Page 5 of Quarantined with the Billionaire

“It’s called Coronavirus, mom.”

“Yes, okay. They’re waiting on the results of the test, but he has all the symptoms—fever, lung congestion.”

“Is he in the hospital or anything?”

“No. Not right now. But since this has turned out to be pretty dangerous, I thought you should know.”

Suddenly, I felt like crying. If I thought my dad would even care, I’d consider calling him. But he had his nice new family—not so new anymore, but they’d always be that in my mind. Why would he want to hear from me?

“Let me know if anything changes.”

“Okay, honey. You sure you’re doing all right?”

“It’s weird not going into work every morning, not being around all those people every day—and it wasn’t until Friday that I finally felt settled in doing the work at my kitchen table. But, yeah, I’m all right.”

“We’ll have to have you over for dinner next week.”

“Is Tod doing okay?”

“He’s not sick, if that’s what you mean.”

As far as stepdads went, Tod was okay. I was glad she hadn’t called to tell me she was kicking him to the curb. He treated my mother all right, lots better than the last guy, and he was nice enough to me. “What about his job?”

“He’s off work for a bit, too.”

“Are you guys gonna be okay?”

“Yes, honey. Don’t worry about us.”

Oh, but I did. Mom and I had had a really lean period when my dad first left. Actually, it lasted a lot longer than that. The child support wasn’t nearly enough to pay the bills and buy food—when he bothered to pay it. Mom had finally figured it out once I was on my own, but she hadn’t had many marketable skills and had never gone to college—which was what had convinced me to do it, come hell or high water. “I’ll try not to.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Just try to avoid crowds, mom.”

“We don’t really have much of a choice anymore, do we?”

“I guess not. Have a good night.”

“I love you, Bailey Lynn.”

“Love you, too, mom.”

The rest of the evening, I tried really hard not to think about my dad. I should have been worried about him, should have made an effort to call, but the wound went deep. Maybe I’d call him tomorrow—if I could talk myself into it.

And I might have actually done it…if Monday morning hadn’t changed my entire life.

* * *

Sitting at my work-issued laptop wearing a wireless headset, I prepared for calls to our customer service line. I’d expected them to dwindle over the past week, though, as people began worrying about when they’d be able to buy toilet paper, sanitizer, and dry beans again instead of stressing out about fluctuating numbers. That was stupid, though, because people were worrying now more than ever about money. Dominique had been holding Zoom sessions every day for my colleagues and me that likened to pep rallies, but what I appreciated about the meetings was that she’d give us helpful information sometimes. One day, she’d given us tips for how to help calm our callers, keeping them focused on the future rather than panicking. I got really good at delivering lines like Historically, the market always goes up and You still have the same number of shares you did in January—and they’ll grow again. Let’s look at the long term. I suspected people didn’t believe a lot of what we were telling them, though. So many people wanted to pull their money out of stocks and stash it into safer funds, stressed out by the volatility of late.

Mr. Steel—uh, Maddox—had published a couple of videos on YouTube that he had made, and he emailed links to the staff. He talked about investing for the long term and growing comfortable with risk. He spent quite some time explaining concepts and giving really good advice, but I didn’t know if people would get it. One thing was for certain—his calm, smooth, deep voice was reassuring in a way I couldn’t be when on the phone with people freaking out about their money. I just didn’t know that I could get people to view them in their entirety.

Me, though? I caught myself watching them more than once.

Damn it, Elise. It was all her fault.

But I got a call from the office that changed my day’s course. When I picked up, I was surprised to find that the call wasn’t from a client. It was Jeffrey, the director over my department. “Bailey, how are you doing?”

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