Chapter Four

A few weeks after getting fired from Diane von Furstenberg, I went for drinks with one of the few friends I’d stayed in touch with from Top Designer, Jamie Malone. Jamie was now working for The Gap but saw himself as a sellout. He designed mainstream clothing, but in his free time, he created some of the most outrageous and incredible pieces of wearable art I’d ever seen. Jamie had the distinction of being the first one kicked off our season of Top Designer following a disastrous challenge where we were asked to make a wedding gown out of toilet paper. It was his very minor claim to fame, but he milked it for all it was worth—usually very little.

We decided to meet for drinks at midnight at one of my favorite bars in his neighborhood, Schiller’s. The bar held some sentimental value, as it was one of Joshua and my favorite haunts.

At first, I’d loved how my relationship with Joshua forced us both to step outside of our comfort zone and usual routines. Joshua couldn’t bring me to his favorite five-star restaurants or company box seats since he and Alicia frequented all of them. I couldn’t take him to any fashion shows or industry parties because I routinely scored Joshua and Alicia places on those guest lists. We realized that in order to stay under the radar, we had to become anonymous.

As a couple, Joshua and I had been strangers to a more underground version of New York City, always on the lookout for some obscure restaurant, show, or gallery opening. I’d lived in New York my whole life without doing half the things he and I did over those few months.

Schiller’s was a favorite. It was an old-style liquor bar that seemed transported from a small town in France. The wine was served in emptied-out Coke bottles, and french fries and mussels were available twenty-four hours a day. It wasn’t completely hidden, but it was off the beaten path enough that we never worried about getting caught when we ate there.

Walking in the door, I spotted Jamie sitting at a booth near the front. He waved me over and gave me a kiss on each cheek.

“Sit,” he said, motioning me into the booth. “I ordered us shots of vodka.”

I took off my jean jacket and inched onto the long bench. “So it’s gonna be one of those nights?”

He took both of my hands in his and leaned in. “So I’m just going to say it. When I didn’t hear from you, I called your office. Whoever answered told me you’re no longer working at Diane von Furstenberg. Something you want to tell me?”

I pulled my hands back and downed the shot of vodka in front of me. “I got fired.”

“Okay, so they downsized. It’s no big deal,” he replied.

“Not downsized. Fired. I dried up creatively or something,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I sat at my workstation day after day just staring at my sketchpad and nothing came. It’s a block. Or maybe I don’t have it and never did. Either way, it wasn’t the company’s fault. They gave me a dozen opportunities to redeem myself. I couldn’t.”

“Gigi…” he said.

“It’s fine. It was a job, and people get fired from their jobs. Look at you. You got kicked off Top Designer first in front of millions of people, and you’re doing great,” I teased.

“We’ll need another shot,” he said, calling to the waitress.

“And a plate of fries—actually, two plates,” I said, calling out after her.

Suddenly Jamie looked very serious. “Can I ask you a question? Does this have anything to do with the married guy?”

After things started with Joshua, I’d been absolutely bursting at the seams to tell somebody about it. Jamie had sensed a change in me and began to question my newfound happiness. Although I’d wanted to tell him the truth, Joshua and I had decided we weren’t going to tell anyone about our relationship until Alicia got back from her program in London and we could tell her in person. So, I made up a story about how I was seeing someone I worked with. It wasn’t so far-fetched, and some of the made-up story really did parallel what was going on in my life.

“He went back to his wife. You knew that, right? The two of them have completely reconciled.” All the alcohol rushed to my face. “Are my cheeks red?”

“A little. Gigi, stop,” he said.

I threw back Jamie’s shot of vodka. “Stop what?”

“I know the guy is Joshua. I saw you here with him,” Jamie said.

If my cheeks weren’t red before, I was sure they’d just turned a bright shade of crimson. “You saw us?”

“It was a few months ago. You were in that booth back there,” he said, pointing to the corner. “Does Alicia know?”

