Christmas in July (or Summer in December)

Chapter 2
(1) The Present and the Past

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Chapter Description: Patrick is in for the strangest Christmas of his life, and it all starts with a curious gift.

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“Uh...gee, thanks.”

That’s all Patrick managed to say after opening Danielle’s present. Danielle was a wonderful girl - a bit quiet, but a true friend, no doubt of that. Fifteen out of Patrick’s eighteen years had been spent as Danielle’s next-door neighbor. And even from a young age, Patrick had always seen her as very sensible. But the questioning stares from the rest of his family and friends echoed Patrick’s own sentiment: who in their right mind would buy someone a pair of swim trunks for Christmas?

The baffled Patrick forced a goofy smile as he tucked the swimwear back into its box. As the night drew on, he opened other, more appropriate gifts: a popular video game, a few gift cards, a DVD of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and an expensive new coat for the extremely chilly days. Yet even after receiving these (and other, less considerate) presents, bidding farewells to homebound guests, and doing whatever else is involved in ending a typical Christmas, Patrick found himself lying awake in bed at 2:00 in the morning. For some strange reason, Danielle’s cryptic present was all he could think about.

As he watched his alarm clock shift to 2:01, Patrick grumbled and sat up in his bed: he was going to settle this. Grabbing the cell from his nightstand, he hastily made a call to Danielle. To his surprise, she picked up with equal haste.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Patrick...god, you answered fast. Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Well, shouldn’t you?”

“...That’s beside the point, Dani. And anyway, the reason I’m calling is the reason I’m awake.”

“Because of my present, right?” she asked with unusual confidence.

“Yeah, how’d you guess?” replied Patrick, dryly.

“You mean...you don’t like it?” Patrick couldn’t tell if she was truly confused or feigning confusion.

“Um, I’m not really sure. It just seems kind of inappropriate for the season, you know? And besides, I already have really nice trunks, they’ve only seen one summer of use and they still fit me fine.”

“...Wow, so I guess...you didn’t even read the card I wrapped up with them, did you?” Danielle sounded sort of hurt, and even though Patrick was pretty sure she wasn’t serious, he decided to play it safe.

“I must have missed that, yeah. Hold on, the box is here in my room.” He turned on his lamp, slid out from under the covers and grabbed the package from the corner of the room. After the box was open, Patrick gave the simple blue swim trunks the same curious stare they had earned earlier that night.

“Um, earth to Patrick?” The soft, familiar voice snapped him out of his trance.

“Oh, right. Well, I opened the box and I don’t see a...“

“Did you check underneath the trunks?”

“...right! Found it,” Patrick said as he examined the ornate Christmas card.

“Good. Now what you should do next is open the card, and then read it.”

“Ha-ha, Dani.” She chuckled as Patrick followed her obvious instructions. As he opened the card, he felt somewhat uneasy...excited, actually, but for no reason. This feeling made even less sense when he read the text of the card’s interior:

Here’s hoping this December is the best summer of your life! - Dani

This message was digitally superimposed above an image of San Clemente State Beach, the one Patrick had visited most often with his family since moving to California at the age of three. Even by lamplight, the gorgeously-inked card looked professionally made, which made the situation even stranger for Patrick.

“...Did you make this card by yourself?”

“Uh-huh!” Danielle sweetly replied.

“Hehe, alright. Second question: what the fuck does this mean, Dani? Have you been smoking anything, y’know, illegal? Because this is just weird.”

“Silly Ricky, you know I’ve never smoked in my life.” Patrick paused again, taking a few things into account. First of all, he really was being “silly” by suggesting that Danielle would do anything illegal...ever. She was the kind of girl who always played by the rules, never went to parties, and was impervious to peer pressure; her favorite social activities were volunteering at soup kitchens and babysitting the neighbors’ kids. But second, Patrick realized that if Danielle felt comfortable calling him “Ricky” at a time like this, she probably wasn’t taking him seriously. So he started up again.

