Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

haven’t asked for a reading, and I don’t want one. Don’t you people have any sensitivity at all?”
    That shut us up. For a moment, but not long enough, there was only the sound of forks on salad plates. But this was not a dinner of mimes. This was not a group who could leave bad enough alone.
    “You think being woman is difficult, Boris comes here from Russia with no money, no family, only incredible skill as dog trainer to start new life—”
    “I don’t believe this.” Woody pushed his salad dish to the side. “How about we go our separate ways this evening? How about I go out and eat Chinese food—Bucky, what’ll it be? Thai? French? Or maybe just good old Burger King. I’m sure there’s one around Columbus Circle. This is bizarre, sitting here every night and having these petty fights. Where the hell does it get us?”
    He pushed back his chair, picked up Rhonda’s leash, and headed for the door, and suddenly I felt the kind of panic I used to feel when things were going badly with Jack. We’d have words, and he’d head for the door, and I’d become terrified I’d never see him again, even though a moment earlier that’s exactly what I was wishing for.
    “Wait,” I said. “Chinese. Wow. I have a real yen for Peking duck, don’t you?” I asked Chip, who was sitting, as usual, to my left.
    “I do,” he said. “That crisp skin, the spicy sauce, die cold, fresh taste of the cucumbers. Count me in.” And now he was up, too.
    “I know just how you feel. But it’s the soup I love, the won-tons, shrimp, pork, chicken, veggies, and that aromatic broth. I can’t resist.” Sam was standing, too.
    Before anyone else had the chance to stand and testify, we were all laughing. And all sitting around the table again. The waiters cleared the salads and brought steaming pots of mussels and thick white bread to dip into the sauce, and as quickly as the storm came, it had blown over.
    So how could I believe that for the reasons I’d imagined, any one of these people who were now laughing and telling each other hilarious stories had killed, not once, but three times?



YOU DON’T KNOW THE HALF OF IT, I TOLD HIM

    H ad we spent another hour telling war stories and drinking wine, we would have gotten to Broadway Electronics after they’d closed. As it was, there wouldn’t be time to watch all four tapes. I’d have to scan them. And since I wasn’t sure where the tiny part I thought I remembered was, I’d have to do it not .only quickly but carefully.
    I walked around the store looking at TVs and cordless phones while Chip began schmoozing up the clerk, pretending he wanted to buy a large-screen TV, one of the ones that sold for close to a thousand dollars. He was right, I thought, listening to him from an aisle away. His gentler did corrupt easily. Perhaps, in the name of science, there’d be time to test that theory further later on in the evening. But first, there was something urgent I had to do.
    I walked over and interrupted the big sale.
    “I was thinking of getting a new VCR, right?” The thin, pimply clerk with the prominent Adam’s apple and unfortunate teeth looked annoyed. “I can try one or two of them out, right?”
    “No prob.” He stepped back behind the counter and came up with Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Everyone’s a wit.
    “Way in the back,” he told me, turning his attention back to Chip. He probably worked on commission.
    I took the tape and went to the back of the store, laid the tape on top of one of the TVs, put the first of the four tapes I had in my backpack into one of the VCRs, and hit play on the remote.
    The music came on first. Next, as an announcer spoke, there were dogs doing a long sit—a Great Dane, a chocolate lab, a boxer, two corgis, and what we call an English cocker, though where this tape was shot, it was just called a cocker spaniel.
    And then there she was, her hair flaming red, or rather flaming orange, the color of the setting sun, her face twenty years younger, the jaw better defined, the cheeks higher, her skin without wrinkles, even though she’d been close to fifty when she’d done the TV series. Clearly she was at the top of her form, strong, confident, full of energy. Hands on her hips, she was directing her students.
    I hit fast-forward, remembering that the part I was looking for was at the end of one of the sessions, not in the middle of it.
    As I watched the screen, the training class looked like an old silent film, everyone