If what you see is what you get Who: Aurora and Kate What:Lottery thread, Aurora extends an invite to Kate Where: Kate’s apt When: 3/24 6PM
Aurora had been doing this sort of thing for a few years now, and had never seen someone on her ‘Possible Volunteer List’ who lived in her building. First Daniel, then Percy, and now this. There were a number of odd, minor coincidences since she moved into Pax. She was pretty sure she had read a book like this about the fair folk leading people astray, or being a plaything of those sorts of creatures.
But, her mother did like say she she had her head in a fantasy land too often, and if she were being honest she didn’t usually enlist volunteers from the list herself, she had people for that. It was only because a glance at the list showed that one of the people was in her same building that she took this one on herself.
So she knocked on Kate’s door still dressed for the organization meetings of this current project, a file folder packed away neatly in her leather messenger bag all business and professional even though she was just a few doors down from her apartment. She had met Kate once before, sure, but this was going to be their first conversation just them, and she wasn’t representing herself this time.
Kate was just placing dinner ingredients on the counter--she would make homemade french fries with rosemary olive oil and truffle sea salt, along with grilled chicken that had been marinating all day--when she heard the knock. She left the potatoes rolling slightly on the flat surface and walked to the door, Scilla and Carrie’s nails tapping on the wood floor as they followed her eagerly to greet their guest. She was a little surprised when she saw who it was through the peephole, since she hadn’t run into Aurora since dinner at Isobel’s, but she turned to the dogs, told them to sit further back into the room (she remembered Aurora’s hesitant reaction to them), and opened the door.
“Hi, Aurora,” she said warmly. “How are you? Come on in. Scilla and Carrie won’t bother you, but I can put them in the other room if you’d prefer.” She opened the door wider.
It was a bit odd, being greeted like a friend when she was essentially here in a professional sense, her inner toggle switch that switched her from one mode of herself to the other seemed almost comically shaky. But that was all fine, Aurora was used to sliding back and forth into one persona or the other, just like a show where she was able to play multiple characters.
“Oh thank you Kate, it’s so good to see you again.” Aurora stepped into the apartment, trying not to look around too curiously, as she was wont to do, “I’m sorry for dropping in out of the blue, do you have a few minutes?” Aurora cast a glance at the dogs, feeling herself tense up at their own curious stares but stomped down on her apprehension and shook her head, “No need to go out of your way, it’s their home after all.”
After sniffing in the direction of the newcomer for a moment, Scilla then occupied herself with a squeaky plastic bone-shaped toy while Carrie hopped up onto the couch and lay down, watching the two women lazily. “Sure,” Kate replied to Aurora’s question, feeling compelled to pull out a chair at the dining table and gesturing for Aurora to have a seat. Curious about what might have brought her neighbor to her door, she sat down as well. “What can I do for you?”
Pleased as punch at the genuine welcome, Aurora took the chair, relaxing visibly as she opened up her messenger bag to pull out a two inch black binder. She slid it across the table and opened up the front to a Table of Contents page, “Apparently you are on our foundations list for Previously Volunteered and Well Received, so we were hoping to call on you again--” Aurora leaned in suddenly, as if they were sharing secrets, “Now to be honest, this isn’t usually my role so forgive me if my pitch is terrible, my secretary laughed while I practiced, but this binder contains the rundown of what we are doing.”
It was true, Esme had treated it like a MST3K showing mixed with Rocky Horror Picture Show Live, which hadn’t helped her ego or her composure but had been a sort of bonding experience. Her hand moved down the line as she spoke, “Pretty self explanatory, but we have our goals, estimated costs of the fundraising effort in comparison with how much we need etc, all the organizations who are involved mostly due to tax write off perks, the potential roles you could help with etc. Basically in a ‘lower income’ but highly populated district not too far from here they are building a new school with no funding for art rooms, Band rooms or Photography. They agreed to modify their plans if we can fund it.” She took a deep breath and sighed at the long shpeal. There was even a list of famous people who had lived in the area or attended school there at some point performing or selling artwork, including Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Something she was very excited about.
“Anyway, we hope you we can count on your support, etc etc, if you could let us know by the date written on the volunteer page and such.” Somewhere there was the person who really planned this pulling their hair out at the way she maimed the pitch, but she was talking to her neighbor here. Not a board room.
As Aurora explained why she had stopped by, Kate’s expression brightened. She remembered now that Aurora had briefly mentioned doing foundation work over dinner at Isobel’s, but Kate hadn’t connected it with her own past endeavors.
“Of course!” she said when Aurora finished. “With my recent move here and getting settled in, I haven’t had a chance to focus on anything like this. I’d be happy to support arts in schools. Will there be any associated events you need help with, or are you just looking for donations?” Kate only occasionally volunteered for on-the-ground event planning or implementation, but her recent dry spell from contributing made her itch to get involved.
“Oh no,” Aurora waved her hand dismissively in the air, “We don’t need your money for this one as much, we’re more hoping for time. It’s basically a festival, on a weekend don’t worry.” She reached over to the binder and flipped a few pages, a bit awkwardly since it was still facing Kate but she managed, getting to the page of a large park near her old campus with dotted lines forming stages for musical artists and others for artists tents and food vendors, “Thank you. I feel kind of weird talking to you about this since we’re neighbors but I figured it was an excuse to socialize as well.” Which was a thing that she never was remiss about, being without people for too long made her antsy.
