Page 56 of Ideal Life

“Anyway,” Jenny said, scrolling through Libby and Jacob’s YouTube channel, “I study many, many videos. I pick best ones for me and Dad. Libby recommend, we go.”

No wonder hotel chains and tour operators loved sponsoring Libby and Jacob. Even sixty-year-old Taiwanese women hung on their every word.

Soon, though, Jenny’s energy ran out as jet lag caught up with them, and she and Roger napped for a few hours on Sam’s bed while he went back downstairs to help Kenneth in the store.

The illogical sadness of his parents knowing more about Talia and Libby, though, followed Sam as he shelved books. Not that they knew Talia and Libby on a deep level, because the sources were all public. But it was still more access than they had to Sam and his life. And yet, he couldn’t change that; it’s not as if he was going to start a YouTube channel, and he certainly didn’t have a high-flying startup to make headlines with. Very few people wanted to write articles about a man who eccentrically bought a lighthouse and filled it with books.

Sam thought about how his dad had majored in philosophy, and how he’d never known this, and he felt hollow over all the conversations they’d missed out on having over the years because they just couldn’t talk properly. He knew his parents were smart—they’d built a hugely successful business from scratch—and they knew that he was smart, but all that intelligence was locked up behind second-grade-level language that trapped them eternally in childish chatter—

Unless…

His dad had used his phone to translate. That was a relatively basic technology, too clunky for one-off sentences here and there.

But Talia had mentioned that she used her Omni 3Ds for simultaneous interpretation with her attorneys in France! It took their voices and translated what they were saying in real time, then played it through the speakers in her glasses in English, still in the speaker’s voice.

Sam didn’t have or want Omni 3Ds, but surely this technology was also available elsewhere?

A quick search found that yes, indeed, if he bought certain earbuds, they’d be able to do the same thing.

And if he got earbuds for his parents, too…

Maybe they could actually, truly communicate for the first time. With depth and nuance. Without human barriers of vocabulary and poor syntax.

With trembling hands, he placed an order on his phone for three sets of earbuds. And then Sam tried to smother the fizzing in the center of his chest, not wanting to hope too hard that there could be a solution to the yearning he’d buried deep inside himself for so long.

Talia

In an effort to bring more green spaces downtown (and acknowledgment of startup culture’s love for shared community spaces where people and ideas could freely mingle), the landlord of the building that housed Ideal Life had built a rooftop garden. There were potted citrus trees from which you could pick fresh oranges and kumquats in the winter, and now, in summer, there was plenty of shade from the delicate green leaves of Japanese maples. Sprinkled around the rooftop were groupings of tables and chairs for when teams from Ideal Life or BiomeLabs wanted to work outside, as well as benches for taking lunch breaks (or dinner breaks, as the case may be, since the employees of both companies worked long hours).

It was here that Talia went after Aquarobics to screw her head on straight again. You didn’t become CEO of a startup worth $100 million by being the type of woman easily felled by an errant kiss.

The other thing about being CEO was that you could hold your meetings outside whenever you pleased.

“Morning, boss,” Erin chirped, plopping down across the table with her laptop.

“Good morning. Thanks for agreeing to do your midsummer performance review up here.”

“It’s a nice change of pace. Oh, I haven’t seen Sam around. Not that he would come to the office, but, um, how is he? Have you two been hanging out more?”

Talia could feel the blood drain from her face. It took a second to remember that Erin didn’t know about the doomed kiss.

But it still felt like Erin had poured salt water into the open wound of Talia’s mortification, and Talia snapped. “Sam and I are not getting together, so I don’t want to hear about it again. Let’s focus on work when we’re at the office, huh?”

Erin flushed all the way from her neck to the tips of her ears. “Um, of course. Sorry. I was just trying to speak up like you told me to, a-and I’m so sorry. I crossed a line; I won’t do it again.” She flipped open her computer, hands poised on the keyboard, and swallowed hard, not looking at Talia. “I’m ready. Tell me what I can improve.”

“Okay then,” Talia said, still simmering but trying to get back into CEO mode. “As before, I’m glad you’re open to improvement. I have several suggestions for you, all of which lead to raising your profile and garnering more respect.

“First, it’s nice that you think of the team and bring donuts and such to the office, but stop. It paints you as a submissive girl. You are very intelligent and want people to respect you, rather than treat you as the kid who is here only for the summer. So even though you’re still in college, start acting like you deserve to be treated as an equal, because you do.

“Second, you ought to invest in a more professional wardrobe. I know it’s a bit unfair to say that because most of us wear T-shirts and jeans to work, but since you’re young and you look even younger than your age, it would be helpful to your career if you dressed up a little more than we do. Again, it’s a subtle way of demanding respect.

“And third, I’m happy to be your mentor. But maybe make it a little less obvious to others, so it doesn’t come off as sycophantic or idolizing. I’m not saying stop learning from me. I think it’s great that you’re absorbing everything like a sponge. Women should support other women, of course, and I—”

Talia stopped talking, because Erin had stopped typing. Her face was bright red again, and she was holding herself very rigid.

Oh shit. Talia had taken her shame of kissing Sam out on Erin, and she’d been too harsh.

Erin was amazing, and Talia should have just said so. Who cares if Erin expressed her generous personality by bringing donuts? And as for what she wore, some of the clothes Talia had worn when she first started working had been pretty questionable, and she’d turned out fine.