The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman

Mark isn’t being too rough on the boy, but then decide against it. All I need now is for Mark to think I’m trying to defend Bruno’s son. There have been enough jealous scenes for one night.
    Turning back toward the balcony, I see I’m wrong. Mara has worked her way around to this side of the balcony and found her husband with his arm around the nubile young Zoe. Since the doors are closed I can’t hear what she’s saying, but from her expression I can guess. Even from here I can see that her lips are white with rage. She’s backed Zoe, and Robin with her, against the edge of the balcony, where they both cower under her assault. The scene has its comical elements—Leo Balthasar, puffing on his cigar in the corner of the balcony, seems to find it amusing—but I’m uncomfortable with the students’ proximity to the railing.
    I look around to find Mark and see he’s waiting at the elevator with Orlando and the blond lawyer. As Mark leans closer to hear something she’s saying, Orlando suddenly bolts away from them. He crosses the room in surprisingly few long-legged strides, his black leather coat billowing out behind him and brushing against my leg as he passes me and opens the door to the balcony.
    “Shit,” I hear Mark say, close on his heels. I follow them to the balcony door, but it swings shut behind Mark and before I can open it the guard suddenly appears and blocks my way. “ Now you’re keeping people off the balcony?” I ask incredulously.
    “President Abrams said—” he begins, but I push by him and struggle with the heavy door. When it swings open I feel a warm gust of air on my face and hear the sound of someone screaming. It’s Mara, I see, who’s turned away from the balcony, clutching Gene as if she’s afraid the wind will sweep her away. Leo Balthasar is pulling Zoe away from the railing where Mark and Orlando are standing, looking down at the street below. Only when Mark steps back, one arm still around Orlando’s chest, do I really take in the fact that Robin is gone.

CHAPTER
FOUR
    T HE SCREAMS, HIGH-PITCHED AND ODDLY REGULAR, ALMOST LIKE CHANTING , infect the room with hysteria. A dozen or so people rush by me onto the balcony. I stay where I am: frozen. It still feels like I’m separated from what’s happening by a wall of glass and that if I stay very still, there will be an opportunity to undo what’s happened, and the last five minutes can be rewound and erased.
    It is not, I realize now, as if anything can be done for Robin. The crowd that rushes past me out onto the balcony might hope that there’s a ledge on the other side of the balcony railing or a protrusion in the building that could have caught him in his descent. That he’ll pop up from behind the railing smiling—the whole thing a joke, a staged finale to his film. But I am sure there’s nothing on the other side of the railing but a sheer drop to the pavement. I don’t have to see the expressions on the faces of the people who look over the edge, or hear the sirens al-ready moving toward us, to confirm what I know has happened to Robin.
    I search the knot of people clustered around the balcony door for Mark, but it’s Orlando who breaks through the crowd. I reach out a hand to stop him, but when he turns to me and I see his eyes—distended and bloodshot like a panicked horse’s—I let go of him. He says something in Italian—I’m almost sure it’s “Mi dispiace” —I’m sorry—and then he runs for the stairs. I turn, looking for Mark again, and see Zoe struggling to make her way into the room with Leo Balthasar close behind her, whispering something in her ear. I don’t know how she can hear anything with those screams, which seem to be getting louder—but then I see that’s only because their source is approaching me. It’s Mara, crumpled up against her husband’s side, weeping mascara-stained tears into his sport jacket and emitting those awful shrieks, as desperate in their repetition as