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When Muffy was in her early twenties and living in the city, bartending to put food on the table and fund boozy nights out, she loved nothing more than flirting her way into getting off for New Year’s Eve. Having a pig of a boss had been a blessing: he’d give a pretty girl just about anything she wanted if she asked just right. Muffy would show a little shoulder, lean in such a way to favor her chest, and pout her lips just so. For the low price of debasing herself before the man signing her checks, she didn’t work the New Year’s a single time until she moved to Forget-Me-Not Valley.
Back then, Muffy thought those holiday nights held more romantic possibility than any other day of the year. Oh, she’d had plenty of kisses when the clock struck twelve, then more into the wee hours, but she also believed she might find her great love on those nights, too. After striking out during those glamorous parties punctuated by long lonely walks empty downtown streets, so many years in a row, she has found solace in placing her hopeless dreams of romance on other nights. Other holidays. New Year’s celebrations in the Valley are quiet affairs, so she gets her fill of excitement behind the bar. It is soothing in its predictability after years of raucous parties.
Tonight’s celebration is more or less the same as it always is: Muffy’s serving the twins, Marlin, Vesta, and Nami, with Griffin behind the bar as well. The only departure from the norm is Nami, who came to town back at the beginning of the year. By the end of spring, she’d become a familiar face at the bar, blending into the regular comings and goings.
It’s nearing eleven o’clock, and Patrick and Kassey have been good and drunk for hours. Marlin’s, sloppy and in a rare cheerful mood, is already on strike two for making passes at Muffy, though not by her doing. Vesta, absolute godsend that she is, got her fool of a brother in line by redirecting his energy to some card game or another, with Nami joining. The drinks have been flowing, and the atmosphere has been loud but cozy, like most others in the Blue Bar.
Mid-pour, Griffin yawns loudly for the umpteenth time, so Muffy urges him off his feet to get some rest.
“You go on to bed, ya hear? I’ve got it all under control.”
Muffy swears he’d work himself into an early grave without her around. She gives him a kiss on the cheek: not a demeaning favor like it would have been in her youth. It’s just a drop from her deep well of affection for the closest thing to family she has these days. Griffin gives her a one-armed hug and waves to the crowd before walking through the back room door.
When the latch clicks, Patrick cheers, “Lookit that, fellas! Mama’s gone to sleep and the party can get goin’!”
Kassey starts to egg him on before Muffy gives him a look, lips pursed and eyebrows raised. He loudly whispers to his brother, “Pat, hush! She’s gonna cut us off if ya keep showing yer ass!” Patrick weakly smacks at Kassey, and in the ensuing drunken tussle - not a single hit landed by either after the first hit - the two of them settle down again. Kassey mutters, “Idiot’s gonna ruin my chances fer a midnight kiss,” but thankfully he doesn’t carry on any further than that.
Muffy turns toward the sink to roll her eyes into a glass she’s polishing. She’s all but trained the brothers to behave if she uses the right expression or tone of voice on them, but the good behavior never lasts more than a night. Gives her something to complain about, at least, and if they try anything unsavory or cause too big a ruckus, Griffin would happily let her boot them until kingdom come. As patient as he is, Griffin stopped wasting his grace on the twins years ago, long before Muffy moved to the Valley, and that’s a story she’s dying to hear one of these days.
When the relative calm seems to stick, she fixes herself a martini for nostalgia’s sake. All the pretty young things she used to run with loved to drink them, so it felt right. They’d take the edge off dealing with barflies on nights out, and the glasses looked classy to boot. Her job is great, and she’s always appreciated it. Really, she doesn’t even dislike Patrick and Kassey. They just get to be a bit much on holidays and their birthday. Old as they are, they never last much past midnight, so she has a little more than an hour before they’re out of her hair and stumbling back home. All these years serving them, and she still doesn’t understand how they manage to clamber up that ladder to their death trap of a home while sloshed.
She swirls her drink around the glass and drops in a few olives to finish it off. The salty shock of the first sip always perks her up, so she turns back to face the crowd and finish the night off strong.
It’s thirty seconds until midnight. Muffy taps a fork against the nearest wine glass to get all eyes on her.
“Okay folks, it’s almost time! Grab your drinks and try and remember how to count. On my mark…”
Everyone’s eyes are on her. She loves to make a scene, good or bad. What’s New Year’s Eve without theatrics? Glancing at the clock by the front door, she waits as the final moments of the year wind down, twenty to fifteen to eleven, down to…
“Ten!”
