A shimmering, propulsive novel set in New York City during the early aughts and across time, The Night Shift shows that by confronting the past can we reshape our future.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from the first chapter of Natalka Burian’s The Night Shift, which is out July 12th 2022.
Hidden behind back doors of bars and restaurants and theaters and shops all over New York City are shortcuts—secret passageways that allow you to jump through time and space to emerge in different parts of the city. No one knows where they came from, but there are rules—you can only travel through them one way and only at night.
When Jean’s work friend Iggy introduces her to the shortcuts, it’s to help shorten her commute between her night shifts bartending and her work at an upscale bakery. Jean is intrigued but has a hard time shaking the side effects—the shortcuts make her more talkative, more open to discussing her past and recalling memories she’s tried hard to forget.
When Iggy goes missing, Jean believes it’s related to the shortcuts and his growing obsession with them. But as she starts digging into their origins, she comes to find a strange connection between herself and the shortcuts.
It was only four hours into her shift at the bar, and Jean had never been so tired. She didn’t really smoke, but she stood outside on the sidewalk, her nose and fingers tingling from the cold, holding a lit cigarette anyway. It had rained earlier that night, and the ginko leaves stuck to the pavement in irregular gold coins. She squinted through the smoke at an alley cat sauntering in and out of the deli across the street. Jean envied that languid animal and its free rent.
The only acceptable kind of break from her new job at the bar, Red and Gold, was the smoking kind, so Jean took it. She had to get outside, at least for as long as it took for the cigarette to burn to its end. It was only her first week, and though she was getting used to being on her feet and smiling a lot more than she ever had before, she couldn’t get used to the feeling of being entirely, bodily, wrung-out. The flow of work, though, that feeling of jumping onto a moving train, was addictive.
The door creaked open, and the sound of the Stooges thundered out into the street. Her co-worker, Omar, pressed the door back into the jamb with the bottom of his foot, sealing the sounds of the bar inside. He was slight, light-skinned, handsome—and he was much better at his job than she was at hers. Omar nodded in her direction but didn’t look her in the eye. “Hey, you’re up,” he said, lighting a cigarette of his own.
“Already?”
“Already. The clock stops for no one, newbie.”
Jean dropped her cigarette in the ash can and bent to stretch her calves the way she had when she ran high school track. In one way, it was nice to be reminded of her physicality, to be reminded that her body could hurt because of something she had decided to do. It was evidence of a choice she had made. If Jean knew anything, she knew the value of making her own choices.
“I’m going to get a coffee. You want one?” Omar’s voice was soft, the voice people used when they were approached by a dog in a stranger’s yard. Jean winced, remembering when Omar told her he had to change the way he talked to everyone since September 11th.
“No thanks, I’m ok. See you in there, I guess.” She pulled open the misaligned front door, face to face with a paper turkey printed in autumnal colors, the kind of decoration elementary school teachers tacked up in their classrooms.
The decaying interior of the bar was the opposite of her last job. Her old office had smelled like vanilla Glade Lasting Mist. Red and Gold just smelled. It was soon enough after the mayor’s non-smoking ban for people to remember when bars smelled like smoke. The regulars still talked about it, still grumbled about having to go outside to smoke. “Fuck that guy,” everyone said, as they shouldered out into the weather. But not Jean—she was grateful for that ban, for those precious minutes in the cold night air.
Jean slipped beneath the pass and scanned the room, satisfied that no one was watching her, and then inspected her ragged nails. Her palms were chapped from the constant dishwashing, and she wondered if the cuts and creases from all of the bottle caps she pried open would scar her skin forever. She wondered how permanently, in general, this particular job would mark her.
A large group of friends had coalesced around the pool table in the back, all skinny jeans and t-shirts from Good Will emblazoned with commemorative text from Bar Mitzvahs and family reunions. It was somebody’s birthday, and the group had contracted and expanded throughout the night. Jean knew they would be hard to get rid of at closing, but they made the room feel lively in a way she was grateful for.
Jean turned her focus to the row of customers seated at the bar. The first lesson she learned in Dr. Goldstein’s office was just as—if not more—relevant at Red and Gold. “Everyone you meet is wearing an invisible sign that says ‘Make me feel important!’” her former boss had said. The more important you made someone feel, the easier they were to manage in Dr. Goldstein’s office; the more important you made someone feel at Red and Gold, the more they tipped. It was a skill Jean had sharpened to an almost involuntary degree. In the same way some people were natural athletes, or good at learning other languages, Jean was good at making people feel important.
“Can I get you all something else?” she asked the drooping couple seated in front of her, her tone equal parts sympathetic and commiserating.
