The Rosie Effect

31

Gene, Inge and I had a total of seven connections to the Momofuku Ko website: a notebook computer and a mobile phone each, plus the desktop computer in my office at Columbia. I was issuing instructions, calculated to maximise our chances of securing a table when reservations opened.

Gene had supported Sonia’s idea of taking Rosie to dinner. ‘Regardless of whether you can repair this, you’re going to be parents of a child. She doesn’t seem to have many other friends, besides her Jewish mama who’s been around every day.’ I assumed he was referring to Judy Esler.

On our first visit to New York together, a year and eight months earlier, Rosie had organised dinner at Momofuku Ko, and it had been the best meal of my life. Rosie had been similarly impressed.

At exactly 10.00 a.m. we clicked the reservation button. Available slots on the newly opened day popped up and we selected different times as planned.

‘Gone,’ said Gene. Someone had taken his slot already. ‘Trying the second option.’

‘Mine are also gone,’ said Inge.

‘Missed that one too,’ said Gene.

‘Gone,’ said Inge.

My messages came back. We had failed, mere humans attempting a task better handled by software.

I refreshed the screen. It was possible that someone employing a similar strategy had secured multiple bookings and would now release one. I refreshed again. No success.

‘What’s wrong with that one?’ said Inge, who had been looking over my shoulder. She pointed to the screen.

I had been focused on the newly opened bookings ten days ahead and had not observed a single unreserved spot at 8.00 p.m. under today’s date. It had probably been there all the time. I clicked on it, and the booking program responded with a request for credit card details. I had a reservation for two for this evening!

‘Believe me,’ said Gene. ‘She won’t have made plans. I’ll lock her in for dinner with me to make sure, and you can roll up and surprise her.’

‘What happened to your shirt?’ said Sonia.

‘A laundry accident.’

‘It looks like you tie-dyed it. You can’t go out looking like that.’

‘The restaurant is highly unlikely to refuse me entry. If my shirt was unhygienic or I had failed to wash or—’

‘It’s not about the restaurant. It’s about Rosie.’

‘Rosie knows me.’

‘Then it’s about time you were a bit less predictable. In the right direction.’

‘I’ll borrow—’

‘You will not borrow one of Dave’s. Have you looked at Dave lately?’ Dave’s weight reduction project was going as badly as my marriage.

I detoured to Bloomingdale’s on the way to the apartment. There were other menswear shops closer to the route, but it would be inefficient to navigate an unfamiliar layout. Expert salesmanship resulted in a new pair of jeans to accommodate a change in my waist measurement. I estimated my current BMI at twenty-four, an increase of two points. This was totally unexpected. My return to a version of the Standardised Meal System meant my carbohydrate intake was again tightly managed. My exercise effort of running, cycling and martial-arts classes had been stable, and I should have been burning additional kilojoules in the cold weather. A few seconds of reflection sufficed to identify the variable factor: alcohol. I now had another reason to reduce my drinking.

As I walked towards the apartment building, a man of about my own age approached from the opposite direction carrying a coffee in each hand. He smiled and waited for me to enter the security code for the front door. University laboratories and computer rooms are similarly secured, and our compulsory training had covered exactly this scenario.

‘Let me take one of your coffees,’ I said. ‘So you can enter the code and I am not complicit in a security violation.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ he said. ‘Game’s not worth the candle.’ He began to walk away.

It seemed that I had foiled an attempted break-in. Unless I alerted the police, the man would be back to take advantage of a less conscientious tenant. He could be a murderer, rapist or a person who might violate one of the many building bylaws with impunity. And Rosie was in the building!

As I unclipped my phone from my belt to dial 911, another possibility occurred to me. The man’s accent was familiar, as was the metaphor comparing the cost of illumination with the enjoyment of recreation. I called out to him.

‘Are you visiting George?’

He walked back.

‘That was the idea.’

‘You can press the buzzer. He’s on the top floor.’

‘I know. I wanted to knock on his door.’

‘Better to use the buzzer. That way if he doesn’t want to see you he doesn’t have to open the door.’

‘You worked it out.’

I had made the right decision. It was easy to forget that George was a rock star, or at least a former rock star, and therefore likely to be pursued by autograph hunters and other stalkers.

‘Are you a fan of the Dead Kings?’ I said.

‘Not really. I got enough of them growing up. George is my father.’

My facial-recognition ability is poor, and humans tend to over-recognise patterns, due to the greater risk of failing to recognise them. But there was a distinct resemblance in the thin face and the long, curved nose.

‘You’re the drug addict?’

‘I think the term they use here is recovering addict. I’m George.’

‘George too?’ I said.

‘Actually, George Four. Started with my great-grandfather George. So my old man’s George the Third. You’ve met him?’

‘Correct.’

‘So it fits, doesn’t it? The madness of George the Third. And I’m George the Fourth, the Prince Regent. That’s what my family used to call me. The Prince.’

It was possible that the Prince was an imposter, an inventive autograph hunter, but I was confident I could protect George from him if necessary. Assuming he wasn’t armed.

‘I’m going to check you for weapons then take you up,’ I said. The formulation seemed natural, though it was possibly derived from visual entertainment rather than direct experience.

