Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery) Read Free Page B

check your hand before we pay up.”
    Millie, who had won three games in a row, just smiled and said, “No problem. Alex, do you mind coming over here to check my tiles?”
    I walked over to their table. “Millie, you got a Small Chow! Nice going. This is a difficult hand to get.”
    “Wait a minute,” Sam said getting up and moving over to Millie’s side for a better look. “What in God’s name is a chow? I thought we were supposed to be working on Pungs or Mungs or some damned thing.”
    “Pungs. And there are also chows, which are three tiles in sequence in the same suit. And it’s a double. So you pay her fifty cents.”
    Millie beamed. Her mother gave her another twenty-five cents and Sam continued to pout.
    “I can’t even figure out which wind I am,” Sam moaned, referring to the four winds, East, West, North, and South, which were part of the game. She finally went back to her seat and took fifty cents out of her wallet and handed it to Millie.
    “You’re a wind bag!” Meme shouted from my table.
    “I’ve had enough of great walls, and flowers and winds and pungs, and chows. I want cake,” Sam said, pushing back her chair and bumping into Penelope behind her. “Sorry, Penny.”
    “It’s Penelope,” Penelope Radamaker said, turning to face Sam and then turning back to her table. “I’ve never played this version of mahjong, Alex. Wherever did you learn it and where did you get those picture books?”
    We played a version of mahjong I picked up from an old college friend. It had been started by a group of military wives many years ago so wherever their husbands got stationed around the world, they would be sure to find other military wives playing the same version. When I decided to invite everyone to my home I promptly went through the boxes in the garage I still hadn’t unpacked when I moved in after our honeymoon. I found the play books I bought many years before. They had over a hundred different hands you could try to build showing pictures of what tiles you needed to get. I thought it made the game much easier, especially for beginners.
    “It’s just a version I learned in college. I like having all the different hand options.”
    “Well, it is challenging,” Penelope said.
    Mary-Beth stood up and stretched. “I think I’m ready for a break as well.
    Sam, Mary-Beth and I went into the dining room for a piece of cake and something to drink. Connie excused herself to use the bathroom and my mom went into the kitchen to make another pot of coffee.
    With cake in hand, Sam and I went into the kitchen to help my mother. “Well, it’s not going quite the way I had in mind, but at least no one is killing each other,” I said, as I filled up the teapot and placed it on the stove.
    “This is a fun party, honey,” Meme said, as she came into the kitchen with Theresa and Francis. Three white-haired ladies. My grandmother was the shortest and roundest of the three. Theresa was as thin as Meme was round and Frances was the more refined with her Scottish accent and delicate way of doing things. She had been so lonely when her friend died at the factory, but now she seemed like a totally different person. Meme had a way of bringing people out of their shell. Frances spent more and more time with Meme and her gang as my mom referred to Meme’s friends.
    I sighed. “I guess so. There’s still tension in the air, but everyone seems to be having a good time,” I said.
    “Well, Penelope is certainly having a good time,” my mom said from where she stood at my kitchen counter, methodically folding and creasing the large paper bags the desserts came in. She was the quintessential recycler and those bags would end up in some craft project or wrapped around my next birthday gift. “She’s been telling us all about the time she spent in Europe. Such an interesting life. I think Liz is still a bit embarrassed about what happened with Mia, but Jean is coming out of her shell. That’s exactly what I