Page 43 of Ideal Life

And indeed, just as she polished off the second delicious bite, a man in the typical Silicon Valley “dressed up” outfit of a blazer over a T-shirt and jeans came up to her.

Except he had a huge food stain on the front of his shirt, and it wasn’t like he’d accidentally dropped an hors d’oeuvre on himself. More like he’d spilled a strawberry milkshake on it several days ago but hadn’t bothered to change yet.

Talia braced herself, but a slim, compact man in a clean button-down and khakis swooped in, linked his arm through hers, and steered her away.

“Thought I’d save you the trouble,” he said in a slight German accent once they were a safe distance away from Milkshake Stain Guy.

“Thanks, Oskar,” she said, reading his name tag. It alternated between his name and a quote that streamed across the electronic surface: “Eternity resembles a wheel that has neither beginning nor end”—Hildegard von Bingen.

“Interesting quote,” Talia said.

“Ah, yes,” Oskar said. “ ‘Die Ewigkeit gleicht einem Rad, das weder Anfang noch Ende hat.’ One of my favorite lines from a German abbess in the twelfth century. It encapsulates the profound philosophical concept of the nature of eternity in such a concise and poetic manner, do you not agree?”

“Hmm,” Talia said. Whether she agreed or not wasn’t the right question. A better one was, Could you imagine spending the rest of your life with a man so pretentious he opened conversations like this?

“It was nice to meet you, Oskar. Thanks for sparing me from Milkshake Stain Guy.”

Like too-earnest Colin, Oskar furrowed his brow at Talia’s sudden end to their conversation. She wiggled her fingers in farewell, then turned the watch knob.

Okay, back at the side table. Name tag set. Talia stepped into the breach once more, avoided Colin of the sweet hellion sons, snagged a couple of crab cakes—still delicious—dodged Milkshake Guy, thereby avoiding Oskar coming to rescue her, and found herself at the bar next to a tall, broad-shouldered man in a fitted white T-shirt (very bright and clean) and pressed, dark jeans. She tried not to stare at his impressive biceps and pecs—“eyes up here” applied equally to men as to women!—and focused on his face. Which was also impressively chiseled.

Talia swallowed hard and tried to find words.

He flashed incredibly straight teeth.

Too straight. Veneers?

“Hey,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Thaddeus.”

Talia shook his hand, still not sure what to say to someone this beautiful.

But also, he seemed a little young. Not that there was an age minimum to attend this mixer. But Talia was thirty-five, and Thaddeus was…?

“So, Talia,” he said, leaning against the bar. “Tell me something fascinating about yourself or that you’ve recently learned.”

She startled a little. Not in a bad way, but she had expected some small talk first. Although, she supposed, it was a nice change to have someone ask about her, rather than blurt out everything about themselves—or a pretentious quote—first.

“Something fascinating, huh?” It was difficult to come up with a good one on the spot. “How about something a little odd but interesting? I was listening to a podcast the other day about how it’s possible that a very intelligent life form lived on Earth long, long before us, but we wouldn’t know, because if their technology was sufficiently advanced, it’s possible that no trace exists anymore, or if it did, we don’t yet have the means to detect it. And I have to admit I buy it, even though the podcast went on to posit that the life form could have been a kind of cephalopod—like, superintelligent octopuses.”

Thaddeus arched a brow. “That is odd but interesting. I like it.”

Talia smiled. “Now your turn. Tell me something about yourself.”

“I believe that Atlantis exists. And I’m going to find it.”

She blinked. “Oh. Um… okay. Tell me more.”

He tilted his head to the left, cracked his neck, tilted it to the right and cracked his neck again. Then he shook out his shoulders like he was gearing up for a big workout.

A little strange, but Talia would see where it went. She knew plenty of people who had small, quirky procedures they had to run through before getting down to business. A novelist friend of hers had to light a candle and open two fortune cookies before she could start writing each morning. One of the engineers at Ideal Life sang “Scotland the Brave” before he fired up his computer. And Sam had his no-distractions, total-immersion routine before poker tournaments.

“So, I’ve always loved the water,” Thaddeus began. “See, I’m a competitive swimmer—I’m on the team at Stanford—and I’m also majoring in earth systems there with a focus on oceanography.”

“Wait, did you say you’re majoring in earth systems?” Talia took a step backward from the bar. “As in, you’re an undergrad?”

Thaddeus’s eyes widened. “Yeah, but don’t worry! I’m twenty-one, totally legal for everything! I’ve always been told I had an old soul, and I’m really into mature women.”

Talia almost gagged on mature women. “I just… no, sorry, I can’t do this,” she said. “You seem smart and nice, Thaddeus, but this isn’t going to work.”