Black Swan Rising

by Lisa Brackmann

Do you send flowers to a guy who saved your life?

  She studied him. A stocky, solid guy with a perpetual shadow of beard and spikes of thick black hair falling into crescent-shaped waves around his face. He was actually kind of cute, which she hadn’t really thought before now—they hadn’t known each other that long, had only worked together for a few months before The Event, and besides, she’d been totally preoccupied with Paul.

  Why was she even thinking about this?

  “So … how are you?” she asked.

  “Pretty good. They told me to take some time off, so I did. Saw a counselor like they told me to. Went down to Baja for a couple of days and chilled. Since I’ve been back they’ve had me on surfing bulldogs.”

  She snickered. That was their nickname for the more trivial end of the human interest beat.

  “I’m surprised they’re not having you filming me,” she said. “So they could film you filming me. That would be … meta.”

  Whatever that meant. She couldn’t quite recall the definition of meta. Had she ever known it?

  Diego laughed. “Sure, Casey. You want me to run it by them?”

  It took her a long moment to figure out what “it” was. “No, let’s not give them any ideas.”

  Hello, oxycodone, she thought. My new friend. She liked how it dampened the pain, the warm narcotic balm of it, but when she was on it, sometimes she felt like her thoughts were becoming disconnected, like they were a string of beads and the string had snapped.

  She’d taken a Zoloft too. The thought of going into the station … her heart had started racing just picturing it. Which was stupid. The station was a safe place. Nothing was going to happen to her there.

  She really needed to get better and get off this stuff. She couldn’t think straight, and she hated that.

  Except … what if she did get off the drugs, and there was nothing actually there? Just the Big Empty she’d been dissolving into when she got shot?

  Could she go back to her job? Do stand-ups in front of car crashes and house fires and surfing bulldogs? Try to prove all over again that she was worthy of better things?

  She didn’t have much time to prove it. Twenty-nine was old to be at this point in her career. Because working in TV was like living in dog years. Medium-sized dog, at least.

  Maybe Mom was right, she thought. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much time traveling. I should have just gotten on that career track right away and stayed there. Not taken any breaks.

  But she’d traveled after college. Traveled on her vacations. Traveled for six months after the round of layoffs that had eliminated her first on-air job in Sacramento, picking up cash writing travel pieces and teaching English. She almost didn’t come back to take the gig in St. Louis, but she did. Asked for a couple of weeks “to settle things” when she’d quit that gig to take the job in San Diego. She’d gone to Peru that time.

  You don’t take anything seriously. Mom had said that to her more than once.

  They pulled into the station parking lot, an asphalt expanse in front of a low industrial complex that looked like all the other complexes around here, regardless of what the businesses were: high-tech, brewery, auto customizer, Chinese bookstore, they all looked the same.

  “You ready?” Diego asked.

  “Nope.”

  There was a small crowd waiting for them. Craig and Elise, the evening anchors. Danise the weather gal and Dominic from sports. Tim, the assignment editor, and Gloria, the evening news producer. Jason from the live truck. They were the crew the night she’d been shot.

  And of course a photographer. She wasn’t sure who it was. She didn’t want to look at the camera. Didn’t want to watch him film her.

  Diego helped her out of the car.

  She emerged, leaning a bit on her gloriously tacky dragon cane. Lifted her free hand in a wave.

  Everyone started clapping. Slowly, almost gently at first. Then harder and faster.

  Casey smiled. Ducked her head. Wondered if she could crawl back into the car and go home.

  Danise the weather gal moved first. Closed the distance between them and gave her a cautious hug. Casey had always liked Danise. Gorgeous, curvy, and goofy as hell.

  “Oh my god, you cut your hair!”

  “Yeah. I was tired of it.”

  Her long hair had been her signature. Black, glossy, cascading past her shoulders. A pain in the ass to take care of, especially after she got shot. She’d managed with the help of Ruby to make it to a fancy downtown salon yesterday. “Just cut it,” she’d said. “I’m done.” Now her hair hugged the line of her jaw, buzzed around the base of her skull. She kept running her fingers through it, feeling the short soft hair, like it was some kind of animal pelt.

  “I love it!” Danise said. “It’s really cute.”

  “Thank you, you’re so sweet,” Casey said.

  Paul had loved her long hair. He wasn’t going to like this, she was pretty sure.

  A cat, she thought. I’ll just get a cat. Or maybe two.

  “Casey, it is so great to see you.”

  “You look wonderful.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  The voices around her grew louder, then receded; she fought off a wave of dizziness that left her weak at the knees.

  “You okay, Casey?” Danise asked, her voice somehow cutting through the buzz and the blur.

  “Oh, sure, I’m fine. Just a little tired.” She managed a smile. “So happy to see all of you!”

  Another one.

  One of the monitors in Jordan’s office was tuned to CNN. The slug in the OTS read: Three Dead in Alabama High School Shooting.

  “You look great, Casey.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Thanks. I’m feeling pretty good.”

  Jordan smiled, but he looked worried. He often looked worried. Shrinking budgets, shrinking ratings, and still expected to “aggressively drive growth in content across multimedia platforms including: digital, mobile, social media, and any new platform opportunities that may arise.” (This was from his mission statement as news director.) No way she’d want his job.

