Finn glances at the other table across the room, his gaze lingering on the women there, noticing they are all much younger. They chatter like birds about summer camps, vacations, and the pool without stopping for breath. He recognizes two of them from the library, where they bring their small children, and wonders if they recognize him as well.
“Here you go.” Kenya passes him three tiles, face down. “And thanks for washing Rosie. She loves rolling in stinky things.”
“Of course.” He takes the three least desirable tiles from his own rack and passes them on, his mind racing. He’s unsure how playing mah-jongg with these women is going to help him get any answers about Autumn, although he appreciates the chance to spend some time with Kenya. The one question he’d love to ask her would be impossible to pose—what was the text conversation with Miguel Costa about?Maybe there is some way he can bring it up innocently.
Finn dismisses the thought. There’s no subtle way to say he was snooping.
After they pass their tiles and begin play, Finn tries his hardest to just enjoy the game, though his heart isn’t in it. Threes,sixes, and nines dominate his rack, and he recalls his landlady’s advice to focus on one neighborhood of the mah-jongg card. His fingers drum silently against the edge of the table.
“How’s the garden this year, Paula?” Kenya asks. “It’s been hot, don’t you think?”
“It’s June in DC. It’s always hot,” Bonnie says dryly and tosses a tile. “Five bam.”
“There’s hot and there’s hot,” Kenya says. “My water bill is killing me. But if I don’t water, my hydrangeas droop.”
“That’s why you should go native,” Paula says.
“I want to. Did I tell you what happened?” Kenya asks. “I bought a whole bunch of native plants from American Plant a few weeks ago. But I only had time to plant some of them so I left the others in the driveway for later.”
“Oh, I do that all the time.” Paula pulls a tile. “Mah-jongg!”
Kenya claps as Paula lays all her tiles on the rack.
“Already?” Bonnie groans. “I can never do quints. You need to get a lot of jokers.”
Finn pushes down the feeling of impatience, his leg bouncing beneath the table. This feels like a giant waste of time, and he is annoyed with himself for having let his landlady rope him into this charade of suburban espionage.
They all empty their racks into the center of the table and begin mixing them up. Finn does the same, his mind elsewhere, ruminating about Autumn, asking himself why he still lives in Eastbrook. He should be out living his life. A girl named Ellis who works as a barista at Tatte told him to stop by tonight. She has black, curly hair and a tattoo of a ladybug on her wrist. He’s sure she likes him. He could be there now, flirting, living, but instead he is stuck playing this stupid game, pretending to be a spy.
“This is called washing the tiles,” Paula tells him. Finn glances at his watch under the table. He wonders how much longer he has to stay here before he can make an exit. He decides he’ll play a little longer and then split. Maybe he has time to get to Tatte and see Ellis after all.
The table is silent as they stack the tiles and go through the preliminary passing once again, but as soon as the first tile is discarded, Kenya continues with her plant story. “Anyway, I left the others in the driveway for a few days, in a shady spot, of course, and someone stole them. West wind.”
“No, they didn’t!” Paula says. “Five bam.”
“Why are you so surprised?” Bonnie asks. “That’s the world we live in. People are always posting about their packages being stolen from their stoops. Where are all the jokers? Finn, are you hogging all the jokers?” she asks in a teasing tone.
“Not me,” he says, although he has three jokers sitting on the left end of his rack, not that they are doing him any good.
“I have a trusting nature, I always have,” Kenya says. “I’ve always seen the best in people ever since I was a little girl.”
Finn glances sideways at Kenya. Her left hand is at her neck, the huge diamond on her ring finger glinting off her brown skin as she taps the pearls around her neck with long taupe nails.Polishedandsophisticatedare words he would use to describe this woman.Trustingis not one of the ones that comes to mind.
“Red dragon,” Kenya says. “I’ll take that.”
“Speaking of American Plant,” Bonnie says. “You’ll never believe who I saw in the houseplant section. Looking at the different types of orchids. I’ll tell you who, that woman that lived in that house. The Allard rental. Tori Price.”
Finn freezes at the mention of Autumn’s former boss. Herubs the tile he is about to discard between his fingers the way he used to play with fidget spinners as a kid when he could barely sit through class.
“Wait, is she the one whose au pair was murdered last year?” Kenya asks. The casual way she says it makes Finn’s jaw clench. It’s hard to listen to them talk about Autumn like this when she was the most important person in his life—after his mother, that is.
“Nanny, not au pair,” Paula corrects her.
“You know the one,” Bonnie says. “She lived in that awful house with her little boy. The nanny was really sweet. I used to see her with that boy all the time at the park.”
Autumn. Sweet. Murdered.The words hammer at Finn’s temples. The room suddenly feels too warm. He takes a swig of sparkling water and shoots Paula a look, but she’s focused on her tiles. Or at least she’s pretending to be.
“So sad.” Bonnie clucks her tongue and tosses a tile. “I think that boy spent more time with the nanny than with his mother.”
