The Rosie Effect

27

Gene provided me with some guidelines for hosting a party.

‘Loud music, low lights, salty food, plenty of booze. Fresh shirt and jeans. The shoes you wore for Dave the Calf, if you’ve cleaned them. Don’t tuck your shirt in. The unshaven look is fine. Shake hands, serve food, serve drinks, don’t do anything to embarrass Rosie.’

‘What makes you think I’ll embarrass her?’

‘Experience. And she told me. Not in so many words, but she tried to get me to break my date with Inge so I could take you off her hands. Fat chance. This is the big one.’

‘The big one? You plan to have sex with Inge?’

‘Believe it or not, it’s been remarkably chaste so far. But my professional instincts tell me that tonight’s the night.’

I made the party arrangements, and Rosie confirmed that all was going according to plan when I arrived home.

‘What’s all this booze?’ she asked. ‘I had to sign for five cases of liquor. We can’t afford to be spending like this.’

‘Delivery was free. And there was a discount for the quantity. Based on past behaviour, you’ll be drinking to excess again once Bud is born.’

‘I told people to bring their own. We’re just students.’

‘I’m not,’ I said.

‘And Don, I’m thinking of moving back to Australia, remember. Before the baby is born. I won’t be around to drink it.’

I had moved my weekly discussion with my mother forward by thirty minutes to accommodate the party and made a decision to lie in order to avoid inflicting emotional pain.

‘Has it arrived yet?’ my mother asked.

I told the truth. ‘It arrived on Thursday.’

‘You should have called. Your father was in a state about it. It cost a fortune to send. God knows what he’s spent on it already. He was talking to people in Korea—Korea—half the night and then the boxes arrived and he had to sign all these documents about patents and secrecy and of course he had to read every word—you know what your father’s like, he’s worked on it day and night, Trevor’s had no help in the shop for weeks… I think you should speak to him.’ She turned away and called out, ‘Jim, it’s Donald.’

My father’s face replaced my mother’s. ‘Is it what you wanted?’ he said.

‘Excellent. Perfect. Incredible. I’ve tested it. Meets all requirements.’ This was true too.

‘What does Rosie think?’ asked my mother in the background.

‘Totally satisfied. She considers Dad the world’s greatest inventor.’

This was a deception. I had not shown Rosie the crib. It was in Gene’s closet. After the pram problem, I considered there was a high probability that she would reject my father’s most amazing project.

The first to arrive for the study-group celebration was a couple, vindicating my decision to be present. Rosie introduced them.

‘Josh, Rebecca, Don.’

I extended my hand which they shook in turn. ‘I’m Rosie’s partner,’ I said. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘We’ve brought some beer,’ said Josh.

‘There’s cold beer in the fridge. We can drink it while yours returns to optimum temperature.’

‘Thanks, but this is English beer. I worked in London in a pub for six months. Got a taste for it.’

‘We have six real ales on tap.’

He laughed. ‘You’re kidding me.’

I showed him to the coolroom and drew off a pint of Crouch Vale Brewers Gold. Rebecca followed and I asked if she wanted beer or would prefer a cocktail. The social protocols were familiar and I was feeling very comfortable as I mixed her a Ward 8 and performed a few tricks with the cocktail shaker.

Other guests arrived. I mixed cocktails to their specification and handed around the salted Padrón peppers and edamame. Rosie turned off the music I had selected and replaced it with a more current recording. The noise level remained high, lights low, alcohol consumption steady. People appeared to be having fun. Gene’s formula was working. So far, there were no indications that I had embarrassed anyone.

At 11.07 p.m. there was a knock. It was George. In one hand he had a bottle of red wine and in the other a guitar case.

‘Revenge, eh? Keeping an old man awake. Mind if I join you?’

George was our de facto landlord. It seemed inadvisable to refuse him entry. I introduced him, took his wine and offered him a cocktail. By the time I returned with his martini, all of the guests were seated and George had started playing and singing. Disaster! It was 1960s-style music similar to that which Rosie had turned off earlier. I assumed George’s performance would be similarly unacceptable to young people.