“No,” I answered. “They’re getting married in August.”

The waitress brought out our plates of french fries, and Jamie asked again for the second round of shots she’d forgotten. He put his hands over his mouth. “You’re still seeing him?”

I shook my head. “No, no of course not. We ran into each other in the registry department in Bloomingdale’s of all places, and he dropped that bomb.”

“Gigi, how did this thing with him even start?”

There were so many answers to his question. In some ways, it had started when I was on the bus my first summer at Camp Chinooka. Never having been away from home before, I was terrified. Joshua had sat down beside me and we’d talked the whole way to camp. I first fell in love with him that day.

Maybe things really began during our senior prom, when we were standing outside the Sheinmans’ apartment building taking pictures. Joshua was Alicia’s date, and I’d gone with a friend. As we made our way toward the limo, Joshua had turned to me and told me that he’d never seen me looking more beautiful. After that, my own date hardly existed to me.

Or three years later at a New Year’s Eve party, when Joshua had kissed me in a dark corner of the crowded dance floor while Alicia was getting a drink from the bar. It wasn’t a full-on passionate kiss—more like a peck between drunk friends—but I knew I was in trouble when I realized how much it had meant to me.

Then, when I moved in with Alicia, my feelings only seemed to intensify. On the nights Joshua was over waiting for Alicia to come home from work, we would talk for hours. I’d hold my breath every time I heard the elevator door open in the hallway, silently praying it wouldn’t be her. Of course, she always returned, and it was as though those stolen moments had never happened.

After that, I’d kept my distance, fearing that my feelings would be obvious to one or both of them. Alicia would invite me to join them for dinner or a movie, and I’d make up excuse after excuse so as not to have to be around Joshua. I was actually relieved when Alicia announced she’d be spending at least a year in London for work. I was certain that Joshua would have no need to visit our apartment, and I’d finally be able to get over him.

Then, the completely unexpected happened. Alicia broke up with Joshua before her trip. After dating him most of her life, she’d decided she needed a clean break and the opportunity to explore other relationships. Within a month, she was seeing someone new. By the two-month mark, she was calling to tell me she was considering moving to London permanently. I’d hung up the phone, my heart pounding, because for the first time since I’d known him, Joshua was free.

I gave Jamie the simplest explanation I could. “It started last year when Alicia was in London. When she got back, it ended.”

He gave me a look that said he didn’t quite believe my straightforward answer.

“I’ve been the third wheel in their relationship since we were kids. When Joshua wanted to know what to buy Alicia for a birthday or how to surprise her for an anniversary, he came to me. When she was mad at him for one reason or another, I made it right again. I don’t remember when I first fell in love with him because I can’t even recall a time I wasn’t.”

He rubbed my forearm. “So, what are you going to do?”

“You know as well as I do, it’s gonna take some time before any fashion house is willing to look at me. I have some of the money I won on Top Designer saved, but I’ll have to figure something else out in the next couple of weeks.”

“There’s always Mama and Papa Goldstein,” he suggested.

“I’m almost twenty-seven years old. I’m not asking my parents for help unless I’m completely desperate. Besides, they’ve been waiting for this since I threw all those law school acceptances away. I can’t give them the satisfaction.”

“You know you can always crash at my place if you need to. It’s not big, but we’d make it work.”

I reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. “You’re a good friend, Jamie.”

He gave me a reassuring smile. “Have you seen Alicia since the engagement announcement?”

“She’s been in Singapore this last week for work. She doesn’t even know I was fired, and I’m not planning on telling her.”

“What?” He practically spewed his vodka across the table.

“I just need to get away for the summer. Maybe I’ll travel? Backpack through Europe? I need to disappear. If she thinks I’m getting ready for the fall fashion shows, she’ll get over the fact I can’t go to the wedding. She puts work ahead of almost everything. She’ll understand.”

“You know, just because you convince yourself she’ll understand, that doesn’t make it true,” he said.

