Joanna Newsom – Peach Plum Pear
Arthur briskly paced through the automatic doors and grabbed a basket. It was late afternoon, the sun just beginning to turn from a blinding white to a seemingly lesser yellow-orange. He still held great affection for suits and fine tailoring, even after all this time. His dark pants and vest drew the eye of many an onlooker as the slender man quickly grabbed bananas from produce and headed for the bread isle.
His shiny shoes made an absurd amount of noise against the linoleum with each step until Arthur turned the corner and saw her. His first reaction was to turn around directly, standing stock-still with his back to the Twinkie display. It really shouldn't affect him, seeing her, not anymore. Not after years. Arthur looked down at his hand gripping the handles of the basket tightly enough for veins to be visible. He needed that bread.
Arthur peeked his head around the corner and saw that she was still there, shoulders slumped and hand covering her mouth, staring dejectedly at brand's section as if it had offended her. He weighed the pros and cons, inhaled through his nose, and steeled himself as his shoes announced his presence.
She glanced his way, focusing back on the bread in front of her and then immediately turned back, the pale yellow scarf around her neck swishing around with the momentum of her sudden movement. He strode right up to her, a small smile gracing his secretly-strained face and one hand resting in the pocket of his pleated pants. "Ariadne," He said, his smile growing even wider upon the mentioning of her name. Her eyes grew wide and her hand never left its position hovering in front of her slightly-opened mouth.
"Arthur?" she asked, as if she couldn't quite believe it was true. She had cut her hair shorter, he noticed, and traded in her normal button-down for a tight, black long-sleeve shirt with dark jeans. Arthur's grip tightened on the handles. "Hello, Ari."
They slipped into timid conversation, both seeming to watch each other very closely. Ariadne had graduated, she was extremely successful. She had already designed an add-on to the children's science museum here in L.A. and was just hired yesterday to build a summer house for some real estate tycoon from the southeast. Arthur listened attentively, noticing how bright her eyes got when she started telling him her plans for the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned three floors in the foyer, making him remember her explain her layouts to him back in 2010. Her hands expressed exactly what she wanted, the dimensions and open floor-plan becoming so clear that Arthur could almost see it.
He had already known about her work with the children's museum; he'd gone to see it a week after the opening with James and Phillipa. "Do you know who made this, James?" he asked, holding the little boy's dirty hand, leading him to the snake exhibit. "No," James answered simply, wanting to get to the giant, man-eating boa constrictor. "Ariadne did." Arthur said, looking at how the stairs twisted towards the second level a very familiar way. "No wonder it's so beautiful," said Phillipa, catching up and grabbing Arthur's other hand. He couldn't say he disagreed.
The conversation had come to a stand-still and Arthur realized that he must seem very boring. He tried to form a coherent question in his head, something simple to get the conversation going again - anything to keep from saying what they both were thinking of.
They had tried; Arthur had tried so hard to make it work. But it didn't and she had left, gone back to Paris to finish school and him back to Extraction, loaning himself out as Cobb didn't need him anymore. He was wrong, Arthur had been wrong for Ariadne; his unintentional darkness tainting her happy-go-lucky attitude and making her somehow less. And Arthur couldn't have that.
And now they were here, in a grocery store, two years later and there had been no one else, Arthur realized. There would never be anyone else. Her pale hand came up and tentatively touched his cheek and Arthur closed his eyes, sighing as he leaned fully into her hand, his own coming up to cover hers.
Her eyes remained open, studying his face and the newly-added stress lines. "What's happened to you, Arthur?" He brought her hand over his mouth and kissed her palm, making Ariadne suck in a quick breath.
Someone sneezed behind them, making both jump and Arthur dropped his hand, backing up a step. She looked a little hurt, he noticed. Arthur smiled a tiny smile and turned around, saying "Excuse me," to an elderly woman testing the firmness of a loaf of bread. He didn't look back; he dropped his basket next to the Twinkie display and strode quickly out the store.