Page 32 of Ideal Life

The two of them had been coming here almost every Sunday for fifteen years now (other than a short break in time when Sam had been working at Nowhere Cat). The “Sunday Lunch” routine would have long ago fallen by the wayside, however, if Sam hadn’t insisted that it was a near-sacred tradition. It was the only way he could pry Talia from her computer, and she needed someone to make her step away from work from time to time. He was pretty sure she’d live at the office if she could. (Although he saw the irony that his apartment was literally the top floor of his bookstore. But then again, Sam wasn’t the workaholic. When Lighthouse Books was closed, he didn’t go into the shop.)

“Hi, can I take your order?” the cashier at Taco Bell said.

“Want to go first?” Sam asked Talia. She always got the same thing.

But she squinted through her Omni 3Ds at the illuminated menu on the wall. “Um… no, you go ahead.”

Sam cleared his throat.

She touched the glasses. “I—”

“Tal, come on. You know the rule. No tech when we have lunch.” Sam generally let Talia call the shots in their friendship, but this was one thing he was a stickler for. Devices had to be put away during Sunday Lunch.

“I just…” She darted another glance at the menu.

“Talia. Seriously. You can make your own decisions about what to eat.” Her Ideal Life Friend, Queen Elizabeth, was probably making suggestions about what to order.

It’s not that Sam disliked Ideal Life as a concept. After all, his best friend was the founder. But he didn’t own Omni 3Ds, and his iPhone was a basic model from the mid-2010s. After the crash and burn of Nowhere Cat, he’d just never recovered the ability to put so much faith into software and hardware.

Sam did believe in Talia’s dedication to ethical innovation, though. He also knew that Ideal Life could be great at helping people with certain decisions, like whether to have a second pastry or go work out instead.

Still, Talia sometimes got carried away with wanting to be the best possible version of herself, even when the details didn’t matter—like what she ate from Taco Bell. Honestly, it was all terrible for you. It’s not like swapping a Doritos taco for a bean burrito was going to add an extra year of health to your life.

“You’re right—sorry.” She folded the Omni 3Ds and tucked them into her purse. “I just want what I get every time anyway.” She turned to the cashier. “One beef soft taco, a side of chips and nacho cheese, and cinnamon twists, please.”

Sam ordered one of the combo meals. He didn’t even know what was in it, just that it was a good amount of food, and that’s what he wanted. He pulled out his wallet to pay.

The cashier furrowed her brow at the twenty-dollar bill he handed over, as if she had never seen cash before.

Talia shrugged at the cashier. “He’s very dedicated to his no-tech-at-lunch rule.”

After paying and getting their tray of food, Sam gathered a handful of hot sauce packets, and they sat down at one of the tables next to the huge windows looking out at the ocean.

“Crazy that the waves we’re looking at could be the same ones that Libby saw, huh?”

Talia frowned. “Not the same ocean. She’s in the Maldives.”

“Not anymore. She and Jacob are in Japan now.”

“Sheesh.” Talia rolled her eyes at herself. “I really ought to keep better track of my own sister. Is she still texting you photos of her favorite snack foods in each country they visit?”

Sam grinned. He and Libby had always bonded over ultraprocessed junk, going all the way back to when she’d sneak into Talia’s dorm room and spend long hours there with them, powering through her high school homework while Sam and Talia did problem sets. He’d known their parents weren’t great about stocking their pantry, so Sam had contributed what he could by slipping Libby vending machine snacks whenever she came over.

“She sent me a picture of a can of sweet potato drink this morning,” Sam said.

“A sweet potato what?” Talia asked.

“It was like a soda, but potato flavored. Libby said it tasted like drinking Thanksgiving candied yams. I’d show you the photo, but it’s on my phone, and you know… no tech at Sunday Lunch.”

Talia punched his arm playfully. “You’re such a jerk.” She reached for her food from the tray.

Sam watched, amused, as she began her routine of reconstructing what she called the perfect Taco Bell meal. First, she unwrapped the soft taco, spreading the waxed paper flat into a smoothed-out square. Then she opened up the taco itself. She took her side of chips and crumbled them evenly across the taco filling, then drizzled nacho cheese across it all. Finally, she refolded the taco.

“Satisfactory?” Sam said.

Talia took a bite and moaned. “You know this is the optimal combination of flavor, variation of texture—soft and crunchy—and cost efficiency. Definitely more than satisfactory.”

Sam laughed and examined his own meal. They’d given him a Chalupa Supreme deep-fried taco, a five-layer beef burrito, a chicken soft taco, fries with nacho cheese to dip in, and a Coke.