The Sonnet Lover

by Carol Goodman

  “Very handsome? With dark curly hair and a face like an Adonis?” Camille asks, her eyes sparkling.

  “Yes, that sounds like Orlando. Where did you see him?”

  “He came in here yesterday with a bald man in a white suit. They had their heads together, whispering like spies. You say he came all the way from Italy because of that pink-haired girl? I think I’ve seen the girl—” Camille purses her lips and narrows her eyes, assessing and dismissing Zoe Demarchis’s charms. “I don’t believe the young Adonis came all the way from Italy for her.”

  “Perhaps not,” I say, remembering, though, the way Orlando watched Zoe and Robin in the park yesterday. “He accused Robin of stealing something from him, but it had to do with the film and not Zoe. That man he was here with sounds like Leo Balthasar, a Hollywood producer. I think Orlando was trying to get credit for a script Robin had written.”

  “And where is the young Adonis now?”

  “He ran out of the party after Robin…after Robin jumped.” I don’t mention seeing Orlando in the park afterward. “I don’t know if the police were able to find him last night, but you might want to alert campus security if you see him in here again.”

  “Oh, yes, I’ll make a code word to tell Francesco and then I’ll keep him entertained until the police come.” The lines around Camille’s eyes crinkle with delight—she would have made a wonderful spy—but then her gaze shifts and she looks over my head to the bar, where Francesco is taking a long and complicated to-go order from a harried—and pretty—office worker.

  “I’ve taken up enough of your time, Camille, and I need to read the newspaper story before going to the emergency faculty meeting this morning.” I stand up with my coffee cup in my hand.

  “Va bene, bella, I’ll have Francesco get you a refill while I do this order for him. I’ll send over something sweet.” She kisses my cheek as she brushes past me on the way to the bar, where she plucks the office gofer’s to-go list out of her hand and sweeps behind the bar in one fluid motion.

  I take my coffee to a table in the back, in the corner between the fireplace and the window overlooking the cafe’s little garden. The green metal tables and potted plants Camille put out in yesterday’s sun are coated with a sheen of rainwater. I’m glad for the warmth of the fire. Yesterday’s glimpse of spring seems like a winter’s dream now. As I open the paper to Robin’s picture for the second time this morning, I wish it really were a dream, that winter’s long sleep had never been interrupted by the false promise of spring.

  “Witnesses said that Mr. Weiss, who had won first prize in Hudson College’s Invitational Film Show, was accused at the celebration following the show of plagiarizing parts of the film,” I read in the paper. “According to Hudson College president Mark Abrams, an argument over credit for the film may have precipitated Mr. Weiss’s suicide.”

  I’m surprised that Mark had ventured such a theory to the press without first interviewing Orlando Brunelli. Perhaps Orlando had gone to the police last night and given more information, but when I scan the rest of the article I find no mention of Orlando’s name. I put down the paper and notice that Francesco is standing behind me, a plate of biscotti in his hands, reading over my shoulder.

  “Camille told me to keep an eye out for that Italian boy who was here yesterday,” Francesco says, putting down the plate. “The one who was talking to the film producer.”

  “You knew he was a film producer?”

  “Well, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I kept hearing the words ‘script’ and ‘film deal,’ and since I’ve written a screenplay myself…”

  “Yes, of course,” I say encouragingly to Francesco, wondering whether there’s a waiter in this city who doesn’t have a screenplay or a head shot tucked under his apron, “your interest was piqued. What did you hear?”

  “Well the bald man kept saying that he needed something concrete in order to get financial backing, and the Italian boy said he wasn’t interested in making a deal, he just wanted what rightfully belonged to him, so the producer said, ‘Well, we can kill two birds with one stone,’ which the Italian boy didn’t seem to get because he said, all serious, ‘I do not think it will be necessary to kill anyone.’ ” Francesco lifts both eyebrows and approximates an Italian accent straight out of The Sopranos. “So the producer laughed—loudly—and said it was just a figure of speech.”

  “And what did Orlando say to that?”

