Page 23 of Ideal Life

“Hmm?” He was still nuzzled against her stomach.

“What if I don’t want the world to know about our baby?”

He looked up at her, frowning. “I guess we can hide it for a while? But at some point, you’ll start to show—”

“But what if I don’t want to document the process of you and me becoming three?”

Jacob nodded. “I get it. It’s a personal journey for us. Of course, honey. We can strategically shoot videos of you without showing your stomach later on in the pregnancy. Plenty of celebrities do that and then announce the baby after they’re born. Not that we’re celebrities, but you know.”

“It’s not only that,” Libby said. “I’m not sure I want us to be a content-creating family. I mean, I know it works for some people. The Globetrotter Duo became the Globetrotter Trio and then the Globetrotter Quartet, and now their kids have even more sponsorships than the parents do. But…”

“But what?”

She thought again about how she’d held that pregnancy test like it was a tiny bomb. “What about the privacy rights of our baby girl?”

Jacob’s eyes lit up. “A girl? We’re having a little girl?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling.” Libby took his hands in hers. “But what I’m worried about is, what if our daughter grows up and resents that we put her online from the very start? We didn’t have to worry about this when we were kids, because the internet didn’t exist like this yet. But if we post photos and videos of the baby, she will never have gotten a choice. Kids these days don’t get to consent. They just become props in their parents’ lives.”

“Whoa, back up.” Jacob pulled his hands out of Libby’s. “I promise we’ll never treat our baby like a prop. If we put her online, that just makes us normal, proud parents. And we have the opportunity to show our child the entire planet. We are so lucky in this career we’ve built, and we can give that to her. But if you’re saying what I think you’re saying—that you want to quit all this—then… what have we been working so hard for?”

Libby buried her face in a pillow. She didn’t know. This is what she’d been privately wrestling with while hoping to get pregnant. Would she really throw away what she and Jacob had made? Their audience of hundreds of millions had taken years to grow, and it’s because of them that Jacob and Libby got paid.

Without their little media empire, who would they even be?

“I don’t…” Jacob murmured beside her. “What would we do for a living? Our only marketable skills are being ourselves on camera.”

Someone knocked on the bungalow door. “Room service!”

Jacob let out a long exhale before showing him in. The waiter set up an ice bucket with a bottle of sparkling mango juice and presented them with a decadent chocolate cake, sprinkled with deep-red pomegranate seeds.

“Congratulations on your celebration,” the waiter said, before exiting with a smile.

Libby and Jacob stared at the cake, not sure what to say next.

So much for paradise-perfect celebrations.

Talia

After breakfast, Talia headed into the office. The first thing on her calendar was a meeting with the marketing team.

As usual, Erin was already in the conference room before anyone else, with a box full of donuts for everyone and her computer out, ready to take copious notes. She was also wearing her Omni 3Ds, which ran most of her apps, including Ideal Life. It was fascinating to Talia—who had grown up carrying a phone—how quickly the under-thirty set had adapted to smart glasses and how comfortable they were with visuals projected in front of them through lenses rather than on a screen in their hand. But that was part of why Omni wanted to buy companies like Ideal Life.

“I think you work harder than I do,” Talia said, smiling as she set down her own laptop and the coffee she’d picked up in the break room.

“Not true,” Erin said, “but I try to.”

“First in—”

“Last out,” Erin finished. “I know, I read that that was your motto in a Palo Alto Weekly interview last year. I’ve adopted it as my own, as well as your other one: ‘Relentless pursuit of constructive criticism.’ I thought it was so brave to open yourself up to constant feedback.”

“How else would I know if I could improve myself or my product?” Talia said. “What’s actually scarier to me than criticism is staying the same. I don’t want Ideal Life to be mediocre. That’s how we help make other people’s lives better, too.”

“One hundred percent,” Erin said, nodding. “Oh, hey, before everyone else arrives, how did Sam like the party last night?”

“I think he enjoyed it. But even if he didn’t, he’d never let it show. He’s the kind of friend who’s always there for you, you know?”

Erin pursed her lips, as if deciding whether or not to say something.