On this particular trip, Cher herself, better known as Alicia Silverstone, was on our docket of people to interview. Nineties kids that we are, we were convinced Alicia would show up in a yellow plaid skirt suit sounding off “As if ” the second we mentioned the traffic. We’ve found similar difficulty differentiating between Carrie Bradshaw and Sarah Jessica Parker. Turns out, trying to compare Cher and Alicia is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.

Cher had tried a number of diets, ranging from cutting her food into tiny little pieces to living off Special K, peanut M&M’s, turkey bacon, and licorice. Alicia, though, was vegan. We were happy she’d found a lifestyle she could stick to.

We arrived at Gracias Madre—the plant-based Mexican restaurant Alicia had picked. Alicia walked in, and we weren’t surprised to see that she had aged like Benjamin Button; if anything she had grown younger. She wore boyfriend jeans, flat sandals, and a ’60s-esque Flower Power top of the bohemian persuasion. Very Cali, but not very Cher. She placed a recycled jar on the counter and asked the waiter to fill it up with water. Cher was a lot of things, but a friend to the environment was not one of them. We both subtly slipped our plastic Poland Spring bottles into our purses.

Alicia was a complete and total sweetheart, and as we photographed her with dishes like massaged kale with chipotle cashew dressing, guacamole tostadas, and mushroom-mole tacos, we chatted about motherhood and what made her decide to go vegan.

By the end of the shoot—after digging into all the dishes we photographed her with—we were nearly vegan converts ourselves.

Laura excused herself to go to the restroom and, as fate would have it, Alicia was getting up to go at the same time. It was one of those unbelievably awkward adult moments where two women who don’t really know each other find themselves peeing next to each other in a two-stall bathroom.

Laura racked her brain upon entering. Do I converse? Would that be crossing a boundary? Then again, if we don’t converse, isn’t it crossing a different boundary just listening to her pee?

Luckily, Alicia brought some small talk to pass the time, but Laura was still out of that stall like a bull out of a gate. As they washed their hands, Laura went for the paper towels, doing that thing that only children do where they take one after the next after the next, until their mom says something like, “Do you really need that many paper towels?”