I could come up with a believable lie.
“What happened to Mike?” he asked.
“Who?” I said, taking a forkful of falafel.
“The guy you brought to your parents’ last Fourth of July party?”
“Oh, Matt? Yeah, we went on a few dates, then it fizzled.”
“Not your type?”
“I guess not.”
“So what is your type?” he asked, leaning closer to me.
“I don’t know if I have a type,” I answered.
“Have you ever been in love?” he asked very directly. It caught me off guard.
I put my wine down. “No. Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. Alicia, obviously,” I said, feeling stupid for even putting the question to him.
“Shira Levy,” he said.
“Who?”
“You don’t remember Shira? I’m shocked.” Joshua threw back the rest of his wine.
I racked my brain for a few minutes before it came to me. “Shira Levy from Camp Chinooka. That wasn’t love. That was puberty. She developed boobs at eleven.”
“Maybe so,” he said, laughing to himself.
“So Shira, huh? What would Alicia have to say about that?” I teased.
“I think she’d understand.”
“You’re right. I think every camper was a little in love with Shira Levy. If you’re finished, I’ll clean up so you can get going.”
“Is it okay if I stay a little longer? I don’t feel like being alone tonight.”
A flutter started in my stomach and moved its way into my chest. “Umm…sure, stay as long as you need to.”
I reached over him to clear his plate, and he lifted his hand from the table and placed it over mine.
“What are you doing, Joshua?” I whispered.
He took the dishes from my hands and placed them back on the table. Standing up, he pulled me toward him and turned me around. He ran his fingers through my hair and then kissed me.
I thought to push him away, but his arms felt so right wrapped firmly around me. I gave in and kissed him back. It wasn’t romantic or even passionate. It was primitive and urgent. When he finally let go, I backed away and almost hit the wall behind me. He kissed me again and I let him take over, happy to finally relinquish control to the one person who ever made me feel out of it.
My college philosophy professor had once explained that in any relationship involving three people, by default, it became one person’s role to mediate between the two opposing or contradictory sides. Ultimately, one of the three would take on the responsibility of interceding between, reconciling, and connecting the two.
I’d held that position for as long as I’d known Joshua and Alicia and with that one kiss, forever abandoned it. Over the course of the next few months, I tried to push that truth as far into the recesses of my mind as my heart and guilt would allow, but it always resurfaced.
Now, in Perry’s cabin, being questioned about my most recent behavior and the motives that had incited it, my shame came back to light. I was a million miles away from that night, yet I could still feel the weight of Joshua’s body against mine and the way his fingers dug into my shoulder blades when he kissed me. His touch was imprinted on my mind, body, and soul, and I cringed at my own inability to let it go and—worse than that—the mistakes I was continuing to make in trying to do so.
“So you think I’m out to prove something?” I said, in response to Perry’s accusation.
“Aren’t you?” he asked, still leaning over me, clearing the dishes. He was so close his breath grazed my ear. Even though I’d been repulsed by him only hours earlier, now I wanted him. I wanted nothing more than to pull him close and prove to myself I was over Joshua.
“Maybe,” I said softly.
I stood up to face him and leaned in, hoping he’d scoop me up, carry me back to his bed, and help me move on from the night when Joshua and I had crossed over the brink. Instead, Perry backed away from me.
“What’s the matter?”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Don’t you want to?”
“I’m not looking to be part of this game you’re playing with your boyfriend back at home, Gigi.”
“Is that what you think this is?”
“Isn’t it? The guy at the bar? Me? It’s all part of some big game for you, right?”
“What do you care anyway? Isn’t this the kind of thing that you come every summer for?” I said.
“Hardly,” he answered.
All I had to do was look around the cabin to see he was using camp as a means of escape from something, too. “I have to go. I have to get back before my girls notice I didn’t sleep in the bunk.”
“Let me walk you back,” he offered.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s sti
ll dark outside. Let me walk you back.”
“I said I’m fine. I was a camper here for seven summers. I don’t need your help.” I crawled across the floor, trying to find my shoes.
“At least take my flashlight,” he said, handing it to me.
I took it from him, slipped my heels back on, and walked out onto the cabin deck.
“Do you need some other shoes?”
