“OMG, Pen! You are too much,” she said.

“Tell your sister to tell the Rhiz to go easy on me!”

She laughed and grabbed her phone to open the Gram. I still hadn’t had the guts to check if Aiden erased my image.

“It’s still there. Along with a new selfie of Aiden drinking crystal juice. The caption reads, ‘Sorry a disgruntled bro threw off my vibe. Sending him muscular love + light.’ LOL, you’re internet-famous.”

“Ugh, in some sneaky, roundabout way.”

“I can see you have a handful of new followers. One is T4THotDick5.”

I could have used more encouragement from her, but all the mind-cleansing had dulled her short-term gratification impulses and she was not overly invested in the sugary buzz of little hearts dancing on a screen.

“I feel great about the Gram part, but I probably need to read that lovingkindness book you’re always thrusting upon me. Trying to send someone to their psychic doom, even someone as obnoxious as Aiden, is pretty harsh.”

She pulled in her lips to give me a semi-reproving smile.

We always watched TV from several years ago, before VR and immersion add-ons. On the screen, a Korean nun made pickled lotus root, shiitake mushrooms in century-old soy sauce, piles of noodles, tiny colored vegetable pearls on bamboo stalks, and we were both dying with glee—I because this woman broke all the rules, creating wonder against the backdrop of blowing leaves, buried earthen kimchi jars, and low morning prayers, and Minna because the nun’s constantly joyful face, body, and soul were apparent across the various distances between her and us.

Until, of course, the NYT food reviewer popped up, ruining all the vibes.

“Why do the show’s creators think that we need a dude’s narration in order to appreciate this amazing chef who appears to live blissfully in harmony with herself, fellow nuns, the wild garden she tends, the memory of her parents, and her students in Seoul, who bow to her?” I said to Minna, clutching a throw pillow with stars on it.

“Yeah, will we ever be the people that someone makes something for?”

“We are the people making things for ourselves. Well, I will be, once I stop fucking around, and you are working on creating inner harmony that is necessary for anything to not be fragile, on the verge of breaking.”

The food reviewer kept reappearing, to explain:

—How the nun’s food compared to that of all the great chefs at The French Laundry and Ottomnul.

—How he wanted to “down” her enlightenment lotus-blossom tea.

—How the nun had grabbed his arm on the bridge and said the single word orchestra in English (which had apparently changed his entire life, but not too much because he still maintained the appearance of an arrogant doofus who would spend an entire date describing how the chef at The Blue Window gifted ostrich eggs to him after he’d helped introduce the general public to the art of dipping butter on a bronzed spoon into coffee, the way the tradition was practiced in rural Ireland).