“I got it.” Mitch, the other bartender, elbowed her aside. Jean slunk back, suppressing a spike of anger. He still didn’t trust her to do the job, didn’t believe that she could secure the tips that he could.
After three nights in a row, Jean had begun to understand the tides of custom on her shifts. Red and Gold was settling into a lull—when people went to shows at the venue around the corner—but they could expect one more frantic rush before closing.
“Listen, I shouldn’t have done that,” Mitch said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“I really don’t care. It’s fine.” Jean tried not to shrug off his touch. Instead, she pushed her hair behind her ears—hair the texture and color of tree bark, her mother used to say.
“No, it’s not fine. You’re new, and I should let you learn.” Mitch looked down at her; it was no small feat, since Jean was tall, too. He wore a tiny black vest over a white t-shirt that settled tightly over his impressive pot-belly.
“Thanks,” Jean said. “That’s very generous of you.”
“Ha! You’re making fun of me, right?” Mitch slapped her on the back, like a cartoon dad.
“Right.” Jean forced another smile, adding it to the parade of forced smiles she had produced that night. Jean hated that a young woman smiling was a cue that everyone understood. She hated, even more, that it was one she had to rely on so heavily in order to pay her rent.
Mitch cracked open a line of PBR cans and pushed them across the bar. “You’re sweet, but not fast enough for the weekends. You’ll get the hang of it. Nobody’s new forever.”
“That’s the truth,” Omar said, dropping a tub of used glassware in front of her. Jean hauled it to the sink and sank the glasses into the steamy dishwater.
“You had a 9-5 before this, right?” Mitch asked.
“Right.” Jean dunked another batch into the electric blue liquid.
“What happened? You didn’t like it?” Mitch watched her closely.
“No, I liked it. It just wasn’t for me anymore.”
“What does that mean? I bet you had insurance and everything. Did you have dental?”
Jean didn’t tell him that she had to quit because she was an idiot with emotional problems. She just shrugged. “I did, yeah.”
“Oh man, that is the dream! You know how many cavities I have in here?” Mitch gritted his teeth like a jack-o’-lantern. He winked at a pair of men at the end of the bar and made them another round.
“Yeah,” Jean agreed, wiping her hands dry. “This has been an adjustment. Especially financially.” She frowned at the crowd of clean glasses.
“If you want more work, my cousin said they’re looking for help at her restaurant.” Omar’s voice was so quiet, Jean had to lean forward to hear each word. “Just a few hours, but it’s good pay. Early in the morning, helping her in the kitchen. Only prep, nothing fancy. You can go right when we close, so it could work out well for everybody. It’s hard to go from 9 to 5 to a couple weeknights over here. You interested?”
“Yeah, of course—that would be great.” Jean felt a genuine rush of gratitude. Rent was looming and she keenly missed her beautifully regular and, comparatively, abundant direct deposits from Dr. Goldstein’s office.
“What? You’re giving out jobs and you didn’t ask me first? That’s cold, Omar,” Mitch said, feigning insult and ignoring the girls with matching side-swept bangs and overly glossed lips who leaned toward them expectantly.
“You’re lazy, man,” Omar said with a smile. “I’ll take you over there after work,” he said, turning to Jean.
“Tonight?” She asked, rolling one of her ankles looking for some small moment of physical comfort, like dodging under an awning in the rain.
“They need somebody to start now. If you meet my cousin tonight, you’ll probably just get the job.”
“Sure, OK, sounds good. Thanks.” It didn’t sound good at all, but she really needed the job. So, leaving Mitch to close up, Jean buttoned her denim jacket and followed Omar into the night.
“The shift starts at two, but if you’re good she won’t mind if you’re a little late. You have to finish up before they open for service in the morning. Between here and there you can get a little break, a little breakfast, you know, whatever you need.”
“How far is it?” Jean struggled to keep up. Her legs had never been so stiff. Between working all night on her feet and the cold, she was having trouble matching Omar’s pace. It was humiliating to be so unaccustomed to physical labor. It felt dishonest, like she had cheated her way out of an important, character building rite of passage, like losing teeth or shaving her legs for the first time.
“Maybe fifteen minutes. It’s downtown. You want to take the train?”
“No, it feels good to walk,” she lied.
“Sorry, I know I walk fast. But hey, the faster you walk, the less chance you get hit by that can of soda some racist throws at you. You ever work in a kitchen before?”
Jean wasn’t sure what to say to that; she keenly understood that not a single observation she had to offer would be of any value. “No. Have you?”
