It's Christmas Eve
by Jake Christie

We stood on the sidewalk, hands stuffed into our coat pockets, and tried to figure out what drug Abigail had taken. She was waving her hand back and forth through the air in front of her face -- palm out, methodically, like she was cleaning a window. Three of us stood around her, keeping her contained against the bright window of the coffee shop. The Christmas lights blinking inside turned her hair blue, green, red, blonde, then blue again. She had her back to the glass, to the patrons. The barista wiped her hands on her apron and looked on worriedly.

“Where did you find her?” asked Sal. He tapped a pack of cigarettes in his palm, whap-whap-whap, either consciously or coincidentally in rhythm with the pendulum swings of Abigail's hand.

“She found us,” I said. “We were walking through the park and she rolled down the hill at us.”

“I thought she was going to throw up on my shoes,” said Rachel, and looked up at me, maybe for confirmation. I nodded to her, to Sal, to her again. Abigail was making a gentle cooing noise, like a baby or a dove.

“All over her shoes,” I confirmed.

“So you brought her into the city?” asked Sal. He started handing out cigarettes.

“We thought you might have been with her earlier,” said Rachel. “She was saying your name for a while. Then something about 'lights.'”

“Pretty lights!” yelled Abigail, suddenly, eyes locking in on Rachel, a grin splaying her pink cheeks. “Pretty lights everywhere!”

Some of the people in the coffee shop looked up. The barista glared at Sal, who help up his palms in a combination of explanation and apology. I lit my cigarette and used the tip to light Rachel's. Abigail seemed to calm down for a second, her face slack, as her eyes flicked from the orange tip of one cigarette to the other.

“Pretty...” she trailed off.

“Listen,” said Sal, mostly to me and Rachel, “I don't want to be a dick or anything, but I really gotta work tonight.” He chanced another glance inside. The barista now had her arms up and a what-the-fuck look on her face. “Could you guys maybe watch her for a couple of hours?”

Rachel's eyebrows jumped. “Hours?” she said. “No way. Nuh uh.” She shook her head. “It's Christmas Eve, Sal.”

“I know,” said Sal. “I know. I know it sucks. You think I want to be at work?” He looked at his watch. “We close at nine, right? That's an hour and forty-five minutes. Can you just walk around the city or something? Look at the...” he lowered his volume to a whisper. “...The lights?”

I looked at Abigail. She was reaching tentatively for Rachel's cigarette. Rachel's cell phone had slipped into her hand, and she was distracted by something on the screen.

“Nine,” I said. “At nine you're off.”

“An hour and forty-five minutes,” he said, nodding. “That's nothing. That's a movie. That's a Christmas special.”

“An hour and forty-seven minutes,” said Rachel, hip cocked. She help up her cell phone to display the proof, and jumped when she saw Abigail's hand inches from her face. Abigail jumped too.

“Please,” said Sal.

I rolled my cigarette from one side of my mouth to the other, then back, and said, “Okay.”

“Great!” said Sal. “Awesome. I owe you one.”

“Two,” said Rachel. “You owe each of us one.” She flashed a peace sign. “That's two.”

“Yes,” said Sal. He hand rushed to his forehead and through his hair. “Fine, two. I owe you guys big time. Each.”

He put his hands on Abigail's shoulders and looked into her eyes. The were big, wet, dilated. The Christmas lights cycled through their sequence in her pupils – blue, green, red, white, blue. “Hey, Abigail? Honey?”

Abigail found his eyes and smiled. “Hi,” she said.

“Abigail,” he repeated, “can you remember what you took yet?”

“What?” She shook her head. “I didn't take what,” she giggled, “I took two.”

Sal's stern concern broke for just a second with the hint of a smile. “Two,” he said. “Are you having fun?”

She nodded vigorously, smiling wide.

“Great,” said Rachel, arms apart. “I'm so glad we're all having fun.” She put her hands on her waist and looked at me.

Sal leaned in slowly and kissed Abigail on the forehead. She closed her eyes and shivered with ecstatic sensation. “Nine o'clock,” said Sal, to me, looking at Abigail.

“Nine o'clock,” I said.

Sal steepled his hands and bowed. “Thank you,” he said. He back away, turned, and walked inside. The aroma of coffee caught in my nose then blew away.

