Black Swan Rising

by Lisa Brackmann

  Two things about the invite list surprised Sarah. The first was that Jane was there. Ben might call Jane, Presley, and Angus The Troika, but so far Angus was the only one of the three that Sarah had ever really dealt with. Jane was remote, like some resident of Mount Olympus, even if her office was only on the other side of the bull pen. Now she sat at the side of the conference table, a thirty-something woman with black hair plaited in a single thick braid, her expression watchful, like she was always looking for mistakes.

  The second thing that surprised Sarah was that she herself had been invited.

  “Of course I love our neighbors to the south. But there’s a reason we have borders.”

  The last clip of the compilation showed Kimberly Tegan at an outdoor rally in some mountain boulder and desert scrub landscape—near the border, maybe?—in front of a backdrop of a couple American flags held outstretched by supporters. Bottle-blond with salon highlights, wearing tight jeans and a scoop-necked T-shirt with a faded American flag on the front.

  “Borders help us to control what kind of country we have. Borders are about protecting American values and keeping us safe. So we need to protect our borders.”

  Maybe she did look a little like an ex-cheerleader, Sarah thought. She seemed young for her age, which was forty-seven. Not as attractive a candidate as Matt. A former realtor as opposed to a veteran.

  But maybe not as bad as Ben seemed to think. She recited her lines with some authority, maybe even with some charisma. Said things that some people really wanted to hear.

  Her husband owned a car dealership. He did well. Enough to help get her elected to a city council seat. For this run, she’d picked up some wealthy donors ready to contribute the max. More importantly, she had big money. PAC money. Dark money. The kind of money that could make you look better than you are, and make your opponent look worse.

  “She’ll run as a moderate,” Angus said, easing his lanky body into a black vinyl conference room chair. “We need to prove her false, every chance we get.”

  The assistant campaign manager wore a pink button-down Oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up, since today the AC wasn’t keeping the headquarters cool enough (layers, Sarah had learned). Angus was young, younger than Ben, but had been working campaigns since he was a teenager, “because I’m a big ole nerd,” he’d once said. His hair was natural and slightly long, the old-school tortoiseshell glasses somewhere between professorial and hipster.

  “We want to stay as positive as possible,” Jane said. “There are PACs on our side that can go negative if that is their judgment. But we need to have answers for constituents who ask questions about Tegan. We tell them that of course Matt is committed to keeping our community safe. He’s already literally fought for our country, and we tell them what else he’s done and plans to do as congressman. But we will need to hit back at any negativity that’s thrown our way. We will need to show that Tegan is too extreme for San Diego. We think she is particularly vulnerable among constituents with ties to immigrant communities, and we’ll be looking carefully for evidence of that.”

  “We’ll mine her city council record and every thought she’s ever tweeted, but she can always say she’s ‘evolved,’” Angus said, with air quotes. “What we want is a fresh gotcha. Thus, Tracker John.”

  John lifted his hand in a mock wave.

  “Our secret weapon,” Angus added. “No one will suspect he’s on our side.”

  Obligatory chuckles. John was a young guy in a pinstriped Oxford shirt, short hair, a little heavy, pale in the way that a white guy who worked indoors might be. His job was to follow the opposition candidate and record his or her every move. “He totally blends in,” Ben told her once. “He has a collection of T-shirts. He’ll bust them out depending on who he’s tracking. He’s got sports teams, bands, American flags, the Gadsden banner … ”

  Sarah wasn’t sure if the DCCC or the state party paid his salary. Either way it meant the party and whatever PACs were on their side could use the material too.

  “They want this seat, and they’re willing to blow through the record for the most money ever spent on a congressional campaign to get it,” Jane said. “We can’t match it, but we can get close. We’re counting on you guys in Social to create organic opportunities for buy-ins whenever you can.”

  Ben nodded quickly. “Will do.”

  How? Sarah wanted to ask. Kimberly Tegan spoke in code. In dog whistles.

  Protect our values. Take our country back. Nothing she said in the video compilation was damning on its own, if you didn’t want it to be.

  5

  The bullet had knocked her to the ground. The burning came next, the excruciating pain, the wet, warm spread of blood on her back. “Casey,” Diego had said, “we have to move. Can you get up? I’ll help you.”

  She’d tried. She couldn’t. One of her legs wouldn’t work right. Diego had dropped his camera and hauled her to her feet. When that didn’t work, he’d picked her up like she was a little kid. All the while she felt the drip drip drip, the warm blood, her blood, her life draining out of her.

  The way she’d felt, that sense of her self dissolving ... this was it, she’d thought, the end of her story, and she’d felt vaguely sad, too dizzy and faint to feel much of anything else.

  Her parents would be so unhappy. So disappointed. No husband. No grandkids.

  But she didn’t die, which still surprised her. The bullet had cracked two ribs, nicked a kidney; there was some sciatic nerve damage that hurt like hell and made walking difficult (friends had brought her this awesomely tacky cane with a carved dragon’s head they’d found on Convoy, and she was determined to use it), but three and a half weeks after the shooting, she was back in her own condo, definitely not dead.

  “Can I get you anything?” Paul asked.

