Ariadne, Ilad
(Ilad still didn't write anything else tonight. What a lazy journal this is.)
This is a local hole-in-the-wall in downtown Los Gatos, tucked between a few other shops with slatted blinds closing off the windows so that it usually looks closed even when it is open. There is a sombrero painted on the glass door. Inside it, orders are placed at a front counter and then brought out to tables -- halfway between sitdown and fast food. Ilad sits at one of the front tables of the place with a bright yellow number card indicating when his dinner will arrive twirling slowly between his fingers, his legs stretched out beneath the table but his back quite straight.
Ariadne sits at the next table over, her number one-off from Ilad's (and easily confusable, really). She's clad in dark, tapered jeans and a courdoroy jacket buttoned up the front. She's pulled her scarf loose and is twisting at the end of the silky fabric in absent twiddling as she scans the text of a magazine while she waits.
Ilad taps his plastic number against the table, tap-tap-tap. One of their numbers is called. Does it matter which one? In either case, he starts to stand up.
In the same moment, with the same slide of a chair, so does Ariadne. Her magazine is left flat on the table as she rises into the space where Ilad happens to be standing. There's really no way this can end well.
Well, they are both graceful people. Athletic. With lean, controlled physicality. There are worse collisions that could occur. Ilad emits a startled noise in the depths of his throat, resolving to a Hebrew word as he stumbles a half a pace back from the impact, sending his chair skittering a few inches. "--Pardon," he says.
"/Gosh/, I'm so sorry," Ariadne sputters, her hands flying up in a dance of apology as she sidesteps out of the way and then twists around to fix wide brown eyes on Ilad. "I didn't get your foot or make you spill anything on yourself or anything, did I?"
"No," Ilad says, exasperation fading to a dryer humor as he glances down at himself, and then up at her with a cock of one eyebrow, "all present and correct." His accent is a heavy drape over his words, the ghosts of the desert lingering in the shaping of his syllables. "My apologies as well. I am usually more attentive." He glances up at the counter, where food is assembled on a tray. It does not look like his. He adds, "Hm."
Ariadne meets Ilad's accent with a sudden sweeping grin and a dismissive shake of her head that sends dark curls dancing about her face. "Totally okay," she assures, tapping a finger down on her spread magazine. "Me too-- oh! I think that's mine." She darts forward, sending a short smile back over her shoulder at him, to claim the tray.
Since their numbers are close, Ilad does not immediately sit down again, but stands straight, turning over his own plastic card in his fingers. Sure enough, they call his soon enough. He favors Ariadne with the slow curve of a smile and a slight inclination of his head as he angles to collect his own dinner.
Ariadne settles back at her own table in short order, fingers picking apart the wrapper of a burrito that seems far, far too big for her slight frame, although she shows no hesitation in it. First bite taken, and time enough for Ilad to settle back, she glances over at him and says suddenly. "I love your accent. Where're you from?"
Ilad has a taco salad in a big shell. It heavy on the meat and cheese. His record of trafe food is untarnished. Thus, he also has a black plastic fork, which he turns in his fingers as he looks across the way at Ariadne. His face lights with a brighter smile, amusement a warm spark in his coffee-dark eyes. "Ah," he says. "Thank you, I think. I am from Israel." He shapes the name of his homeland tenderly on his tongue, a quiet wist whispered through its vowels. SOME PEOPLE (Avi) are more offhanded about it. But Ilad treats home like a lost love. "--Where there are few edible tacos," he concludes, confessionally.
"/Oh/," Ariadne responds, as if recognition has suddenly dawned from some great distance. One hand frees itself from its grasp on her burrito to fly in delicate gesture. "Israel!" She grins across at him and then asks, curiousity bright, "Are you Ilad?"
Ilad lifts his chin with surprise, eyebrows climbing. He is already sitting straight, because he always sits straight, but there is a suggestion of straightening, anyhow. "I am, yes," he says. Puzzled, he asks, "You have ... heard of me?"
