Chapter 6: The Wrong Foot
I read the message three times.
*I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.*
I set the phone face-down on the counter and stood there for a moment with my hand flat on the kitchen tile.
Then I picked it up again and read it a fourth time, because I wanted to be sure I wasn't misreading the tone.
I wasn't.
She wasn't apologizing.
She was repositioning.
*We* got off on the wrong foot — as though the problem was mutual, as though something had simply gone sideways between two equals who'd had a misunderstanding.
I didn't reply that night.
In the morning I called Cara before I did anything else.
"She texted me."
"What did she say?"
I read it to her.
Cara was quiet for a moment.
"She knows."
"Something.
She doesn't know how much."
"What are you going to do?"
I had been thinking about that since I woke up.
There were two options.
I could ignore the message entirely and let the formal notice from Sandra land without warning.
Or I could reply — carefully, briefly — and let Denise think the conversation was still happening on her terms.
"I'm going to reply," I said.
"Short.
Neutral.
I'm going to agree to talk."
"Why?"
"Because if she thinks she can still manage this herself, she'll say things.
And whatever she says, I'm going to have my phone in my hand."
Cara paused.
"You're going to let her talk."
"I'm going to let her talk," I said.
"And I'm going to write down everything she says."
I texted Denise back.
*Sure.
Come by this afternoon if you like.
Around two.*
She arrived at five past two.
She was dressed more carefully than usual — not formally, but the kind of careful that means someone has thought about it.
She was carrying a small paper bag.
I opened the door before she knocked.
"Ellen," she said.
She held up the bag.
"I brought those little lemon shortbreads you mentioned liking once.
From the bakery on Clement."
I stepped back and let her in.
I did not take the bag.
She set it on the counter herself and looked around my kitchen the way people do when they're buying time.
"Sit down," I said.
She sat.
I stayed standing, leaning against the counter near the sink.
"So," she said.
She folded her hands on the table.
"I've been feeling bad about how that conversation went.
At my door.
I was stressed that morning and I said things badly."
"What did you say badly?"
She blinked.
She had expected me to smooth it over — to say *oh, it's fine* and let her redirect.
I didn't.
"I was dismissive," she said.
"About the mixer.
I know it meant something to you."
"It meant something to me," I said.
"And the motor is seized.
The repair estimate is three hundred and ten dollars, and the part may not be available."
She nodded slowly.
"I know.
I feel terrible about that."
"Do you?"
Another blink.
"Of course I do."
"Because at your door you told me I should buy a new one.
And then I found out you've been telling people the machine broke down on its own.
That it was already unreliable."
The color in her face changed.
Not dramatically — just a slight shift, a tightening around the eyes.
"I don't know where you heard that."
"It doesn't matter where I heard it.
Is it true?"
"I may have said something to a friend about the machine having trouble.
I was embarrassed about the dinner party.
I wasn't trying to —"
"Denise." I kept my voice level.
"You told people the machine failed me.
That I sent you something that was already broken.
While the machine was sitting in a repair shop because of how it was used."
She looked at the table.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"And the carpet cleaner," I said.
"You were supposed to return it Thursday.
It's Saturday."
She looked up.
"I've been meaning to have Gary bring it over.
He's been busy with work —"
"I need it back today."
A pause.
"Today."
"Today.
Before five."
She looked at me for a long moment.
I could see her recalibrating — the shortbreads, the careful clothes, the *we got off on the wrong foot*, none of it had landed the way she'd planned.
I was not smoothing anything over.
"Ellen," she said, and her voice shifted — warmer, more personal.
"I know this has been upsetting.
But I think we're neighbors, and neighbors work things out.
I don't want this to become a whole thing."
"It's already a whole thing," I said.
"It became a whole thing when you left my mother's mixer on the porch without knocking, and then told me I should buy a new one."
She was quiet.
"The carpet cleaner," I said.
"Before five."
She stood up.
She left the shortbreads on the counter.
At the door she turned back, and for the first time her expression was not warm or careful or calculated.
"I hope you know," she said, "that I've been a good neighbor to you."
"You've borrowed ten things from me in one year," I said.
"And you've damaged two of them."
She left.
At four forty-seven, Gary carried the carpet cleaner across the grass and set it on my porch without knocking.
I watched from the window.
I went out and looked at it.
The water tank had a crack running along the bottom seam.
May you like
It had been sealed with a strip of clear packing tape.
Someone had tried to hide it.
