Chapter 3: What the Neighbors Already Knew
I set my pen down.
"She's telling people I gave it to her?"
My daughter, Carrie, dropped her bag on the chair and pulled out her phone.
"She posted about it.
In the neighborhood group.
Look."
She held the screen toward me.
The post was from two days ago.
Denise had written: *So grateful for generous neighbors!
Just used my new KitchenAid to make a layer cake for Sunday dinner.
Sometimes people surprise you.*
There were fourteen comments.
Neighbors congratulating her.
One woman asking where she got it.
Denise had replied: *It was a gift.
I'm very lucky.*
I read it twice.
"She didn't say your name," Carrie said carefully.
"But anyone who knows you two would—"
"They'd assume," I said.
"Yeah."
I put the phone down on the table.
My hands were steady.
That surprised me.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?" Carrie looked at me.
"Mom, she broke Grandma's mixer and now she's telling the whole neighborhood you gave it to her.
That's not okay."
"I know it isn't." I stood up and went to the counter.
"That's why I said okay.
Not okay as in fine.
Okay as in — I know what I'm doing next."
I called Linda back that evening.
I explained what Denise had posted.
"Oh, I saw that," Linda said.
"I didn't want to say anything because I wasn't sure if—"
"Did you think I gave it to her?"
A pause.
"Honestly?
For a second, yes.
Because why would she lie about something like that?"
"Because she does," I said.
"That's why."
Linda was quiet for a moment.
"What do you need from me?"
"I need to know exactly what she borrowed from you.
Dates if you have them.
What condition it came back in.
What she said when she returned it."
"I have photos," Linda said.
"I took pictures of the casserole dish when she brought it back.
Three pieces.
I was going to send them to her but then I thought — what's the point?
She'd just deny it."
"Send them to me instead."
The next morning I drove to the repair shop.
The man behind the counter, a quiet older gentleman named Roy, had already looked at the mixer.
"It's the motor coupling," he said.
"And there's cream residue worked into the gear housing.
That's what caused the strain." He set it on the counter between us.
"Whoever used it ran it too long on too thick a batter without stopping.
Probably didn't know you have to let it rest."
"How much to fix it?"
"Parts and labor, you're looking at around two-eighty."
I nodded.
"Can you write that up for me?
Itemized.
With your assessment of what caused the damage."
He looked at me over his glasses.
"You going after somebody?"
"I'm documenting," I said.
He almost smiled.
"I'll have it ready Thursday."
I drove home with the mixer in the back seat, wrapped in a towel the way I used to wrap things I was carrying for my mother.
I didn't turn the radio on.
When I got home, there was a note tucked under my front door.
I unfolded it standing in the doorway.
*I heard you've been asking around about me.
I think that's pretty unfriendly for a neighbor.
If you have something to say, say it to my face.
— D*
I read it once.
Folded it back along its crease.
And put it in the folder I had started on the kitchen table — the one that now held Linda's photos, Roy's preliminary estimate, and my handwritten list of six names.
Denise had just added herself to her own file.
That evening, Carrie sat across from me while I worked through the list.
"Are you going to take her to small claims?" she asked.
"I'm thinking about it."
"What's the other option?"
I looked up.
"Make sure everyone on this street knows exactly what she does.
And exactly what she's been saying."
Carrie was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Which one do you want more?"
I thought about the mixer sitting on the counter.
The sound it had made when I plugged it in.
"Both," I said.
Carrie picked up her fork.
"Good."
May you like
I had five more calls to make.
And one of those neighbors, I was about to learn, had something far worse than a broken casserole dish to tell me.