“Okay Dani, fine, but that doesn’t answer my question! What...” Patrick paused to lower his voice, wary of waking his family. “...what the hell is going on here?”

He heard Danielle sigh, as if preparing for a spiel. “Okay. Remember last summer, when we were at the beach?”

“Uhuh.”

“Watching the clouds go by, listening to the sound of the surf?”

“Uhuh.”

“You held my hand?”

“...Uhuh.”

“And we started talking about the first day we spent at that very same beach when we were little?”

“Get to the point, Dani!”

“Well, the stuff you said to me reminded me of how much fun we had as kids, and all the games we used to play at the beach on sunny summer days, and...”

“...and you wanted to remind me of the bygone years of our friendship, by giving me a pair of swim trunks and a really weird card for Christmas? Gee, I’m touched.”

“I wanted to do more than remind you, Patrick,” she responded firmly.

“...I’m listening.”

“Look at the card again for a second, Ricky.” He did so, and found his eyes glued to it.

“It’s...really pretty...”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to experience being a little boy again?” asked Danielle in a secretive voice.

...Not really, it’s never crossed my mind at all, thought Patrick. “Yeah, constantly,” he said.

“And wouldn’t it be awesome to enjoy some fun in the sun instead of this dreary snow?”

I can wait until summer for that, he thought. “Oh yeah, totally!” he replied.

“Take off your pajamas,” Danielle politely demanded.

This just keeps getting weirder, mused the muddled Patrick. “Okay,” he said, and began to do exactly that. Without pausing to wonder why, Patrick removed his winter nightshirt, his sweatpants, and even his comfortably toasty socks. He now stood in his poorly insulated bedroom wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs. “Done,” he told his cell.

Light giggling came from the other end of the line. “Undies too, Ricky,” Danielle explained, somehow knowing he wasn’t quite naked yet. So undies, too, came down Patrick’s legs and joined the rest of his clothing in a heap on the floor. “Alright Ricky, put the swim trunks on.”

He did so, and immediately felt queasy. ...Maybe I’m the one who’s been smoking something, Patrick speculated. “They feel great, Dani!” said her nauseous next-door neighbor, truly unsure if he was lying or not. “What now?”

“Run a warm bath.” He walked to his personal bathroom, plugged the drain, and allowed the tub to fill. “Now get in the tub.” Patrick put his bare, chilly feet in the water, welcoming the heat as it blanketed his skin. Now he brought the phone back to his ear.

“What’s the last step, Dani?”

“Sit down, close your eyes, and wait for me. Merry Christmas, Ricky.”

*click*

Unfazed by the absurdity of the whole exchange, Patrick closed his phone and set it next to the tub. He sat down in the water, reveling in its strangely sun-like warmth, and he closed his eyes.

*****

“Ricky?...Ricky?...Ricky!”

Patrick’s eyes eased open when he realized someone was calling his name. Above him he saw a beautiful summer sky, lightly speckled with fluffy white clouds. He heard laughter and numerous voices; behind these he heard the quiet rustling of the ocean’s ebbs and flows. A misty spray of salt water brushed Patrick’s face, and as his nostrils tasted the briny aroma he felt an intense wave of d?j? vu. But before he could put all the pieces of the puzzle together, Patrick felt a little hand grab his own little hand. He turned his head and saw the smiling face of a toddler girl beside him.

“Dere you aw, Ricky!” She wore a one-piece, pink-skirted yellow bathing suit, and appeared to be about three years old. Her wet brown hair was in pigtails, and plastic red-rimmed sunglasses rested atop her forehead.

Finally it made sense to Patrick: he was sitting on the shore of San Clemente State Beach, fifteen summers ago, enjoying his first play date with Dani, whom he would soon discover was also the girl next door.

Wait, how can this make sense if it makes no sense? thought three-year-old Patrick, who then realized he was asking himself a rhetorical question. He stood up on his stubby legs and brushed the sand from his trunks, determined to figure everything out. But then he saw Danielle’s cherubic face again, and his determination began to wither into carelessness.

