Page 14 of Ideal Life

He gathered her in his arms. “I don’t know how that watch can do what it did, but… I’m sorry you had to go through that, Tal.”

“So you believe me?” she said, muffled against his chest.

“I kind of have to, given the evidence, as nonsensical as this seems. But even if you were losing your mind, I’d be here for you.” He tightened his hug.

“I’m just so relieved I could undo it. I don’t even care how it worked. Just that it did.”

When they broke apart, though, Sam’s brow furrowed.

“What?” Talia asked.

“I just realized… it’s not a one-time thing. Your watch didn’t limit you to rewinding only once, for the purpose of stopping the Tinder date from happening, even though that was the intent of your wish. You just rewound now so you could replay our conversation and prove to me that it was real.”

Talia’s jaw dropped. “Huh, I guess you’re right. I didn’t even think about that—I wonder how much I can use it.”

Now that the serious consequences of a murder had been undone, she allowed herself to think of lighter possibilities of the watch.

It would be like everyone’s dream come true—the ability to go back in time and say all the witty things you thought of three hours after a fight. To undo spilling coffee on your blouse right before the meeting with your boss when you were going to ask for a promotion. To rewind and get a few more hours of sleep.

“Who knows?” Sam said. “Maybe the watch will just disappear. Maybe it’ll vanish after tonight’s celebration, like a twenty-four-hour Cinderella–fairy godmother wish that served its purpose. But if it’s still here tomorrow…”

“Think about how productive I could be,” Talia said. “I could optimize each day by analyzing it, then going back and doing it again but more efficiently. I could get twice as much done.”

He laughed. “That’s such a Talia thing to say.” Then his smile fell away. “But hey, Tal, promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“This watch has the potential for manipulating people for personal gain—”

“I would never!”

“I know, I know,” Sam said. “I just had to bring it up. But also…” He picked at a loose thread on the sofa.

“What is it?”

He looked up and held her gaze. “Promise me you’ll tell me if you rewind and accidentally do something that changes my life. And promise me you won’t change my life on purpose.”

Talia took his hands in hers. “I promise, Sam.”

Sam

Everyone’s heads turned when Sam and Talia walked into Sugiyama, the Japanese restaurant where the Omni–Ideal Life celebration was being held. They were all looking at Talia, and Sam smiled privately to himself.

She had always had this kind of understated charisma. Whereas many people thought of “leaders” as the exuberant, extroverted student-body-president types, Talia excelled at subtle leadership. She constantly praised others’ contributions, and because of that, everyone admired her and also wanted to work with her. In college, she started a fundraiser to help high school students in local, underprivileged communities get internships with Stanford professors, and what began as a small collection in their dorm ended up raising over $100,000 campus-wide. During her PhD, Talia convinced all the lab assistants to do things her way, without issuing a command or doing any kind of hard sell, simply by putting in the work herself and demonstrating how much better it was.

Talia wasn’t infallible, though; she was human with plenty of foibles, and Sam knew most of them. Still, the measure of a person wasn’t in their perfection. It was in the balance of their strengths and their flaws, and in how they managed to keep some sort of equilibrium between the two.

A waiter glided up to them. “Champagne?”

They each took a glass. Sam immediately took a long gulp.

“You doing all right?” Talia asked. “I know this is a lot of people.”

“I like people. It just takes a minute of adjustment.”

“We can hover here together as long as you need.”

He loved that she knew this about him, that she had intuitively always known it.