5. Talia
Talia
Talia woke up the next morning in her bed.
“What time is it? Wait, what day?”
She scrambled for her phone on the nightstand.
Friday, 7:03 a.m. Time had continued to march forward normally, past the initial point when she’d turned the hands on the watch dial.
Oh, thank god. Talia allowed herself to slump back into the warm covers. She’d gone back, stopped a murder, and gotten the acquisition papers signed. Maybe now everything would return to normal.
Except when she looked at her wrist, the watch was still there.
Did that mean she could rewind again? Not that she wanted to. Yesterday had been stressful enough once, let alone twice. No reason to live through it a third time.
A message from her mom popped up on Talia’s phone.
Vera: Still on for meeting me and Dad for breakfast?
“Shit!” Talia jumped out of bed. She’d completely forgotten that her parents were taking her out this morning to celebrate the Omni deal.
Talia: Of course! Just running 10 min late. See you at Hobee’s at 7:45?
Vera: We’ll be there with bells on!
Talia grinned. She loved this new, more “grown-up” version of her mom.
Her parents had always loved Talia and her sister, Libby, but they’d been absent during the girls’ childhood because there’d been too many happy hours and comedy clubs and parties to attend.
But a combination of aging and Ideal Life’s prototype had tempered Vera and Dave Morgan’s compulsive need to go out.
Now they did things like spending the day at the botanical gardens or getting up early so they could catch Talia before work to have breakfast with her.
Unlike Sugiyama, there was nothing glitzy about Hobee’s.
It was a family-owned breakfast joint known for its enormous slabs of coffee cake.
Other than that, it was pretty ordinary in a cozy, wonderful way—French toast, pancakes, omelets, and unlimited mugs of coffee.
On weekends, the line would be out the door, but on a weekday, Talia and her parents were able to get a booth right away.
“So, how was last night?” Dave asked as they slid into their seats.
“Tell us everything,” Vera said. “Was it fancy? Did you give a speech? Did Omni present you with one of those giant checks that said one hundred million dollars?”
Talia laughed. “The deal won’t close until they do their due diligence on everything, so no, there was no giant check.”
“But it was fancy?” Dave asked.
“Yes, it was fancy.”
“Good. At least they know how to treat my girl right.”
That made Talia smile. The hollow feeling she’d carried around in her chest all her childhood was hungry for this kind of love, and she was proud at how Ideal Life had helped bring out the best in her parents.
After two years of using the app, they’d totally changed their social patterns, and now they didn’t even need Ideal Life anymore.
Talia considered that a victory. Her investors hadn’t loved that customers cycled in and out, but Talia wanted people to “graduate” from Ideal Life.
It was like using training wheels—once you got the hang of it, you could bike off into the sunset of your improved life on your own.
“Well, I want to hear more about your fancy celebration,” Vera said, “but first let’s order some food. I’ve got a serious craving for chocolate chip pancakes.” (She was the one Talia got her sweet tooth from.)
Talia adjusted her Omni 3Ds so they weren’t sliding down her nose and picked up the laminated menu.
She wanted some of Hobee’s famous coffee cake. And lemon-ricotta pancakes. And a Nutella stack, which was French toast layered with chocolate-hazelnut spread, bananas, and applewood bacon.
Her Friend, the crown-wearing British bumblebee, flew into her field of vision.
Ideal Life Queen Elizabeth: Would you like me to provide calorie and nutrient information on these items?
“God, no,” Talia said.
“Everything all right?” her dad asked. He hadn’t been able to hear Queen Elizabeth, since her little voice came through the tiny speakers in the Omni 3Ds, a neat trick of smart glasses technology that made sound audible only to the wearer.
“Yeah, sorry—my Ideal Life Friend was trying to help.” Usually, the app really did improve Talia.
(Or maybe it was just because it was hard not to feel that way when the suggestions were given to you by one of the most impressive female leaders in history.) But right now, Talia didn’t want reminders that a calorie count was available, so she took off the glasses.
She returned her attention to the menu. It was all so tempting. How was a woman supposed to choose?
The corner of her mouth lifted as she remembered the watch on her wrist.
I don’t have to choose. I can eat one, then rewind as many times as I want!
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.