“A lot, yeah. I basically grew up in my uncle’s restaurant. It’s easy. You don’t have to talk to customers. That’s the best part.”
“Sounds amazing.”
A gust of bitter late-autumn wind stabbed through her jacket, and the skin on her face and hands stung with cold. She was going to have to dig out her winter coat and hope that the zipper worked through another winter. She was grateful for Omar’s silence, because her face was too cold to talk. Omar stopped in front of a locked gate, skimmed with graffiti. Jean tucked her bare hands into her armpits and waited as he texted.
The gate rumbled up halfway, and Omar motioned for Jean to duck underneath. It seemed impossibly gymnastic for her sore, frozen body to bend like that, but somehow, it did.
A young woman with overplucked eyebrows greeted her on the other side. She was short and curvy, and had a bleached blond buzz cut.
“Hey Lu,” Omar said, closing the gate behind them. “This is Jean. She just started at Red and Gold.” He turned to Jean and said, “Lu runs everything over here. She’s fancy.”
“Hello,” Jean said, unsure of the degree of formality required of her. She put her hand out, the way she would have done at any other job interview, and Omar’s cousin shook it, examining her through narrowed eyes. Her hands and forearms were wrapped in matching winding lines, all part of an elaborate tattoo Jean couldn’t make out. She dropped Jean’s hand and turned to Omar. “You hungry?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“There’s still croissants from yesterday. Help yourself.” Omar disappeared, turning on an overhead light that illuminated an immaculate, minimalist café. A neat row of empty vases lined a long zinc counter, and a series of skillfully photographed Mediterranean landscapes marched across the electric white walls.
“Wow,” Jean said.
“Yeah, they spent a lot of money in here,” Lu said, following Jean’s gaze. “The restaurant is next door. A Michelin star and now they think they’re the shit.” She rolled her eyes. “They expanded over here because it was so busy. We make all the pastry for the restaurant, too.”
Jean nodded and adjusted her posture, trying to project a sense of alertness that she did not possess.
“You have any experience?”
“Um, not really,” Jean’s eyes dropped to Lu’s hands, almost mechanical in their neat clasp.
“That’s OK,” Lu said. “I actually prefer that. Working with these little shits who think they know everything makes me crazy.”
“You want a coffee, Jean?” Omar called.
“Yes please—just milk,” she called back, suddenly aware of yelling so close to Lu’s face. “Sorry,” she murmured. Jean was conscious of her tallness, which made her hollering seem worse somehow.
Lu waved the apology away. “You start at two and end at six when we let in the morning shift. It’s not rocket science. If you pay attention, you’ll be fine.”
Jean nodded and forced her eyes to open wider. The coffee would help, she thought.
“So, what happened at your last job? Omar said you quit?”
Jean couldn’t tell her the truth. If she tried to explain, it would sound ridiculous and Lu would surely throw her out. Her boss had asked a few personal questions about her mom so she had to quit? She couldn’t tell Lu that.
“I was an assistant,” she said instead. “To a psychotherapist. She’s older, losing her eyesight, you know, in her eighties, and…”
“She retired?”
“Something like that,” Jean fibbed, relieved.
“Can I call her for a reference?” Lu asked.
Jean froze, but after a moment she nodded, continuously, as though nodding along to a song. Dr. Goldstein would give her a great reference. After all, she’d worked for her for a long time. Jean had started while she was still a student, before her academic life deteriorated. Dr. Goldstein was kind enough not to ask too many questions when Jean left school for good, her schedule opening up like miles of empty road. As long as Jean did her job well, Dr. Goldstein didn’t pry.
But, when Dr. Goldstein showed a growing interest in her past, in her parents, it sent chills down her spine. Jean wasn’t some patient—it wasn’t Dr. Goldstein’s, or anyone’s, place to figure her out. Jean didn’t want to be figured out at all.
So she did the responsible thing—gave two weeks notice and trained her replacement, a grad student named Arpita who sat all floppy, like a child. She had done everything right. Dr. Goldstein would never begrudge her a decent reference. Would she?
“I guess this is a big change for you.” Lu leaned back and gave Jean one more appraising look.
Jean looked Lu in the eye, wishing hard that they were sitting down. “Nothing wrong with change.”
Lu grinned and Jean felt herself, involuntarily, match the other woman’s smile. It felt strange to smile for real. “Good answer. You’re hired. Just don’t be late. I fucking hate it when people are late. Go wash your hands and I’ll get you started on the biscuits.”
“What? Now?’
“Yes, of course now.”
Excerpted from The Night Shift by Natalka Burian. Copyright © 2022 by Natalka Burian. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