  He was a white guy passing forty and waving at fifty, balding and gut straining the buttons of his dress shirt, though she knew he worked out regularly. Stress, probably.

  “Interesting haircut,” he said. “It’s … a little angular.”

  He was still kind of a dick.

  Was there a hair clause in her contract she’d missed?

  “Yeah,” she said. “Easier to blow dry.”

  “I am guessing we are still a ways away from you resuming normal work activities?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not where I want to be yet. But I’m getting there.”

  “Well, take all the time you need. We’ve got a great fill-in from Tempe. Carly Nixon.”

  “I’ve seen her.”

  “Oh. Of course. Well, she’s not on your level, but she’s doing a great job.”

  “She’s got a great look,” Casey said. She stared past his head at the walnut bookcase where he showcased his Emmy, at the plaques and framed photos on the wall, then back to the bank of monitors.

  “You just keep us posted,” Jordan said. “Whenever you’re ready to come back, of course there’s a place for you here.”

  Extremist literature found in home of Las Vegas women’s clinic shooter, read the crawl on CNN.

  “You know,” Casey said suddenly. “I’m ready to come back now. I mean, not my regular job, obviously.” She laughed, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “I wish I could do it, but the fact is, I can’t. But … ”

  Three Dead in Alabama High School Shooting.

  She waved at the monitor. Her left arm, the one she could wave. It still hurt when she tried to raise her right arm up. “Another shooting. How many have there been since Morena? We just move on to the next
one. I know this is going to sound … ”

  She suddenly felt herself on the brink of tears. “You know, people who get hurt, whose friends and loved ones die … they don’t get to move on. And I was thinking … ”

  She leaned forward. Time for her pitch. The hint of tears might even help. “We suffered a major loss in this community. Seven dead now. Five seriously injured. And we’ve largely moved on from it in terms of our coverage. What do you think about a special report? A series about the long-term repercussions of a tragedy like this?”

  Jordan crossed his arms over his belly. Thinking it through. “So the angle is … you?”

  She smiled. “Who better?”

  He was still thinking about it. Frowning now. First-person journalism wasn’t the kind of thing they generally did.

  “Just to be clear, I’ll report the story. Not be it. Interview victims, their families. My own experience won’t be the focus. I’ll just provide … context. And empathy. I’ll be able to frame the story in a way nobody else here could.”

  “What if there are points where we want to focus on your experience?” he asked suddenly. “Would you be willing to show the long-term repercussions for you?”

  She hadn’t expected that. The idea made her uncomfortable. If she showed people how she really felt, how scared she was sometimes, how angry, the kinds of thoughts that were running around in her head …

  “Sure,” she said, putting a bright note in her voice, just like she did to end her upbeat features. “I’m fine with that.”

  She’d pitched it, hadn’t she?

  Jordan finally uncrossed his arms. “It’s an interesting idea. Let’s toss it around. Rose might be a good person to get in the mix.”

  Rose was a good producer. Maybe Jordan was actually taking this seriously.

  “Great,” she said, putting some enthusiasm into it. “I can start doing research, work on the breakdowns.”

  “I haven’t approved anything yet.”

  “That’s okay. It’ll give me something to do.” She was enthusiastic about it, on some level. The level of fake it till you make it.

  “We’ll need a physician’s note clearing you for limited duty.”

  She gave him a mock salute. “No problem.”

  Jordan studied her. Evaluating her fitness for the gig, maybe. “You really want to do this, Casey?”

  “I do,” she said. Because she really did, even if she didn’t exactly feel it yet.

  If something this shitty was going to happen to her, she might as well get a good story out of it.

  Casey Cheng News 9 @CaseyChengNews9

  So glad to be back with my News 9 family! So grateful for all of your support! You are amazing, San Diego!

  San Diego Christine @SanDiegoChristine

  Love you @CaseyChengNews9! Welcome back!

  Stans The Man @StansTheMan

  Stay strong gurl yer awesome! Glad to have you back on the tee-vee!

  White Pride 419 @WhitePride419

  Someone shuld skullfuck you slant cunt too bad he missed your chink face #AlanJayLiberationArmy

  7

  She looked good, Sarah thought, that reporter who’d survived the shooting. Casey Cheng.

  Sarah was taking a break from her database project. She’d agreed to help Lindsey go through a DCCC list to flag potential likely contributors outside the state. “We’re looking for voters who donate outside their own district, who understand the importance of strategic donations for national party-building. We’re also looking for voters with an interest in veteran’s affairs, the environment, women’s reproductive rights, and gun safety”—she counted them off on her long fingers—“all issues of strength for Matt. It’s tedious, but I don’t want to rely on email blasts that aren’t properly targeted. It just turns people off, and we want them to buy in.”

  “Sure, will do.”

  Lindsey had actually smiled at her. Not a particularly warm smile, but a smile, anyway. “Thanks, Sarah. We really appreciate your help.”

  She doesn’t like me, Sarah thought now. It didn’t seem fair. She’d hardly interacted with Lindsey.