Abigail watched Sal through the window, her head slightly turned, like a dog. She traced his path with her fingertip and started when it bumped the glass.

“Whoops,” she said.

I took a drag of smoke and tossed the cigarette into the street. It bounced on the pavement in a small explosion, sending sparks up in the air. “So,” I exhaled, wiping my hands together, “we've got two hours. Now what?”

“It's Christmas Eve,” said Rachel. She set her jaw.

* * *

We walked downhill, towards the water, down a tourist street of coffee shops and boutiques in the old part of the city. Every store was lit up, every window lined with tinsel, and Christmas music floated down from somebody's apartment. Every streetlight had a wreath hanging on it, some city works holiday thing, and Rachel hit each one as we passed. Needles and frost sparkled and hung as they made their way slowly to the ground.

I held Abigail's hand, keeping us in motion and preventing her from getting lost in every decoration, light, or reflection we passed. She allowed herself to be pulled, only requiring a little tug now and again, not putting up much resistance. It was, for all intents and purposes, like leading a child on an evening walk. The part of her consciousness that made its way to the surface couldn't have been more sophisticated than a five-year-old.

She mumbled something that got lost in Perry Como singing “White Christmas,” and I said, “What?”

“Rachel's mad,” she said.

I followed her eyes to Rachel, smacking Christmas cheer off of pole after pole, and nodded to indicate my agreement that yes, she was indeed mad. I cleared my throat and said, “What do you want to do?”

Rachel hit another wreath. A plastic pine cone clattered on the sidewalk. “I don't know,” she said, “what were we going to do?”

“Um,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Rachel, “um. Exactly.” She threw me a look over her shoulder, eyes rolled.

“Um?” parroted back Abigail. “Um? Ummm.” She began humming, atonally. “Ummm...”

“We were going to sit on the pier,” I said, “and watch the Christmas Eve harbor cruise.” I reached for Rachel's hand. “We can still do that.”

She had her back to me, and my Abigail anchor kept her just out of reach. “Oh, sure,” she said. “As long as we're all having fun.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, tight. “Great,” I said, through grit teeth. It came out as kind of a mumble.

“What?” said Rachel She had her hand suspended, stopped short, a foot away from another Yule casualty-to-be.

“I said, 'great,'” I spat. “This is exactly how I wanted to spend the night too, you know. Exactly!”

We all stopped walking, as if by consensus. Rachel turned around completely, arms folded around her chest. Her cheeks and nose were a beautiful shade of red, a combination of anger and frosty air, hot and cold. Her freckles floated just under the surface.

“I'm sorry,” said Abigail. I dropped her hand and looked at her. The red in her face wasn't from anger but from confusion, from pain, and it looked different somehow. Her lower lip was trembling. Wetness pooled in her eyes. “I did-d-didn't...”

Rachel let a stream of air hiss through her lips, and some of the anger seemed to leave with it. It came out in steam, and for a moment she for all the world looked like an angry scarf-wrapped tea kettle. “Don't cry, Abby,” she said. “I didn't mean it.” She raised her eyebrows at me, flicked her pupils at Abigail and back.

“Me either,” I said. “Hey, it's the holidays, right? Christmas cheer and goodwill and all that shit, right? So we should all do something together.”

I took Abigail's hand in one of mine and Rachel's in the other. “And the first thing we can do together,” I said, “is get some cigarettes.”

Abigail sniffed and smiled. I gave Rachel's hand a squeeze and she didn't squeeze back.

* * *

I had to lie almost prone on the cement surface of the public pier before I could get my cigarette lit. Cyclones of hard, light snow caught in the wind coming off the bay and stung my face like shrapnel. The melt dripped off my nose and onto my lips, and the butt of my cigarette started to get damp. I inhaled steam. It made a crackling noise.

Abigail and Rachel sat on a bench, their feet kicked up on the edge of the pier. They had removed enough snow to make two grooves for seats. Abigail's head was lolled back, her mouth open, as if she had lost the will or ability to support them. Rachel leaned forward, her chin in her hands, an unlit cigarette in her mouth, steam coming out of her nose. The water gulped and gasped under the pier with the waves and the retreat of the tide.

I cleared a seat next to Rachel and sat down. The bench was cold. I plucked my cigarette and pressed the tip to Rachel's. She inhaled deeply and it glowed to life. I stuck the mine between my teeth and said around it, “See anything yet?”

