an air of indulgent patience, as though she had already begun to waste his time.
“Hi. My name is Sarah Bailey.”
“Hello, Sarah. I’m Owen.”
“I…I know.” Was Owen Grant giving her a lesson on proper phone etiquette? As she hunched into the back of the couch, her thigh pressed against something hard and oblong wedged into the cushion. The television blared to life.
“Fuck me,” she said. It was the goddamn news, with the volume on max. Every night, the same thing: the investigators in hazmat suits; the masked nurses of the mobile ARAMIS clinics; the eyes of the newscaster growing wider and wider as she announced another 10,000 people had been diagnosed in New York City alone, bringing the global tally of confirmed cases to nearly 300,000. Sarah thought it was reckless to show that much panic on television. She fumbled for the remote, tucking the phone up to her chest as she did so to dampen the sound. Once the TV was off, she returned the phone to her ear.
“Sorry,” she said.
“What was that?”
“Oh, the news. You know, horror and mayhem. I don’t like to watch it anymore.”
“But you should.” His voice had the weight of authority. Owen Grant was giving her some free advice. It was what all of his readers wanted. She ought to be taking notes.
“Why’s that?”
“To stay informed. Stay alive.”
“Right.” In spite of herself, Sarah felt a lonely feeling unsettle her stomach and quicken her pulse. She recognized it as fear.
“Sarah Bailey,” said Owen. “I’m looking at a picture of you now. I see you work for my publisher.” If he remembered her from Lansdowne, he gave no sign of it.
“You’re googling me?” She tried not to feel flattered, and failed. “Yes, I’m from Shillelagh. We have lots of things lined up for you. Interviews, appearances. Bigger than anything you’ve done yet, and it’s going to be huge for the book.”
She heard him sigh.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not going to be doing anything.”
“But why not? Mr. Grant, I’m sure we can come up with a publicity plan that will be to your satisfaction. It doesn’t have to be everything they want.” They. She wasn’t strategically trying to distance herself from the publishing house—it just came out that way. Probably subconsciously linked to her imminent firing when she couldn’t deliver. “Please, we’ll do everything your way.”
“Because, Sarah. Sarah, because.” Though she could see her job security slipping away, she couldn’t help smiling at how tenderly he repeated her name. As an undergrad, she probably would have been swooning by now. “Because it’s a matter of life and death.”
* * *
Sarah thought about their exchange in her cubicle the next day, as she picked up her phone and debated calling Dory to confess she’d failed. Owen Grant had condescended to her and refused to meet her in person. He had urged her to quit her job and stop going outside. And between warning her against taking the subway and flying on commercial airlines, he had also refused to do any media appearances whatsoever.
She hung up the receiver once she realized she would only be putting herself out of work. And she had almost nothing saved in the event of a layoff. Rent, food, daycare, health insurance—very few of her expenses were luxuries. Somehow, she had to convince Owen Grant to listen to her.
She studied the juddering jacket art of his latest novel. It had a striking typographic design with bold red and yellow chevrons radiating outwards from the title. If you squinted, the colours almost seemed to be moving, flashing in high alert. Sarah had seen the cover of the new paperback edition, which was black, subdued. A novel in disguise as a survival guide.
She picked up the book but was reluctant to open it. Office osmosis had revealed so much of the plot she could write the back cover copy herself. When a mysterious virus strikes an elite Manhattan private school, lovelorn science teacher David Gellar works to stay one step ahead of a pandemic that infects most of the city’s children. She reminded herself that it was just the book’s title and the eerie similarities between the novel’s pandemic and the current ARAMIS crisis that had made it seem relevant to a terrified public. That and the fact that there were children getting sick. But that was normal, too—children were always more susceptible to viruses. Just because nearly all the children in the book died did not mean that would happen with ARAMIS.
She put the book down and called her