“No, she will,” I said firmly.

“Maybe you should fess up? Shouldn’t she know what she’s getting in a husband?”

“It’s not like that. He loves her, not me. He has since we were children. I was just a distraction. A way of getting over her,” I answered.

“Did he ever outright tell you that? “Jamie asked.

“No, never,” I said.

Jamie raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

“Either way, in a few weeks, I’ll be out of the equation, and things will go back to the way they were.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you? Things like this can never go back,” he said.

Over the past few months, I’d fervently held onto the belief that if I could put enough time and distance between Joshua and me and what we’d done, our actions could be forgotten. It was the only thing that had enabled me to be around Alicia without being suffocated by guilt. I clung to that hope. I staked everything on it.

Jamie looked me squarely in the eye. “You should tell her.”

“Why hurt her? It’s done now.”

“If you still have feelings for him, how can it be done?”

“They’ll get married like all of us always knew they would, and I’ll take up the role of the single friend they invite over for holidays. It’s a foolproof plan.” I looked up at Jamie. “Do you think I’m a terrible person?”

He another sip of his drink. “We can’t choose who we fall in love with.”

“I could have chosen not to act on it, though,” I said.

“I know it’s hard because you still love him—and her, for that matter—but you didn’t really do anything wrong here. They were broken up. Alicia ended it. He didn’t leave her for you, and you didn’t cause their relationship to end. You took a chance on a love you’ve always harbored with a guy who’s always been there. What’s so wrong with that?” Jaime took a breath and continued. “And you forget there were two of you. You should tell him how you feel, Gigi. Don’t let him dictate the ending to this story if you want a different one.” He grinned and leaned over to muss my hair. “You’ll be okay, kiddo, I promise.”

I smoothed my hair back into place. “Kiddo? You’re only a few years older than me.”

“But decades wiser,” he said, winking.

The waitress brought our bill, and we continued to talk until we were interrupted by an obviously drunk couple who’d placed a bet on whether or not Jamie had been a contestant on Top Designer.

“What do you have riding on my answer?” Jamie asked them.

“If she wins, I have to buy her a shot. If I win, she has to go home with me tonight,” the guy replied.

“Which one of you thinks I was on the show?”

The guy pointed to the girl next to him. “She does,” he answered.

“Sorry to disappoint you. I’ve been told I look like the contestant from the show, but it wasn’t me,” Jamie responded.

“Sorry to bother you, dude,” the guy said, taking the girl by the hand and walking away.

“That was generous of you,” I said.

“Being on Top Designer should help someone get laid,” he joked. “Even if that person isn’t me.”

I leaned way over and gave Jamie a kiss on the cheek. “What a sad pair we are. What happened to the two young eager designers ready to take on the world?”

“We did reality television,” he said, laughing. “The exact moment we sold out is probably playing in the form of a Top Designer rerun marathon right now. But, darling, there’s always tomorrow,” he said, taking my hand to help me out of the booth.

“And after all, tomorrow is another day,” I said, finishing the famous quote from Gone with the Wind.

Gone with the Wind was Jamie’s favorite movie and a constant source of inspiration for him. Although his design school professors had advised him against it, he’d been adamant that his final show before graduation be inspired by the film. He’d proved all the skeptics wrong, sending the most incredibly outrageous hoop skirts and gowns down the runway. The original dresses had inspired his designs but he’d reconfigured them in such a way that they were completely fresh and new. The publicity he’d received from that show had garnered him both his job with The Gap and his spot on Top Designer—both career moves he wished he could take back.

“Promise? “I asked.

“Cross my heart,” he said. “Now let’s get you into a cab.”

Jamie and I staggered out of Schiller’s, and after trying to hail a cab for what seemed like hours, one finally stopped and agreed to take me all the way back uptown to my apartment. Jamie gave me a kiss on each cheek and made me promise to text him when I got home so he would know I was safe.

