The chair was cold. It shouldn’t have been. It was meant to be heated, but it was cold. Gina touched the vinyl with the tips of her long fingers; it was far too cold. Why was it not heated? The chair was meant to be heated. She sat down anyway; choices were in short supply these days.

The vinyl tingled her skin through her cotton dress. The dress was too thin, but she had thrown it on without thinking; she was slow at adjusting, and she was more than a little preoccupied. In a moment, her body temperature would seep into the vinyl and the two of them would find a balance. Organic and plastic, somehow they would almost become one.

She fumbled and searched; the button was somewhere, she knew it was within reach, but it was elusive, until it wasn’t and she flicked it on. The warmth was almost instant, and she felt a little more comfortable. If she closed her eyes and let her mind wander, she could almost feel the sun on her skin. She closed her eyes.

It would have to be 1976, she thought. It really was her favourite year, no doubt about it. That winter was cold. It was short, but it was god-awful cold. And there was that one morning when the bird bath froze over and looked like a miniature skate rink, except the birds had packed their bags and flown to warmer climes.

It was a morning like no other. Stepping outside and seeing a frosty whiteness she had never experienced. The bucket of water next to the backdoor tap had an inch-thick disc of ice crowning it. They popped it out and played frisbee with it until it shattered on the concrete path that led to the clothesline. It had shattered like glass, leaving crystal-clear shards scattered across the path and lawn. Their remnants were still there when she came home from school, but had melted away the next morning. It really was a cold winter.

Spring came shyly that year. It didn’t rush; it teased just enough. It hinted at the summer that was to come, but didn’t brag. That year there was more than enough time for all the seasons. It really was a special year. Yep, 1976 had been something to remember.

It was the last year she had dressed the same as the boys on her street. The last year she shared all her secrets. Her hair was cut in a long bob, but many of the boys had hair longer than hers. It was the last year that she would be mistaken for one of the boys. The last year she would wear her clothes tight and not be self-conscious.

With indifference, she wore her brown corduroy pants that flared at the bottom. The same could be said of the tight-fitting jumper that rolled at her neck. On reflection, the pattern was ridiculous, horizontal bands of colours that were lost to the seventies. Bands of peppermint green, milk coffee tan, vanilla cream and, of course, chocolate brown. If she remembered one colour from her life in that decade, it was chocolate brown. And an orange they called burnt.

But the shoes, oh those shoes. From the moment she’d worn her mother down and held those navy-blue Connie High Tops in her hands, she knew that anything was possible, anything at all. She can still feel the texture of the white rubber seal on the ankle of those Converse; no pair ever felt as perfect as that first pair in 1976. It really was a year like no other.

Summer came, and it was how you always thought a summer should be. Oh, what a summer. It seemed to stretch out far beyond the season. Summers were different then; they really were. They were hot, but not so hot that you couldn’t be gone all day. They were not too hot. Days were longer than felt right, but you didn’t think about that sort of thing. Not in a perfect year.

Dad had planted clover and left it unmowed, so it was thick and lush. Lying in it, in the moving shade of a tree, was better than swimming. Gina had watched the bees dance from one pink clover flower to the next. She had watched with one eye, the other buried deep in the cool greenness. There had been so many bees that year.

It was the last year her parents were truly in love. She was old enough to notice their moments. The lightness in her mother’s voice as she passed her husband, her fingers touching his arm. The softness of her father’s voice when he spoke to his wife. And Gina remembered the sounds she had never noticed before that came from behind the closed bedroom door on a Sunday morning. In that year, she didn’t know their meaning, but she noticed them.

It was a summer when she rode her bike more than she had before and more than she ever would again. It was a year of riding places, sometimes with friends, sometimes on her own. The best Christmas present of her life, a dragster with red ribbons streaming behind her as she sped down the street. Nothing said 1976 like that pearl-painted dragster, with its long seat and those streaming red ribbons. The next year it was stolen outside the shop. It was never replaced.

That sun, though, that really was something you would never forget; you just couldn’t repeat it, but she had tried. She had tried in places all over the world: Greece, Bali, the Amalfi, the Seychelles. Nope, you could never find a sun like that summer sun in that special year. She wished she could feel it on her skin now, that summer sun of 1976.

The chair was warm now; the chair was comfortable. Gina suspected she had dozed off, but a gentle voice had stirred her, and then there was a firm hand on her exposed arm, a heavy push and then a sharp pain. The pain was followed by a seeping coldness. A coldness that was unnatural, a coldness that seemed to slowly flood her body. Gina took comfort in knowing that this would be the last session, the last in a string of pointless sessions.

Yep, that year had really been something. Lately, a day didn’t go by when she didn’t think of 1976 and that perfect summer and that sunshine that she found herself longing for. If it had been possible to bottle it, she’d be getting drunk on it right about now.