Page 20 of Ideal Life

Heck, Talia could stay here all morning with her parents, basking in their warmth and indulging in every item on the menu.

She wondered if this watch had ever appeared to anyone else before. Then the scientist part of her brain started wandering into questions again about how the watch actually worked.

But before it could get too far, Talia squashed the line of thought in its tracks. She didn’t get many occasions to be with her parents, and she wanted to focus on them.

She ended up ordering a tall stack of lemon pancakes with sides of sausage and breakfast potatoes. Calories didn’t matter. She’d rewind them away in a little while!

Once the waiter finished taking her parents’ orders and filled everyone’s coffee cups, the questions began again.

“Start from the beginning,” Vera said. “I want to imagine what it was like when you walked into the restaurant. Were you wearing a pretty dress?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Talia said. “I threw a blazer over my T-shirt and jeans. But Sam looked nice! He had on a great tuxedo jacket that he’d modernized.”

“Sam was there?” Vera said, nearly spilling her coffee. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”

Dave shared a conspiratorial smile with Talia. Vera had loved Sam ever since he came home with Talia (as friends) for Thanksgiving their freshman year, since the Morgans lived just half an hour from the university and he wasn’t going to fly to Taiwan, where his mom and dad didn’t even celebrate Thanksgiving (seeing as it was an American holiday).

While many parents would have made a lot of noise about making sure Sam slept on the sofa bed in the living room, away from their daughter, Vera was the opposite—she’d tried to get him to sleep in Talia’s room with her in her twin bed, much to Talia’s horror (and Sam’s amusement). Talia had apologized to him for her mother the entire weekend.

Seventeen years later, Vera was still on a mission to get the two together, every time Talia mentioned him.

“Yes, Sam was there, and he helped calm my nerves.”

“And you walked into the restaurant together?” her mom asked. “Are there photos?”

“It wasn’t prom, honey,” Dave said.

“There were photos—” Talia said.

“See?” Vera smirked.

“But there weren’t any ‘grand entrance’ photos of me and Sam, Mom. I meant there was a whole press junket thing where I took pictures with the Omni execs and the VCs.”

“What a shame,” Vera said. “I bet those executives and investors were all pasty from being in front of their computers all day. The reporters should have taken photos of Sam instead. He is a very handsome young man—strong arms from lifting boxes of books all day, nice tan from long walks on the beach…”

Dave was trying not to laugh out loud.

“Speaking of handsome young men,” Vera said, “Jacob and Libby seem to be having the best time in the Maldives!”

Talia winced. Her sister was only two years younger, but she’d somehow managed to find the perfect husband while in college, which meant Libby and Jacob had already been together for over a decade. But even though Talia was still single, she never begrudged her little sister anything. She wanted Libby to have all the happiness in the universe.

Fresh out of school, Libby and Jacob had decided to backpack around the world and document it, and this hit at the time when YouTube and Instagram were really taking off exponentially. It didn’t hurt that they were both gorgeous, too, and sponsorships and partnerships poured in so fast they were able to turn down all but the biggest.

They’d now appeared in ad campaigns for Patagonia in Bhutan, Conrad Hotels in Tahiti, Loro Piana in Rome, and more. Libby and Jacob had a hundred million subscribers on Instagram and twice that on YouTube. And they were always being flown around the world and put up in luxury suites and sent on incredible expeditions, all on someone else’s dime.

Vera pushed her phone in front of Talia and hit Play on Libby and Jacob’s latest video.

“Hi, friends!” Libby was in a green sundress, and her blond hair was pulled back into a high ponytail. She stood on a dock with cerulean water surrounding her, a beach with palm trees behind her. Talia smiled at seeing her sister’s familiar sunniness.

“Today Jacob and I are going to help with coral reef rehabilitation in the Maldives!” Libby was saying. “As you probably know, global warming has devastated a lot of coral ecosystems around the world. But here in the Maldives, a partnership of scientists and hotels has found a unique way to try to turn that around. Visitors—like you and me—can seed new coral reefs.

“So we’re going scuba diving today, and we’re bringing you with us. And even more fun is that after we leave, they’ll send us updates on how our new baby reefs are doing!”

Jacob popped into the frame then. He wore a black rash guard and green board shorts that matched Libby’s sundress. “But a quick reminder that if you’re going to be in the sun a lot, you can protect yourself by covering up like I do. And use sunscreen—just make sure it’s labeled coral-safe, without the chemicals that can wash off your skin and harm our oceanic friends.”

“Aren’t they so sweet?” Vera said.

Talia nodded. One of the many things she loved about her sister and brother-in-law was that even though they were beautiful and could have flaunted it, like some creators did, Libby and Jacob didn’t want to build a business on boobs and abs, so there were never gratuitous bikini shots or videos of Jacob shirtless. And despite their fame, they were still earnest and principled, working only with companies they believed in and making sure the contracts they signed allowed them to speak their true opinions.