  “Why don’t we open that bottle of cabernet on the counter? The Rafanelli.”

  He looked concerned. “You sure?”

  Casey felt a raw rush of irritation rise in her throat, threatening to come out as words. She swallowed it. “Yes, I’m sure. That’s why I got the bottle out. That’s why I haven’t taken an oxy in four hours. Because I really would like to drink a nice glass of wine.”

  Well, three hours, but close enough.

  Maybe not her best ever job of swallowing her irritation.

  “Okay,” Paul said, lifting his hands. “Okay.”

  Now he worries about me, she thought. Before The Event, she’d been pretty sure he was going to break up with her. They’d dated about five months, and in the last month, it had started to sour. You don’t take this relationship seriously, he’d said. It’s clear you have other priorities.

  Meaning work. Okay for him to put work first, of course. His bio-tech company would cure cancer. Or make him pots of money, anyway.

  Her work? It was trivial. He’d never said that, but she was pretty sure that was how he felt. She’d never asked, because she’d been afraid of what he might say.

  There it was, the lovely pop of the cork, the glug of the wine poured into glasses. It scared her almost, how much she was looking forward to a sip. But without the oxy to blunt the throbbing in her side, in her back, she needed something to stop her from screaming at him.

  What’s wrong with me? she thought. She’d been crazy about this guy, before. She’d cried when she thought he was going to break up with her. Taken a Lyft to a Gaslamp bar with a girlfriend and gotten good and drunk, moaning over him.

  Now? She just wished he’d go home.

  She was tired of Paul, his too-gentle kisses, the way he treated her like a wounded child, incapable of deciding or doing anything for herself. And the worst: How much he seemed to like her this way.

  You’re not being fair, she told herself. You’re not thinking straight.

  Paul came over from the open kitchen, two glasses in his hand. He placed one on the table next to Cas
ey. She picked it up. It wasn’t even half full. “Really, Paul?” she said.

  “You don’t want to overdo it.”

  Actually, she did. But he was probably right. He usually was. That was one of the things she’d found attractive about him at first, his quick certainty and competence.

  Everybody always said they looked great together. He was trim and tan from running and tennis, and he always seemed ready to move—a body never at rest.

  He sat down next to her on the couch and raised his glass. She lifted hers and felt a sharp twinge in her ribs.

  “Are you okay?” he asked immediately.

  “I’m fine,” she said, gritting out a smile. She clinked her glass against his. She wanted that first sip of wine as much as she’d ever wanted anything.

  It was every bit as good as she’d imagined, an explosion of ripe, black fruit and creamy oak.

  “You don’t think you’re rushing things? Going into work?”

  “I’m not going to work. Just into the station. To show everyone I’m okay.”

  Which she wasn’t.

  Nerve pain danced up and down her damaged leg like a ballet conducted by a Taser. The binding around her ribs that held her unruly organs in place itched around the edges.

  She wanted to work. It was so frustrating. She’d been on her way up, on the cusp of breaking through to the next level. The bigger stories. The more serious subjects.

  She’d handled the Crooked Arrow shootings, hadn’t she?

  Casey had watched the tape. She always did, why should this be any different? It was how you got better. She looked at it dispassionately, or tried to, evaluating her own performance. She’d done a good job. She’d been calm. Authoritative, even.

  She couldn’t ask for a better addition to her reel. Too bad she’d had to get shot to get it.

  God, this wine tasted good.

  In two days she’d go into the station.

  What the hell was she going to wear? She’d been living in her baggiest sweats and most oversized T-shirts. Anything tight around her body seemed to set her nerves on fire.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay tonight?” he asked.

  “I’m sure.” Maybe that sounded a little too eager. She reached over, placed her hand on top of his, and briefly wondered why she felt compelled to pretend. “Really. I’ll be fine.”

  “Well … I guess I’d better let you get some rest.”

  She watched as Paul went into the kitchen, found the wine vacuum pump and rubber cork and pumped the air out of the bottle. After that, he came over and kissed her on the lips. Gently, of course.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?”

  What she really wanted was more wine. But she knew the reaction she’d get if she asked him for that.

  “I’m good.” She smiled. “I just want to sit here a little longer and enjoy my view.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She watched him let himself out. The door shut.

  She was finally alone.

  She’d gone straight from a week at the hospital to her condo, but she hadn’t been alone for more than a couple of hours the whole time. Her parents had wanted her to come up to Diamond Bar and recuperate, but the thought of being in a car that long, not to mention being at her parents’ house for any length of time …

  They meant well.

  Instead, her physician mom had come down here for five days, complaining the entire time. She was angry, Casey could tell, angry at Casey for the choices she’d made that had almost gotten her killed. Why hadn’t she gone to med school, or law school? Why was she always off visiting crazy places on the other side of the planet? Why couldn’t she just do something safe?

  “That’s not fair, Mom,” she’d finally said. “I’m doing local news, in San Diego. Not reporting from a war zone.”

  Which, truth be told, was what she’d really wanted to do. Work for a big newspaper or magazine. Cover the big international stories. Wear a flak jacket from time to time, even.

