Read Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much for Free Online

strong.” He took off his round, metal-rimmed glasses and stared at me. “Your coloring is different. Lisa’s was more extreme—whiter skin, darker hair. But you have the same body type, the same-shaped face, the same wild hair.”
    Apparently the ancient rules of politeness had gotten lost in translation.
    He walked around to the front of the counter and stood next to me. “And you’re the same height.”
    He was barefoot.
    “The same shoe size, too,” I told him.
    “So, are you like her in other ways?” he asked, carefully putting his glasses back on.
    “Yeah. We were identical cousins.”
    “Then you speak Chinese?”
    “Not a word. How about you?” I asked.
    “Not a word,” he said. “I’m only half Chinese, in case you were puzzled by the name.”
    I shrugged one shoulder, as if to say, hey, you wanna be half Chinese, what’s it my business.
    “An identical cousin,” he said. “Another swimmer?”
    “Dog paddle. Olympic quality.”
    “You hide your grief well,” he said.
    “Thanks. According to the Talmud, the deeper the sorrow, the less tongue it hath.” I emphasized the th .
    “Ah, another scholar in the family. That’s just the sort of thing she might have”—he took a swig of juice—“said,” he said, studying me.
    I studied him right back.
    I remembered a trick Ida had shown me, the time she asked me to bring my family album to a therapy session. She had placed her hand over the top half of people’s faces, my mother’s, my father’s, Lili’s , and mine, to show their smiling mouths. Then she’d slid her hand down and covered the mouths, exposing the tops of the faces. Without the smile, something else showed. I looked afraid. Lili looked defiant. My mother’s eyes looked angry. My father’s eyes looked sad beyond belief. Like Paul Wilcox’s dark eyes.
    He handed me one of the glasses of rust remover and led the way to one of the little bistro tables next to the juice bar.
    “My cousin and I weren’t close,” I confided. “You know how it is.”
    “For sure.”
    “Funny, you don’t sound half Chinese.”
    “Born in the USA.” He smiled, showing me his dimples. “Flushing.” I skipped all the obvious cheap shots and got down to business. “The reason I called, Paul, is that I was wondering if you could tell me about Lisa. What she was like, you know, as an adult.
    What might have made her”—suddenly feeling the weight of what I was saying, I lowered my voice—“make the decision she did.”
    He scratched Dashiell’s nose-tackle-sized neck.
    “He’s huge, your boy,” he said. “What does he weigh?”
    “Is this where you met my cousin?” I asked.
    “What is this all about? Lisa never mentioned you, and I don’t mean to be rude, but what’s the deal?”
    “It’s my aunt Marsha.” I lowered my eyes. “She’s not sleeping well. She needs—we all need—answers. Did you ever meet her, Lisa’s mother?”
    “No. I never did. Lisa said she wouldn’t sic her relatives on a dog.” He shook his head. “No offense meant.”
    “None taken,” I told him.
    He took another swig of the sludge in his glass. “You’re not drinking your juice,” he said.
    I nodded. He was right. I wasn’t drinking it.
    “So you never met them?” I asked.
    “What’s the point of this, Rachel? She’s dead.” He began looking around as if he were bored.
    “Look, I’m sorry to stir things up. But my aunt asked me if I could find out what the hell was going on that made Lisa, you know, kill herself . It’s so hard to—”
    “Swallow,” he said. “Isn’t it though? Lots of things in life are difficult to swallow. Don’t you find that so, Rachel? Is it Rachel Jacobs?”
    “Alexander. That branch of the family. Not the Jacobs branch .“
    “And the Alexander branch resembles the Jacobs branch .“
    “Exactly.”
    “How homogeneous.” He drained his glass.
    I picked up my glass of juice and set it right down again. If Lisa’s boyfriend saw the family