The Prince laughed. ‘You’re having me on.’

‘This is America,’ I said, in what I hoped was an authoritative voice, and patted him down. He was clean.

George was not home or not answering. It was now 7.26 p.m. and I needed to allow thirty-five minutes to travel to the restaurant.

I could not leave the Prince in the building unsupervised.

‘I propose telephoning your father.’

‘Don’t bother. I’m not planning to be around after tomorrow. It was just on the off-chance.’

‘If he says no, it’s the same result as if you leave. You don’t see him.’

‘It’s not the same. Not by a long shot. But go ahead.’

George’s phone was not responding.

‘I’ll be off, then,’ said the Prince.

‘Shall I give George a message?’

‘Tell him it wasn’t his fault. We make our own lives.’

I did not want to let the Prince leave. George had seemed upset about the damage he had caused to his son, and it would be good for him to hear directly that it was not his fault. But there was no obvious way I could keep the Prince in the building without remaining there myself or violating security.

‘I recommend you return later.’

‘Thanks. I might do that.’

I knew with absolute certainty that the Prince was lying and would not return. It was an odd feeling to be so sure of something for which I was unable to cite concrete evidence. There must have been some information that I had subconsciously processed. I was still trying to work out what it was when I knocked on the door of my own apartment.

Rosie opened it, looking incredibly beautiful. She was wearing makeup and freshly applied perfume, and a tight dress that adhered to her new shape. Gene was standing behind her.

She smiled. ‘Hi Don, what are you doing here? I thought Gene was taking me to dinner.’ She smiled again.

‘He is,’ I said. ‘I just needed to check the beer. But there’s no sign of flooding. Inspection complete.’

I ran back to the elevator, pushing my foot into the crack before the door closed. Gene followed me.

‘What the hell, Don? Where are you going?’

‘It’s an emergency. I’m unavailable. Rosie was expecting you to take her out. The change is transparent to her.’

‘I’m not taking Rosie to Momofuku Ko.’

There was no time to argue.

At the ground level I looked up and down the street and saw him, standing on the street waving for a taxi. I started running as one pulled over and arrived just in time to drag him away from the opened door. The driver was not happy with my intervention, and I ended up with my arms around the Prince as he drove away.

‘What the hell?’ said the Prince, expressing his surprise in the same words as Gene.

‘I’m going to buy you dinner,’ I said. ‘At Momofuku Ko. World’s Best Restaurant. While we wait for your father to return.’

I had made the connection just as Rosie opened the door and startled me with her beauty. A wave of pain had run over me, a realisation that I was going to lose her, and a consequent feeling that life would not be worth living. It was an extreme emotion and an irrational conclusion, and both would have passed, as they had passed in my twenties, when I had looked into the pit of depression and managed to step back. That was what I had recognised in the Prince. He was at the edge of the pit. He had said he would not be around after tomorrow.

I was trusting my least reliable skills when I decided to follow him. It was possible I was losing the last chance to save my marriage. I was sure that Rosie or Gene would have told me I had got it wrong. But the risk associated with an error was too great.

I released the Prince.

‘You’re going to have to explain before you take me anywhere,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’ll explain as we walk. Our first priority is to catch the subway. Reservations are forfeited fifteen minutes after the scheduled arrival time.’

I was trying to think of a way of discovering if my depression hypothesis was correct without asking the question directly. I tried to recover the mindset I had in the bad times to work out what sort of question might have elicited an honest response. It was not pleasant.

‘Are you okay?’ said the Prince.

‘Revisiting some bad memories,’ I said. ‘I was once so depressed I considered suicide.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he said.

I texted Gene to say I would be using the booking, in case he changed his mind about going with Rosie. The Prince and I arrived twelve minutes late, three minutes inside the tolerance limit. I would have preferred to be dining with Rosie, but there would have been the problem of what to say. Despite Sonia’s encouragement, I still had no solution to the Marriage Problem.

But dinner with the Prince was fascinating.

‘George told me he convinced you to take drugs which ultimately resulted in you becoming an addict.’

‘He told you that?’

‘Correct.’

‘Fair play to him. I suppose I can tell you the whole story then.’

The waiter came to take our drinks orders. The Prince ordered a beer. Apparently his recovery program allowed alcohol, so I recommended sake as more compatible with the food. I ordered a club soda for myself.

‘Basically, Dad was doing the whole rock’n’roll thing, and I was the opposite. Except for the drumming. No artificial stimulants for me.’ The Prince used a non-standard intonation for the last sentence, as though he was impersonating a cartoon superhero. ‘But I meant it. And he said, “You can’t go through life without ever getting just a little bit high. Without knowing what it’s like.” And I was such a geek—you know what I’m saying—that I decided if I was going to have one experience, it’d be the best one I could have.’

‘You researched drugs?’

‘I know, it seems crazy.’

It seemed completely sensible. I wondered why I had fallen into drinking alcohol and caffeine without proper research into alternatives—or indeed into the impacts of these two. They were legal, but so were cigarettes. Legality was surely less important than the risk of death. The exception had been amphetamines, which I saw as having a precise, focused purpose. I explained my own experiment as a student, and the exam disaster that resulted.

