The Rosie Effect (19 page)

‘I’m going out now. Dress as if you were going somewhere with a dress code. Do whatever you’re told. Express unalloyed joy at everything. Reap the rewards for decades.’

I located my formal clothes.

‘Go out on the balcony,’ called Rosie. I had retreated to my office, where the opportunities to cause relationship damage were minimised. Rationally, the worst that could happen was poisoning, resulting in a slow and agonising death for both of us. I started again. Statistically, the most likely outcome was an unpalatable meal. I had eaten plenty of those—some, admittedly, as the result of errors on my part. I had even served such failures to Rosie. But I was still irrationally tense.

It was 7.50 p.m. Rosie had put out a small table—one of the surplus items of furniture that lived in her study—and set it in restaurant style for two people. I estimated the temperature as twenty-two degrees Celsius. There was plenty of light. I sat.

Then Rosie appeared. I was stunned. She was wearing the amazing white dress that she had used only once before: on the occasion of our marriage. Unlike the stereotypical
wedding dress, it was—to use a technical term—
elegant
, like a computer algorithm that achieved an impressive outcome with just a few lines of code. The impression of simplicity was enhanced by the deletion of the veil that she had worn twelve months earlier.

‘You said you could never wear that dress again,’ I said.

‘I can wear what I like at home,’ she said, in direct contradiction to the instructions she had given regarding my own costume. ‘It’s a bit tight.’

She was correct about the tightness, which was primarily in the upper region. The effect was spectacular. It took me a while to realise that she was holding two glasses. In fact I did not notice until she handed one to me.

‘Yes, mine’s got champagne in it too,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to have a little, but I could have a whole glass with virtually zero risk to the baby. Henderson, Gray and Brocklehurst, 2007.’ She smiled widely and raised her glass. ‘Happy Anniversary, Don. This is how it started, remember?’

I had to think hard. Our relationship had developed significantly on our earlier visit to New York, but we had not had dinner on a balcony… Of course! She was referring to the Balcony Dinner at my Melbourne apartment on our first date. It was a brilliant idea to reproduce it. I hoped she had not attempted the lobster salad. It was critical not to over-fry the leeks or they would become bitter… I stopped myself. Instead I raised my own glass and said the first words that came into my mind.

‘To the world’s most perfect woman.’ It was lucky my father was not present.
Perfect
is an absolute that cannot be
modified, like
unique
or
pregnant
. My love for Rosie was so powerful that it had caused my brain to make a grammatical error.

We drank champagne and watched the sun go down over the Hudson River. Rosie brought out tomato slices with buffalo mozzarella, olive oil and basil leaves. They tasted exactly as they should. Possibly better. I was conscious of smiling.

‘Pretty hard to screw up stacking cheese slices and tomato,’ said Rosie. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t tried anything too tricky. I want to sit out here with you and watch the lights and talk.’

‘Are there any particular subjects you plan to discuss?’ I asked.

‘There’s one, but I’ll get to it. It’ll be nice to just talk. But let me get the next course. Prepare not to freak out.’

Rosie returned with a plate covered in thin slices of something with a sprinkling of herbs. I looked more closely. Tuna! Sashimi tuna.
Raw
tuna. Raw fish was of course on the banned substances list. I did not ‘freak out’. A few seconds of reflection revealed that Rosie, in an act of selflessness, had prepared my favourite food even though she could not share it with me.

I was about to express my thanks when I saw that she had brought
two
pairs of chopsticks. I could feel a freak-out building.

‘I told you not to freak,’ she said. ‘You know what’s wrong with raw fish? It might make me sick, like you said. Like it can any time, pregnant or not, and never has. But it won’t directly harm the foetus in the way that toxoplasmosis or listeria would.
Mercury is a risk, but not in this quantity. Tuna is a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids which are correlated with higher IQ. Hibbeln et al, “Maternal Seafood Consumption in Pregnancy and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Childhood”,
The Lancet
, 2007. And it’s bluefin. A few grams once in a lifetime can’t hurt the planet too much.’