I was wrong. Before I could think of a way of silencing George, Rosie’s guests were clapping and singing along. I focused on refilling drinks.

While George was playing, Gene arrived home. We had an apartment full of young people, a significant percentage of whom were unaccompanied women, disinhibited by alcohol. I was worried that he might behave inappropriately, but he went directly to his bedroom. I presumed his libido had been exhausted.

The party finished at 2.35 a.m. One of the last to leave was a woman who had introduced herself as Mai, age approximately twenty-four, BMI approximately twenty. We spoke together in the beer fridge while I selected liquor for her final cocktail.

‘You’re so not like what we were expecting,’ she said. ‘To be honest, we all thought you’d be some kind of geek.’

It was a notable milestone. Tonight, at least in this limited domain of social interaction, I had managed to convince a cool young person, and apparently her fellow students, even in the face of a preconception, that I was within the normal range of social competence. But I was concerned with how the preconception had arisen.

‘How did you deduce that I was a geek?’

‘We just thought—well, you’re with Rosie, the only person on the planet doing an MD and a PhD at the same time. And the way she just says what she thinks, how we’ve got to drag her into doing anything social…and then it’s like, oh yeah, I’m having a baby but let me get these stats done first. We thought she’d have gone for someone the same and here you are with the apartment and the cocktails and the muso buddy and the retro shirt.’

She sipped her cocktail.

‘This is awesome. Is it okay to ask, is she getting any help with the clinical thing?’

‘What clinical thing?’

‘Sorry. I’m sticking my nose in. But we’ve talked about it because we want to help. She’s so obviously using the pregnancy as a way out.’

‘Of what?’

‘Her clinical year. I mean she wants to do psych, and she’ll never have to touch a patient after next year if she can get some help to get through it. I gather there was some sort of trauma in her childhood—a car accident or something that’s freaked her out about emergency medicine.’

Rosie had been in the car when her mother was killed and Phil badly injured. It would seem reasonable that confronting the injuries of others might stimulate traumatic memories. But she had never said anything to me.

Inge asked to see me urgently on the Monday morning after the party, then offered to buy me coffee. ‘It’s more of a personal matter,’ she said.

I can see no logical reason why personal and social topics need to be discussed in a café and accompanied by beverages, whereas research topics can be discussed in both the work environment and in cafés. But we changed location and purchased coffee to enable the conversation to begin.

‘You were right about Gene. I should have listened to you.’

‘He attempted to seduce you?’

‘Worse. He says he’s in love with me.’

‘And that emotion is not reciprocated?’

‘Of course not. He’s older than my father. I thought of him as a mentor, and he treated me like an equal. But I never did anything to suggest... I can’t believe he got it so wrong. I can’t believe I got it so wrong.’

In the evening, I knocked on Rosie’s door and entered. I had expected she would be performing some task at her computer, but she was lying on the mattress. There was no book visible. The lack of distractions created an ideal opportunity to raise an important topic.

‘Mai told me there was some problem with clinical activities. A phobia about patient contact. Is this correct?’

‘Fuck. I told you, I’m dropping the medical program. The reasons don’t matter.’

‘You said you were deferring. David Borenstein—’

‘Fuck David Borenstein. I am deferring. Who knows, I may go back, I may not. Right now I’m a bit busy with exams and having a baby.’

‘Obviously if there is some obstacle preventing you from achieving a goal, you should investigate methods for overcoming it.’

I could empathise with Rosie, and was in a position to help. I had faced an almost identical situation when I switched my studies from computers to genetics. My revulsion at handling animals increased in proportion to the size of the animal. It was irrational but felt instinctual, hence difficult to overcome.

I undertook hypnotherapy, but attributed my cure to the Cat Rescue Incident, in which it had been necessary to save a housemate’s kitten which had jumped into the toilet—a doubly unpleasant task. I learned that I could create an intellectual separation from the physical sensation in an emergency. Once I knew the brain configuration, I was able to reproduce it well enough to dissect mice and assist in the delivery of a calf. I was confident that I could function in a medical emergency, and that I could coach Rosie to do so too.

