"Yes?"
"Why is the house so empty? It's like it's been stripped bare. I tried finding something to eat but there were only bottles of water, milk and a little fruit in that enormous icebox in the kitchen. Has there been some sort of catastrophe? War or ... or famine?"
"No, not recently, anyway," he answered with a short laugh. His laughter hardly implied amusement, however, only anxious concern for Hope's disorientation at her familiar world being wiped away in a split second. "Remember I explained that I'd just been given 1807 Prairie Street by a friend—Alistair Franklin? It's a long story, but the bottom line is, I just moved in here at the beginning of the week. It's my understanding that the house has stood empty for fifteen or twenty years. That's the only reason it seems so barren."
He walked over to the bedside table and picked up his cell phone.
"How about some Chinese food?" he asked, paging down the list of nearby restaurants that he'd programmed into his phone.
"What about it?" she asked, rising from her sitting position, her gaze glued on his cell phone.
"Do you want to have it for dinner? You said you were hungry. There's a place that has food that might be more what you're used to—chicken, steak, potatoes. Your only other choices at present are Mexican and pizza."
"What does Chinese food taste like?"
"You like beef? Chicken?"
Hope nodded. "Vegetables—peas, carrots, stuff like that?"
Again she nodded as she came closer to him. "I'll get a few things. If you're as hungry as I am, at least one of em is going to taste good to you."
As soon as he'd ordered and flipped his cell phone closed Hope ached for it.
"May I?"
"Sure," he replied, handing her the phone. "It's a cell phone."
"So you use this to contact your servants?" she asked finally after inspecting the phone with obvious fascination.
He grinned. "No. Very few people in this day and age have serwants."
"I don't understand. Who were you just giving instructions for bur dinner then?"
"Oh, the restaurant. They make meals."
"I know what a restaurant is—they have them in all the finest hotels. But you make it sound as if anyone can go to them. And it sounded as if they're going to deliver food to the house."
"Right." Ryan shrugged.
"Have we acquired a socialist form of government, then?"
"No . .. why would you say that?"
"Because you said there were hardly any servants anymore, and that anyone can have food prepared for them. I thought perhaps the government sponsored the restaurants."
Ryan shook his head. "No, good old-fashioned capitalism keeps the restaurant industry alive. That along with a good dose of American laziness and overwork."
"You mean we're going to pay money for our meals?" she asked, clearly disappointed.
" 'Fraid so, honey."
"Oh." She sighed and sat back down on the bed. "Then things really aren't that different from the past. They've just moved the servants out of the house."
"People who work in restaurants aren't servants. They get paid for their work," Ryan explained as he sat next to her on the bed. He was glad to see that some of the animation and color had returned to her face.
"Servants get paid! My father pays the best wages on Prairie Avenue and we offer the staff paid vacations and medical care from Dr. Walkerton as well. Do these people who work in restaurants make enough for their wages to raise their families? Can they go to the doctor for free and do they have paid vacations?"
"Er . .. no," Ryan admitted.