Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

the studio. We sat quietly for a moment, just resting.
    “ Avram , were you aware of Lisa’s plans?” I asked, trying to catch him off balance with words where I had failed to do so with my chi. He didn’t respond.
    I pushed again.
    “Did you know she was planning to leave? She did tell you everything, didn’t she?”
    “You have made room for Lisa,” he said, not looking at me, not looking at anything. Maybe he was seeing Lisa. “You have been working very hard,” he said.
    “Yes, I have.”
    “I knew she was planning to go to China . I knew for a long time, Rachel, since the first day she came to study with me. Only then, then it was just a story, a dream.”
    “When did it become more than a dream, Avi ?”
    “Day by day,” he said. “Slowly. Then all at once.”
    “Did the others know, too? The other teachers?”
    “No. Lisa had planned to tell them herself, privately, at the last possible moment. She thought that if I announced it, there’d be a feeding frenzy, that they would all be scrambling to take her place, to become, she said, the favorite. She loved them, Rachel. She was, oh, the dearest person—” He reached to wipe his cheeks. “She couldn’t bear to see them all lose their dignity.”
    “And would they have?”
    “Ach,” he said. “You’ve seen them. You’ve heard them. A gifted student, that might happen once in a teacher’s life.” He stopped and looked at me. “Maybe twice, if you are really lucky. You do your best with what is sent to you,” he said as the door opened and Stewie Fleck walked in. He was wearing a shiny orange baseball jacket with plaid polyester pants, and his shoelaces were open and dragging on the carpet. When he dropped the jacket over the back of the couch, his wallet fell out of the pocket.
    How did this man get through life?
    And how would Avi , now that he’d lost Lisa?
    I looked at my watch. It was five minutes to the lunch-hour class. I was supposed to stay, but I knew I’d be unable to concentrate. There was too much on my mind.
    It’s best to be prepared, Avi had said.
    Frank always said that, too. Be prepared for surprises, he would warn me, and I don’t mean good ones. He had that annoying habit of pointing when he was, by his own admission, making a brilliant point.
    Yeah, yeah, I’d tell him, prepared, like a Boy Scout.
    But he was right. It was a dog-eat-dog world out there.
    Whoever had killed Lisa had caught her off guard. So when push came to shove, if Lisa hadn’t been able to defend herself, what chance would I have?
    With t’ai chi, Avi had told me, you can defeat your opponent by starting after him but arriving before him.
    Yeah, right, I thought on my way down the stairs. Tell it to Lisa.

23

Did I See What I Just Saw?

    DASHIELL AND I walked over to Hunan Pan on Hudson and Perry. I parked him under a table near the window, and when the waiter arrived with a menu and tea, I conferred with him about an urgent point concerning my case.
    Then, just to be polite, I ordered a bowl of hot and sour soup, steamed pork dumplings, and some chicken and broccoli. Out of respect for Donny, I didn’t order crab.
    After I’d eaten, instead of lingering over tea, I pocketed the fortune cookie and headed over to Washington Square Park . Dashiell was looking stressed, and I thought an hour of hip-hop with some other friendly dogs would chill him out nicely.
    Dashiell had no trouble living in the moment As soon as I opened the double gates to the run, he was in ecstasy, rushing into the group of playing dogs, bumping them with his big, strong butt, racing back and forth, engaging in good-natured humping, the whole canine enchilada. Watching him play was usually a beatific experience for me, sort of a dog lover’s meditation. But not this time. I was too busy obsessing about Paul.
    Why had he told me he didn’t speak Chinese? And what other lies had he told me? What was he up to, anyway? And most important, when would I see him again?
    It was probably a good idea that I had a massage scheduled for three thirty. I was as tight as the curl of a pug’s tail.
    At ten after three Dashiell and I headed for Bank Street . When I got to Howie’s , I rang the bell and waited to be buzzed in. But nothing happened. I checked my watch. I was right on time . I waited another minute, then gave it one more try before leaving, leaning on the bell a little longer than usual.
    I heard the intercom crackle, but I couldn’t make out the