The Rosie Effect, Page 2

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘If you want an estimate. I’m presuming the answer is not zero,’ I said.

  ‘Don, conferences—overseas conferences—don’t count. That’s why people go to conferences. Everyone understands that.’

  ‘If Claudia understands, why is there a problem?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to get caught. What happens in Göteborg stays in Göteborg.’

  ‘Presumably Icelandic Woman was unaware of this rule.’

  ‘She’s in Claudia’s book club.’

  ‘Is there some exception for book clubs?’

  ‘Forget it. Anyway, it’s over. Claudia’s thrown me out.’

  ‘You’re homeless?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Incredible. Have you told the Dean?’ The Dean of Science in Melbourne was extremely concerned with the public image of the university. It seemed to me that having a homeless person in charge of the Department of Psychology would be, to use her habitual expression, ‘not a good look’.

  ‘I’m taking a sabbatical,’ said Gene. ‘Who knows, maybe I’ll turn up in New York and buy you a beer.’

  This was an amazing thought—not the beer, which I could purchase myself, but the possibility of having my longest-standing friend in New York.

  Excluding Rosie and family members, I had a total of six friends. They were, in descending order of total contact time:

  1. Gene, whose advice had often proved unsound, but who had a fascinating theoretical knowledge of human sexual attraction, possibly prompted by his own libido, which was excessive for a man of fifty-seven.

  2. Gene’s wife, Claudia, a clinical psychologist and the world’s most sensible person. She had shown extraordinary tolerance of Gene’s infidelity prior to his promise to reform. I wondered what would happen to their daughter Eugenie and Gene’s son Carl from his first marriage. Eugenie was now nine and Carl seventeen.

  3. Dave Bechler, a refrigeration engineer whom I had met at a baseball game on my first visit to New York with Rosie. We now convened weekly on the scheduled ‘boys’ night out’ to discuss baseball, refrigeration and marriage.

  4. Sonia, Dave’s wife. Despite being slightly overweight (estimated BMI twenty-seven), she was extremely beautiful and had a well-paid job as the financial controller for an in-vitro fertilisation facility. These attributes were a source of stress for Dave, who believed that she might leave him for someone more attractive or rich. Dave and Sonia had been attempting to reproduce for five years, using IVF technology (oddly, not at Sonia’s place of employment, where I presumed she would receive a discount and access to high-quality genes if required). They had recently succeeded and the baby was scheduled to be born on Christmas Day.

  5. (equal) Isaac Esler, an Australian-born psychiatrist whom at one time I had considered the most likely person to be Rosie’s biological father.

  5. (equal) Judy Esler, Isaac’s American wife. Judy was a pottery artist who also raised funds for charity and research. She was responsible for some of the decorative objects cluttering our apartment.

  Six friends, assuming the Eslers were still my friends. There had been zero contact since an incident involving bluefin tuna six weeks and five days earlier. But even four friends were more than I had ever had before. Now there was a possibility that all but one of them—Claudia—could be in New York with me.

  I acted quickly and asked the Dean of Medicine at Columbia, Professor David Borenstein, if Gene could take his sabbatical there. Gene, as his name coincidentally indicates, is a geneticist, but specialises in evolutionary psychology. He could be located in psychology, genetics or medicine, but I recommended against psychology. Most psychologists disagree with Gene’s theories, and I forecast that Gene would not need any more conflict in his life. It was an insight that required a level of empathy which would not have been available to me prior to living with Rosie.

  I advised the Dean that, as a full professor, Gene would not want to do any proper work. David Borenstein was familiar with sabbatical protocol, which dictated that Gene would be paid by his university in Australia. He was also aware of Gene’s reputation.

  ‘If he can co-author a few papers and keep his hands off the PhD students, I can find an office for him.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Gene was an expert at getting published with minimal effort. We would have vast amounts of free time to talk about interesting topics.

  ‘I’m serious about the PhD students. If he gets into trouble, I’ll hold you accountable.’

  This seemed an unreasonable threat, typical of university administrators, but it would provide me with an excuse to reform Gene’s behaviour. And, after surveying the PhD students, I concluded it was unlikely that any would be of interest to Gene. I checked when I called to announce my success at finding him employment.

  ‘You’ve got Mexico? Correct?’

  ‘I have passed time with a lady of that nationality, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘You had sex with her?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  There were several international PhD students, but Gene had already covered the most populous developed countries.

  ‘So, are you accepting the job?’ I asked.

  ‘I need to check my options.’

  ‘Ridiculous. Columbia has the world’s best medical school. And they’re prepared to take someone who has a reputation for laziness and inappropriate behaviour.’

  ‘Look who’s talking about inappropriate behaviour.’

  ‘Correct. They accept me. They’re extremely tolerant. You can start Monday.’

