Sample Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10
Heather

In my freshman year at UC Berkeley, I had a second love. Like with Anna, my second love went unrequited. I’ll never forget the first thing this other woman said to me.

“My boyfriend dropped me off this morning,” said Miss Heather Cecchettini. I met her while walking down Durant Avenue in Berkeley to band practice early in the fall of 1989. She was a beautiful young woman with short wave blond hair. Her light skin seemed to glow. She had a great smile and beautiful blue eyes.

Heather played the piccolo, a small flute, while I played the trombone. We both lived in Unit I, one of the three so-called units, which consisted of four high rise dormitory buildings. Heather lived in Deutsch Hall next to Cheney Hall, my dormitory, our freshman year in college. We both marched with the University of California Marching Band or Cal Band, as the band is more popularly known.

The most striking characteristic Heather possessed was her absolute love, devotion, and commitment to her then boyfriend, Shan Daroczi, who attended California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. The couple met in Placerville, California in the northern part of the state during their high school years. The two maintained a long distance relationship, and Heather was determined never to let any man, including me, get between her and her true love, Shan.

Heather loved the 1980s song, “Right Here Waiting,” by Richard Marx, a song about love that endures over long distance. Heather also liked to say the two words, “True love,” which she quoted from the romantic-comedy movie, “The Princess Bride”. I was too selfish at the time to see how much she truly loved Shan. I just wanted Heather all for myself.

We often shared a meal in the different dining commons that UC Berkeley operated, especially the one at Unit I. Heather was very health conscious. She was vegetarian and loved to work out. I went out with her once. Between semesters our freshman year, Heather and I went to San Francisco to visit Steinhardt Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. As a boy, I had enjoyed keeping aquariums, and I always wanted to see Steinhardt Aquarium. Heather made an excellent tour guide. We spent the whole day together that winter of 1990.

Of course, we went out as friends and nothing more. In my experience women just want to be friends, at least with me. Every girl or woman I knew was like Heather – unavailable. Such was the case all of my life. Still, I felt like one of Heather’s fill-in boyfriends. We went to the movies once to watch “Ghost”, starring Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg. Heather loved the movie since it was a romantic movie. It reminded her of her long distance boyfriend. In no way was I special to Heather. To her, I was just another guy.

That did not mean, she didn’t know how I felt about her. Perhaps, I made my feelings clear to her when I asked her to go to the Tellefsen Hall Fall Formal of 1990 with me. Starting our sophomore year, I lived in Tellefsen Hall (TH), a fraternity style house for men of the Cal Band. Today, TH houses men and women of the Cal Band, but the same community spirit lives there.

“Of course, we’d go as friends,” I said to Heather one night after band practice. She just said she’d think about it and ask her boyfriend for his approval. I don’t know what possessed me to ask out Heather on a real romantic date. After all, she was taken. Yet, I can honestly say years later that I loved Heather. I loved her, even when she didn’t love me. Such is unrequited love.

Heather didn’t surprise me when she turned down my invitation to the TH Fall Formal. She rejected me by the bridge to Tellefsen Hall over a fork of Strawberry Creek at night. We continued our friendship for a long time. One year, though, I decided to be a jerk and ignore Heather. I pretended she didn’t exist even when she spoke to me. I tried to justify my behavior on the grounds I needed to stop the feelings I had for Heather. Nevertheless, I made Heather angry.

There was no way I could compete with her boyfriend. Early in our friendship, Heather had made it clear to me she intended to marry Shan. I kept pretending she didn’t exist for a year. Then in our senior year at UC Berkeley, I apologized to her at the Fall Training Program (FTP). At FTP, the Cal Band trained new members and allowed returning members to review their marching and music fundamentals. I saw Heather sitting by herself on a lawn and just said, “I’m sorry Heather. Can we be friends again?”

Of course, Heather was not so willing to take me back as a friend immediately. I had not spoken to her in almost a year, and yet I expected her to forgive me? Healing took time. Our friendship was not the way it was before my ignore Heather phase. She was a little distant and less trusting of me. Finally, before graduation from UC Berkeley in 1993, Heather didn’t surprise me when she told everyone in the Cal Band that she and Shan were engaged to be married.