  “He said something like…let me think…that he took words very seriously and that Robin had broken a promise. But I couldn’t quite make out what he meant. His English became worse the more emotional he got.”

  I’m about to ask another question when Camille calls Francesco’s name. Several customers are waiting in front of the bar for their coffee orders. Francesco rolls his eyes and resumes his place behind the bar. I stare out the window at the rain-soaked courtyard, trying to make sense out of the conversation Francesco overheard and the bits of what Orlando said to me yesterday. What exactly had Robin promised Orlando? A credit in the script he sent to Leo Balthasar? Why wouldn’t Robin just give it to him, then? What had Robin said about promises yesterday? I think of it the way I think of most lovers’ promises. That he speaks “an infinite deal of nothing.”

  An infinite deal of nothing. I can’t help but think that’s what it all adds up to. All the speculations as to why a young man of Robin’s promise would end his own life. Would he really have killed himself because of an accusation of plagiarism? But then I remember how upset Robin had gotten when I asked whether he wrote the poem at the end of the film himself. Was he trying to pass off a poem he wrote as a poem written by Shakespeare’s Dark Lady? Or had someone else written the poem—Orlando, perhaps?—and Robin stole it for his film? I’d love to have another look at the poem. If only I had a copy of it.

  Then I realize that I probably do. When I asked Robin for a copy, he’d said “Here” and pressed that envelope into my hands, which I assumed contained only my forgotten watch. But now I’d wager that he’d put the poem in there as well. And it’s still unopened in my evening purse.

  I get up from the table, leaving a generous tip for Francesco, and pull on my raincoat. It’s already a quarter to ten, but if I hurry I can still make it back to my apartment, retrieve Robin’s envelope, and not be too late for the meeting. What I’m hoping is that in addition to the poem there might be a note from Robin explaining where the poem came from—whether he wrote it himself or “borrowed” it from Orlando. That had to be what he wanted to talk to me about yesterday—it made sense after what happened freshman year. He’d made a promise to me then that he would never claim another writer’s words as his own. I’d like to think that he held his promise to me a little dearer than the lovers’ promises he’d dismissed in class.

  Outside of Cafe Lucrezia, I pause to put up my umbrella before heading south to my apartment. Before I can turn, though, a hand grips my elbow hard and pulls me in the opposite direction.

  “Good, I was hoping I’d run into you here. We can go into the meeting together. There’s power in numbers.”

  I look down at the diminutive figure at my side, but all I see is the top of her head bent forward against the rain. I’d know her, though, from the iron grip on my arm and the sheer force of her will propelling us along MacDougal Street. Chihiro Arita, my colleague in comparative literature, may be a good head shorter than me, and I hate to think how many pounds lighter, but she possesses twice my strength. She’s the one we call in the department to unstick file drawers and move the Xerox machine when something falls behind it. She’s also the one I call on when I need help navigating the internecine politics of the comp lit department. I’m not sure whether it’s her area of study—court poetry of the Heian era—or a childhood spent subverting her mother’s determination to raise her as a traditional Japanese girl in the suburbs of Boston that has given her the diplomatic skills of a courtier. She knows who’s had their last article rejected by the PMLA and who’s gotten a prest
igious grant. Two years ago when we collaborated on a paper for the MLA conference on courtesan poets (“The [Court]Ship of States: The Poetics of Prostitutes”), she predicted each question we would get and who would ask it down to the last syllable and inflection. I’m lucky to count her as a friend; she’s never steered me wrong. Still, I dig in my heels at the corner of MacDougal and West Fourth Street to lodge a protest.

  “I need to go back to my apartment first—” I begin, but Chihiro only shakes her head, her dark hair whisking the collar of her bright yellow raincoat like a broom, and digs her fingers deeper into my flesh as she propels me across the street.

  “I wouldn’t advise being late for this meeting, Rose. It will give people a chance to talk.”

  “Talk about what?” I ask.

  “About you and Robin Weiss.”

  “What do you mean? There was nothing going on between us. You know that, Chihiro.”

