The head jerked once.
Stopped.
I switched it off.
Waited.
Tried again.
Same sound.
I unplugged it and stood there with my hand still on the switch.
Sophie looked at me.
“Is it broken?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandma’s mixer?”
That did it.
I walked across the grass and knocked on Denise’s door.
I wasn’t even angry yet.
Honestly, I thought she’d be embarrassed.
I thought that was why she’d left it on the porch and gone back inside.
She opened the door holding a mug of coffee.
“Oh. Yeah.”
No apology.
Nothing.
“The mixer isn’t working.”
Denise rolled her eyes.
“Honestly, you should buy a new one. That thing is ancient.”
I stared at her.
“What happened?”
“It quit halfway through my cream.”
“What do you mean it quit?”
“It started making some awful noise and then stopped turning.”
“Did you turn it off when it started making the noise?”
She took a sip of coffee.
“I was in the middle of making frosting.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Well, I had 11 people sitting in my dining room with no cake.”
She shrugged.
“So thanks for that ruined night, I guess.”
I genuinely didn’t know what to say.
She was blaming me.
For the mixer she had borrowed.
Then broken.
Then returned dirty.
“Denise, that mixer worked perfectly when you took it.”
“It was 30-something years old.”
“Thirty-six.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled as though I’d proven her point.
“It was going to die eventually.”
“Did you overload it?”
“No.”
“Did you keep running it after it started struggling?”
Her face shifted.
Just slightly.
Enough.
“I was trying to finish what I was making.”
“That means yes.”
