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The weather on the last night of the year – famously unpredictable, they say. And famously unsatisfying, no matter what it turns out to be. “Will we get any snow at the turn of the year?”, the newspaper-headlines would lament. “Will the ice finally thaw as the new year chimes in?”, radio-jockeys would ask before announcing the next festive yuletide song. The weather can’t quite seem to ever get it right.
It’s a “Dei help us, we are snowed in”-type of new year’s eve when Kim finds himself holding the fort at the station of Precinct 57. He doesn’t truly consider the precinct, or the city, as snowed-in – he and the officers on patrol duty are perfectly capable of moving, coordinating and communicating – but it is certainly a night of snow so high and voluminous, it offers an invitation for everyone to complain about it.
It’s not due to some lost bet or unlucky draw that Kim is working on the night most popular for long, cozy get-togethers. Neither does Kim generally shun parties, held by the friends he has barely kept in touch with over the last few years. He knows they’d still readily have him. They always do, and always did.
Surprisingly, the phone hasn’t rung in a while. For the better part of an hour, no issue had been serious enough for it to be escalated to him. And so, Kim decides, it is time for a cup of coffee – he’s only at his second tonight. He tries to exercise some restraint in order to avoid the inevitable energy-low that so loves to come around in the middle of a shift if he sips one cup after another. Instead, Kim has neatly divided the shift into two-hour intervals at which’ completion it is time for another cup, if he so pleases. With half an hour to go until midnight, another such interval has been reached. The desk chair creaks as it rolls backwards, over the uneven floor. Kim stretches his arms, then tilts his neck from side to side. No matter how much he invests into the upkeep of his physique – long hours at the desk never fail to stiffen his muscles.
This evening, when Kim had been leaving his apartment for work, he’d met his neighbour in the halls – a friendly middle-aged lady who worked at a trading post by the docks and often stopped by to talk to him. Over the years, Kim had learned that those who lived by themselves were rather inclined to befriend ‘the resident cop’.
She quickly acts shocked when she sees him leave his home in his uniform. “Officer”, she says, as if the title was a term of endearment, “you’re working on the last day of the year?”
“Yes, Madame Carrié”, Kim replies, locking his apartment door.
“Could no one else take your shift, officer? Ah, vous travaillez trop…”, she sighs.
“It’s quite alright, Madame. There are other days I’d rather take time off on.”
That answer had satisfied her. After wishing her a pleasant evening, he’d quickly made his way to the precinct.
Now, as Kim fills his cup with another serving of fairly average-tasting -but pleasantly hot- coffee, he thinks of his neighbour again. Her face, always full of exaggerated expressiveness, had now been full of pity for him. Working throughout the night of the new year visibly seemed like the cruelest penalty to her.
Kim could name a bunch of reasons for not minding to work on this particular night. For one thing, in Kim’s life there is a certain lack of family begging him to spend the evening with them - no relatives who expect him to pick up the phone and call as the clock strikes twelve.
The degree to which Kim had buried himself in work ever since making it out of juvie had made sure that there was no partner either. And all over the precinct, there were enough people who had at least one person in their life who’s hand they’d desperately want to hold as the midnight fireworks start.
Kim opens the stuffed office fridge, taking out the small glass bottle of milk he had remembered to take along to work. The spoon softly clanks against the inside of his cup as he stirs his drink.
If he was completely honest with himself, he’d list the simplest of all reasons for taking up this holiday-gone-nightshift. It is neither solely down to a humble mindset, nor to the will to sacrifice himself for his, for the most part, ignorant colleagues. Taking this shift is, to a large part, a means to achieving recognition and forging his image. Kim is not above the wish to establish himself – he can’t afford to be so. Fifteen years of juvie had taught him what being continuously overlooked does to a man. For a solid ten years, Kim had politely done the kind of labor and taken on the kind of duties that remained largely unseen. He’d kept quiet about extra effort thrown in. In his young years, he had been convinced that remaining humble would lead to rightful attention. His guardians at the orphanage, his teachers – they’d instilled that ideal in him, and he would have liked the world to work in that way: That good deeds are not to be talked about, and are simply to be performed instead. That recognition would come once he had proven himself worthy.
His years as a young patrol officer had slowly sobered Kim up in that regard. And by now, he regularly pushed himself to accept attention and praise, yet to appear tough and dry about it when needed. To barter with deeds and favours calmly – to exercise influence without intense emotional displays around it. And so, working on new year’s, on yuletide and on other holidays became a bartering token and a means of, almost casually, displaying his dry-seeming dedication. To seem diligent yet passionless to his colleagues was a course Kim had very consciously decided to sail once he had finally been moved to homicide and, thus, to the 57th.
Kim makes his way back to his desk and sets the hot mug down on a scratched coaster. The sound of his own footsteps and the loud creak of his office chair must have masked the sound of another pair of feet shuffling through the hallway. A soft knock on the half-opened door prompts him to lift his chin in surprise. He sees a small light shine behind the stained glass panel set into the office door. A head pokes through the door-frame.