  ‘Monday? Don, I don’t have anywhere to live.’

  I explained that I would find a solution to this minor practical problem. Gene was coming to New York. He would again be at the same university as me. And Rosie.

  As I stared at the two orange juices on the table, I realised that I had been looking forward to the alcohol to counteract my anxiety about conveying the Gene news to Rosie. I told myself that I was being unnecessarily concerned. Rosie claimed to welcome spontaneity. This simple analysis, however, ignored three factors.

  1. Rosie disliked Gene. He had been her PhD supervisor in Melbourne and technically still was. She had numerous complaints about his academic conduct and regarded his infidelity to Claudia as unacceptable. My argument that he had reformed had now been undermined.

  2. Rosie considered it important that we had ‘time to ourselves’. Now I would inevitably be devoting time to Gene. He was insistent that his relationship with Claudia was over. But if there was any chance that we could help to save it, it seemed reasonable to give temporarily lower priority to our own healthy marriage. I was certain that Rosie would disagree.

  3. Factor Three was the most serious, and possibly a result of misjudgement on my part. I put it out of my mind to focus on the immediate problem.

  The two highball glasses filled with orange fluid reminded me of the night that Rosie and I first ‘bonded’—the Great Cocktail Night where we secured a sample of DNA from every male in attendance at the reunion of her mother’s medical year and eliminated all of them as candidates
for Rosie’s biological father. Once again, my cocktail-making skills would provide a solution.

  Rosie and I worked three nights per week at The Alchemist, a cocktail bar on West 19th Street in the Flatiron neighbourhood, so drink-making equipment and ingredients were tools of trade (although I had not been able to convince our accountant of this). I located vodka, Galliano and ice cubes, added these to the orange juices and stirred. Rather than commence my drink before Rosie, I poured myself a shot of vodka on ice, added a squeeze of lime, and drank it rapidly. Almost instantly, I felt my stress level returning to its default state.

  Finally Rosie emerged from the bathroom. Other than the change in direction of travel, the only difference in her appearance was that her red hair was now wet. But her mood appeared to have elevated: she was almost dancing towards the bedroom. Obviously the scallops had been a good choice.

  It was possible that her emotional state would make her more receptive to the Gene Sabbatical, but it seemed advisable to defer the news until the next morning, after we had had sex. Of course, if she realised that I had withheld data for that purpose, I would be criticised. Marriage was complex.

  As Rosie reached the bedroom door, she spun around: ‘I’ll be five minutes getting dressed and then I’m expecting the world’s best scallops.’ Her use of the words ‘world’s best’ was an appropriation of one of my own expressions—a definite indication of a positive mood.

  ‘Five minutes?’ An underestimate would have a disastrous impact on scallop preparation.

  ‘Give me fifteen. No hurry to eat. We can have a drink and a chat, Captain Mallory.’

  The Gregory Peck character’s name was a further good sign. The only problem was the chat. ‘Anything happen in your day?’ she would say, and I would be obliged to mention the Gene Sabbatical. I decided to make myself unavailable by undertaking cooking tasks. In the meantime, I put the Harvey Wallbangers in the freezer, as they were in danger of warming above optimum temperature when the ice melted. Cooling would also reduce the rate of deterioration of the orange juice.

  I returned to dinner preparation. I had not used this recipe before and it was only after commencing that I discovered that the vegetables needed to be chopped into quarter-inch cubes. The list of ingredients made no mention of a ruler. I was able to download a measuring application to my phone, but had barely finished production of the reference cube when Rosie re-emerged. She was now wearing a dress—highly unusual for dinner at home. It was white and contrasted dramatically with her red hair. The effect was stunning. I decided to delay the Gene news only slightly, until later in the evening. Rosie could hardly complain about that. I would reschedule aikido practice for the next morning. That would leave time for sex after dinner. Or before. I was prepared to be flexible.

  Rosie sat in one of the two armchairs that occupied a significant percentage of the living room.

  ‘Come and talk to me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m chopping vegetables. I can talk from here.’

  ‘What happened to the orange juices?’

  I retrieved the modified orange juices from the freezer, gave one to Rosie, and sat opposite. The vodka and Rosie’s friendliness had relaxed me, although I suspected the effect was superficial. The Gene, Jerome and juice problems were still running as background processes.

  Rosie raised her glass as if proposing a toast. This turned out to be exactly what she was doing.

  ‘We’ve got something to celebrate, Captain,’ she said. She looked at me for a few seconds. She knows that I am not fond of surprises. I assumed that she had achieved some important milestone with her thesis. Or perhaps she had been offered a place in the psychiatry-training program on completion of the medical course. This would be extremely good news, and I estimated the probability of sex at greater than ninety per cent.