  “Print’s dead,” everyone told her. “You’ve got the right look for TV.”

  Meaning pretty Asian woman, she’d suspected. Someone decorative you didn’t have to take seriously.

  Okay, she’d thought. I’ll use it, and I’ll show them. Make it to CNN, or the BBC, or Al Jazeera.

  But that wasn’t how things had worked out.

  “Well, law school would have been better,” her mother had snapped. “You don’t make enough money.”

  This was also true. Her parents had helped her finance this condo—partly, Casey was certain, because they wanted to tie her down to Southern California.

  After a few days of snarling at each other, Mom used the ayi network to find a recent Chinese immigrant in San Diego to cook, clean, and follow instructions on how to change Casey’s dressings and monitor her medications, who helped her into bed at night and to her feet in the morning.

  Tonight was the first night Ruby would not be here since Casey had been released from the hospital. The first night Casey had spent alone since The Event.

  And I’m glad, she told herself. She was so tired of always having people around. Of always having someone hovering over her. Finally, her space was her own again. She could enjoy the light bamboo floors, the clean white walls, the funky furniture she’d gathered from thrift shops and cheap importers, the souvenirs she’d collected on her travels. Could sit on her battered leather couch facing the giant picture window with the view of Lindbergh Field, gaze out at the runway with its Christmas tree string of lights, watch the planes take off and land.

  The view made her happy, like it always did.

  It was just that her little condo was so quiet now, without any friends visiting, without Ruby around, without Paul or her parents or her sisters. Just a hush of air from a slowly rotating fan. Distant traffic noises, like ocean tides.

  The doors were locked. No one could get in. This was a safe place.

  Maybe I should get a dog, she thought. A medium-sized dog. Big enough to offer some protection, small enough so that it would live longer. Big dogs died too young.

  Maybe a cat.

  Go to bed, she told herself. Take an oxy and maybe a Zoloft and fall asleep to the TV.

  She pushed herself to her feet, the pain making her gasp. Reached for the hospital cane by the couch, hating its gray ugliness, the stupid rubber stopper at the end. I’m going to collect canes, she thought. I’ll have different canes for different outfits, different moods. They will be fabulous, and I’ll donate this one to a homeless shelter, or just throw it in the trash.

  You will get better, the doctors kept telling her. It will just take some time.

  6

  CLINIC SHOOTING VICTIMS:

  A NURSE’S AIDE, A COLLEGE STUDENT

  AND A MOTHER OF TWO

  LAS VEGAS (AP) — When Tanika Kennedy didn’t come home in time for dinner, her mother didn’t worry right away. “She’s young,” Georgia Kennedy, 42, said. “Sometimes she goes out with friends and forgets to call. I didn’t think anything of it, at first.” But when Georgia turned on her television to watch the local six o’clock news, she immediately feared that her oldest daughter might be in trouble.

  “I knew she had the appointment. She told me she didn’t need anyone to come along. ‘It’s just a check-up, Mom.’”

  Rep. Cason Statement on Mass Shooting at Choices Reproductive Health Center

  These killings were not simply the actions of a mentally disturbed individual. We need to call it what it is: a terrorist attack directed at women’s reproductive freedom. These kinds of attacks have been going on for decades, inspired by a twisted, hate-filled ideology that seeks to control women’s bodies and women’s choices.

  Beyond that, there are more mass shootings in this country each year than there are days. T
here are common-sense actions we can take that won’t solve the problem but that will reduce the carnage, measures that the vast majority of Americans agree upon, including most gun owners. The only thing stopping us is the political will to fight back against a weapons lobby

  that profits off mass slaughter.

  “Please tell me there won’t be cameras.”

  Diego snorted. “Come on, you know there’s gonna be cameras.”

  Casey heard herself sigh. She meant it, truly. But realistically there was no way News 9 would not be recording this moment: her “triumphant” return to the station, accompanied by her Hero Photographer.

  She was not feeling particularly triumphant. She looked like shit. She’d lost weight she could ill afford to lose. No amount of concealer hid the black circles under her eyes or her blotchy, ghost-pale complexion.

  I should have had Marcie come over and do my makeup, she thought. God knows if she can make Craig’s complexion look good, she could make me look like I’m not dead.

  Diego steered the station’s Highlander onto the Balboa Avenue off-ramp. Casey stared at the familiar strip malls, the auto dealerships, the gentlemen’s club, sports bar, and Korean mega-supermarket.

  “This was Jordan’s idea, right? Having you pick me up?”

  Diego shrugged. “Somebody needed to. Not like we wanted you taking an Uber.”

  Which didn’t really answer the question.

  “So it was Jordan’s idea.”

  “He asked me if I wanted to.” Diego didn’t meet her eyes, but he smiled a little.

  “Well, thanks for doing it.”

  “No problem.”

  She’d seen Diego since The Event. He’d come and visited her in the hospital; a lot of the crew had. She’d been really doped up on that occasion and vaguely recalled weeping like a little kid when she’d seen him. Her cheeks flushed, thinking about that.

  She was pretty sure she’d thanked him then. Should she thank him now? What was the etiquette for a situation like this?