“Good evening, lieutenant.”, Alice softly says.
“Good evening, Miss DeMettrie.”, Kim replies. He catches himself as he lets a warm tone colour his voice. The irony doesn’t escape Kim. Just as he’d pondered his distanced approach to his still somewhat new work environment, his personified soft spot appears in the door.
“How is the nightshift treating you?”, she asks, a smile playing on her lips.
“It’s not bad – quite uneventful. I trust you have found it to be the same.”
Alice nods. The light source, obscured by the texture of the glassy inset of the door, flickers. “Indeed, I have not been radioed a lot either. A quiet night. Now Yvette has taken over me seat. Poor her, starting just before midnight.”
Kim nods in return. They look at each other for a few seconds, and then Alice jolts a little, as if she had entirely forgotten about the object in her hand.
“I knew you’d be here tonight, alone if I’m not mistaken, so I brought you a little something.”, she says, finally nudging the door open all the way. Now supported by both hands and presented towards him, Kim can see what Alice had been holding.
With elegant, yet precise motions, she places a small plate on Kim’s desk.
Kim’s eyebrows lift in surprise. Then he smiles and let’s out a small huff.
A tiny, chocolate-coated cake bar sits in the middle of the plate he now recognizes to be a saucer. A birthday-candle in a plastic holder has been poked into the centre of the miniature cake.
Kim opens his mouth, wants to remind Alice that it is, in fact, not his birthday, but she seems to read his mind before he gets a chance to speak.
“Since you wouldn’t want to leave the desk long enough to watch the fireworks outside, I thought I’d bring a little light to your desk, lieutenant.”
Kim lets out a soft huff again. The gesture is sweet, and it makes him want to offer to drop the ranks as they talk candidly – yet he decides against it.
“Thank you, Miss DeMettrie. That is a very thoughtful gesture.”
“It should go well with the coffee, too.”
Kim nods, picks up his mug and raises it towards her. “Very well. Cheers.”
Alice tilts her head as she smiles. “Cheers. Ah, I am sorry you still have the rest of the night ahead of you, lieutenant.”
Kim takes a sip of his coffee.
“It will always have to be someone.”
“If I may speak freely, lieutenant – they shouldn’t have done that. The other officers. To make you take the new year’s shift when you’ve only been here for half a year and volunteered for other holidays already. It is not the… collegial thing to do.”
Kim shrugs, making sure to look genuinely unphased. “I don’t mind it so much.” Somehow, he has a desire to be honest with Alice. “To be honest, it helps fortify a… good standing of sorts, when you’re the new one here.”
Alice seems to consider this for a moment. “I understand.” Then she glances at the cake. “You should snuff that candle now, lieutenant.”
Kim quickly purses his lips and blows out the candle. After Alice’s stern words, he finds himself tickled by curiosity. “But Miss DeMettrie, if you pardon my nosiness – why did you opt to work tonight?”
Alice genuinely looks surprised by the question. She casts her gaze down in consideration, clearly considering he own reasoning. Then she meets Kim’s gaze again.
“Personally, to me it would seem odder not to do so, lieutenant. Mon père - ah, my father – would always work on holidays. I suppose it would seem strange to me - to be somewhere else at these kinds of times.”
Kim nods. He remembers Alice’s lifelong affiliation to the RCM, already shared by her when they’d met for the first time. It had not been bragging at all – the number of years one had served the RCM were a regular subject of small talk, after all. “I’ve played here, studied here – and then worked here. An organic progression in my family.”, she had told him back then.
Alice glances at her watch, then begins to struggle with her bag, re-shouldering it before buttoning her winter coat. “Mon dieu, lieutenant, I forgot the time. It’s almost midnight! My fiancé must be waiting for me outside in fear that I have been caught up and won’t make it ‘till the clock strikes midnight.”
“Don’t let me keep you at all.”, Kim says. He smiles, and he means it.
Alice finishes buttoning her coat swiftly, then halts for a second. “Happy new year, lieutenant.”, she says, smiling brightly.
“Happy new year, Miss DeMettrie.”
Kim watches her leave, then casts a glance at his own watch. Midnight is a mere two minutes away now. The phone on his desk continues to remain silent.
Carefully, he plucks the little candle off the cake bar and places it on his desk. Then, he gets up and moves to the window of his office, taking the saucer with him.
For a few seconds, Kim’s eyes search the sky. Then, he hears church bells ring in the far distance. A second later, his face is lit up by fireworks, exploding and sparkling away above the park near the police station. They look beautiful.
Gingerly, Kim picks up the cake bar and raises it to his lips. He takes a bite. The intense sweetness tingles in his mouth. His inner voice wants to rationalize that it’s merely a date in the calendar, that the turn of the year is near-meaningless and that work-relationships are best regarded with dry objectivity – but somehow, the thought of starting his first full year at this precinct with a friend at his side makes his heart feel just a little bit lighter.