Chapter 24

Thanks to carefully timed use of sleeping pills, I woke withoutany feeling of disorientation, at 7.06 a.m.
Rosie had fallen asleep in the train on the way to the hotel. Ihad decided not to tell her immediately about the basementencounter, nor mention what I had observed on the sideboard.
It was a large photo of Judy and Isaac’s wedding. Standingbeside Isaac, dressed in the formal clothes required of a bestman, was Geoffrey Case, who had only three hundred andseventy days to live. He was smiling.
I was still processing the implications myself, and Rosie wouldprobably have an emotional response that could spoil the NewYork experience. She was impressed that I had collected theDNA, and even more impressed that I had acted sounobtrusively when I picked up the dishes to assist.
‘You’re in danger of learning some social skills.’
The hotel was perfectly comfortable. After we checked in, Rosiesaid she had been worried that I would expect her to share aroom in196/290exchange for paying for her trip to New York. Like aprostitute! I was highly insulted. She seemed pleased with myreaction.
I had an excellent workout at the hotel gym, and returned tofind the message light blinking. Rosie.
‘Where were you?’ she said.
‘In the gym. Exercise is critical in reducing the effects of jetlag. Also sunlight. I’ve planned to walk twenty-nine blocks insunlight.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something? Today is my day. Andtomorrow. I own you until midnight Monday. Now get yourbutt down here. I’m hanging out for breakfast.’
‘In my gym clothes?’
‘No, Don, not in your gym clothes. Shower, dress. You haveten minutes.’
‘I always have my breakfast before I shower.’
‘How old are you?’ said Rosie, aggressively. She didn’t wait forthe answer. ‘You’re like an old man – I always have mybreakfast before I shower, don’t sit in my chair, that’s where Isit … Do not fuck with me, Don Tillman.’ She said the lastwords quite slowly. I decided it was best not to fuck with her.
By midnight tomorrow it would be over. In the interim, I wouldadopt the dentist mindset.
It seemed I was in for a root-canal filling. I arrived downstairsand Rosie was immediately critical.
‘How long have you had that shirt?’
‘Fourteen years,’ I said. ‘It dries very quickly. Perfect fortravelling.’
In fact it was a specialised walking shirt, though fabrictechnology had progressed significantly since it was made.
‘Good,’ said Rosie. ‘It doesn’t owe you anything. Upstairs. Othershirt.’
‘It’s wet.’
‘I mean Claudia’s shirt. And the jeans while you’re at it. I’mnot walking around New York with a bum.’
197/290When I came down for the second attempt at breakfast, Rosiesmiled. ‘You know, you’re not such a bad-looking guyunderneath.’ She stopped and looked at me. ‘Don, you’re notenjoying this, are you?
You’d rather be by yourself in the museum, right?’ She wasextremely perceptive. ‘I get that. But you’ve done all thesethings for me, you’ve brought me to New York, and, by theway, I haven’t finished spending your money yet. So I want todo something for you.’
I could have argued that her wanting to do something for memeant she was ultimately acting in her own interests, but itmight provoke more of the ‘don’t fuck with me’ behaviour.
‘You’re in a different place, you’re in different clothes. Whenthe me-dieval pilgrims used to arrive at Santiago after walkinghundreds of kilometres they burned their clothes to symbolisethat they’d changed.
I’m not asking you to burn your clothes – yet. Put them onagain on Tuesday. Just be open to something different. Let meshow you my world for a couple of days. Starting withbreakfast. We’re in the city with the best breakfasts in theworld.’
She must have seen that I was resisting.
‘Hey, you schedule your time so you don’t waste it, right?’
‘Correct.’
‘So, you’ve committed to two days with me. If you shutyourself down, you’re wasting two days of your life thatsomeone is trying to make exciting and productive and fun foryou. I’m going to –’ She stopped. ‘I left the guidebook in myroom. When I come down, we’re going to breakfast.’ Sheturned and walked to the elevators.
I was disturbed by Rosie’s logic. I had always justified myschedule in terms of efficiency. But was my allegiance toefficiency or was it to the schedule itself? Was I really like myfather, who had insisted on sitting in the same chair everynight? I had never mentioned this to Rosie. I had my ownspecial chair too.