After a few minutes, the steady rocking of the cab began to lull me to sleep. I rolled the window down for some fresh air and fished around in my bag for my keys. As I dug deeper into the bag, my hand brushed against my phone. I yanked it out and, in my alcoholic haze, decided to break the one and only rule I’d established for myself during my virtually rule-free affair: no drunk dialing. Ever.

Drunk dialing, also known as a DUI (dialing under the influence) was the most pathetic of all possible acts someone could commit, but at that moment, I didn’t care one bit. I was drunk and Jamie’s words about not letting Joshua dictate the ending were reverberating in my head. I wanted to hear Joshua tell me—to reassure me—that even if he couldn’t be with me for all the reasons we’d agonized over for the last year, he at least recognized what he’d given up in letting me go, and would always be sorry for it. Before I could second-guess my decision, I dialed his number. He picked up on the second ring.

“Ali?” he said groggily.

I’d woken him out of a sound sleep, and he assumed it was Alicia calling him at this strange hour from Singapore. I stayed silent on the other end of the phone and waited for him to say her name again.

“Ali, is that you? Are you okay?” he repeated.

“It’s Gigi,” I answered.

He sounded more alert and awake. “Is everything okay? You never call me on this number.”

“Yeah, fine, everything’s fine,” I replied, my voice quivering.

“Gigi, what if Alicia answered my phone?”

“She’s in Singsapore—I mean, Singapore,” I said, slurring my words.

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m fine,” I answered. “Are you alone?”

“Of course I’m alone. As we just established, Alicia’s in Singapore. Sweetheart, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

The vodka acted like a truth serum. Finally, I had the courage to tell him the thing I’d hinted at, alluded to, and danced around, but never been able to say. “Choose me,” I said through trembling lips. “If you think you chose wrong, then choose me now.”

The minute the words came out of my mouth, I knew I’d put myself on a course from which there was no turning back. I swallowed hard and continued.

“Joshua, I’ve loved you ever since I was that homesick little girl whose hand you held all the way to Camp Chinooka. I know it sounds crazy, but even with all of our secrets, I’ve loved you more honestly than anyone in my life.”

Then, with my next sentence, I crossed our line in the sand. “I can tell Alicia now. I’m completely prepared for the consequences as long as I have you.” I inhaled deeply and waited for his response.

“Georgica, sweetheart. It’s so much more complicated than that.”

Déjà vu. I’d heard those very words from him before. I thought back to the previous summer, when we’d sneaked away for a weekend at my parents’ house in the Hamptons, while they were off visiting friends on Martha’s Vineyard. Since their house would be empty, we’d jumped on the Jitney and at the chance to escape reality and the hot and stifling city. The Hamptons was never really my scene, but my parents had achieved their dream of owning a beautiful and secluded home off Georgica Pond. It was an ideal locale for a couple looking for a weekend getaway.

Joshua and I had taken full advantage of our privacy and freedom, lounging by the pool all day, and then cooking gourmet meals and eating them on the patio at night. Our third night, after we finished putting away the dishes from our makeshift clam bake, we’d decided to go for a late-night soak in the hot tub beside the pool. We’d polished off our second bottle of champagne and were making out heavily in the water when I heard my father’s voice coming through the pathway that led from the front lawn to the back of the house. A few seconds later, my father had walked in arm in arm with a woman who was most certainly my age, if not younger. There’d been no way to hide from them, and they’d noticed us immediately. I pulled myself out of the hot tub and wrapped a towel around my waist. Joshua stayed in the water, completely silent.

“Mom told me you were going to be in Martha’s Vineyard this weekend.”

I noticed the girl on my father’s arm staring at Joshua, and it had only infuriated me more.

“She went. I didn’t go,” my father answered.

“I can see that,” I snapped back at him. I suspected this wasn’t the first time my father had cheated on my mother, only the first time he’d been caught.