“Hi Dani,” he said with a friendly tone.

Patrick’s mother approached from behind him, and Danielle’s mother arrived from in front of him. They exchanged a greeting, and started to chat, leaving their kids to play. Patrick knew the whole story, since this was his second time through: Me and Dani met at a garage sale three weeks prior to this adventure at the beach. We both spent our moms’ quarters on Batman toys, which the junk dealer gave to us at exactly the same time. I thought it was cool that a girl liked Batman, and from there we launched into a pretty deep conversation by three-year-old standards, quickly developing a friendship. After ten minutes of chatting Dani’s mom took her home, and we didn’t see each other again until three Saturdays later. Danielle recognized my haircut at the beach and started calling out to me, and after we met each other again our mothers showed up. They got to talking, and realized that our families lived right next to one another. They made comments like, “Oh, so he’s the Ricky my little girl has been trying to tell me about!” or “I thought he was referring to some boy named Danny, you know?”...typical grown-up talk. That was all fifteen years ago...but somehow it’s happening again...right now.

“Wanna pway?” Dani’s sweet voice broke Ricky out of his trance, and he started to feel mellow again. “Yeah Dani,” responded Ricky cutely, “wet’s make a san’cas-sow!” She clapped her hands delightedly and the two sat down together, on a dry sector of the beach, to build a sandcastle. They had all the right tools: plastic shovels for gathering the sand, plastic buckets for shaping the towers of their castle, shells for decoration, and four chubby hands to make it all work. Ricky didn’t even notice the passage of time as they sculpted the tiny golden grains into a royal palace; when it was finished, the two couldn’t agree on whether it was a “pwincess pawdy cassow” or a “piwate king forkwess.” This could have turned into a nasty dispute, but thankfully Dani’s mom stepped in and mentioned the possibility of ice cream. All hostilities were immediately dropped, and both tots and mommies made their way across the toasty beach to get some frosty treats at the concession stand.

As Ricky was happy to find out, Strawberry was Dani’s favorite flavor too.

The two toddlers sat on the shore, messily gorging themselves on Blue Bell as their parents watched from a short distance. A red sky loomed before them, for the sun had nearly set. Upon finishing her ice cream, Dani let out a satisfied sigh and then took Ricky’s hand.

“Wicky?”

He turned to face her. “Yeth, Dani?”

“We gonna be fwends fuh vewy wong time.”

Ricky smiled. “Yep.” The last bit of sun fell behind the horizon, and a cool breeze signaled the start of evening. Closing his eyes, Ricky let the pleasant gust ripple through his hair. He felt happy, happier than he could remember feeling before. It was a perfect moment.

Then he opened his eyes just in time to see a tall wave coming from nowhere. Dani was no longer by Ricky’s side. He didn’t even have the time to cry out for help before the wave crashed over his head. Young Ricky found himself unable to resist the wave’s pulling force, unable to breathe; he then felt himself rapidly sinking into the ocean depths. Faster and faster he fell...light growing dimmer, air running out...until finally, as his acceleration reached its max:

THUMP.

*****

Patrick’s eyes shot open in fear; then his hand rushed to his head. “OW!” His heart was racing, and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings. Quickly enough he realized the situation: he was in his room, at his actual age, and he’d bumped his head on the bedpost as he woke from the nightmarish end of his dream.

“...That was fuckin’ weird.”

Rubbing his head a few more times, Patrick rolled around a bit and soon managed to get back to sleep. Somehow he managed to discount the shockingly real episode as a dream. Quite a surprise he’d have when he woke up later to realize that his pajamas were in a heap on the floor, and that the strange blue swim trunks were his only clothing.

Danielle, who had not slept at all that night, stood nearly motionless in her room, peering through her own bedroom window and into Patrick’s. When she thought of what tomorrow would bring, she smiled softly, brushing a hand across the cold window as the snowflakes fluttered down. Soon, Ricky...

 

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