198/290There was another argument that she had not presented,because she could not have known it. In the last eight weeks Ihad experienced two of the three best times of my adult life,assuming all visits to the Museum of Natural History weretreated as one event. They had both been with Rosie. Wasthere a correlation? It was critical to find out.
By the time Rosie came back I had performed a brain reboot,an exercise requiring a considerable effort of will. But I wasnow configured for adaptability.
‘So?’ she said.
‘So, how do we find the world’s best breakfast?’
We found the World’s Best Breakfast round the corner. It mayhave been the unhealthiest breakfast I had ever eaten, but Iwould not put on significant weight, nor lose fitness, brainacuity or martial-arts skills if I neglected them for two days.
This was the mode in which my brain was now operating.
‘I can’t believe you ate all that,’ said Rosie.
‘It tasted so good.’
‘No lunch. Late dinner,’ she said.
‘We can eat any time.’
Our server approached the table. Rosie indicated the emptycoffee cups. ‘They were great. I think we could both manageanother.’
‘Huh?’ said the server. It was obvious that she hadn’tunderstood Rosie. It was also obvious that Rosie had very poortaste in coffee – or she had done as I had and ignored thelabel ‘coffee’ and was enjoying it as an entirely new beverage.
The technique was working brilliantly.
‘One regular coffee with cream and one regular coffee withoutcream… please,’ I said.
‘Sure.’
This was a town where people talked straight. My kind oftown. I was enjoying speaking American: cream instead of milk,elevator199/290instead of lift, check instead of bill. I had memorised a list ofdifferences between American and Australian usage prior to myfirst trip to the US, and had been surprised at how quickly mybrain was able to switch into using them automatically.
We walked uptown. Rosie was looking at a guidebook calledNot for Tourists, which seemed a very poor choice.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘We’re not going anywhere. We’re there.’
We were outside a clothing store. Rosie asked if it was okay togo inside.
‘You don’t have to ask,’ I said. ‘You’re in control.’
‘I do about shops. It’s a girl thing. I was going to say, “Isuppose you’ve been on Fifth Avenue before”, but I don’tsuppose anything with you.’
The situation was symmetrical. I knew not to suppose anythingabout Rosie, or I would have been surprised by her describingherself as a ‘girl’, a term that I understood to be unacceptableto feminists when referring to adult women.
Rosie was becoming remarkably perceptive about me. I hadnever been beyond the conference centres and the museum,but with my new mind configuration, I was finding everythingfascinating. A whole shop for cigars. The prices of jewellery.
The Flatiron Building. The sex museum. Rosie looked at thelast of these, and chose not to go in. This was probably agood decision – it might be fascinating, but the risk of a fauxpas would be very high.
‘Do you want to buy anything?’ said Rosie.
‘No.’
A few minutes later, a thought occurred to me. ‘Is theresomewhere that sells men’s shirts?’
Rosie laughed. ‘On Fifth Avenue, New York City. Maybe we’llget lucky.’ I detected sarcasm, but in a friendly way. We founda new shirt200/290of the same genre as the Claudia shirt at a huge store calledBlooming-dale’s, which was not, in fact, on Fifth Avenue. Wecould not choose between two candidate shirts and boughtboth. My wardrobe would be overflowing!
We arrived at Central Park.
‘We’re skipping lunch, but I could handle an ice-cream,’ saidRosie.
There was a vendor in the park, and he was serving bothcones and prefabricated confections.
I was filled with an irrational sense of dread. I identified itimmediately. But I had to know. ‘Is the flavour important?’
‘Something with peanuts. We’re in the States.’
‘All ice-creams taste the same.’
‘Bullshit.’
I explained about tastebuds.
‘Wanna bet?’ said Rosie. ‘If I can tell the difference betweenpeanut and vanilla, two tickets to Spiderman. On Broadway.
Tonight.’
‘The textures will be different. Because of the peanuts.’
‘Any two. Your choice.’
I ordered an apricot and a mango. ‘Close your eyes,’ I said. Itwasn’t really necessary: the colours were almost identical, but Ididn’t want her to see me tossing a coin to decide which oneto show her. I was concerned that with her psychological skillsshe might guess my sequence.
