I’m four steps past her before I realize she’s stopped walking. “Wait. Eliot . . . are you dating?”

“What? What makes you say that?”

“Well, you were practicing asking someone if they were who you thought they were. And the only times I’ve ever done that have been when I’ve met up with Tinder dates.”

“Ah.” Because it’s not exactly a lie, I go along with her story. “Yeah. I’ve been sort of starting something up with someone? I think? But we’re still just at the phone stage and anyway it’s probably nothing. To answer your question—yes. I’m a crazy person.”

My house is closer than Vera’s and I want to get her off this topic so I jump in with a suggestion. “Wanna come over for dinner?”

“Oh. Sure!”

She’s never passed up a home-cooked meal in her life. But as we walk up to my apartment building I see a scrum of my neighbors all standing out on the front sidewalk and a firetruck parked in the middle of the street. It’s got lights on but no sirens.

“What’s going on?” I ask John Matley, a neighbor who lives two floors up from me.

“Oh, nothing. The building-wide fire alarm got tripped, but there’s no fire or anything. They’re just doing a quick check of the building before they let us all back in.”

“Let’s just drop this stuff off at your place,” I suggest to Vera. “We can either order takeout there or come back to mine afterward.”

We get to Vera’s and order burritos, but when I walk back over to my house a couple hours later, the alarm is still going off inside my building. The fire truck is gone, but the neighbors are still mostly outside. Half of them look exhilarated and the other half look exasperated. I can see our super pacing halfway down the block on the phone with someone. And man, she looks pissed. I’m more than relieved to not be whoever is on the receiving end of that phone call.

Frida, my downstairs neighbor, sees me and makes a beeline. If there’s news, she’s going to want to be the one to deliver it. In fact, I’m sure she was devastated to find out that John Matley had filled me in on the rest.

“Electrical issue with the alarm, apparently.” She doesn’t even bother with a casual hello. Her eyes are alight with excitement. This is easily the most thrilling thing that has happened to her in months, I can already tell.

“The new super’s on the line with the alarm company but they’re telling her that it’s an electrical issue so apparently she’s also got the old super on the line with the electrical company. But they don’t think they’ll make it for a few hours at least.”