‘did i cause any embarrassment?’
rosie had been concerned that i might make inappropriatecomments during our tour of the world trade center site. ourguide, a former firefighter named frank, who had lost many ofhis colleagues in the attack, was incredibly interesting and iasked a number of technical questions that he answeredintelligently and, it seemed to me, enthusiastically.
‘you may have changed the tone a bit,’ she said. ‘you sort ofmoved the attention away from the emotional impact.’ so, ihad reduced the sadness. good.
monday was allocated to visiting popular tourist sights. we hadbreakfast at katz’s deli, where a scene for a film called whenharry met sally was shot. we went to the top of the empirestate building, famous as a location for an affair toremember. we visited moma and the met, which wereexcellent.
we were back at the hotel early – 4.32 p.m.
‘back here at 6.30,’ said rosie.
205/290‘what are we having for dinner?’
‘hot dogs. we’re going to the baseball.’
i never watch sport. ever. the reasons are obvious – orshould be to anyone who values their time. but myreconfigured mind, sustained by huge doses of positivereinforcement, accepted the proposition. i spent the nexthundred and eighteen minutes on the internet, learning aboutthe rules and the players.
on the subway, rosie had some news for me. before she leftmelbourne, she had sent an email to mary keneally, aresearcher working in her field at columbia university. she hadjust received a reply and mary could see her tomorrow. butshe wouldn’t be able to make it to the museum of naturalhistory. she could come wednesday, but would i be okay bymyself tomorrow? of course i would.
at yankee stadium we got beer and hot dogs. a man in acap, estimated age thirty-five, estimated bmi forty (i.e.
dangerously fat), sat beside me. he had three hot dogs! thesource of the obesity was obvious.
the game started, and i had to explain to rosie what washappening. it was fascinating to see how the rules worked in areal game.
every time there was an event on the field, fat baseball fanwould make an annotation in his book. there were runners onsecond and third when curtis granderson came to the plateand fat baseball fan spoke to me. ‘if he bats in both of theseguys he’ll be heading the league on rbi. what are the odds?’
i didn’t know what the odds were. all i could tell him was thatthey were somewhere between 9.9 and 27.2 per cent based onthe batting average and percentage of home runs listed in theprofile i had read. i had not had time to memorise thestatistics for doubles and triples.
fat baseball fan nevertheless seemed impressed and we begana very interesting conversation. he showed me how to markthe programme with symbols to represent the various events,and how the more206/290sophisticated statistics worked. i had no idea sport could be sointellectually stimulating.
rosie got more beer and hot dogs and fat baseball fanstarted to tell me about joe dimaggio’s ‘streak’ in 1941 whichhe claimed was a uniquely odds-defying achievement. i wasdoubtful, and the conversation was just getting interesting whenthe game ended, so he suggested we take the subway to a barin midtown. as rosie was in charge of the schedule, i askedfor her opinion, and she agreed.
the bar was noisy and there was more baseball playing on alarge television screen. some other men, who did not appear tohave previously met fat baseball fan, joined our discussion.
we drank a lot of beer, and talked about baseball statistics.
rosie sat on a stool with her drink and observed. it was latewhen fat baseball fan, whose actual name was dave, said hehad to go home. we exchanged email addresses and iconsidered that i had made a new friend.
walking back to the hotel, i realised that i had behaved instereotypical male fashion, drinking beer in a bar, watchingtelevision and talking about sport. it is generally known thatwomen have a negative attitude to such behaviour. i askedrosie if i had offended her.
‘not at all. i had fun watching you being a guy – fitting in.’
i told her that this was a highly unusual response from afeminist, but that it would make her a very attractive partnerto conventional men.
‘if i was interested in conventional men.’
it seemed a good opportunity to ask a question about rosie’spersonal life.
‘do you have a boyfriend?’ i hoped i had used an appropriateterm.
‘sure, i just haven’t unpacked him from my suitcase,’ she said,obviously making a joke. i laughed, then pointed out that shehadn’t actually answered my question.
207/290‘don,’ she said, ‘don’t you think that if i had a boyfriend youmight have heard about him by now?’
it seemed to me entirely possible that i would not have heardabout him. i had asked rosie very few personal questionsoutside the father project. i did not know any of her friends,except perhaps stefan who i had concluded was not herboyfriend. of course, it would have been traditional to bringany partner to the faculty ball, and not to offer me sexafterwards, but not everyone was bound by such conventions.
gene was the perfect example. it seemed entirely possible thatrosie had a boyfriend who did not like dancing or socialisingwith academics, was out of town at the time, or was in anopen relationship with her. she had no reason to tell me. inmy own life, i had rarely mentioned daphne or my sister togene and claudia or vice versa. they belonged to differentparts of my life. i explained this to rosie.
‘short answer, no,’ she said. we walked a bit further. ‘longanswer: you asked what i meant about being fucked-up by myfather. psychology 101 – our first relationship with a male iswith our fathers. it affects how we relate to men forever. so,lucky me, i get a choice of two.
phil, who’s fucked in the head, or my real father who walkedaway from me and my mother. and i get this choice wheni’m twelve years old and phil sits me down and has this “iwish your mother could be here to tell you” talk with me. youknow, just the standard stuff your dad tells you at twelve –i’m not your dad, your mum who died before you could knowher properly isn’t the perfect person you thought she was, andyou’re only here because of your mother being easy and iwish you weren’t so i could go off and have a life.’
‘he said that to you?’
‘not in those words. but that’s what he meant.’
i thought it highly unlikely that a twelve-year-old – even afemale future psychology student – could correctly deduce anadult male’s unspoken thoughts. sometimes it is better to beaware of one’s208/290incompetence in these matters, as i am, than to have a falsesense of expertise.
‘so, i don’t trust men. i don’t believe they’re what they saythey are.
i’m afraid they’re going to let me down. that’s my summaryfrom seven years of studying psychology.’
this seemed a very poor result for seven years of effort, but iassumed she was omitting the more general knowledgeprovided by the course.
‘you want to meet tomorrow evening?’ said rosie. ‘we can dowhatever you want to do.’
i had been thinking about my plans for the next day.
‘i know someone at columbia,’ i said. ‘maybe we could gothere together.’
‘what about the museum?’
‘i’ve already compressed four visits into two. i can compresstwo in-to one.’ there was no logic in this, but i had drunk alot of beer, and i just felt like going to columbia. go with theflow.
‘see you at eight – and don’t be late,’ said rosie. then shekissed me. it was not a passionate kiss; it was on the cheek,but it was disturbing. neither positive nor negative, justdisturbing.
i emailed david borenstein at columbia then skyped claudiaand told her about the day, omitting the kiss.
‘sounds like she’s made a big effort,’ said claudia.
this was obviously true. rosie had managed to select activitiesthat i would normally have avoided, but enjoyed immensely.
‘and you’re giving her the guided tour of the museum ofnatural history on wednesday?’
‘no, i’m going to look at the crustaceans and the antarcticflora and fauna.’
‘try again,’ said claudia.
