“Welcome to Earth.” Shy rolled her eyes and sucked the cookie dough off her fingers.

Roy rolled his eyes in response, a poor imitation. “I would never want to be your boyfriend.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Wendy watched the cookies spread and glisten in the heat, feeling left out in her own kitchen. Roy was completely absorbed with his new book. Shy was becoming a typical American teenager. They were both thoroughly stuck in.

“Pharmacology,” she repeated, and sipped her wine.

“Hey! Excuse me? That’s mine!”

Mandy froze. She knew if she put down the Farm to Front Door box it would be an admission of guilt. Instead, she clutched it to her chest and turned around to face her accuser, an auburn-haired man wearing a neatly ironed white shirt and navy-blue suit pants. Aside from the permanently wounded look in his sad eyes, he appeared to be the type of Cobble Hill resident who could afford to donate a few boxes of food to her cause.

“Um, I order from here all the time.” Mandy jutted out her chin in defiance. “I have a subscription. How else could I shop and make dinner for my family? I have MS.”

The man frowned as he approached her. He was tall but also sort of small. He peered at the box. “Yes, but I’m pretty sure the label says T. Paulsen. That’s me.”

Mandy squinted at the label, shifting into clueless mode. “Oh yeah.” She put down the box. “Sorry. Wow, what a screwup.”

T. Paulsen made no move to pick up the box. He shoved his hands into his suit pants pockets and looked over Mandy’s head, scanning the street with his wounded blue eyes. “Did my wife put you up to this? Elizabeth?”

Mandy was ready to go back inside. Scrutiny was not her thing. Neither was chatting on the street. Neither was feeling unkempt and dumpy next to a tall, skinny, well-dressed guy.

“Who?”

“Elizabeth Paulsen. The artist. She’s my wife.”

“Sorry. Don’t know her.”

“She’s close, I can feel it.”

As if things needed to get any weirder. Mandy did not enjoy conversing intimately with strangers.

“I was just picking up my dinner. Which turns out not to be my dinner. I better go call”—she glanced down at the box—“Farm to Front Door. Let them know they fucked up my order.”

T. Paulsen squinted at her. He flexed his fingers. “So this is not one of Elizabeth’s pranks?”

Go home, Crazypants. “Nope. I just got the wrong box. Sorry for the mixup.”

Mandy headed back down Kane Street. Never again would she round the corner for food boxes. She was only trying not to milk her direct neighbors dry. But they were never home and were quite possibly Russian spies. She could keep on milking indefinitely, helping out her country by starving the enemy.

“If you see her, tell her I’m cooking!” T. Paulsen shouted after her.