I began to explain, but she stopped me. ‘Forget it, please. If I wanted to do it enough, I’d sort it out. I’m just not that interested.’

‘Do you want to see a play? Tonight?’

‘What play?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘So you haven’t bought tickets or anything. Haven’t you got stuff…scheduled?’

‘I’ve scheduled a play. For both of us. As a couple.’

‘Sorry, Don.’

I saw Gene next. He was also in his room lying on the bed. Our household was aggregately depressed.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he said. ‘Inge spoke to you, right?’

Gene had asked me not to speak, then asked a question that required me to answer. I decided that the latter overrode the former.

‘Correct.’

‘Christ, how do I face her? I’ve been a complete idiot.’

‘Correct. Fortunately she has been similarly imperceptive in failing to note that your interactions with her were aimed at seduction. I recommend—’

‘It’s okay, Don, I don’t need your advice on etiquette.’

‘Incorrect. I’m extremely experienced at dealing with embarrassment resulting from insensitivity to others. I’m an expert. I recommend an apology and admission that you are a klutz. I have recommended to her that she apologise for not making her position clear. She is similarly embarrassed. Nobody else knows except me.’

‘Thanks. Appreciate it.’

‘Do you want to go to a play? I have tickets,’ I said.

‘No, I’ll stay in, I think.’

‘Bad decision. You should come to the play with me. Otherwise you’ll reflect on your error but make zero progress.’

‘All right. What time?’

Don Tillman. Counsellor.

Before leaving, I prepared a meal for Rosie and put the other two serves in the fridge for Gene and me to eat later. I had a minor problem with managing the cling wrap, as a result of poor dispenser design. Rosie got up from the table and pulled out a new sheet.

‘I can’t believe you can’t manage cling wrap. How would you ever fold a nappy? Can’t you just be normal about some things?’ She turned around. Gene had joined us from his bedroom. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Forget I said it. I just get frustrated sometimes because you have to do everything differently.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Gene. ‘Don’s not the only man who has trouble with cling wrap. Or can’t find things in the fridge. I remember your friend Stefan back in Melbourne throwing a wobbly over someone stealing the sugar from the tearoom. He went on for about five minutes, and by the time he’d finished half the department was standing there, all looking at the sugar bowl, right in front of him.’

‘What’s Stefan got to do with anything?’ said Rosie.

‘Do you or Rosie want to do a shift?’ It was Jamie-Paul, the following night, texting from the wine bar that used to be a cocktail bar.

I texted back: ‘Has Wineman forgiven me?’

‘Who’s Wineman? Hector’s gone.’

Rosie offered to join me, but Jamie-Paul had said ‘you or Rosie’, which I interpreted as per common English usage as an exclusive or.

It was not quite the same as before, in part due to the absence of Rosie, but Jamie-Paul informed me that former clients were returning and asking for cocktails. Wineman had been dismissed following an incident in which nobody could produce a satisfactory whiskey sour for the owner’s brother. Christmas was only fifteen days in the future and the bar was busy—hence the need for my services. I left Rosie and Gene to eat the dinner I had prepared.

It was a good feeling making cocktails, an incredibly good feeling. I was competent and people appreciated my competence. Nobody cared about my opinions on gay couples raising children or whether I could guess what they were feeling or if I could manipulate cling wrap. I stayed past the end of my shift, working unpaid until the bar closed and I could walk home in the snow to an apartment made empty in a virtual sense by its occupants being asleep.

It did not work out exactly as planned. As I was writing a note to advise Gene and Rosie not to disturb me before 9.17 a.m., Rosie’s door opened. Her shape had definitely changed. I had a feeling that I was unable to name: some combination of love and distress.

‘You’re very late,’ she said. ‘We missed you. But Gene was nice. It’s difficult for all of us at the moment.’

She kissed me on the cheek, to complete the set of contradictory messages.