In the 1980s East Village, you could be broke, hungry, and freezing in a building without heat, and still believe you were living a glamorous life and lucky to be there. This contradiction between reality and the dream world my peers and I imagined is the spine of my memoir.

Risking everything, I dared to dream of opening my own avant-garde clothing own shop. From 1981 to 1987, I starved, then succeeded. A year on, my marriage ends, quietly. One more thing I sacrificed for my dream. I meet Paul Monroe, an inventive and ambitious man: he joins as my partner, designing clothes at first, then jewelry, and home accessories.

We love the shop as if it were our child, and at times tussle for control of its direction. Yet, the same tensions that pull us apart also widen our reach. Community-minded, I become fashion editor at the East Village Eye; glamour-chasing, Paul invites Iggy Pop — and he shows up. The shop becomes a social hub for musicians, dancers, artists, and drag stars — they all wear our clothes — and by the mid-1980s, it feels like we're about to have everything.

Then AIDS explodes, and crack violence bloodies the sidewalks. A madman shoots through our front window three times. Clients are scared away. Galleries, clubs, and the Eye close. My instincts tell me to go, but the shop is my whole world, and I can’t bring myself to leave, even as my partner becomes abusive and my creative life thins out from exhaustion. It takes a stranger to show me what I can no longer see. A friend has sent him to look me up, and he's shocked by what he finds. I realize I'm holding myself back — and finally let myself go.

Slumped in the back of a cab, I turn and watch my beloved East Village disappear into my past. My years in the shop have shaped me into a stronger woman, yet I'm still a wide-eyed dreamer, and facing forward, I begin dreaming up my next adventure.

This book is a bittersweet love story about what it takes — and what it costs — to build an authentic life and community.