"Well," Ariadne explains readily, working her way through a chewy bite of delicious burritoness. "I met your brother the other day." Ther is a flicker of disapproval in her eyes at this, a flash of a frown, a downturn of her lips that looks entirely uncomfortable on Ariadne's sunny features. "But also, Brent and Jean-Paul said they know you, when I brought it up." She drops her burrito to her tray, taking the time to lick a finger clean and then wipe it on a napkin before she shoves her hand at Ilad. "I'm Ariadne. Nice to meet you!"
"Ah!" Ilad takes Ariadne's hand in a firm clasp. He has not actually managed to eat any of his food yet, distracted by conversation, but never mind; Ariadne is more interesting than taco salad. "I have seen you dance!" he tells her as he shakes her hand, his grip strong and his skin a little unusually warm. "Brent is responsible for this," he adds, as he withdraws his hand. "And Jean-Paul, I suppose."
"Oh, right, totally!" Ariadne recognizes, her grip firm, if not warm. She settles back to her burrito as he withdrawls, her smile once again wide and bright. "You went with Brent when Jean-Paul wriggled his way out. How was it?" she asks shamelessly. "Did you like it? Had you see Nutcracker before?"
"Well, in so far as I know, it was excellent, but I had never seen anything like," Ilad must admit. His mouth twitches up at one corner, humor glinting in his eyes. "Hannigan is responsible for expanding my cultural education." He shifts in his seat, angling more towards her than towards his table and resting his elbow on the back of his chair. "From the sound of it," he says, "Avraham was less charming than usual."
"It was the San Francisco Ballet," Ariadne says, her pride matter-of-fact and blunt. "It /was/ excellent. We're one of the best companies in the world. If you liked it, you should come this month! We're doing some different stuff. Mixed bill, so some of it's more modern, less classical..." She trails off as the conversation shifts topic, and for a moment she looks a little unsettled. "Oh, uh," she says, fingers plucking at a tiny piece of tortilla. "You talked to Brent?"
Listening with a whisper of humor to Ariadne's description, Ilad tips his head, and then answers the latter, "No, you just--" and stops talking. His expression shifts, closing down a little, and he glances away, mouth pressing briefly thin. "Ah," he says instead. He lifts a hand to draw his fingertips through the well-groomed dark scruff that marks his jaw and chin as he glances back at Ariadne again. "No, I have not spoken to him yet."
Ariadne's brows drop down, a faint furrowing. "Then how--" She breaks off. She pauses. She asks, "Did /Avi/ tell you about it?"
"Not in detail," Ilad answers, the sharp note in his voice buried, but detectable. His smile carries little warmth as he lifts an eyebrow at her. "Was it bad?"
Ariadne watches Ilad a tad uncomfortably, her eyes tracing his face in search of something that it does not appear she finds. "Um," she says, and shrugs a little. "I mean. I guess it depends on what's bad? You-- I mean, you know that Brent and Jean-Paul are like. Together. Right?"
"Yes," Ilad confirms. "Yes, that I know. What I am learning today," he adds, spending a moment in evidently thorough contemplation of the plastic fork resting on his napkin, "is not about my friend Brent, but about my brother."
"Well, it's kind of /relevant/," Ariadne answers, her tone gone a little defensive as she picks at her burrito.
Ilad glances back at her, dark eyes puzzled. "Yes?"
"Well," says Ariadne, defensiveness lingering. "I mean. I've only just met you. How do I know you're not going to do the sideways cooties wiggle too?"
"Brent is my friend," Ilad says firmly, with a slight narrowing of his gaze as he looks across at her. "Avraham is an idiot."
"Well," Ariadne answers, looking a touch relieved as she gives him the flicker of a smile. "/Yeah/, kind of. Avraham? Seriously?"
"This is why he goes by Avi," Ilad answers, with an upward twitch of a partial smile at one corner of his mouth. But Avi is in trouble right now so he is getting full named all over the place.
"I dunno, I kind of like it," says she named for a Greek heroine of old. "Doesn't he?" Her fingers twitch against the table as her burrito disappears, and she adds, "Anyway. It's not that he was like-- /rude/. I mean. Really rude. I didn't notice until later. He's just kind of dumb, I guess." Her voice thickens with disdain as she adds, "It's not like it rubs /off/."