  “I know that,” Chihiro says stopping in front of the Graham brownstone and giving me a reproving look that lasts long enough for me to take in her outfit: under the shiny yellow raincoat she’s wearing an orange T-shirt and a green vinyl miniskirt. (“You have your schoolgirl look; I have mine,” she is wont to say about our differences in style.) “But you spent a lot of time with him during his freshman year. People saw you together in Cafe Lucrezia—”

  “I go there with lots of my students; lots of professors do—”

  Chihiro pinches my arm so hard I yelp. “Those other professors weren’t seen in a clinch with a drunk student moments before he plummeted to his death.”

  “Who said we were in a clinch? Where are you getting this stuff from, Chihiro? You weren’t even there.”

  “I have my sources. The fact that Robin was whispering sweet nothings in your ear moments before he jumped from the balcony is on half a dozen student forums this morning. Also that Robin was accused of plagiarism. The prevailing theory is that he’d signed a six-figure—some say seven—deal with a Hollywood producer for a script that he’d written, and that you ruined it by telling the producer that Robin plagiarized the script. Some people think you wrote it—”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “But there’s also a speculation thread that the script was written by a handsome and mysterious Israeli who was at the party and who disappeared afterward.”

  “Orlando Brunelli. And he’s Italian.”

  “Brunelli? Isn’t that the name of your junior-year-abroad heart-throb?”

  “Yes, Orlando’s his son.”

  Chihiro rolls her eyes. “Thank God the shippers didn’t get hold of that connection.” I’m about to ask what a shipper is, but then I remember from a previous conversation with Chihiro that it’s when bloggers posit romantic connections—relationships—between characters in TV shows. I’d thought it was a funny word for a romantic. “Now, about this plagiarism charge,” Chihiro continues. “Had Robin ever handed in a paper you suspected was plagiarized?”

  “Well, yes, there was an incident freshman year—”

  “That you reported to the dean?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Enh-enh.” Chihiro cuts me off with the same guttural sound she uses to keep her huge Weimaraner, Suzie, from eating something off the street. “After the plagiarism scandal last year, a campuswide directive was issued by the dean that all plagiarism incidents were to be reported immediately—”

  “Yes, but that was after the incident with Robin. There was nothing in the directive about retroactively reporting cases.”

  Chihiro frowns, considering my case. After a moment she delivers her verdict. “You may be technically correct, but I’m afraid it won’t look good. Especially with the rumor going around that Robin had a bit of a crush on you—” She stops, seeing the expression on my face. “And please stop looking like you’re going to cry. That’s the last thing we need.” She gives me a pat on the arm that I know is meant as reassuring but which I suspect will leave a bruise. Then she gives me a none-too-gentle push into the foyer of the Graham brownstone.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  I AM GLAD WHEN WE ENTER THE CONFERENCE ROOM THAT CHIHIRO MADE SURE I wasn’t late to the meeting. Not only does my appearance cut short several whispered confabs in the corners of the room (confirming her suspicion that people would have used my lateness as a chance to talk about me), but I also get to take my favorite seat: at the far end of the table next to my favorite monkey.

  I’ve never quite understood how the monkeys got here. The fresco on the ceiling of this room—originally the formal dining room—is modeled on the one in the formal dining room at La Civetta. It depicts a lemon-covered pergola in a garden. An assortment of birds—doves, sparrows, and long-tailed peacocks—roost on the wooden struts. In the original fresco, fat cupids also frolic amidst the greenery, their chubby feet dangling precariously from their perches. In one corner a plaster foot even protrudes from the frescoed surface. In this New York version of the fresco, though, there are monkeys instead of cupids: monkeys peering out between leafy branches and monkeys dangling by their tails from the wooden slats of the pergola. If you look carefully (and I have had ample opportunity through long and tedious budget reviews to examine every inch of the palatial room), you can even find a few monkeys that have climbed down from the pergola and found their way into the formal dining room to perform rude and unspeakable acts. There’s one painted in the china hutch defecating into a Meissen teacup and two copulating behind a Ming vase in the entryway. My favorite monkey, though, is the little one who peers out from behind the leafy fronds of an aspidistra, making an obscene gesture that I have seen only on the streets of Italy. I always sit right next to him. He gives me some relief for the sentiments I am unable to express in the course of departmental meetings.