The whole group, ranging in age from late twenties to early fifties, scrambles to its feet and joins in on nine. The twins are slurring numbers, Vesta’s cheeks are ruddy from a few glasses of red punch as she holds up her brother, and Nami is leaning against the windowsill, surreptitiously sipping her stone oil instead of shouting numbers. She’s always doing things subtly, like she wants to be unseen in every room she enters, Muffy thinks, before turning her attention back to the countdown.
“Three! Two! One!”
From the corner of her eye, Muffy sees Patrick throw a handful of wadded up napkins in the air: makeshift confetti. Easier to clean up than the real stuff, so she’s happy to let it slide.
“Happy new year!”
Muffy calls out a toast to Forget-Me-Not Valley and all its residents, same as always. Everybody cheers, messily inebriated and sparklingly gleeful. Glasses clink, no kisses are exchanged - at least she doesn’t feel left out - and the air of merriment swells for another few minutes before things start to calm down again. Marlin sings a uniquely terrible rendition of Auld Lang Syne to himself while Vesta closes out their tabs.
“Sorry for my goofus brother, Muffy girl. You have a good year, ya hear?”
She drags her unusually chipper kin out the door after leaving a hefty tip: Vesta’s always good for that. It’s reason of many why Muffy loves to see her walk in, right up there with scaring all the men into acting like they have sense and telling the best jokes in her booming voice. Kassey settles his bill a few minutes later, pointedly leaving Patrick’s unpaid with a promise to drag him back in the next day to pay up. Always the slightly more responsible of the two, by a narrow margin. He loops his arm in Patrick’s and stumbles out the door, laughing about goddess knows what.
That leaves Muffy and Nami, who was still finishing her drink.
“Mind if I nurse this for a bit? I want to make sure Rock’s out for the night before I head back to the inn.”
Muffy giggles at Nami’s entirely understandable rationale. “Goddess, yes. He used to come here a lot more often before Lumina caught his eye and made him want to act right. I’ve never met a person more convinced that they’re a party unto themselves. I’d imagine he’s just as bad at home since his parents won’t kick him out.”
“You have no idea.” Nami shifts in her seat and slouches over the bar a bit more, looking more relaxed than she has all night. Must not be a big fan of crowds. “And thanks. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
“Oh, it’s nothing! Mind if I sit?” When Nami nods, Muffy plops down next to her. They mutually enjoy the quietfor a bit. As fun as a night like tonight tends to be, it wears her out, so it’s nice to wind down with one last drink after locking up. To her surprise, Nami breaks the silence.
“You keep everyone in line pretty well.”
“Hm?” Muffy’s pretty zoned out, lost in her own world.
“The pyro guys and Marlin. It’s gotta be like herding cats, but you managed just fine even after Griffin dipped.”
She laughs. “Years of practice. I’ve been bartending for close to a decade, and I started out in the city. I cut my teeth handling the worst sleazeballs imaginable - wealthy types who felt like they were owed the world. Patrick and Kassey can get annoying, but they’re not too bad. They just go overboard sometimes. Marlin? He’s usually maudlin, if anything. I think he was mooning extra hard over Celia tonight, same as always, and got in his cups about it. He’s nice enough when he’s not so moody. Celia and the lady archaeologist seem to have a bit of a flirtation going on and Marlin can’t deal with it, as if he ever tried to make a move in the first place. I suppose hitting on any woman in his vicinity soothes him a bit.”
Nami hums thoughtfully. “Bartenders really do know all the gossip, huh? I don’t think I’ve even seen Celia and Flora in the same place at the same time before. Even I know Marlin’s whole deal, though. I don’t know how anybody could miss it.”
“Right? I wish he didn’t cope by coming onto me, though. It’s a bit pathetic, and Vesta makes sure he knows it.” That gets another laugh out of Nami, who seems to hold some disdain for Marlin. Muffy gets it: his bitterness is the whole town’s problem.
They’ve both finished their drinks, but Muffy thinks the conversation has a bit more life in it yet.
“I’ve got some champagne I forgot to pour earlier. Wanna have some bubbly to make it feel a little more like a real celebration?”
Nami bobbles her head a bit while thinking. It’s uncharacteristically silly and endears Muffy. “Sure. I’m game.”
Once Muffy’s fills a few wine glasses - not once has a champagne flute entered this wonderful backwater establishment - and Nami grabs hers, they clink them with a nice resonant ding and start drinking.
Nami keeps up her unusual chattiness. “No toast?”
