“You know what kind of stories people want to hear. No one cares about my stories. I wanted what you have—had—but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never have hurt you.”
It’s utterly damning. It’s my voice, without question. She has my face on camera, too, from who knows how many other angles. There is no denying this.
“But the stairs . . .” She zooms forward, and my voice comes out faster, higher-pitched, panicked. I sound so fucking stupid. “How did you know about the stairs?”
“Feels bad, doesn’t it?” Candice drops the recorder in her backpack. “Watching someone warp your image and tell your story however they choose, knowing you have no power to stop it? No voice? That’s how we all felt, watching you. Pretty awful, huh?”
“Candice.” My chest deflates. My limbs feel like lead. I know it’s pointless even as I say it, but I can’t help but go through the motions. I can’t walk away knowing I didn’t try every possible thing. “Look, please, maybe we can work something out—”
She snorts. “Nah. Sorry, you can’t bribe your way out of this one.”
“Candice, please, I’ll lose everything—”
“What would you offer me?” She pulls another camera down from the branches above her head. Jesus Christ, how many cameras are there? “Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? What’s the cost of justice, Juniper Song?” She points the lens right out at me. “How much,” she drawls, “do you think Athena deserves?”
I cross my arms over my face. “Candice, stop.”
“How much do you think Mrs. Liu deserves?”
“Can’t you understand what it was like?” I beg. “Even a little bit? Athena had fucking everything. It wasn’t fair—”
“Is that how you justify it?”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? Athena had it made. You people—I mean, diverse people—you’re all they want—”
“Oh my God.” Candice presses a palm against her forehead. “You really are insane. Do all white people talk like this?”
“It’s true,” I insist. “I’m just the only one who saw it—”
“Do you know how much shit Athena got from this industry?” Candice demands. “They marked her as their token, exotic Asian girl. Every time she tried to branch out to new projects, they kept insisting that Asian was her brand, was what her audience expected. They never let her talk about anything other than being an immigrant, other than the fact that half her family died in Cambodia, that her dad killed himself on the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen. Racial trauma sells, right? They treated her like a museum object. That was her marketing point. Being a Chinese tragedy. She leaned into it, too. She knew the rules. She fucking milked it for all it was worth.
“And if Athena is a success story, what does that mean for the rest of us?” Candice’s voice hardens. “Do you know what it’s like to pitch a book and be told they already have an Asian writer? That they can’t put out two minority stories in the same season? That Athena Liu already exists, so you’re redundant? This industry is built on silencing us, stomping us into the ground, and hurling money at white people to produce racist stereotypes of us.
“You’re right, though. Every so often someone in this industry develops a conscience and gives a nonwhite creator a chance, and then the whole carnival rallies around their book like it’s the only diverse work ever to exist. I’ve been on the other side. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been in the room when we pick our one spicy book of the season, when we decide who’s educated and articulate and attractive but marginalized enough to make good on our marketing budget. It’s sick, you know. But I suppose it’s nice to be the token. If the rules are broken, you might as well ride the diversity elevator all the way to the top. Wasn’t that your logic?”
“Candice . . .”
“Can you imagine how they’ll fawn over this?” She spreads her hands in the air like she’s tracing out a rainbow. “Yellowface. By Candice Lee.”
“Candice, I beg you. Don’t do this.”
“If I don’t go public, will you?”
I open my mouth, then close it. I can’t answer that. She knows I can’t answer that. “Candice, please. Athena wouldn’t have wanted this—”
“Who cares about Athena?” Candice barks out a laugh. “Fuck Athena. We all hated that bitch. This is for me.”
There’s nothing I can say to that.
It all boils down to self-interest. Manipulating the story; gaining the upper hand. Doing whatever it takes. If publishing is rigged, you might as well make sure it’s rigged in your favor. I get it. I’ve done it, too; it’s just playing the game. It’s how you survive in this industry. If I were in Candice’s shoes right now, if I had the same kind of narrative gold she’s carrying in her backpack, of course I’d do the same.
“Well, I think I have what I came for.” She drops the last camera into her backpack, zips it up, and tosses it over her shoulder. “If I were you, I’d get off social media when you get home. Save yourself the agony.”
Something sharpens in my chest then. The same feeling I’d always had watching Athena succeed; the vinegar-sour conviction that this wasn’t fair. Now Candice is sauntering in front of me, flaunting her spoils, and I can already see how the industry will receive her manuscript. They’ll fucking go wild for her, because the narrative is simply so perfect: brilliant Asian artist exposes white fraud, wins big for social justice, sticks it to the man.
Ever since The Last Front came out, I have been victim to people like Candice and Diana and Adele: people who think that, just because they’re “oppressed” and “marginalized,” they can do or say whatever they want. That the world should put them on a pedestal and shower them with opportunities. That reverse racism is okay. That they can bully, harass, and humiliate people like me, just because I’m white, just because that counts as punching up, because in this day and age, women like me are the last acceptable target. Racism is bad, but you can still send death threats to Karens.
And I know one thing.
I will not let Candice walk away with my fate in her hands.
Years of suppressed rage—rage at being treated like a stereotype, like my voice doesn’t matter, like the entirety of my being is constituted in those two words, “white woman”—bubble up inside me and burst.
I throw myself at Candice’s waist. Attack the center of gravity—I read that in a Tumblr post once; if someone attacks you on the street, go for their gut and their legs. Unbalance them; knock them to the floor. Then go for something that will hurt. Candice is hardly some hulking, six-foot predator. She’s so tiny. Asian women are all so tiny. I sometimes looked at Athena and imagined someone easily scooping her up by the waist. She, and Candice, are like little porcelain dolls—how hard could they be to break?
Candice shrieks as I crash into her. We land on the ground, limbs tangled. Something crunches—the cameras, I hope.
“Get off of me!” She flings a fist at my face. But she’s punching from below; she’s got no momentum, and she’s not that strong to begin with. Her knuckles barely tap my chin. Still, she’s stronger than I imagined. I can’t keep her pinned down—she keeps thrashing beneath me, cursing and screaming, jabbing her palms and elbows at every part of me she can reach. I remember I’ve brought a Swiss Army knife and pepper spray, but there’s no time to unzip my belt; it’s all I can do to fend off her blows.
It crosses my mind that we’re too close to the steps. We could both tumble, or she could kick me down, or I could—
Fuck, no, what am I thinking? There are already people out there who think I murdered Athena. If the police found me at the base of the steps, standing over Candice’s shattered body—how would I explain that?