I tossed the coin and gave her an ice-cream.
‘Mango,’ guessed Rosie, correctly. Toss, heads again. ‘Mangoagain.’
She picked the mango correctly three times, then the apricot,then the apricot again. The chances of her achieving this resultrandomly were one in thirty-two. I could be ninety-seven percent confident she was able to differentiate. Incredible.
‘So, Spiderman tonight?’
‘No. You got one wrong.’
201/290Rosie looked at me, very carefully, then burst out laughing.
‘You’re bullshitting me, aren’t you? I can’t believe it, you’remaking jokes.’
She gave me an ice-cream. ‘Since you don’t care, you canhave the apricot.’
I looked at it. What to say? She had been licking it.
Once again she read my mind. ‘How are you going to kiss agirl if you won’t share her ice-cream?’
For several minutes, I was suffused with an irrational feeling ofenormous pleasure, basking in the success of my joke, andparsing the sentence about the kiss: Kiss a girl, share herice-cream – it was third-person, but surely not unrelated to thegirl who was sharing her ice-cream right now with Don Tillmanin his new shirt and jeans as we walked among the trees inCentral Park, New York City, on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
I needed the hundred and fourteen minutes of time-out backat the hotel, although I had enjoyed the day immensely.
Shower, email, relaxation exercises combined with stretches. Iemailed Gene, copying in Claudia, with a summary of ouractivities.
Rosie was three minutes late for our 7.00 p.m. foyer meeting. Iwas about to call her room when she arrived wearing clothespurchased that day – white jeans and a blue t-shirt thing –and the jacket she had worn the previous evening. Iremembered a Gene-ism, something I had heard him say toClaudia. ‘You’re looking very elegant,’ I said. It was a riskystatement, but her reaction appeared to be positive. She didlook very elegant.
We had cocktails at a bar with the World’s Longest CocktailList, including many I did not know, and we saw Spiderman.
Afterwards, Rosie felt the story was a bit predictable but I wasoverwhelmed by everything, in a hugely positive way. I had notbeen to the theatre202/290since I was a child. I could have ignored the story and focusedentirely on the mechanics of the flying. It was just incredible.
We caught the subway back to the Lower East Side. I washungry, but did not want to break the rules by suggesting thatwe eat. But Rosie had this planned too. A 10.00 p.m. bookingat a restaurant called Momofuku Ko. We were on Rosie timeagain.
‘This is my present to you for bringing me here,’ she said.
We sat at a counter for twelve where we could watch thechefs at work. There were few of the annoying formalities thatmake restaurants so stressful.
‘Any preferences, allergies, dislikes?’ asked the chef.
‘I’m vegetarian, but I eat sustainable seafood,’ said Rosie. ‘Heeats everything – and I mean everything.’
I lost count of the courses. I had sweetbreads and foie gras(first time!) and sea urchin roe. We drank a bottle of roséChampagne. I talked to the chefs and they told me what theywere doing. I ate the best food I had ever eaten. And I didnot need to wear a jacket in order to eat. In fact, the mansitting beside me was wearing a costume that would have beenextreme at the Marquess of Queensbury, including multiplefacial piercings. He heard me speaking to the chef and askedme where I was from. I told him.
‘How are you finding New York?’
I told him I was finding it highly interesting, and explained howwe had spent our day. But I was conscious that, under thestress of talking to a stranger, my manner had changed – or,to be more precise, reverted – to my usual style. During theday, with Rosie, I had felt relaxed, and had spoken and acteddifferently, and this continued in my conversation with the chef,which was essentially a professional exchange of information.
But informal social interaction with another person hadtriggered my regular behaviour. And my regular behaviour and203/290speaking style is, I am well aware, considered odd by others.
The man with the piercings must have noticed.
‘You know what I like about New York?’ he said. ‘There areso many weird people that nobody takes any notice. We alljust fit right in.’
‘How was it?’ said Rosie as we walked back to the hotel.
‘The best day of my adult life,’ I said. Rosie seemed so happywith my response that I decided not to finish the sentence:
‘excluding the Museum of Natural History.’
‘Sleep in,’ she said. ‘9.30 here and we’ll do the brunch thingagain.
Okay?’
It would have been totally irrational to argue.