“Other than the one from earlier? Eh.” Muffy sighs wistfully. “What is there to call out? Aside from you and Pony showing up this year, not much changes here. It’s the nicest place I’ve ever lived and has some of the nicest people, too, but life’s pretty repetitive.” She shifts to face Nami and tilts her glass in the same direction. “Here’s to the new faces.”
Nami halfheartedly raises her nearly empty glass in agreement and appears to chew on a thought. With an air of solemnity, she says, “I’m actually leaving tomorrow. Ran out of money. Nobody around here’s hiring, and I can’t live on Tim and Ruby’s generosity forever. One face fewer in the new year.”
Now, Muffy and Nami aren’t particularly close. Probably not even friends, if she’s honest. But the revelation is still a shock, and she feels a heavy melancholy settle in her chest.
“I hate to hear that, Nami. I really do. I sure wish we could set you up with something here, but I know you already talked to Griffin about it. I think the only reason he can afford to keep me is that I live upstairs and don’t need to pay for a room on top of everything else.” Nami raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Where are you heading next? And what leads you to travel so much, anyway?”
“People ask me that all the time. But I don’t have a specific reason to tell them. I start to get restless and just need to go somewhere, though I never know where or why. Guess I’ll keep going until I feel settled. Thought that might be here, but…” She trails off with a sardonic smile. “There’re a few bigger towns across the mountain that I’ll check out. Some places will give you a bed and food in exchange for a day’s work, so I’m gonna do that until I can pay my way again. After that…who knows where I’ll end up.”
“We’ll surely miss you here. I hope you find something good at your next stop.” She pauses to wrestle with an impulse. Oh, why not? “Well, would you like to finish sending this year off the right way?” Nami tilts her head, confused. “We toasted and drank the champagne. Tradition says…”
Nami giggles, unexpectedly girlish and cute, and nods. “No better way to say goodbye to a place.” She hoists herself up onto the bar while Muffy toes off her heels - finally, ugh - and leans right in.
It’s a nice kiss. It’s not something she’s thought about with Nami, and that makes it a bit nicer. No expectations, no rush of emotions: just pressing against another person, moving in tandem to find the best spots to place their hands, breathing each other in and enjoying the closeness. Nami sighs into it and tugs Muffy closer. She’s softer than Muffy realized - her personality has always read as detached, her posture defensive, but here she’s relaxed and receptive. Muffy runs a hand up and down Nami’s back, the other hand stroking the closely cropped hair at the nape of her neck.
It’s a nice kiss, and it keeps going for ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Muffy breaks off and leans her forehead on Nami’s collarbone. She feels effervescent and content. Maybe the best New Year’s kiss she’s ever had, even if it is an hour past midnight and there was no buildup at all. No chase or flirtation, but there’ll be no heartbreak some months down the line, either. Nami’s breathing has evened out from its earlier rapidity, and they come down from their shared floaty high together.
Nami breaks the spell, same as she’d broken the silence earlier.
“That was…good. Real good. Been a fun night all around, and it feels a little more meaningfully punctuated now.” Her cheeks are still a bit flushed; she’s smiling, but it’s sheepish. Muffy suspects she’s not the type to seek out physical entanglements too often. “I need to finish packing my things and sleep enough to make tomorrow easier. Muffy…thanks for making the end of my time here into a special memory.”
She slides off the bar and Muffy walks her over to the door. They sneak one more chaste kiss before faring one another well, and then Nami’s gone. Muffy locks the door and readies herself for bed, lost in a haze of bittersweet happiness. It’s been the strangest New Year’s Eve of her life, and it’s left her heart feeling fuller than all the ones before it. She suspects she’ll wake up a bit sad, knowing Nami’s left for such an unpleasant reason, especially when Muffy plans to sleep long into the afternoon tomorrow.
But as she settles into bed and turns out the light, she suspects she’ll see Nami in town again one day: a spark of hope and a gut feeling, based on nothing at all. Their kiss really was nice, and that’s as superlative as she will allow herself to label it. No need for longing when she’s wasted too much time doing exactly that for far less deserving people. Regretting a missed opportunity for friendship, though…she’s happy to have crossed paths with someone who inspires that feeling. As she drifts off to sleep, Muffy dreams of a cold sunrise casting light on two figures disappearing over the crest of the mountain pass, hand in hand. When she wakes up late into the next day, she considers it a validation of her hope from the night before, and she takes that comfort with her as she greets the first of spring, sunny, bright, and new.