Rachel shook her head. “Nope,” she said, “but I can hear it.”

I cocked my head and scratched my ear. “I don't hear anything,” I said.

“Shh,” she said. “You have to listen close. Hold your breath.”

I took a deep breath and held it in. Rachel pressed her lips together and watched me. I could hear Abigail's deep open-mouth inhalations and exhalations, and the water below us, and the snow in the wind, and my heartbeat. I closed my eyes. My nose started to go numb.

“Do you hear it?” whispered Rachel.

“Hold on,” I said. Out of some kind of pride I refused to admit defeat. I noticed that Abigail was breathing in time with the waves. For a moment the whole pier felt alive, in the way that fish frozen under the ice or rodents hibernating underground are still alive. Then, somewhere in the distance, I heard sleigh bells. I readjusted the angle of my ear.

“Jingle Bells,” I said. I opened my eyes. “Right?”

“Jingle Bells,” said Rachel. She raised her arm and pointed towards the mouth of the bay. I could see the lighthouse and the streetlights of the peninsula, but Rachel was pointing to the left of them, between our side and the other, where the water turned black and the horizon disappeared. “They're gonna come in from over there,” she said.

I nodded. Rachel put her head on my shoulder and sighed, a long cloudy sigh of commiseration or acceptance or frustration. I turned my head, rested my chin on her hair, and looked at Abigail. Snow was melting on her forehead. Her hair glistened. She was still breathing in time with the water. It wouldn't look to the casual observer like she was in the throes of a drug-induced ego-destroying journey, but her pupils were still the size of dimes and she wasn't her normal talkative self.

“Hey,” I whispered into Rachel's hair, “what are you thinking about?”

Rachel rearranged her coat, shifted her weight, and said, “Santa.”

“Claus?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Claus. The Santa.” She tapped ash into the snow between her and Abigail. “I think he's got the best job in the world.”

“Why? Because he selflessly gives happiness and joy to children all over the world?”

“No,” said Rachel. A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, scraping against my jacket. “Because he only has to work one day a year.”

Abigail tensed. I saw it in the corner of my eye and felt the shockwave go through Rachel, into my chin. She snapped her head up from recline and followed the momentum through until she was leaning forward, neck outstretched.

“What is it?” I said.

“Look!” said Abigail. She pointed with both forefingers, and I followed them out to the opening in the bay. A mass of white light was slipping through the blackness, cutting it in two. The sound of music, of jingling bells and changing chords and “Sleigh Ride,” became more pronounced. It traveled over the water like oil. Without moving her fingers, Abigail turned to me and Rachel. Her eyes had grown exponentially, and a smile split her her chin from her cheeks, and they looked as if they would push all the other features and color out of her face. “It's Santa Claus!”

Rachel laughed, a biting gulping laugh in the cold air that she couldn't have kept in if she had tried. She buried it in my shoulder. I turned mine into a smile. I rested it on Rachel's head and said, “Yeah?”

“Yeah!” said Abigail. She stood up on the edge of the pier. Her toes jutted over the side. Clumps of snow fell noiselessly into the water. “He's flying! He's in the air in his sleigh with his lights and his bells and he's flying.”

The boat made a slow and inexorable journey back into the bay. It would pass near us before it went back to some private dock, where the intrepid sailors would probably get cider and candy canes and have a chance to call a cab. The revelers cheered and sang off key, and the noise hit the shore on all sides.

“I don't think that's Santa,” said Rachel.

“What?” said Abigail. She turned her head around. The lip of the pier put her a good two heads above us. “You don't believe in Santa?”

“That's not what I said,” said Rachel.

“Where are the reindeer?” I asked. “If that's Santa's sleigh, he's gotta have some reindeer.”

Abigail pivoted, faced us, knocked more snow into the darkness. She turned the question over in her head. Slowly, one word at a time, she said, “Santa's reindeer aren't normal reindeer.”

“Oh, of course,” I said.

“Obviously,” added Rachel.

“So they might not look like reindeer to us,” said Abigail. “They might not look like reindeer to us at all.”