Kate had leaned in to examine the details of the event, delighted that its needs were exactly what she was willing to offer (not that she wouldn’t have offered money, being quite well off in that aspect), when Aurora’s last comment made her look up and focus on her neighbor. “Not at all. Just give me the date, the paperwork, and point me in the right direction at the festival. I might be the easiest stop on your recruitment route.” She chuckled, and then the “socialize” part of Aurora’s sentence hit her.
She stood up a little too quickly, nearly knocking the binder off the table, and stepped over to the kitchen, opening a cabinet to take out a couple mugs. “Would you like some water? Tea?” She didn’t have much by way of a snack at the moment and made a mental note to bake more frequently now that she was developing friendships with several of her neighbors who could stop by at any time. “Is there anything else you need from me for the festival right now? How did you get into doing fundraisers like this, anyway?”
Kate's sudden bout of proper hostessing was endearing and made Aurora smile a bit fondly at the gesture, “Tea would be lovely, thank you.” She shook her head before remembering Kate had her back turned to her now, “Nope, just send an email to the address in the binder after you decide what you want to do there.”
Aurora used the moment to reach up to her hair and pull out a handful of carefully placed Bobby pins so a few bunches of curled hair could fall around her shoulders. That was a relief, “Nothing special, a senior stage actress approached me after I won a Tony, I guess she saw the what now expression and said to me Hey,” Her voice took on the practiced imitation of her mentor of sorts, a vibrant woman whose voice had an unusual sing song quality to it when she got going and talked with her hands, “You're argumentative, opinionated and stand up under pressure prettily, wanna argue with politicians and superintendents for us?” Aurora shrugged after that, as if to say that's all she wrote.
“What about you?”
Kate filled up the tea kettle, set it to boil on the stove, and started warming the mugs and teapot while Aurora spoke, turning to look at her guest every few moments to show she was paying attention. “My family’s law firm has worked with charities almost since its beginning,” she replied, measuring out green tea leaves into an infuser ball.
She turned around and leaned against the counter as she continued, “And when I was in 7th grade, my friend and I were able to present a project at the California State Science Fair because of a donation made by Diagnostic Products. I didn’t know anything about them and still don’t, but I never forgot how happy we were to be able to present our apple browning preventative methods because of what they did.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to pass that opportunity along ever since.”
There were some rather unpleasant stereotypes about lawyers that floated around, that even her parents shared, but an equal amount of terrible ones could be applied to her career, and even lineage, so she tried to ignore them as a life rule. It wasn’t a difficult thing to do with Kate, she seemed to not fit any of the expectations one might have of someone from a lawyer family, which was delightful to Aurora. She was naturally drawn to people, and they to her in turn, so it was little wonder she was prone to getting sidetracked into conversation so easily listening to people talk--and there was no regret to be had.
Aurora watched Kate move about the kitchen as she listened to her, impressed that such a relatively small event had such impact and that she had kept it with her all these years. Her head tilted to the side consideringly, “If I may ask, how did your family react to choosing such a different career path?” Her questions were sincere and while they might have seemed odd she tried not to sound invasive while letting her curiosity have the reigns.
Kate chuckled, remembering her parents’ horror when she told them she didn’t want to be a lawyer. The tea kettle started to whistle, so Kate turned to take it off the burner and add a thermometer to the boiling water. “They were...less than pleased, initially. It was the first time in a few generations someone in my mother’s immediate family hadn’t walked the same path, although my father, coming from a baker’s family, didn’t mind quite so much. But I hardly took a great step away, since I still work with them.”
She emptied the mugs and teapot of the warming water, saw that the boiled water had cooled to the right temperature, and poured it into the teapot along with the infuser. She brought the teapot and mugs over to the table and sat down again. “I still engage with them on law issues, mostly for research, I still see them for all the meetings and such. I just personally never liked the...cutthroat disintegration of the spirit of the law in order to help a client.” She poured the light green tea into both mugs and smiled almost but not quite self-deprecatingly at Aurora as she handed her a mug. “I don’t have much of an argumentative bone in my body,” she said, referring back to Aurora’s story of how she’d gotten into foundation work. Kate appreciated the skill and knew it was necessary--she respected Aurora greatly for having it, especially with the causes she used it for--but Kate herself couldn’t find the energy to take part in it herself day in and day out.
A baker family and a lawyer family, and together they made a librarian. What a fascinating combination and result! She turned in her chair a bit to watch Kate as the other woman spoke, the picture and profile that she had been building of her came into proper form with bits of her past and how she saw herself. Aurora was naturally good with people, and instinct along with her natural magnetism had been sharpened and honed along with her usage of it. One of her hands pulled a few more wayward bobby pins out of her hair as she listened, disconcerting some of her friends had called her way with people, but she couldn’t help that everyone was a character to her.
Aurora took the mug with a grateful smile, wrapping her hands around it to savor the warmth it radiated before blowing on it carefully. The tea smelled wonderful, and she was impressed by both Kate’s taste and hospitality as she took a tentative drink, “You seem like a very,” Her head tilted as if she was searching for the right word, “Contained, I admire that. I’m a bit of everywhere on even good days.” Another sip and a quiet hum of relaxation and enjoyment, some people didn’t appreciate moments like these but Aurora never let them slip by, “Also, your ability to self assess is surprisingly uncommon these days. Or maybe all days, who knows, I’m only alive in these.” A grin at the joke as she relaxed further into conversation with a person who would hopefully grow to be a friend.