Page 3 of Ideal Life

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s do this party thing,” she said. These moments with Sam had helped Talia shake off the last of her nerves. Now she put her game face on, the one that said I am a strong, confident, brilliant—but not bitchy—woman. It wasn’t an easy face to perfect, because the conflicting demands and “requirements” on women these days were myriad. But after much trial and error over the years, Talia had the formula down:

1) Smile just enough that it met your eyes but didn’t crinkle them. (Too big a smile was interpreted as ditzy. Too little of a smile and you could be labeled cold.)

2) Hold eye contact for two and a half seconds. (Two seconds or less made a woman seem flirty or subservient. Three seconds or more was much too intense.)

3) And always say your conversation partner’s name warmly in greeting. (Saying their name would make their subconscious feel validated and, therefore, important, and the goodwill would transfer back to you.)

“Ryan, hello! I’m so happy to see you here.” Talia shook his hand—firmly but gently. (Limp fish hands signaled a weak woman unworthy of leadership. But too hard sometimes scared men away, although Silicon Valley was more forgiving—here, the merit of your ideas carried more weight than your gender. Usually.) “May I introduce you to my friend Sam Chang?”

“Sam, a pleasure. I know you just got here, but do you mind if I steal Talia from you? We’re doing photographs for the press over in the corner with all the investors and the Omni team.”

“No worries,” Sam said. “I want to go watch the sushi chefs anyway. Have fun.”

As Talia and Ryan crossed the restaurant, they were stopped half a dozen times by people who wanted to congratulate her. Finally, though, they made it to the far side of the room, where a backdrop with Ideal Life’s purple star logo alternated with OmnisZcience’s name, written in simple blue font. Omni was so well known they didn’t even need a symbol. The name was logo enough.

Ideal Life’s investors chatted over glasses of wine with a couple of Omni executives and several people Talia didn’t know.

“Hey, Talia, good to see you.” Raj Banerjee, head of Omni’s artificial intelligence division, shook her hand. “Let me do introductions. You know Melanie Goldschmid, product lead for Omni 3D.”

“Of course; thank you for coming tonight.” Talia smiled and gave Melanie a warm-yet-professional hug. During undergrad, they’d overlapped for a year in Kimball Hall, one of the upper-class dorms. It wasn’t unusual to run into classmates in Silicon Valley; Stanford students often didn’t go too far after graduation.

“This,” Raj said, gesturing to the man next to him, “is DeVon Robinson. He’s head of media relations for Omni. And he’s to blame for this circus of journalists getting invited tonight.” Raj and everyone else laughed as he pointed at the three other people with them. “That’s Jesse Fogarty from TechCrunch, Kristin Santos from The Wall Street Journal, and Rich Zherdev from Wired. Laura Owusu from the San Francisco Chronicle was supposed to be here, but she got stuck in traffic on 101, so she’ll be here late.”

Everyone groaned in commiseration at the mention of Highway 101. If it wasn’t rush hour, it was something else, like a new pothole that suddenly cracked across three lanes or construction… again. Frankly, it was more of a surprise when there wasn’t a snarl on 101.

DeVon waved over the photographer he’d hired to snap photos of the event, and she shot some pictures of Talia, Raj, and Melanie in front of the Ideal Life / Omni backdrop, with some variations that also included each investor group. Then the reporters were given the opportunity to ask them a few questions.

“Why did you create Ideal Life?” Jesse from TechCrunch asked.

Talia talked about her parents’ past struggles and their recent transformation, thanks to Ideal Life.

“Omni has been on a startup acquisition spree,” Rich Zherdev from Wired said. “Why is Omni interested in this one?”

Raj—who was well versed in corporate jargon—said a bunch of specific yet vague stuff about “pushing technological frontiers” and “forward-looking innovation” and “integrative, collaborative synergy.”

Kristin from The Wall Street Journal leaned in. “It’s unusual to celebrate a potential acquisition at such an early stage, when there is still a lot of due diligence to be done and the deal might fall through. So why are we doing this tonight?”

DeVon laughed and clapped his hands together. “Well, I think it’s important to celebrate important milestones. Plus, Omni truly believes in Ideal Life, and we want the world to know about it.”

Talia read between the lines. All the major tech companies had been neck and neck in competition the last few years to continually demonstrate their superiority and ability to expand into new fields. Omni was using tonight’s party as another way to broadcast that they were still on top of their game, despite being a dinosaur in the industry, having been founded in 2004 (which might as well have been the Mesozoic Era in Silicon Valley time).

The PR work didn’t bother Talia, though. Publicity people were going to do what publicity people did. As long as Talia got to work on her technology and improve lives, she was happy.

“Speaking of celebrations,” Raj said, “I think we’ve monopolized enough of Talia, and it’s time to get on with the party. Shall we?” With the ease of someone used to steering others, he ushered them all into the main part of the restaurant, where servers floated around and Ideal Life employees mingled, eating spicy tuna hand rolls and sipping on sake from pale-green porcelain cups.

Talia found Sam easily. He was, as promised, at the sushi bar platform in the center of the restaurant.

“Hey, there you are!” He smiled and held out a small glass plate with picture-perfect slices of sashimi on it. “You have to try the salmon. It’s like butter—it just melts in your mouth.”

She took the plate and borrowed Sam’s chopsticks. Their friendship was uncomplicated like that—all comfort, no pretense. “Mm, this is good.”

“Arigato gozaimasu,” one of the sushi chefs said, thanking her from behind the bar.