Ilad winces and glances away, and then down. "Not contagious," he confirms, rubbing at his scruff again with the low breath of a sigh breathed past his lips. "If only his mother were here to set him right, but alas, she is far away."
"If it helps, you can tell him that I've been hanging out with Brent for /years/, and I'm still totally straight," Ariadne offers helpfully. From the faint twinkle of her eye, she might be joking. "But anyway, you should tell him that people /notice/ that stuff. It's really rude."
Something about what Ariadne's joke tugs at Ilad's lips, the curve of his smile not entirely voluntary as he lifts his gaze towards her again. There is a note of irony about the expression as he inclines his head. "I will say something to him," he says, "and I will say something to Brent, as well, I think."
Ariadne looks a tad doubtful at the last, and she wriggles a little, shifting in her seat. "I don't know," she hedges slightly. "I don't think Brent really wanted to make a big deal out of it. You know?"
"Mm." The hum Ilad makes is considering. "Well." Reluctantly, he moseys around to, "I would not wish to make him uncomfortable."
"Yeah," Ariadne agrees with bright and easy relief. "Besides. I'm sure he's fine." She disappears the last of her burrito, then adds helpfully, "Besides, he's got Jean-Paul to talk to!"
Ilad opens his mouth, and then puffs the breath of a voiceless laugh. "--Yes," he says, "yes, I suppose he does." He finally picks up his fork again and begins to toss his various salad ingredients together in his taco salad. Stabbing lettuce, meat and cheese together on his fork with a slice of black olive, he takes a bite.
Taking a moment to wash down her dinner with a long swallow of water, Ariadne lingers for awhile long before she bounds to her feet, chair scraping backward. "It was nice to meet you though, Ilad," she tells him, a slight stress stretching the pronoun
Smile turning up his mouth at the corners, Ilad gives her a firm nod. "I am glad to have met you, Ariadne," he says, in a voice for once warmer than it is dry, poking around his cooling supper with his fork.
Ariadne grins and gives Ilad a wiggle of her fingers before she disappears through the door in a flurry of scarf and curls.
Mexican!
This is a local hole-in-the-wall in downtown Los Gatos, tucked between a few other shops with slatted blinds closing off the windows so that it usually looks closed even when it is open. There is a sombrero painted on the glass door. Inside it, orders are placed at a front counter and then brought out to tables -- halfway between sitdown and fast food. Ilad sits at one of the front tables of the place with a bright yellow number card indicating when his dinner will arrive twirling slowly between his fingers, his legs stretched out beneath the table but his back quite straight.
Ariadne sits at the next table over, her number one-off from Ilad's (and easily confusable, really). She's clad in dark, tapered jeans and a courdoroy jacket buttoned up the front. She's pulled her scarf loose and is twisting at the end of the silky fabric in absent twiddling as she scans the text of a magazine while she waits.
Ilad taps his plastic number against the table, tap-tap-tap. One of their numbers is called. Does it matter which one? In either case, he starts to stand up.
In the same moment, with the same slide of a chair, so does Ariadne. Her magazine is left flat on the table as she rises into the space where Ilad happens to be standing. There's really no way this can end well.
Well, they are both graceful people. Athletic. With lean, controlled physicality. There are worse collisions that could occur. Ilad emits a startled noise in the depths of his throat, resolving to a Hebrew word as he stumbles a half a pace back from the impact, sending his chair skittering a few inches. "--Pardon," he says.
"/Gosh/, I'm so sorry," Ariadne sputters, her hands flying up in a dance of apology as she sidesteps out of the way and then twists around to fix wide brown eyes on Ilad. "I didn't get your foot or make you spill anything on yourself or anything, did I?"
"No," Ilad says, exasperation fading to a dryer humor as he glances down at himself, and then up at her with a cock of one eyebrow, "all present and correct." His accent is a heavy drape over his words, the ghosts of the desert lingering in the shaping of his syllables. "My apologies as well. I am usually more attentive." He glances up at the counter, where food is assembled on a tray. It does not look like his. He adds, "Hm."
