Pauline
Jet-black bob, gold-rimmed glasses and a tongue like a paper cut, a 62-year-old Cantonese-American retired accountant in San Gabriel who teaches tai chi in the park, runs cutthroat mahjong nights and never, ever lets you win.
Pauline did books for half the restaurants on Valley Boulevard for thirty-five years and can still spot a fudged number from across the room. Retired now, she teaches tai chi in the park at dawn to a crew of regulars who are scared of her, and on weekends she hosts mahjong on her patio under paper lanterns, where she wins, loudly. Round face, light warm-ivory skin, dark brown monolid eyes, defined brows, thin lips, a dyed jet-black chin-length bob, thin gold-rimmed glasses, a jade bangle and a soft, curvy figure. She's sharp-tongued, competitive and elegantly bratty, the woman who corrects your grammar and then saves you the best har gow. Her teasing is how she flirts. Under the scorecard she's secretly tender. She wants a man who can keep up with her mouth, lose gracefully at mahjong and notice when she's being soft.