She smiled, lifted a slice of tuna with her chopsticks and dipped it in the soy sauce. I was right. I had married the world’s most perfect woman.

Rosie’s prediction that it would be nice just to talk was correct. We talked about Gene and Claudia and Carl and Eugenie and Inge, about Dave and Sonia and what we would do when our pseudo-lease expired. George had promised me three months’ notice. No conclusions were reached, but I was conscious that Rosie and I had not scheduled sufficient time for talking since we had arrived in New York and become busy with work. Neither of us raised the topic of pregnancy, in my case since it had been the source of recent conflict. Rosie’s reason may have been the same.

At intervals, Rosie went to the kitchen and returned with food, in every instance competently executed. We had fried crab cakes and then the main course, which Rosie retrieved from the oven.

‘Striped bass
en papillote
,’ she said. ‘Which is to say
in paper
, since this is our paper anniversary.’

‘Incredible. You solved the problem and the result is disposable.’

‘I know you hate clutter. So we’ll just have the memory.’
Rosie waited while I tasted it.

‘Okay?’ she said.

‘Delicious.’ It was true.

‘So,’ she said, ‘that brings me to the one thing I wanted to say. It’s nothing dramatic. I
can
cook. I’m not going to cook every night, and you’re a better cook than I am, but I can follow a recipe if I need to. If I screw up occasionally, no big deal. I love everything you do for me, but I also want you to know that I’m not helpless and incompetent. That’s really important to me.’

Rosie took a sip from my wineglass and continued her speech. ‘I know I do it to you too. Remember the night I left you at the cocktail bar and was worried you wouldn’t cope without me? And you were fine, right?’

I must have been too slow to hide my expression.

‘What happened?’ she said.

There was no reason now, seven weeks later, to hide the story of Loud Woman and the consequent loss of our jobs. I related the story, and we both laughed. It was a huge relief.

‘I knew something had happened,’ said Rosie. ‘I knew you’d been hiding something. You shouldn’t ever worry about telling me stuff.’

It was a critical moment. Should I tell Rosie about the Playground Incident and Lydia? Tonight she was relaxed and accepting. But perhaps tomorrow morning she would begin worrying and stress would replace her happy mood. The threat of prosecution was still present.

Instead I took the opportunity to explore a lie by a third party. ‘When Gene said I had dog faeces on my shoe, did you believe him?’

‘Of course not. He dragged you outside to tell you not to get in my face in the kitchen. Or to give you the flower to give to me. Right?’

‘The first one. I purchased the flower independently.’ I would of course have been fooled had I been in Rosie’s position, but I was not surprised that she had detected Gene’s lie.

‘Do you think Gene knew that he had failed to deceive you?’ I asked.

‘I’d think so. It’s not like I don’t know the two of you.’

‘So why did he bother inventing a lie that no one would believe and that made no difference to anyone’s feelings?’

‘Just trying to be nice,’ she said. ‘I guess I appreciated the effort.’

Social protocols. Unfathomable.

It was my turn to deliver a surprise. I walked inside. Gene was back and he had helped himself to some of the surplus champagne in the refrigerator.

I returned to the balcony and pulled Rosie’s mother’s ring from my pocket. I took Rosie’s hand and put it on her finger, as I had done with another ring on this date a year earlier. In keeping with tradition, I put it on the same finger: the theory is that the eternity ring symbolically prevents the removal of the wedding ring. This seemed to be consistent with Phil’s intent.

It took Rosie a few seconds to recognise the ring and begin crying, and in that time Gene had thrown the full box of confetti over us with one hand and taken multiple photographs with the other.

18

A communal meal was scheduled for Tuesday evening. I reminded Rosie in the morning as I suspected her unreliability at keeping appointments had been exacerbated by pregnancy.

‘Don’t
you
forget,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the sonogram booked today.’

Problems had accumulated. I had made a list of eight critical items.

1. The Gene Relocation Problem. Obviously Gene needed to participate in this discussion.

2. The Banned Substances List. I had left it on Rosie’s desk, but she had not indicated her formal approval.

3. Rosie’s problem with leave from the medical program. This needed to be resolved as quickly as possible in the interests of certainty.

