Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

as if she’d just been running, or working out. She too was not looking at the camera. It looked as though she didn’t know her picture was being taken. She was laughing, looking beautiful and full of life.
    And behind the snapshot of Lisa, there was another familiar face. This picture wasn’t a drugstore print. It had been cut from a magazine or glossy newsletter, the kind a gym might send to prospective members to entice them to join up.
    His dark hair was wet and spiky. He was smiling. Thinking about him now, I could almost smell the faint odor of chlorine that used to linger in his hair and on his skin.
    I buried my face in Dashiell’s neck and, for the longest time, tried in vain to sleep.

29

Feeling As If My Heart Were Breaking

    EVEN THE SUNLIGHT slipping between the slats of the shutters didn’t wake me until two in the afternoon. Feeling drugged instead of rested, I got dressed in whatever of Lisa’s I found thrown on the rocking chair and headed over to the waterfront.
    I passed the Christopher Street pier where there were dogs playing hey, it’s spring, let’s chase the bitch and maybe we’ll get lucky and where some of the most gorgeous guys in the world were catching rays on the narrow strip of pier beyond the fencing, some of them naked, all of them gay, and headed south to the deserted Morton Street pier, where I could be alone and think.
    The Morton Street pier was in such disrepair that it had been fenced off to keep people from using it. But this was New York , so there was a place where the chain link had been cut. I held it open for Dashiell, stepping through the opening and walking down toward the end of the pier. Standing there, watching the Hudson flow south toward the Atlantic Ocean , I thought about Paul Wilcox and played with the silver bracelet he’d sent to Lisa after they’d broken up.
    Be My Love.
    Or had he?
    Wasn’t the lovesick stalker someone else? And whoever it had been, sending presents and posies and watching her window, wasn’t he now watching me? After all, the last bouquet had been left not at Lisa’s but in the gate on Tenth Street , where no one was supposed to know I lived. And wasn’t Paul killed after I’d been seeing him?
    I turned north and breathed in the fishy air that wafted over the Hudson and across the old pier, then began the form. Dashiell, who had been scrutinizing the weeds that grew between the broken paving stones that covered the pier, came close and sat.
    When my hands formed the Tiger’s Eyes, once again I felt the presence of something I needed to remember but couldn’t grasp. Twice I backed up and started again, but still, nothing.
    Still tired, and feeling as if my heart were breaking, I climbed back through the space in the fence, held it for Dashiell, and together we headed home.

30

And Then It Came to Me

    SUNDAY NIGHT DASHIELL and I slept for twelve hours, waking up with barely enough time to get to the noon class at Bank Street T’ai Chi, a class I couldn’t afford to miss because I had plans other than practicing the form.
    Class had already started. Stewie’s jacket was tossed over the back of one of the couches. You know, I thought to myself, throw your jacket around like that instead of hanging it up and your damn wallet could fall out of your pocket.
    Or worse, your keys.
    So I picked up Lisa’s black practice shoes and sat on the couch next to Stewie’s jacket to change my shoes, sliding my hand into the pocket, hooking his key ring on one finger, and slipping the keys into my pocket before I got up. Then I went to join the class in progress.
    Moving slowly, as if in water, rooted to the ground, as if I were the great oak that stretched its arms heavenward from its place in the center of my garden, thinking now of nothing but what I was doing at the moment, I stepped into Single Whip and, following Stewie’s lead and direction, continued along with the rest of the students.
    Janet was there. After Stewie spoke, she took over, asking us all to stop so that she and Stewie could come around and make corrections. We froze, waiting, our legs burning, and after each of us had been checked, we continued with the form. We moved backward, doing Repulse the Monkey. We walked sideways, doing Cloud Hands. We opened our hips to do Fair Lady Weaves at the Shuttle. We stepped forward, folding our wrists before our chests, our hands closing into loose fists, the Tiger’s Eyes.
    Suddenly I was not seeing the polished studio floor