Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

teach lots of people. It’s what he does, isn’t it?”
    “But there’s only one apprentice,” she said, picking up the baseball cap and placing it back on her head.
    The waiter brought the dumplings even though we hadn’t touched the soup yet.
    “What’s the big deal?”
    “It means he thinks you have special ability. And so he gives you lots of time. What else do you think we’re talking about? Sure, the man teaches t’ai chi, we get to work with him in class. It’s not the same. His special student gets to spend time alone with him, I mean, hours at a time. That he doesn’t do with everyone. And that’s what this is all about, time with Avram . The man goes, Get that, will you? when the phone rings, and he changes your life. It’s not what he does. It’s what he is. And just being around him, I don’t know. It does things to you, Rachel. The man’s amazing.”
    “He sure is,” I said, dipping one of the crispy noodles in duck sauce, then just hanging on to it. “Janet—”
    She looked up from her soup.
    “What do you make of the note?”
    “The note?”
    “You know. The one Lisa left?”
    “Oh, that note. Here’s how I see it,” she said, taking a handful of noodles and tossing them into her soup bowl. She leaned forward. “We had talked, me and Lisa, what, a month ago. I mean, I was pissed.”
    “About Lisa being Avi’s apprentice instead of you? But you were both at the school for years, weren’t you? Why did you wait so long to tell her?”
    “It wasn’t that,” she said. “I mean, in the beginning, when she came, well, I knew it wasn’t her fault that Avi spent the time with her, not me. It was his decision, so how could I blame Lisa for taking a wonderful opportunity?”
    “Of course. You couldn’t,” I said.
    But of course, you could.
    “So, what was it?”
    “A few months ago, something changed. Lisa changed.”
    “In what way, Janet?”
    “She got real la-di-da, like she was more important than the rest of us. So finally one day I got her alone, and I went, What got into you, and she goes, What are you talking about, Janet, and excuse me, but can’t you see I’m busy here? and I went, This won’t take long, it’s just when are you going to stop being such a bitch, woman?”
    “What did she say?”
    “Nothing at first, you know. She just looked, well, shocked. I mean, we had been close, me and her,” Janet said, holding up two fingers that appeared to be glued together at the sides. “So then she goes, Janet, I had no idea. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life right now, a lot to deal with. She looked like she was going to lose it, you know. I actually felt bad for her for a minute. But then she goes, I guess that’s why I’ve been short with you people. You people! Give me a damn break. I mean, isn’t that pathetic, not to know the effect you’re having on the people around you. And to call us you people, as if we had just fallen out of her nose or something.”
    “What else did she say?”
    “ Nada . She just shook her head and walked away. And then, well, it happened. I mean”—she made an arc with her chopsticks and whistled—“out the window.”
    “I don’t get it, Janet,” I said, leaning over the table to get closer. “You’re not saying she killed herself because of what you said to her, because you were upset—”
    “Hell, no.”
    She drank some tea and picked up a dumpling with her chopsticks.
    “So what are you saying?”
    “I figured the note just took care of our unfinished business .“
    “Such as?”
    “She’d explained herself, you know, a lot of stress, blah, blah, blah, like that's an excuse. But she didn’t really apologize, you know what I’m saying? Now she has. That’s all.”
    “And you forgive her? Now.”
    “Absolutely.” She popped the dumpling in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “She was perfect, you know,” Janet said. “She’d never leave anything undone. It’s like a dis-ea.se, being like that.” She picked up her bowl and drank some of her soup.
    “Why did she do it, Janet? She was so young, and she was doing what she wanted to do, wasn’t she? I just don’t get it. Did you ever find out what she was talking about, the stuff she said she was dealing with ?“
    “Not really. I figure there’d been big trouble with her boyfriend, because he’d stopped coming by to pick her up. But that had been a while before. Maybe there was some new guy busting her chops. Who knows? Or maybe