Decades Ch. 03

"There's something we don't hear often enough," Aurora said. "So, Doug, I'll bring the numbers by your office as soon as they're set?"

"Sure," Doug said. And he was off to read his e-mail and wonder about what had landed Aurora here.

He would spend the morning and early afternoon mooting ways to ask Aurora without arousing suspicion, but in the end it fell into his lap and Kelly's too. Kelly came by for a coffee break shortly after the lunch rush was over, and they were still chatting when Aurora appeared in the doorway.

"Hi," Doug said. "Care to join us for a cup?"

"Don't mind if I do," Aurora said, pulling up a spare chair. "You and your coffee, Doug, always at the ready. Kelly, I don't know if Doug's told you, but when he was a little boy he couldn't even stand the smell of the stuff! What a change!"

"Wow, you've known Doug that long, have you?" Kelly asked innocently, sensing an opening.

"It's a small town nine months out of the year," Aurora told her. "Besides, I was a teacher's aide for his grandmother and aunt for a while before I finished my degree, then I was a teacher at his high school. So I've known him all his life. Doug, you're probably too young to remember, but I even used to give lectures at the old school, the last few years before it closed down, about my trip around the world."

"Right," Doug said. "I am too young, but Aunt Doro has mentioned it a couple of times. Your big trip with...what was your friend's name?"

"Meg," Aurora said with a wistful grin. "Meg Sanborn. Kelly, I wish you could have met her. An amazing woman, back in the days when it was really hard to be a woman on your own. She escaped from an abusive husband and followed her dreams, and she's still off seeing the world. Married to a Swedish guy now, actually, and they live somewhere in Europe."

"I'm glad she escaped from the husband, then," Kelly said. "Mind if I ask what happened?"

"Oh, I don't want to depress you with that," Aurora said. "The guy was mixed up in all sorts of ugly stuff, and he was really manipulating her too. He had some ugly secrets and he convinced her they could get her in trouble too. But one night...actually just up the road from here, the Templeton condos? You know that place?"

Doug and Kelly both nodded. "Right. Back then it was a beat up old mansion and a bunch of us were living there. And it was the strangest thing, a hippie couple showed up out of nowhere and we took them in, and they...well, they got a very clever idea for how to fight back against that jerk. It was really a pretty dramatic escape. We did some stuff to him that I'm not very proud of, but the important thing was we got Meg out of there, and she and I and a few others drove off to California. And from there, the world."

"Did that couple join you too? The ones who helped you out?" Doug asked.

"No, they disappeared early on. We never saw them again. Happened all the time back in those days, actually. People really were just living out of one another's back pockets, and when the fancy struck them, off they went. I still miss it sometimes, to tell you the truth."

"But you came home, obviously," Kelly said.

"The time was right," Aurora explained. "Traveling all over the world isn't right for everyone. But it sure was right for Meg."

"I wonder what happened to her husband," Doug said.

"Oh, that's the best part!" Aurora said. "He had actually gotten away with a murder out in California, if you can believe that. But years later, I heard someone had tipped off the cops. Could've been anyone who'd been living in our house, actually, because we all had reasons to hate him, but I don't know which one it was. I lost touch with all of them but Meg as soon as we got to San Francisco. In any case, he ended up in prison. I think he's out now, but I don't know where he is and I don't care."

"No kidding," Doug said. "Just like Aunt Doro always tells me, the sixties weren't all peace and love."

"They sure weren't," Aurora said, polishing off her coffee. As she stood to leave, she added, "You're both old enough to know by now, every era has its good and bad. There were some good times back then, but I wouldn't go back!"

"I don't think I would either," Kelly agreed. "How about you, Doug?"

"Me neither," Doug said. "The more I learn about the past, the luckier I feel to be living when I am."