The people on the boat cheered. They were more distinct now. The lights went all around the decks, all around the boat, along with tinsel and Christmas decorations. The crowd on the main deck was arranged around a five or six piece band, and the band members were all wearing suits and Santa hats. Everybody had a drink in their hand. I imagined I could smell, over the salt and the rotting freezing barnacles, the odor of alcohol coming in across the water. The band struck up “Jingle Bell Rock.”

“Hey!” shouted Abigail, turning around again. “Merry Christmas, Santa!” She cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned out, over the edge, over the water. “Merry--”

It didn't look like she fell; it looked like she disappeared. One minute she was there and the next instant she wasn't, and unlike the snow there was a tremendous splash when she hit the water. The people on the boat mixed and mingled to a jingling beat and Rachel and I spit out our cigarettes yelling Abigail's name.

One step got me off the bench. A second got me on the lip of the pier. A third put me in the air, and as I fell in slow motion, I didn't think about Christmas or Santa or my plans to watch the boat and split a bottle of wine with Rachel, but about how I told Sal we would keep an eye on Abigail. How I told him I would keep an eye on her, and she had disappeared. Now Rachel was saying my name, or at least I think she was, but I only heard the first syllable before I was underwater.

Ice water boiled my skin. Every muscle in my body tensed. My legs tensed down, my arms tensed out, like a starfish, and I kicked in mad fury until my head broke water and I gasped out a burst of steam. I blinked water out of my eyes and hoped they wouldn't freeze shut.

I sputtered something like “A-a-abig-g-gail.” She was next to me, treading water, shivering. I didn't think she'd remember how to swim. I thought she would sink.

“Wh-wh-wh,” she said. “Wh-what are you doing down here?” She was breathing heavily, her head back, and her blonde hair spread out in the water like sunlight.

My body started to go numb. I reached out in both directions – for Abigail in one, for a dock, a ladder, anything, in the other. My hands found a mooring line and Abigail's jacket. The feeling left my fingers as I made a fist, and I trusted my body to keep them clenched.

“Sal!” said Rachel. I looked up. She was leaning over the edge of the pier. Her scarf was hanging from her hand, a sorry plaid lifeline, and there was a look on her face that I had never seen before. The lights from the Christmas cruise glinted in the wetness on her cheeks.

I pulled. I pulled the mooring line with one arm, Abigail with the other, and Abigail started to kick in my direction. Some animal part of her brain had realized the gravity of the situation. The line was tied to a floating dock, held on with knots and barnacles and seaweed. With excruciating slowness, it floated closer or I moved towards it. Rachel threw herself onto the ladder that moored the dock to the pier.

The cold bit through my veins. There was something in the water, something in the cold and the wet and the weight of the water itself that was pulling me down, pulling me away from the dock, pulling me away from Rachel. I told my legs to kick but they didn't seem to listen. The music, I realized, had stopped. The thrum of the cruise boat had stopped. It was replaced by something like screaming. My vision went in and out of focus, and I told myself that I wasn't loosing consciousness but all the liquid in my eyes was simply freezing.

Abigail got on the dock first, and she took over the pulling. She pulled herself up onto the wooden life raft with a sound like laundry being dropped. I felt her arms wrap around one of mine. Someone else – Rachel, an angel, Santa – wrapped their arms around the other. Everything went numb, and I was lifted.

We lay there on our backs, looking up. It was a starless night. Rachel threw an arm over mine and started doing something to my cheek. I think it was kissing. She may have been whispering. I couldn't feel anything. The party cruise floated nearby and I heard footsteps, the sound of somebody coming towards the dock. “Don't move,” somebody said, “help is on the way!”

“Who's that?” said Abigail.

“It's the reindeer,” I said. “You were right. It's the reindeer.” And I started to laugh. Abigail started to laugh to, and swung her arm playfully at mine. I know it hit because it made a sound. Rachel kept breathing, or kissing, or something, on my cheek, and the feeling started to come back.

I closed my eyes and listened to our breathing. It drowned out the water. I held my breath and listened and was able to make out what Rachel was doing. She was kissing my cheek and whispering, “Why? Why did you do that?”

“It's Christmas Eve,” I said. I turned my head sideways. Tears dripped over Rachel's nose. Someone's feet landed on the pier behind her. I whispered, “This is my one day of work this year.” Then I smiled, and she smiled back, and we pressed them together and they turned into a kiss and we started to laugh.

2009