Who: Eden Adler & Ariel Silverman-Lim What: Being matchmade Where: The Adler residence When: early September, 2047 Rating: high for bacon.
It was the beginning of another school year. Ariel had spent the last half of the past week lugging all manner of furniture up, into, and around the new, fancy apartment he shared with two of his close friends in the East Village. It was a three bedroom, expensive as fuck (though all of their parents paid their rent, so it didn't matter), with high ceilings, exposed brick walls, and hardwood floors in a recently-renovated historic building - very nice, but still up several flights of stairs. Ariel was glad to have a break. He started classes the coming Monday, and planned to take it easy until then. Tonight, for example, he wasn’t even going to make his own supper. He'd been invited over to the Adlers' for Shabbos dinner.
He'd been going to temple with the Adlers for the past year - and Mr. and Mrs. Adler, as one of the established families in the City (a.k.a. not students), were nice enough to invite Ariel over tonight, knowing his family was back in San Francisco. Of course he’d agreed. They were friendly, if a little nosy about the boy’s life and upbringing. Still, he didn’t mind sharing.
And that was how he ended up - alone - in the Adlers’ artfully decorated dining room, hands folded in his lap. Dressed as dapper as usual, wearing a green cardigan over a grey, short sleeve button up, topped with a red bowtie, his hair slicked back, he waited patiently for - whatever it was Mr. and Mrs. Adler wanted him to wait for. They’d departed together moments prior, telling Ariel they had to finish up a couple things for dinner and that their daughter, Eden, would be down momentarily.
Eden he’d heard a lot about. A high schooler with a love for music like Ariel himself, her parents were excited (they said several times) for the two of them to meet. They had so much in common! No, the girl didn’t go to temple with them often - or Ariel hadn’t seen her - but they assured him that she was a nice girl all the same. (It never once crossed the naive boy's mind that Mr. and Mrs. Adler might have had ulterior motives. He figured it was pretty obvious that girls weren't his thing.) Always excited at the opportunity to talk with like-minded people, Ariel was looking forward to meeting her, certainly. He was thinking about it when he heard footsteps approaching from the other room.