The Rosie Project Read Online Free Page A

diary,” he said.
    The Beautiful Helena had presumably departed for the day, and I was again able to access Gene’s diary. I amended my ownschedule to accommodate the appointment. From now on, the Wife Project would have maximum priority.
    I waited until exactly 7:30 a.m. the next day before knocking on Gene and Claudia’s door. It had been necessary to shift my jog to the market for dinner purchases back to 5:45 a.m., which in turn had meant going to bed earlier the previous night, with a flow-on effect to a number of scheduled tasks.
    I heard sounds of surprise through the door before their daughter Eugenie opened it. Eugenie was, as always, pleased to see me, and requested that I hoist her onto my shoulders and jump all the way to the kitchen. It was great fun. It occurred to me that I might be able to include Eugenie and her half brother Carl as my friends, making a total of four.
    Gene and Claudia were eating breakfast and told me that they had not been expecting me. I advised Gene to put his diary online: he could remain up-to-date and I would avoid unpleasant encounters with The Beautiful Helena. He was not enthusiastic.
    I had missed breakfast, so I took a tub of yogurt from the refrigerator. Sweetened! No wonder Gene is overweight. Claudia is not yet overweight, but I had noticed some increase. I pointed out the problem and identified the yogurt as the possible culprit.
    Claudia asked whether I had enjoyed the Asperger’s lecture. She was under the impression that Gene had delivered the lecture and I had merely attended. I corrected her mistake and told her I had found the subject fascinating.
    “Did the symptoms remind you of anyone?” she asked.
    They certainly did. They were an almost perfect description of Laszlo Hevesi in the Physics Department. I was about to relate the famous story of Laszlo and the pajamas when Gene’s son, Carl, who is sixteen, arrived in his school uniform. He walked towardthe refrigerator, as if to open it, then suddenly spun around and threw a full-blooded punch at my head. I caught the punch and pushed him gently but firmly to the floor, so he could see that I was achieving the result with leverage rather than strength. This is a game we always play, but he had not noticed the yogurt, which was now on our clothes.
    “Stay still,” said Claudia. “I’ll get a cloth.”
    A cloth was not going to clean my shirt properly. Laundering a shirt requires a machine, detergent, fabric softener, and considerable time.
    “I’ll borrow one of Gene’s,” I said, and headed to their bedroom.
    When I returned, wearing an uncomfortably large white shirt with a decorative frill in the front, I tried to introduce the Wife Project, but Claudia was engaged in child-related activities. This was becoming frustrating. I booked dinner for Saturday night and asked them not to schedule any other conversation topics.
    The delay was actually opportune, as it enabled me to undertake some research on questionnaire design, draw up a list of desirable attributes, and produce a draft pro forma survey. All this, of course, had to be arranged around my teaching and research commitments and an appointment with the Dean.
    On Friday morning we had yet another unpleasant interaction as a result of my reporting an honors-year student for academic dishonesty. I had already caught Kevin Yu cheating once. Then, marking his most recent assignment, I had recognized a sentence from another student’s work of three years earlier.
    Some investigation established that the past student was now Kevin’s private tutor and had written at least part of his essay for him. This had all happened some weeks ago. I had reported thematter and expected the disciplinary process to take its course. Apparently it was more complicated than this.
    “The situation with Kevin is a little awkward,” said the Dean. We were in her corporate-style office and she was wearing her corporate-style costume of matching dark-blue skirt and jacket,