‘The professor showed me the paper that I had demanded to have re-marked and it was incomprehensible. A rant!’

The Prince laughed. ‘Anyway, I decided that acid was the pick of them—for quality of experience. And safety, everything.’

‘You chose lysergic acid diethylamide? As the optimum drug?’

‘I took one tab of LSD. And you know how everyone says one dose can’t make you an addict? Well I’m the guy they should put in the education videos. Because it was just the best, the most fantastic experience of my life. All I wanted to do was keep repeating it. And you know what?’

‘No.’

‘I couldn’t. Not reliably, anyway. I had bad trips, so-so trips, I had all sorts of shit, and then I started trying other stuff. I tried everything. For a long time. I never got what I wanted again. So I started backing off. Which is where I am now. Just this.’

He waved his sake glass. I was not drinking alcohol, as a result of my recent resolution. It was interesting to watch the Prince’s mood change as the drink took effect. It struck me that Rosie probably had the same experience watching Gene and me descend into intoxication, now that she was temporarily a non-drinker.

‘So you’ve solved the problem,’ I said.

‘Except for wasting the best years of my life. No partner, no kids, no job.’

‘No job?’ Disaster. ‘You require a job. The other things are optional, but you need a job.’

‘I’m a drummer. An all-right drummer. You know how many all-right drummers there are in the world? I thought I might have got something going here, but it didn’t work out.’

My phone vibrated. It was Gene.

With Rosie at Café Wha? WTF are you?

I texted Gene back and he invited me to join them. Commanded me to join them.

‘Do you want to hear some music?’ I asked the Prince. He remained my first priority and, although his emotional state seemed much improved, my own experience told me the problem was not solved.

‘Why not? Maybe the band won’t turn up and I can play a couple of hours of drum solos.’

I told the Prince not to speak. I needed to think. Walking is good for thinking, as are other repetitive activities. Unfortunately, the walk to Greenwich Village was insufficiently long to generate a solution to the Prince’s problem.

The venue was downstairs. As we opened the door, I realised why Gene had uncharacteristically chosen to spend his evening listening to live music. On the front of the band’s drum kit were the words Dead Kings. Behind the drums was George.

I looked at the Prince.

‘You knew he was playing here?’ he said.

‘No. It’s a result of human interconnectedness.’

Although I had heard George practising multiple times, I had never seen him undertake his most characteristic repetitive activity. We stood inside the door and observed for a while. The Prince was watching his father and I was looking for Rosie and Gene. Due to the large number of patrons, I did not succeed in locating them.

I asked the Prince’s opinion of his father’s competence.

‘Better than he used to be.’

‘Better than you?’

‘He’s good for the Dead Kings. It’s not all about technical expertise. It’s about how you work together. People used to criticise Ringo, but he was a great drummer for the Beatles.’

We waited by the entrance for another three songs. While we listened, my mind completed the problem-solving process. I made a mental note to be less critical of my students’ use of earphones while studying.

The singer announced a short break and I tracked George as he walked to a table in front of the stage. Rosie’s red hair was unmistakable. I instructed the Prince to wait and walked over. George and Gene were pleased to see me, Rosie possibly less so.

‘Nice of you to join us,’ she said. ‘I gather you’ve eaten.’

‘Correct. I need to speak to Gene.’

‘Of course you do.’

I pulled Gene away and explained what I wanted to achieve. I had a theoretical solution, but the social protocols were too complex for me to execute. Gene, of course, was totally confident.

‘I’ll speak to George. You speak to whatever-his-name-is.’

‘The Prince.’

‘The Prince. Right. I’m doing this on two conditions, Don. Number One is you’ve got to, got to, make an effort to fix things up with Rosie.’

‘I’ve made all possible efforts.’

‘Didn’t look like it tonight. Number Two is you have to break a rule.’

A chill ran through my body. Gene was asking a high price. He pointed to a sign: Absolutely no recording or photography.

‘Get your phone out. This is going to be a moment for the ages.’

Gene returned to his table. I could see him speaking to George, who responded by looking around frantically. But the timing was perfect. The band was reassembling and George was required on stage.

They played one song, then George, who had his own microphone, made an announcement.

‘My son is here tonight. I haven’t seen him for a very long time. His name is also George and last time I heard him play he was a sight better than I am.’ There was applause, and the Prince waved. George beckoned him up, and he refused, but I pushed him, and informed him that I would persist if necessary.

The Prince stepped onto the stage and George indicated that he should take his place behind the drums. The band started playing, and George and I sat with Rosie and Gene. George was focused on the stage. The Prince seemed competent. When the song was over, George started to get up. I put down my phone, which had been running the video application that had led to my arrest, and stood in front of him.

‘The change of roles is permanent,’ I said. ‘The Prince requires a job and you need to escape the repeating pattern of Atlantic cruises.’ I detected resistance. ‘It also compensates for the error you made, which temporarily destroyed his life.’

George sat down again and poured himself a glass of red wine.

‘And since he is a superior drummer, the cruise ship patrons will receive better entertainment.’