The Rosie Effect

by Graeme Simsion

  Praise for THE ROSIE PROJECT

  ‘The hero of The Rosie Project is one of those rare fictional characters destined to take up residence in the popular consciousness. Don Tillman…seems set to join Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones as a creation with a life beyond the final chapter.’ Guardian

  ‘An extraordinarily clever, funny, and moving book about being comfortable with who you are and what you’re good at…This is one of the most profound novels I’ve read in a long time.’ Bill Gates in The Gates Notes

  ‘Extremely loud and incredibly long applause.’ Age

  ‘Charming, funny and heartwarming, a gem of a book.’ Marian Keyes

  ‘Crackling with wit and boasting an almost perfectly calibrated heartbreak-to-romance ratio, Graeme Simsion’s delightful debut, The Rosie Project, joins ranks with the best romantic comedies of our age.’ Globe and Mail

  ‘The Rosie Project is an upbeat, quirky, impertinent gem of a read…may well be the world’s first rigorously evidence-based romantic comedy.’ Chris Cleave

  ‘Squelch your inner cynic: the hype is justified. Graeme Simsion has written a genuinely funny novel.’ Washington Post

  ‘One of the most endearing, charming and fascinating literary characters I have met in a long time.’ The Times

  ‘Although there are many laughs to be found in this marvellous novel, The Rosie Project is a serious reflection on our need for companionship and identity.’ John Boyne

  ‘I couldn’t put this book down. It’s one of the most quirky and endearing romances I’ve ever read.’ Sophie Kinsella

  ‘A sparkling, laugh-out-loud novel.’ Kirkus Reviews

  ‘This charming, warm-hearted escapade, which celebrates the havoc—and pleasure—emotions can unleash, offers amusement aplenty. Sharp dialogue, terrific pacing, physical hijinks, slapstick, a couple to root for, and more twists than a pack of Twizzlers.’ NPR

  ‘…the overall effect of The Rosie Project will be, if anything, to increase genuine understanding of Aspergers (or, as it will soon be called, the autistic spectrum) and to refute some common myths. It’s great fun, too.’ Australian Book Review

  ‘Don Tillman helps us believe in possibility, makes us proud to be human beings, and the bonus is this: he keeps us laughing like hell.’ Matthew Quick

  ‘Laugh-out-loud funny, poignant and so ingenious and compelling you feel as if you want to jump into the world of the novel and join in.’ Australian Women’s Weekly

  ‘Happily, Simsion doesn’t give Don an unbelievable emotional makeover. Our man just learns to live by a more complicated algorithm.’ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  Graeme Simsion is a Melbourne-based writer. The Rosie Project, his bestselling first novel, was named Book of the Year at the 2014 Australian Book Industry Awards. The Rosie Project has sold more than a million copies worldwide and is being published in thirty-eight languages.

  Book club notes, author videos and fun compatibility and character tests for The Rosie Project are available at therosieproject.com.au.

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © Graeme Simsion 2014

  The moral right of Graeme Simsion to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published by The Text Publishing Company 2014

  Cover design by W. H. Chong

  Page design by Imogen Stubbs

  Typeset by J&M Typesetting

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Author: Simsion, Graeme C.

  Title: The Rosie Effect / by Graeme Simsion.

  ISBN: 9781922182104 (paperback)

  9781925095104 (ebook)

  Subjects: Marriage—Fiction.

  Australian fiction—21st century.

  Love stories.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  To Anne

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Acknowledgements

  1

  Orange juice was not scheduled for Fridays. Although Rosie and I had abandoned the Standardised Meal System, resulting in an improvement in ‘spontaneity’ at the expense of shopping time, food inventory and wastage, we had agreed that each week should include three alcohol-free days. Without formal scheduling, this target proved difficult to achieve, as I had predicted. Rosie eventually saw the logic of my solution.

  Fridays and Saturdays were obvious days on which to consume alcohol. Neither of us had classes on the weekend. We could sleep late and possibly have sex.

  Sex was absolutely not allowed to be scheduled, at least not by explicit discussion, but I had become familiar with the sequence of events likely to precipitate it: a blueberry muffin from Blue Sky Bakery, a triple shot of espresso from Otha’s, removal of my shirt, and my impersonation of Gregory Peck in the role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. I had learned not to do all four in the same sequence on every occasion, as my intention would then be obvious. To provide an element of unpredictability, I settled on tossing a coin twice to select a component of the routine to delete.