  She smiled—then, presumably to increase the suspense, drank from her glass. Disaster! It was as if it contained poison. She spat it out, over her white dress, and ran to the bathroom. I followed her as she removed the dress and ran water over it.

  Standing in her half-purple underwear, pumping water in and out of the dress, she turned back to me. Her expression was far too complex to analyse.

  ‘We’re pregnant,’ she said.

  3

  I struggled to process Rosie’s statement. Reviewing my response later, I realised that my brain had been assaulted with information that appeared to defy logic on three counts.

  First, the formulation ‘we’re pregnant’ contradicted basic biology. It implied that my state had somehow changed as well as Rosie’s. Rosie would surely not have said, ‘Dave’s pregnant’. Yet, according to the definition implicit in her statement, he was.

  Second, pregnancy was not scheduled. Rosie had mentioned it as a factor in her decision to cease smoking, but I assumed that she had simply used the eventual possibility of pregnancy as motivation. Furthermore, we had discussed the matter explicitly. We were having dinner at Jimmy Watson’s Restaurant in Lygon Street, Carlton, Victoria, Australia, on 2 August of the previous year, nine days before our wedding, and a couple had placed a baby container on the floor between our tables. Rosie mentioned the possibility of us reproducing.

  We had by then decided to move to New York, and I argued that we should wait until she had finished her medical course and specialisation. Rosie disagreed—she thought that would be leaving it too late. She would be thirty-seven by the time she qualified as a psychiatrist. I suggested that, at a minimum, we wait until the completion of the MD program. The psychiatric qualification was not essential to her planned role as a clinical researcher in mental illness, so if the baby permanently derailed her studies, the impact would not be disastrous. My recollection is that she did not disagree. In any case, a major life decision requires:

  1. Articulation of the options, e.g. have zero children; have a specific number of children; sponsor one or more children via a charity.

  2. Enumeration of the advantages and disadvantages of each option, e.g. freedom to travel; ability to devote time to work; risk of disruption or grief due to actions of child. Each factor needs to be assigned an agreed weight.

  3. Objective comparison of the options using the above.

  4. An implementation plan, which may reveal new factors, requiring revision of (1), (2) and (3).

  A spreadsheet is the obvious tool for (1) through to (3), and if (4) is complex, as it would be in preparing for the existence of a new human being and providing for its needs over many years, project-planning software is appropriate. I was unaware of any spreadsheet and Gantt chart for a baby project.

  The third apparent violation of logic was that Rosie was using the combined oral contraceptive pill, which has a failure rate of less than 0.5 per cent per annum when used ‘perfectly’. In this context, ‘perfectly’ means ‘correct pill taken daily’. I could not see how even Rosie could be so disorganised as to make an error with such a simple routine.

  I am aware that not everyone shares my view of the value of planning rather than allowing our lives to be tossed in unpredictable directions by random events. In Rosie’s world, which I had chosen to share, it was possible to use the language of popular psychology rather than biology, to welcome the unexpected, and to forget to take vital medication. All
three of these events had occurred, culminating in a change of circumstances that made the Orange Juice Problem and even the Gene Sabbatical appear minor.

  This analysis, of course, did not happen until much later. The situation as I stood in the bathroom could not have been worse in terms of mental stress. I had been taken to the edge of an unstable equilibrium, and then struck with the maximum conceivable force. The result was inevitable.

  Meltdown.

  It was the first occurrence since Rosie and I had met—in fact the first time since my sister Michelle’s death from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy.

  Perhaps because I was now older and more stable, or because my unconscious mind wanted to protect my relationship with Rosie, I had a few seconds to respond rationally.

  ‘Are you okay, Don?’ said Rosie.

  The answer was a definite no, but I did not attempt to voice it. All mental resources were diverted to implementing my emergency plan.

  I made the timeout sign with my hands and ran. The elevator was at our floor, but the doors seemed to take forever to open and then to close again after I stepped inside. Finally I could release my emotions in a space that had no object to break or people to injure.

  I doubtless appeared crazy, banging my fists against the elevator walls and shouting. I say doubtless, because I had forgotten to push the button for street level, and the elevator went all the way to the basement. Jerome was waiting with a washing basket when the doors opened. He was wearing a purple t-shirt.

  Although my anger was not directed towards him, he did not appear to discern this subtlety. He pushed his hand against my chest, probably in an attempt at pre-emptive self-defence. I reacted automatically, grabbing his arm and spinning him around. He crashed against the elevator wall, then came at me again, this time throwing a punch. I was now responding according to my martial-arts training rather than my emotions. I avoided his punch, and opened him up so he was undefended. It was obvious he understood his situation and was expecting me to strike him. There was no reason to do so, and I released him. He ran up the stairs, leaving his washing basket behind. I needed to escape the confined space, and followed him. We both ran out onto the street.