“No, Gigi. You don’t understand,” he said calmly. “This is Samara. She’s a paralegal with the firm.”

“What’s he paying you?” I questioned her. “Don’t forget to ask for time and a half. I mean, he did drag you all the way to his empty house in the Hamptons.”

He took two steps toward the hot tub. “Gigi, that’s enough.”

Joshua climbed out and stood beside me to lend support.

My father put on his glasses. “Joshua, right?”

“Yes. Hello, Mr. Goldstein,” he answered.

“Aren’t you Alicia’s friend?”

Checkmate. My father knew perfectly well that Joshua had been Alicia’s boyfriend. My father was the top litigator at the most prestigious law firm in New York City. He made his reputation on his uncanny talent for being able to dissect any situation into cold hard facts. He’d just caught me in an equally compromising situation to the one I’d caught him in, and we were, for better or for worse, evenly matched in our wrongdoings.

“I think we should call it a night and head back to the city,” Joshua suggested.

My father walked passed us and around to the front door of the house. “That would be a very good idea,” he muttered.

Samara stood there trying desperately not to make eye contact with me, which only made me feel worse. In reality, she and I weren’t all that different. Simultaneously, I was the other woman and Alicia all rolled into one. It was a complicated paradox. In that moment, when the realization of the situation mixed together with the two bottles of champagne we’d just finished, I knew I was going to be sick.

I ran inside, and Joshua followed me into the bathroom where I threw up dinner and continued to dry heave until there was absolutely nothing left in me. I broke down and cried on the bathroom floor while he held me in his arms and kissed my head.

“I just don’t understand. How could he do that? “I sobbed.

“Shhh, try to calm down,” he said, smoothing my hair.

“Do you think he loves her?”

“Georgica, sweetheart, it’s far more complicated than that.”

“I should go,” I said, picking myself up from the bathroom floor. “We should go. There’s no reason to stay here, not now.”

As I rose, Joshua wrapped his arms over my shoulders and around my neck, pulling me into his chest. I leaned my head back into him, and he rocked me back and forth.

“I’m not sorry,” he said turning me around. “For any of it. Are you?”

“I’m sorry for all of it,” I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he whispered in my ear.

Suddenly, the line from the movie Love Story, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” came into my head—a line I’d never fully understood until now. If love meant never having to say you were sorry, and here we both were expressing regret for all we’d done and all we’d been, this couldn’t be love. What it was, though, I wasn’t sure.

Over the next few months, I’d agonized over that question. From that point on, I’d obsessed over every word he and I exchanged and every glance he threw my way. I clung to his promise that maybe our separation was only temporary. My work suffered, my personal life suffered, and by the time Joshua and Alicia announced their engagement, I was unrecognizable, even to myself.

Now, almost a full year later, I was hanging on at the other end of a phone, having laid all my feelings on the line. I couldn’t take back what I’d just said to Joshua, and because it was the last time I’d ever plead for his affection, I didn’t regret a single sentence.

“Maybe it was complicated, but now it’s simple. Joshua, choose me,” I repeated.

“I can’t,” he answered, his voice losing all power.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Gigi, please get home safe, okay?”

“Please Joshua, wait—” I whispered to the dial tone.

I hung up the phone and sobbed so hard that the cab driver pulled over to the side of Second Avenue, where I pushed open the door and preceded to throw up vodka and french fries into a storm drain. The driver helped me back into the cab and then took me to my apartment, where I stumbled inside and passed out on the couch.

In the morning, my apartment felt stuffy and small, the guilt and shame of the night before completely suffocating me. I stood up to open some windows and noticed a packet with the Camp Chinooka logo peeking out from the pile of mail on my coffee table. I slowly pulled it out from underneath the large pile of bills I’d been avoiding and opened the envelope. Inside was a brochure, job application, and letter from Camp Chinooka’s director, Gordon Birnbaum.