“I walked from SoHo to my apartment on the Upper East Side in these shoes during a massive power outage in Manhattan. I can make it back to my cabin, thank you very much.”
He laughed, which only irritated me more.
I stood up to face him. “Look, whatever this act of chivalry was tonight, I appreciate it, but next time, just let me be. I’m a big girl, and I would have gotten home from the bar just fine.”
Perry was silent for a moment, and then, almost as if he was hearing me for the first time, he said, “You’ve made that quite clear to me a few times today, so, no problem. From this point on, I’ll leave you alone.”
“Great.”
“Well, Princess, all too happy to oblige.” He walked back into the cabin and slammed the door before I had a chance to reply.
When I got back to the bunk, all the girls were soundly sleeping. I took off my shoes and tiptoed across the floor to my bed. I was hoping to maybe get an hour of sleep in before the wake-up call. I changed out of my dress and into a T-shirt and sweatpants so the girls would think I’d slept in the bunk all night and climbed into bed. After a few seconds fiercely battling my covers, I realized I was once again the victim of a short-sheeting prank. I groaned loudly. Jordana heard me and woke up.
“They did it to my bed again too. Here,” she said, tossing me a sleeping bag from under her own bed. I unzipped it and turned it into a blanket before wrapping it around me.
“I’ve been worried about you. I tried to get you to leave with me and the other counselors, but you weren’t having it. Perry told me he’d make sure you got home, so I finally left. Where have you been?” she whispered.
“Perry’s cabin,” I answered.
“What?” She sat up, her eyebrows almost leaping into her hairline.
“Shhh, you’ll wake them. It’s not what you think.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I had too much to drink and I blacked out or something. Perry took me back to his cabin so Gordy wouldn’t find out.”
“I guess that was after you made out with the townie?”
“Townie?”
“The guy you were all over? You know, he doesn’t work at camp, right? He lives in Milbank year-round.”
She made it sound like I’d made out with a convict or something. “Well, at least I won’t have to run into him at breakfast later,” I said.
“True. So then, what happened after you finished making out with the townie?”
“Apparently, I tried to do a striptease on the bar? That’s the last thing I remember before I woke up in Perry’s bed.”
“Classy.” She smirked. “Then what?”
“Then nothing. He made me some eggs, we talked a little, and I left. The last thing I needed were any of the girls seeing me do the walk of shame this morning.”
“Coming home from Perry’s cabin would be more like a stride of pride.”
I tossed one of my pillows at her head.
“Really, Gigi? Nothing happened?”
She sounded surprised by my answer, which only further confirmed my suspicions about Perry’s true nature.
“Less than nothing,” I said, the moment of rejection still fresh in my memory.
“You have amazing restraint,” she said, settling back down into the bed.
“He was the one who didn’t want anything.”
She was silent. I could tell she was just as surprised as I’d been. Then she said, “His loss,” like a supportive best friend. Just like Alicia would have.
“It’s sweet of you to try to make me feel better, but honestly, I was probably still drunk when the thought crossed my mind. I’m sorry I woke you. I’m gonna try to get a little rest before the wake-up call.”
I closed my eyes, and after what seemed like only a few minutes, I was awakened by Gordy’s voice blaring over the loudspeaker system. “Gooooooood morning, Camp Chinooka. It’s raining cats and dogs out there, so don’t forget to put on your galoshes this morning. Now, a musical tribute to Mother Nature to get you up and going. A chart topper from 1982, the classic, ‘It’s Raining Men,’” He blasted the song.
“He has got to be kidding,” Jordana said, putting her pillow over her head.
“I feel like death,” I replied, pulling my own pillow over my face. “Is he playing ‘It’s Raining Men,’ or am I having a Bat Mitzvah flashback?”
“It’s no flashback. He’s definitely blasting eighties music before eight a.m.,” she answered.
“There is something very wrong with that man. Okay, girls, everybody up,” I said, tearing myself out of bed.
There was a chorus of moans as the girls stirred. “I don’t like it any better than you do,” I said as I walked from bed to bed, making sure they were actually getting up.
“You look like shit, Gigi,” Tara said, as I pulled the blanket off of her.