  Chihiro sits down next to me, bringing us both coffees and a napkinful of Mint Milanos from the spread set up on the sideboard. “The director of the counseling center has your name on his agenda,” she says, spewing Milano crumbs in my direction. (When I once asked Chihiro not to talk while eating, she told me it kept people from being able to read her lips. “And it drove my mother crazy,” she’d added.) “You come right after ‘extended hours for counseling’ but before ‘dorm discussion groups.’”

  “Were there any other teachers’ names on the list?”

  “Not that I saw, but I only saw the first page.”

  “His agenda is more than one page?”

  Chihiro nods. She’s just crammed two cookies into her mouth, a quantity that prevents even her from answering. “Legal size pages,” she finally says. “I think we’re in for a long meeting. I better get more cookies.”

  While Chihiro is laying in supplies, Mark comes into the room. He catches my eye but doesn’t smile. Everything about him this morning bespeaks gravitas: the slightly rumpled gray suit, the dark circles under his eyes, and the faint suggestion of unshaven beard that shadows his face and brings out his cheekbones to advantage. He’s never looked handsomer. I imagine him working through the night, preparing press releases and e-mails. Poor guy, I’m thinking when the young blond lawyer comes in wearing the same suit she was wearing last night, only very slightly rumpled, her hair scraped back into an unlawyerly ponytail, the result, I’m sure, of not having access to her blow-dryer and flatiron this morning. She takes the seat next to Mark’s and opens a robin’s egg blue leather portfolio filled with legal-size sheets in the same shade of blue, which also matches her eyes. Of course he’d need the lawyer to advise him on such a sensitive case, I tell myself. There’s no need to be jealous. Still, I feel an uncomfortable sensation spreading in my chest and I find myself unable to take my eyes off this pretty blond woman.

  “Thank you all for coming in on a Saturday,” Mark begins, his eyes traveling around the table and seeming to greet each one of us separately. I’m not the only one who feels the spark of warmth when his eyes settle on mine, but I may be the only one who knows he’s taking roll. He told me once that when
he taught economics he never had to take attendance—he could tell in a lecture hall of a hundred students who was missing. His gaze does seem to stop a little longer when he reaches Gene Silverman, but that may be because Gene, slouched low in his seat and wearing opaque Ray-Bans, looks like he might be asleep. He straightens up when Mark’s gaze stays on him, but doesn’t remove the sunglasses.

  “I realize you all had family obligations and better places to be this morning,” Mark says, his voice a little hoarse, “but it was my hope that in the midst of our own blessings we could come together to make this tragedy more bearable to our larger family, as I have come to think of our college community. The death of a young person is a deep tear in the fabric of the community…and when that death is a suicide, the tear may spread even wider to those who may be wondering if they could have done anything to prevent that death.” I feel Mark’s gaze rest on me and know he’s thinking of my relationship with Robin. “It’s natural, too, for there to be anger at someone who has committed suicide. I’d like us, though, to start with a moment of silence to honor the memory of Robin Aaron Weiss and also to forgive him and to forgive ourselves for not being able to do more for him.”

  The low rumble of background noise, the shifting of papers and whispered conversations that accompany all such meetings, comes to an abrupt halt as we all bow our heads. The only sound in the room is the wet hiccups of the coffee urns. I lower my eyes to better think about Robin, but my gaze falls on the monkey in the aspidistra. Not now, I think, and close my eyes. I see the picture of Robin from the Times, standing at the end of the lemon walk, but he’s turned away from the camera and is facing the Tuscan countryside, a patchwork of green and umber and gold laid out like a cobblestone road to the future. Had he, as I had, felt that a piece of himself would always remain there? Had he felt, as I once had, that he’d left the best part of himself behind and despaired?