Dear Camp Chinooka Alumni,

As we enter into our 100th summer, we need you more than ever. We’re looking for hard-working, fun-loving, energetic, and enthusiastic former campers to return to Chinooka as counselors or head counselors. If you think you have what it takes, and are looking to recapture a bit of your youth in the beautiful Poconos, enclosed is an application. Come join us for our amazing centennial year! We look forward to welcoming you back to the Chinooka family, your home away from home.

Sincerely,

Gordon “Gordy” Birnbaum

The answer was so simple, and now it was staring me in the face. I could work as a counselor at Camp Chinooka for the summer and get away from everyone and everything. I needed a job and a hideout—this was both. I needed time to mend my broken heart and figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Most of all, I relished the notion that I could actually revisit a time and place in my life where not every decision was life-altering and the possibilities had seemed wide open. I sat down at the kitchen table and filled out the application, and before I had time to second-guess my decision, slid it into my building’s mail chute.

Weeks later, I received a phone call from Gordy’s secretary, inviting me to Camp Chinooka’s New York offices for an interview. I’d already put my apartment on some sites for subletting and spoken to potential tenants about renting for the summer. The morning of the interview, I stood at my closet for what seemed like hours, trying to decide what to wear. A suit seemed too formal, but slacks didn’t seem formal enough. I finally settled on a wrap dress I’d made for myself a few years before. It was perfect.

My interview wasn’t with Gordy but with one of the other camp directors, Suzanne Tillman. Suzanne was in her mid-forties and had been the drama counselor back when I was a camper. She didn’t remember me. She did, of course, remember Alicia.

“So, let’s see,” she said, flipping through my application. “You were a camper at Chinooka?”

“That’s right,” I answered.

“Wonderful. I was working as the drama counselor back in those days,” she said.

“I worked backstage in one of your productions of Fiddler on the Roof.”

She scrunched up her nose. “Really?”

“My friend Alicia played Hodel in that same show,” I said.

“Alicia Scheinman?”

“Yes.”

“Our best Hodel to date. Are you two still close?”

“The best of friends,” I replied.

“Wonderful. So, Georgica,” she said, changing the subject, “Why are you applying to be a counselor at Chinooka?”

“You can call me Gigi. Everyone does.”

She nodded and leaned in, waiting for my answer.

“As a kid, camp was the one place you could reinvent yourself. Truth is, I’ve always wanted to go back and work as a counselor. Each summer, something else just seemed to get in the way of me doing it,” I said.

She leaned in even closer. “What’s different now?”

“I’m at a bit of a crossroads, both personally and professionally,” I said.

She was making notes all over the application. “Can you elaborate?”

“Up until a few weeks ago, I was a designer with Diane von Furstenberg. I was let go. Now, I’m not really sure what I want to do with my life,” I answered.

“And personally?”

“Alicia Scheinman’s getting married in a few months to a really great guy. I’m still very single.”

She pushed her hair behind her ears. “Say no more. I completely understand.”

I glanced down and noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

She continued, “We have an opening for a head counselor for Cedar. Think you’d be up to the challenge?”

The Cedar girls were notoriously one of the worst behaved groups at camp. Thirteen-year-old girls, full of hormones, convinced they were too mature to be told what to do but too immature not to be. They took any chance they could to push boundaries and challenge authority. Only a small number of counselors had ever lasted the whole summer with them, but I was so desperate for the chance to get away, she could have told me I’d be looking after convicts and I probably would’ve accepted the job.

The interview lasted another half hour. When it was over, Suzanne told me that, pending the background check, the job was mine. I thanked her profusely for the opportunity.

She called out to me as I was leaving. “Gigi?”

I turned around. “Yes?”

“You know it’s just a temporary means of escape, right? Your same life will be waiting for you when you get home.”

“I just need one more summer,” I replied.

She nodded and said, “I’ll send all the employment documents when the background check comes through.”

Armed with a plan for escaping the summer, I was ready to face the world. I just had one hurdle left—facing Alicia.