  I had placed a bottle of Elk Cove pinot gris in the refrigerator to accompany the divers’ scallops purchased that morning at Chelsea Market, but when I returned after retrieving our laundry from the basement, there were two glasses of orange juice on the table. Orange juice was not compatible with the wine. Drinking it first would desensitise our tastebuds to the slight residual sugar that was a feature of the pinot gris, thus creating an impression of sourness. Waiting until after we had finished the wine would also be unacceptable. Orange juice deteriorates rapidly—hence the emphas
is placed by breakfast establishments on ‘freshly squeezed’.

  Rosie was in the bedroom, so not immediately available for discussion. In our apartment, there were nine possible combinations of locations for two people, of which six involved us being in different rooms. In our ideal apartment, as jointly specified prior to our arrival in New York, there would have been thirty-six possible combinations, arising from the bedroom, two studies, two bathrooms and a living-room-kitchen. This reference apartment would have been located in Manhattan, close to the 1 or A-Train for access to Columbia University medical school, with water views and a balcony or rooftop barbecue area.

  As our income consisted of one academic’s salary, supplemented by two part-time cocktail-making jobs but reduced by Rosie’s tuition fees, some compromise was required, and our apartment offered none of the specified features. We had given excessive weight to the Williamsburg location because our friends Isaac and Judy Esler lived there and had recommended it. There was no logical reason why a (then) forty-year-old professor of genetics and a thirty-year-old postgraduate medical student would be suited to the same neighbourhood as a fifty-four-year-old psychiatrist and a fifty-two-year-old potter who had acquired their dwelling before prices escalated. The rent was high and the apartment had a number of faults that the management was reluctant to rectify. Currently the air conditioning was failing to compensate for the exterior temperature of thirty-four degrees Celsius, which was within the expected range for Brooklyn in late June.

  The reduction in room numbers, combined with marriage, meant I had been thrown into closer sustained proximity with another human being than ever before. Rosie’s physical presence was a hugely positive outcome of the Wife Project, but after ten months and ten days of marriage I was still adapting to being a component of a couple. I sometimes spent longer in the bathroom than was strictly necessary.

  I checked the date on my phone—definitely Friday, 21 June. This was a better outcome than the scenario in which my brain had developed a fault that caused it to identify days incorrectly. But it confirmed a violation of the alcohol protocol.

  My reflections were interrupted by Rosie emerging from the bedroom wearing only a towel. This was my favourite costume, assuming ‘no costume’ did not qualify as a costume. Once again, I was struck by her extraordinary beauty and inexplicable decision to select me as her partner. And, as always, that thought was followed by an unwanted emotion: an intense moment of fear that she would one day realise her error.

  ‘What’s cooking?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. Cooking has not commenced. I’m in the ingredient-assembly phase.’

  She laughed, in the tone that indicated I had misinterpreted her question. Of course, the question would not have been required at all had the Standardised Meal System been in place. I provided the information that I guessed Rosie was seeking.

  ‘Sustainable scallops with a mirepoix of carrots, celeriac, shallots and bell peppers and a sesame oil dressing. The recommended accompanying beverage is pinot gris.’

  ‘Do you need me to do anything?’

  ‘We all need to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow we go to Navarone.’

  The content of the Gregory Peck line was irrelevant. The effect came entirely from the delivery and the impression it conveyed of leadership and confidence in the preparation of sautéed scallops.

  ‘And what if I can’t sleep, Captain?’ said Rosie. She smiled and disappeared into the bathroom. I did not raise the towel-location issue: I had long ago accepted that hers would be stored randomly in the bathroom or bedroom, effectively occupying two spaces.

  Our preferences for order are at different ends of the scale. When we moved from Australia to New York, Rosie packed three maximum-size suitcases. The quantity of clothes alone was incredible. My own personal items fitted into two carry-on bags. I took advantage of the move to upgrade my living equipment and gave my stereo and desktop computer to my brother Trevor, returned the bed, linen and kitchen utensils to the family home in Shepparton, and sold my bike.