I put on my most comfortable sweatpants and staff T-shirt and washed up the best I could. I spun the work wheel, divided up the tasks, and when I was finished, put on a big pair of sunglasses and waited for the girls outside in the horseshoe. The combination of the weather and the hangover was completely draining. I dragged myself to breakfast, the girls trailing behind me. When we got inside, of course, Perry’s boys were already seated and in mid-cheer. I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses and sat down at the table.
Within seconds Perry’s group was chanting, “We’ve got spirit, yes, we do; we’ve got spirit, how ‘bout you?” while looking in our direction. My girls answered them back with the same cheer, even louder. The two groups went back and forth chanting, each time getting a little bit louder. My head throbbed, and I knew Perry had intentionally initiated the contest as a way to punish me for my behavior. I went over to the cereal canisters at the far side of the room, away from the shouting, and poured myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes.
“It’s raining outside, and it’s dark in here,” Perry said, pouring cereal into his own bowl.
“How very astute of you. Hard to believe you still haven’t earned that doctorate yet,” I said.
“I just meant you look a little out of place with sunglasses on.”
“My head feels like it’s in a vise, and my brain could squeeze out of my eyeballs at any moment. The sunglasses are just a means of shielding the rest of you in case that actually happens.”
“Fair enough,” he replied, backing away from me.
“I’m so glad you approve. Excuse me,” I said, pushing past him and right into Gordy, who had been hovering nearby, hoping to jump into our conversation.
“I want to grab a word with both of you, if that’s okay?” He ushered us toward a quiet corner (if there was such a thing) in the dining hall. He did not look happy. I was pretty sure we were busted, and I was about to be fired from my second job this year.
“I heard things got pretty out of hand at Rosie’s last night. A lot of drinking and dancing on tables,” he said, rubbing the gray stubble on his face.
I swallowed so hard I could swear that Perry heard it and turned to look at me.
Gordy continued, “Maybe this isn’t right of me to ask, but the two of you are a little bit older than the other counselors, so I need you to be my eyes and ears when you’re off the camp grounds. Make sure everyone’s doing the right thing.”
“No problem,” Perry quickly replied.
“Is there anyone in particular I need to speak to this morning about their behavior?”
I could have been paranoid, but it felt like he was glaring in my direction. I pushed my sunglasses off my eyes and on top of my head.
“No, sir, nobody I can
think of. Gigi?” Perry said, turning to me.
“Me neither,” I answered.
“Thanks, kids. My door’s always open if anything comes up.”
Perry leaned in close to me. “That’s it. That was your one freebie. Don’t expect me to protect you again.”
When I sat down at the table, all the girls were distracted, staring at the entryway of the dining hall, where Madison was talking to Alex Shane.
“What’d I miss?” I asked, setting out my second breakfast of the day on the table.
“Well, Alex sent his friend Todd over here to ask Emily to ask Madison to meet him by the doorway,” Jordana recounted seamlessly and without looking up from her bowl of oatmeal.
I shook my head and sighed.
“What?” she said, looking up.
“Do you think Alex will send Todd to break the bad news to Madison when he decides he likes Emily better in a few days, or be a man and do it himself?”
“You’re so cynical,” Jordana said.
“I just call ‘em like I see ‘em.”
“Then you aren’t seeing this,” she said, turning my attention back to the doorway, where Alex and Madison were mid-kiss. “Enough to soften even your hardened heart?”
I wanted to tell her my heart wasn’t hardened—it was actually in shambles—but instead, I nodded in agreement.
“Fine, I can’t deny that it’s very sweet,” I conceded. “But I’m electing you to clean up the mess when it all implodes.”
“I accept,” Jordana said, mocking my serious tone.
Gordy went up to the microphone to make morning announcements, and the room quieted down. As he spoke, I noticed Michelle, one of the Cedar counselors, leaning over Perry and talking to him by his table. He was totally focused on her, ignoring Gordy completely. I was so caught up in watching them flirt that I didn’t hear Hannah calling my name from across the table. She threw a banana at me to get my attention.
“Geez, Hannah, you could take my eye out,” I teased.
“Gigi,” she whined, “Gordy said the cast list will be posted after breakfast on his office door. I’m gonna throw up.” She rested her head in her hands.