Ariadne meets Ilad's accent with a sudden sweeping grin and a dismissive shake of her head that sends dark curls dancing about her face. "Totally okay," she assures, tapping a finger down on her spread magazine. "Me too-- oh! I think that's mine." She darts forward, sending a short smile back over her shoulder at him, to claim the tray.
Since their numbers are close, Ilad does not immediately sit down again, but stands straight, turning over his own plastic card in his fingers. Sure enough, they call his soon enough. He favors Ariadne with the slow curve of a smile and a slight inclination of his head as he angles to collect his own dinner.
Ariadne settles back at her own table in short order, fingers picking apart the wrapper of a burrito that seems far, far too big for her slight frame, although she shows no hesitation in it. First bite taken, and time enough for Ilad to settle back, she glances over at him and says suddenly. "I love your accent. Where're you from?"
Ilad has a taco salad in a big shell. It heavy on the meat and cheese. His record of trafe food is untarnished. Thus, he also has a black plastic fork, which he turns in his fingers as he looks across the way at Ariadne. His face lights with a brighter smile, amusement a warm spark in his coffee-dark eyes. "Ah," he says. "Thank you, I think. I am from Israel." He shapes the name of his homeland tenderly on his tongue, a quiet wist whispered through its vowels. SOME PEOPLE (Avi) are more offhanded about it. But Ilad treats home like a lost love. "--Where there are few edible tacos," he concludes, confessionally.
"/Oh/," Ariadne responds, as if recognition has suddenly dawned from some great distance. One hand frees itself from its grasp on her burrito to fly in delicate gesture. "Israel!" She grins across at him and then asks, curiousity bright, "Are you Ilad?"
Ilad lifts his chin with surprise, eyebrows climbing. He is already sitting straight, because he always sits straight, but there is a suggestion of straightening, anyhow. "I am, yes," he says. Puzzled, he asks, "You have ... heard of me?"
"Well," Ariadne explains readily, working her way through a chewy bite of delicious burritoness. "I met your brother the other day." Ther is a flicker of disapproval in her eyes at this, a flash of a frown, a downturn of her lips that looks entirely uncomfortable on Ariadne's sunny features. "But also, Brent and Jean-Paul said they know you, when I brought it up." She drops her burrito to her tray, taking the time to lick a finger clean and then wipe it on a napkin before she shoves her hand at Ilad. "I'm Ariadne. Nice to meet you!"
"Ah!" Ilad takes Ariadne's hand in a firm clasp. He has not actually managed to eat any of his food yet, distracted by conversation, but never mind; Ariadne is more interesting than taco salad. "I have seen you dance!" he tells her as he shakes her hand, his grip strong and his skin a little unusually warm. "Brent is responsible for this," he adds, as he withdraws his hand. "And Jean-Paul, I suppose."
"Oh, right, totally!" Ariadne recognizes, her grip firm, if not warm. She settles back to her burrito as he withdrawls, her smile once again wide and bright. "You went with Brent when Jean-Paul wriggled his way out. How was it?" she asks shamelessly. "Did you like it? Had you see Nutcracker before?"
"Well, in so far as I know, it was excellent, but I had never seen anything like," Ilad must admit. His mouth twitches up at one corner, humor glinting in his eyes. "Hannigan is responsible for expanding my cultural education." He shifts in his seat, angling more towards her than towards his table and resting his elbow on the back of his chair. "From the sound of it," he says, "Avraham was less charming than usual."
"It was the San Francisco Ballet," Ariadne says, her pride matter-of-fact and blunt. "It /was/ excellent. We're one of the best companies in the world. If you liked it, you should come this month! We're doing some different stuff. Mixed bill, so some of it's more modern, less classical..." She trails off as the conversation shifts topic, and for a moment she looks a little unsettled. "Oh, uh," she says, fingers plucking at a tiny piece of tortilla. "You talked to Brent?"
Listening with a whisper of humor to Ariadne's description, Ilad tips his head, and then answers the latter, "No, you just--" and stops talking. His expression shifts, closing down a little, and he glances away, mouth pressing briefly thin. "Ah," he says instead. He lifts a hand to draw his fingertips through the well-groomed dark scruff that marks his jaw and chin as he glances back at Ariadne again. "No, I have not spoken to him yet."
