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

resemblance, perhaps the person at the desk would, too. Lisa’s membership card to the Club was in one of the pockets of her calendar. Clearly my clever interview technique wasn’t winning Paul Wilcox over. Maybe my dog paddle would.
    “Did Lisa swim here?” I asked. “Is that how you met?”
    Paul was looking away, and for a while he said nothing. “Maybe she got dizzy. It can happen when you exercise. Maybe she went to the window for a little air, and—”
    “There was a note,” I said softly.
    He turned and stared at me. “A what?”
    “A note.”
    He covered his face with his hands. They were clean and strong looking, his fingers long and graceful. He moved them to his lap when Dashiell got up and laid his head there.
    “What did it— ”
    “ ‘I’m sorry. Lisa.’ That’s all. No one told you?”
    “ ‘I’m sorry. Lisa’?”
    I nodded.
    Suddenly the top and bottom halves of Paul Wilcox’s face were in concert.
    “No way,” he said, his fist hitting the table so hard the top jumped and then continued to vibrate for another minute. Dashiell backed up a foot and barked until I signaled him to lie down.
    “No fucking way. Lisa Jacobs never apologized to anyone in her life.”
    “Is that a fact?” I said, cool as a Borzoi.
    “Look, cousin, I found the first news difficult to believe, and now this. Give me a break.”
    He pushed his chair back and got up.
    “Wait a minute here,” he said, leaning over me, so close I could see his tonsils. “Are you telling me my name was on it?” he whispered. “That it was addressed to me? Is that why you’re here?”
    “No. Should it have been? Addressed to you?”
    He just shook his head.
    “Paul, were you and my cousin still going together when this happened?”
    “No,” he said, pushing the chair back against the table so hard it moved the table closer to me. He began to walk away.
    Good, I thought. At least one of us was telling the truth. His name hadn’t appeared in Lisa’s calendar since January 11.
    And that time, it had been crossed out.
    “When did you break up?” I asked his back.
    But he didn’t bother to answer me. Without turning around or saying good-bye, he disappeared down the stairs that led to the pool.

How Long Will It Take?

    AT TEN THIRTY that night, after I had practiced the form alone in the garden, Dashiell and I headed back to Bank Street T’ai Chi. Avi opened the door before we reached the landing, his finger to his lips. Without speaking, I dropped my jacket onto one of the couches, changed into Lisa’s black cotton shoes, and followed him onto the floor.
    Standing behind Avi , I could see the strength of his movements, as if he were moving not through air but water—not springwater , cleansed of all impurities, but ocean water, thick with salt and life. It was as if he were swimming in the air.
    After three hours of work Avi stopped, and we walked to the couches in the area between the office and the studio and sat opposite each other.
    “How did you and Lisa meet?”
    “So late, and still your head is full of questions,” he said.
    “You said, first the t’ai chi, then the questions.”
    Avi sat silently.
    “You didn’t mean after I learn the whole form?”
    Was he meditating, looking straight ahead like that at nothing, as if he hadn’t heard my question?
    “Or not even then, right? When I get to the end of the form, you’ll tell me we need to do corrections, that I am not good enough yet to ask you questions. Is that it? I am working so hard, staying up all night learning t’ai chi, and you will never help me learn what I need to know.”
    He lifted his big hand like a stop sign.
    “A student once asked his teacher, ‘Master, how long will it take me to learn Zen?’ ‘Ten years,’ the master told him. ‘But what if I work extra hard, then how long?’ Twenty years,’ the master replied.”
    “ Avi , I—”
    “You are so busy thinking about the destination, you cannot keep your mind on the