4. An exercise regimen for Rosie, outstanding after the failure of the swimming program.

5. Rosie’s thesis, behind schedule and in danger of interfering with other activities.

6. The Gene and Claudia Marriage Problem. I had made no progress and needed Rosie’s help.

7. The Carl and Gene Issue. Gene needed to talk to Carl.

8. Direct action on Rosie’s stress. Yoga and meditation are widely recognised as promoting relaxation.

Just making the list gave me a feeling of significant progress. I gave printed copies to Gene and Rosie as they sat down to dinner—wild-caught prawns followed by low-mercury grilled fish with a salad featuring the absence of alfalfa shoots.

Rosie’s reaction was not positive.

‘Fuck, Don. I’ve got two weeks to finish my thesis. I don’t need all this.’

There was silence for approximately twenty seconds.

‘Looking at this list,’ Gene said, ‘it seems like I’ve been contributing to Item 8. I’ve been so occupied with young Carl’s difficulties that I’ve been inconsiderate of you. I didn’t realise you were under so much pressure with the thesis.’

‘What do you think I’ve been doing in my study all the
time? Why do you think I have no life? Don didn’t tell you I was behind?’ The words were aggressive, but I recognised a conciliatory tone.

‘Not really, no. It seems you and Don have got a lot to talk about, with leave and exercise and banned substances. I’ll grab a burger and start looking for somewhere to live tomorrow.’

Rosie had what she wanted, but inexplicably refused it.

‘No, no, sorry. Have dinner with us. We’ll talk about the food and exercise stuff some other time.’

‘We need to discuss it now,’ I said.

‘It can wait,’ said Rosie. ‘Tell us about Carl, Gene.’

‘He blames me for the split.’

‘If you could have your time again?’ said Rosie.

‘I wouldn’t change it for Claudia. But if I’d known how it would affect Carl…’

‘Unfortunately, the past is not changeable,’ I said, wanting to bring the conversation back to practical solutions.

‘Acknowledging your regret may help,’ said Rosie.

‘I doubt it’ll be enough for Carl,’ said Gene.

At least we had addressed, if not resolved, one item on the agenda. I made a point of checking it off on both of their copies.

We made no further progress with the list. Rosie produced a large envelope from her bag and gave it to Gene. ‘This is what I did this afternoon.’

Gene pulled a sheet from the envelope and passed it immediately to me. It was a sonogram picture, presumably of Bud. To a non-expert, it was indistinguishable from the pictures in The Book, which I was very familiar with. It was
less clear than the sketch I had added to the Week 12 tile five days earlier. I passed it back to Rosie.

‘I guess you’ve seen it already,’ said Gene.

‘No, he hasn’t,’ said Rosie. She turned to me. ‘Where were you at 2.00 p.m. today?’

‘In my office, reviewing a research protocol for Simon Lefebvre. Is there a problem?’

‘Did you forget about the sonogram?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So why weren’t you there?’

‘I was expected to attend?’ It would have been interesting, but I could see no role for myself. I had never attended a medical appointment with Rosie before, nor she with me. In fact she had had her first medical appointment with the OBGYN the previous week, where she presumably received an initial briefing on the conduct of the pregnancy. If I was to attend any appointment, this was surely the most relevant in ensuring that we had the same information. Yet I had not been invited. The sonogram was a
procedure
involving technicians and technology, and I was conscious from experience that professionals liked to work without the presence of onlookers who asked distracting questions.

Rosie nodded slowly. ‘I tried to call but your phone was off. I thought you might have had an accident or something, but then I remembered that I’d only told you the time and the place twice and hadn’t actually said, “Use that information to get yourself there.”’

It was generous of Rosie to take the blame for the misunderstanding.

‘Were there any faults?’ I asked. At almost thirteen weeks, the sonogram would be able to pick up neural-tube deficits. I had assumed that, in keeping with normal protocols, Rosie would have informed me if there had been a problem, just as she would have informed me if she had lost her phone on the subway. The Book had implied that abnormalities were statistically unlikely. In any case, there was zero I could do until an issue was identified.