  Probably because Matt was nice to her.

  It wasn’t her fault that Matt was nice to her.

  I’ll do a good job for Lindsey, Sarah thought. Maybe she’ll like me if I do a good job.

  But there were only so many hours she could spend looking at cross-tabs and entering data fields before she needed a break.

  Seven a.m. Friday. The office was quiet.

  It must have been adding names to the gun safety field that made her think of that reporter. Casey Cheng had been so calm, almost nonchalant on the selfie video she’d made right before she’d been shot. Like the danger hadn’t been real to her.

  She should have been more careful, Sarah thought. She’d made that mistake, assuming she was safe.

  Sarah had done a quick Google search and found the top hit: a story and video on News 9’s website.

  “An emotional day at News 9 as our own Casey Cheng returns to the station for the first time since last month’s tragic shootings.”

  There she was, smiling and hugging people and shaking hands. She didn’t look that different, Sarah thought, except for the short hair. Slender, pretty, with dramatic brows and a broad smile, she seemed lively. Happy. As if the horrible thing that had happened to her hadn’t marked her at all.

  The phone rang. The ringtone for Communications.

  “Communications, Sarah speaking.”

  “Sarah. Nice to hear your voice.”

  Sarah shivered, and then she knew who it was. Wyatt Gray.

  “Hello,” she said. “Is this Mr. Gray?”

  “You can call me Wyatt if you’d prefer.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “You need to stand up for what you want, Sarah.”

  She felt a sudden, brief surge of anger. “Mr. Gray, then.”

  He laughed. “Good for you. Mr. Gray it is. You had an easy primary, I take it.”

  They had. There hadn’t really been much doubt that Matt would end up one of the top two finishers in California’s “jungle primary.” The other, predictably, was Tegan. The one woman who ran against Matt as a Democrat was far to his left, a registered Green until the primary. No money and no institutional support.

  “We didn’t take any chances.”

  “Good. You shouldn’t ever get complacent. Got a pen?”

  She felt around her desk, which was actually a table, with no drawers. Finally she found a pen that had rolled behind her computer. “Got it.”

  “I’m going to give you a YouTube URL. You ready?”

  He read off a string of letters interspersed with a couple of numbers. She scribbled them on a legal pad.

  “Now read them back to me.”

  She did.

  “Good. I suggest you download the video. It won’t be up on the site more than an hour. Probably less.”

  “How—” she began, and then she stopped herself. She could figure out how to download a YouTube video. There had to be apps for that.

  “What is it?” she asked instead.

  “Watch it. You’ll see.”

  “Are we sure it’s her?” Jane asked.

  “Looks like her. Sounds like her.” Angus shrugged. “And it sounds like something she’d say, if she thought no one was listening.”

  The video was shaky, the sound was muffled, and the apparent speaker’s face was turned away from the camera part of the time. But what the video seemed to show was Kimberly Tegan at a garden party of some sort, wearing a butter yellow cocktail dress. A warm day, from Tegan’s bare arms, in a big, beautiful yard with a glimpse of ocean. “Oh don’t get me started about Henry Echeverria,” she said, glass of white wine in hand. “I don’t know what country he’s really loyal to. He’s one of
these people, he won’t be happy till we’re part of Mexico again. Till we’re part of Assland.” Laughter. “Isn’t that what they call it? Well, that’s what it sounds like.” More laughter. “Assland,” she repeated, pausing to swallow some wine. “That’s what you get when you turn things over to Mexicans.”

  “Assland” was Aztlán, Sarah knew. The name for the traditional Aztec homeland, real or mythical, and what some Chicano activists wanted to call a new nation for mestizos, a República del Norte that would encompass the American Southwest from Texas to California. She’d read about it in her Chicano studies class in college.

  Did anyone take Aztlán seriously anymore? Sarah wasn’t sure.

  She’d had to Google Henry Echeverria. He was a labor activist who’d butted heads with Tegan when she was on the city council over raising the minimum wage. He’d already endorsed Matt this election cycle.

  “Tell me again exactly what he said.” Jane was staring at her again. Maybe she’d never stopped. Her eyes were a dark brown, so dark they were almost black.

  They sat in Jane’s bare office: Jane, Angus, Sarah, and Ben. Jane hadn’t decorated it beyond a potted plant that probably came as part of the lease, and a couple of framed campaign photos—a younger Jane with various candidates. The most prominent was one of her and Matt smiling and hugging each other in front of a sea of Cason for Congress signs, a rally from their first campaign.

  Jane, smiling?

  In the nearly two months that Sarah had been working here, she’d barely glimpsed the inside of Jane’s office before now. She’d longed to be invited in. But this …

  Did Jane ever blink?

  A trickle of sweat rolled down her back. “Just that … he had some information for the campaign. Something he thought might help. And he gave me the URL and said I should download the video, because it wouldn’t be up there long.”

  “And that was it? He didn’t say who he was working for? He didn’t give a name?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  She wasn’t really lying, she told herself. She just was leaving things out. Things like that he’d called before. That he’d wanted to talk to her, specifically. That he’d told her not to mention any of that.