Ariadne's brows drop down, a faint furrowing. "Then how--" She breaks off. She pauses. She asks, "Did /Avi/ tell you about it?"
"Not in detail," Ilad answers, the sharp note in his voice buried, but detectable. His smile carries little warmth as he lifts an eyebrow at her. "Was it bad?"
Ariadne watches Ilad a tad uncomfortably, her eyes tracing his face in search of something that it does not appear she finds. "Um," she says, and shrugs a little. "I mean. I guess it depends on what's bad? You-- I mean, you know that Brent and Jean-Paul are like. Together. Right?"
"Yes," Ilad confirms. "Yes, that I know. What I am learning today," he adds, spending a moment in evidently thorough contemplation of the plastic fork resting on his napkin, "is not about my friend Brent, but about my brother."
"Well, it's kind of /relevant/," Ariadne answers, her tone gone a little defensive as she picks at her burrito.
Ilad glances back at her, dark eyes puzzled. "Yes?"
"Well," says Ariadne, defensiveness lingering. "I mean. I've only just met you. How do I know you're not going to do the sideways cooties wiggle too?"
"Brent is my friend," Ilad says firmly, with a slight narrowing of his gaze as he looks across at her. "Avraham is an idiot."
"Well," Ariadne answers, looking a touch relieved as she gives him the flicker of a smile. "/Yeah/, kind of. Avraham? Seriously?"
"This is why he goes by Avi," Ilad answers, with an upward twitch of a partial smile at one corner of his mouth. But Avi is in trouble right now so he is getting full named all over the place.
"I dunno, I kind of like it," says she named for a Greek heroine of old. "Doesn't he?" Her fingers twitch against the table as her burrito disappears, and she adds, "Anyway. It's not that he was like-- /rude/. I mean. Really rude. I didn't notice until later. He's just kind of dumb, I guess." Her voice thickens with disdain as she adds, "It's not like it rubs /off/."
Ilad winces and glances away, and then down. "Not contagious," he confirms, rubbing at his scruff again with the low breath of a sigh breathed past his lips. "If only his mother were here to set him right, but alas, she is far away."
"If it helps, you can tell him that I've been hanging out with Brent for /years/, and I'm still totally straight," Ariadne offers helpfully. From the faint twinkle of her eye, she might be joking. "But anyway, you should tell him that people /notice/ that stuff. It's really rude."
Something about what Ariadne's joke tugs at Ilad's lips, the curve of his smile not entirely voluntary as he lifts his gaze towards her again. There is a note of irony about the expression as he inclines his head. "I will say something to him," he says, "and I will say something to Brent, as well, I think."
Ariadne looks a tad doubtful at the last, and she wriggles a little, shifting in her seat. "I don't know," she hedges slightly. "I don't think Brent really wanted to make a big deal out of it. You know?"
"Mm." The hum Ilad makes is considering. "Well." Reluctantly, he moseys around to, "I would not wish to make him uncomfortable."
"Yeah," Ariadne agrees with bright and easy relief. "Besides. I'm sure he's fine." She disappears the last of her burrito, then adds helpfully, "Besides, he's got Jean-Paul to talk to!"
Ilad opens his mouth, and then puffs the breath of a voiceless laugh. "--Yes," he says, "yes, I suppose he does." He finally picks up his fork again and begins to toss his various salad ingredients together in his taco salad. Stabbing lettuce, meat and cheese together on his fork with a slice of black olive, he takes a bite.
Taking a moment to wash down her dinner with a long swallow of water, Ariadne lingers for awhile long before she bounds to her feet, chair scraping backward. "It was nice to meet you though, Ilad," she tells him, a slight stress stretching the pronoun
Smile turning up his mouth at the corners, Ilad gives her a firm nod. "I am glad to have met you, Ariadne," he says, in a voice for once warmer than it is dry, poking around his cooling supper with his fork.
Ariadne grins and gives Ilad a wiggle of her fingers before she disappears through the door in a flurry of scarf and curls.
Mexican!