The Line by Teri Hall

moment. Ms. Moore never called her to the main house. She thought about it for a moment. “She knows about the seedlings, doesn’t she?” Jonathan began to reply, but she put her hand on his arm before he could speak. “It’s all right, Jonathan, I know you had to tell her. Don’t feel bad. It’s my fault.” Rachel smiled what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Is she in the parlor?”
    “Yes.” Jonathan looked like he might say something more, but he reached for the plant food instead. “You’d better run along. She’s expecting you. I’ll close up.”
    Rachel thanked him and set off toward the main house, head down. She felt tears welling up as she trudged along and fought them back. She was going to miss working with the orchids. And her mom would be disappointed in her. Almost worse was the fact that Ms. Moore was disappointed in her. At least she had worked long enough to pay off the broken greenhouse pane.
    Far too quickly, Rachel reached the front entrance to the house. It was grand; unlike anything she had seen in Bensen, where the houses were mostly small, one-story boxes. The apartment buildings were taller, but they were even plainer. The only bits of personality were the things one could glimpse through the different windows sometimes. Someone’s houseplant, or the arm of a red chair.
    Ms. Moore’s house had a huge, covered front porch, held up by carved columns. There were two chairs arranged around a small table, though Rachel had never seen anyone sit in them. The front door was twice as tall as a man and wide enough to accommodate three people abreast easily. She pushed the black button to the right of the door and heard the chimes within, then the click of the intercom.
    “Yes?” Ms. Moore’s voice sounded hollow through the speaker next to the button.
    Rachel cleared her throat, her mouth suddenly dry. “It’s me, Ms. Moore. Rachel.”
    “Yes, Rachel,” came the reply. “I’ve been expecting you. Come into the parlor, won’t you?” The intercom clicked off.
    Rachel opened the door and stepped into the large entryway. The tile floor gleamed, smoothed to an icy sheen from years of hand waxing. On a small table, a deep blue glass vase held a spray of creamy dendrobium blossoms. Rachel could smell the faint lemony scent of the special polish Ms. Moore had her mom use on the woodwork. Through the wide doorway that opened onto the parlor, she could see Ms. Moore seated in one of the matched set of chairs that flanked the fireplace. The chairs were large and looked soft, though Rachel had never sat in one of them. They reminded her of friendly sentries, keeping watch over the opening of a cave.
    The first time Rachel had seen the fireplace, she had hardly believed it. It was a real one, not an image broadcast from a streamer screen. Sometimes in the winter Ms. Moore actually used it, burning old chair legs and other odd scraps of wood that Jonathan scavenged from various sources. Rachel was pretty sure Ms. Moore was breaking some conservation law when she did that. She wondered why Ms. Moore would do it, even though the risk of being caught way out here was slim. When she asked her mom, Vivian had shrugged and said that Ms. Moore probably liked the way it looked.
    “But she could have the same thing if she installed an extra streamer and set it to one of the ambiance broadcasts. They aren’t that expensive. And she could even choose different stuff, if she got tired of the Fire broadcast. She could choose Mountain Vistas, or the Living Seas. Why doesn’t she just do that?” Rachel thought the fireplace was strange; when there was no fire burning, which was almost always, it was just a big empty box. Rachel thought it was ugly.
    “But a streamer doesn’t get hot, Rachel. You can’t feel it. You can’t smell the wood smoke. It’s not . . . real.” Vivian smiled and shook her head. “I know it seems weird. But she must remember having real fires from when she was a child. It’s