  In contrast, Rosie added to her vast collection of possessions by purchasing decorative objects within weeks of our arrival. The result was evident in the chaotic condition of our apartment: pot plants, surplus chairs and an impractical wine rack.

  It was not merely the quantity of items: there was also a problem of organisation. The refrigerator was crowded with half-empty containers of bread toppings, dips and decaying dairy products. Rosie had even suggested sourcing a second refrigerator from my friend Dave. One fridge each! Never had the advantages of the Standardised Meal System, with its fully specified meal for each day of the week, standard shopping list and optimised inventory, been so obvious.

  There was exactly one exception to Rosie’s disorganised approach. That exception was a variable. By default it was her medical studies, but currently it was her PhD thesis on environmental risks for the early onset of bipolar disorder. She had been granted advanced status in the Columbia MD program on the proviso that her thesis would be completed during the summer vacation. The deadline was now only two months and five days away.

  ‘How can you be so organised at one thing and so disorganised at everything else?’ I’d asked Rosie, following her installation of the incorrect driver for her printer.

  ‘It’s because I’m concentrating on my thesis, I don’t worry about other stuff. Nobody asks if Freud checked the use-by date on the milk.’

  ‘They didn’t have use-by dates in the early twentieth century.’

  It was incredible that two such dissimilar people had become a successful couple.

  2

  The Orange Juice Problem occurred at the end of an already-disrupted week. Another occupant of our apartment complex had destroyed both of my ‘respectable’ shirts by piggybacking on our washing load in the shared laundry facilities. I understood his desire for efficiency, but an item of his clothing had dyed our light-coloured washing a permanent and uneven shade of purple.

  From my perspective there was no problem: I was established as a visiting professor in the Columbia medical school and no longer needed to worry about ‘creating a good first impression’. Nor could I imagine being refused service in a restaurant because of the colour of my shirt. Rosie’s outer clothing, which was largely black, had not been affected. The problem was restricted to her underwear.

  I argued that I had no objection to the new shade and that no one else should be seeing her undressed, except perhaps a doctor, whose professionalism should prevent him or her from being concerned with aesthetics. But Rosie had already tried to discuss the problem with Jerome, the neighbour whom she had identified as the offender, to prevent a recurrence. This seemed a reasonable course of action, but Jerome had told Rosie to go screw herself.

  I was not surprised that she had encountered resistance. Rosie habitually took a direct approach to communication. In speaking to me, it was effective, indeed necessary, but others frequently interpreted her directness as confrontational. Jerome did not convey an impression of wanting to explore win-win solutions.

  Now Rosie wanted me to ‘stand up to him’ and demonstrate that we ‘wouldn’t be pushed around’. This was exactly the sort of behaviour that I instruct my martial-arts students to avoid. If both parties have the goal of establishing dominance and hence apply the algorithm of �
�respond with greater force’, the ultimate result will be the disablement or death of one party. Over laundry.

  But the laundry situation was minor in the context of the week as a whole. Because there had been a disaster.

  I am often accused of overusing that word, but any reasonable person would accept that it was an appropriate term to describe the failure of my closest friends’ marriage, involving two dependent children. Gene and Claudia were in Australia, but the situation was about to cause further disruption to my schedule.

  Gene and I had conversed over a Skype link, and the communication quality had been poor. Gene may also have been drunk. He seemed reluctant to divulge the details, probably because:

  1. People are generally unwilling to talk openly about sexual activity involving themselves.

  2. He had behaved extremely stupidly.

  After promising Claudia that he would abandon his project to have sex with a woman from each country of the world, he had failed to honour his commitment. The violation had occurred at a conference in Göteborg, Sweden.

  ‘Don, show a bit of compassion,’ he said. ‘What were the odds of her living in Melbourne? She was Icelandic.’

  I pointed out that I was Australian and living in the United States. Simple disproof by counter-example of Gene’s ludicrous proposition that people remain in their own countries.

  ‘Okay, but Melbourne. And knowing Claudia. What are the odds of that?’

  ‘Difficult to calculate.’ I pointed out that Gene should have asked this question before adding to his tally of nationalities. If he wanted a reasonable estimate of the probability, I would need information about migration patterns and the size of Claudia’s social and professional network.

  There was another factor. ‘In calculating the risk, I need to know how many women you’ve seduced since you agreed not to. Obviously the risk increases proportionately.’