Chapter Twenty-Four
Faulkner
Senior year of college: no dating allowed. It was what I needed in order to focus on my senior thesis and prepare to graduate.
Even though I was super busy, I felt happy and free: I had the best roommates I could ask for; I no longer used food to stuff down my emotions; I could sing again; I could hear God’s voice again, although I listened with discernment; my broken heart was completely healed; and all the taunting demons were gone.
It was November of my senior year at Azusa Pacific. I arrived at Petrillo’s Pizza a little late. I walked into the dimly lit room and heard the boisterous laughter of my friends who were in the back of the restaurant.
“I’m with Katelyn,” I told the hostess, waving as I passed by, and I headed toward the large table in the back.
“Hi Miriam!” Katelyn called when she saw me, and she jumped up to give me a big hug.
“Happy Birthday!” I said, giving her a squeeze. “Wow, look at all these people! Where should I sit?”
“Right here,” a guy’s voice said. It was Charlie Castagnoli, a junior, and he was pointing to the seat next to him.
“We saved you a seat,” said his friend Jack.
Charlie stood up and bowed low to the ground, motioning for me to sit. He was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and he had short, messy brown hair and a scruffy face.
Charlie and I had first met at the beginning of my sophomore year. I was working in Marshburn Library on campus. He strolled in like he didn’t have a care in the world, smiling like a little boy on his fifth birthday, ready to open his presents. His handsome smile and Roman nose pleased me so much that I thought to myself, “What if I married that guy?” and then pushed the idea out of my head as soon as he walked up to the circulation desk. He was 2 inches shorter than me, and his front teeth were strange; they were too large for his mouth.
He leaned on the desk and cleared his throat.
“Excuse me. Hello. Hel-lo. I’m looking for Faulkner.”
“Oh, are you in the Faulkner-Hemingway class?” I asked, thinking he might be a new English major that I could recruit for the English Honor Society.
“No. I just want to read him,” he said.
“Really? You want to read—just because?”
“Yes, well, I read some of his work few years ago, and I wanted to read more. You look surprised. Is that a strange request?”
“No one comes in here looking for something to read for their own pleasure. Do you go to school here?”
“I’m a freshman,” he said.
“Wow, a freshman guy looking for Faulkner. Well, here is the stack of books for the Faulkner class. You are welcome to look through them.”
“Thank you very much.”
He stood at the desk for a while, looking through the books. Then he said, “Thank you” and started to leave.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes!” he said as he walked out the door, one fist raised in the air.
A week later, I saw him riding his skateboard in front of the freshman dorms. “Hi, Faulkner!” I called.
“Hello Library Girl,” he said as he rolled across the sidewalk, knocking over a freshman.
I put my textbook up to my face so I could laugh. He leaned over and helped the kid up.
Over the course of the semester, Charlie and I had a few brief conversations, always addressing each other by our nicknames: “Faulkner” and “Library Girl.” However, he didn’t come back to campus second semester. I asked Tyler, who was his RA, why Charlie left the school.
“Charlie was not an academic guy. He went up to Montana with his band to write some music.”
I felt a pang of disappointment. “Oh, is that where he is from? Montana?”
“No. He’s from California. Don’t ask me why he chose Montana. That guy was crazy—in a good way. Our dorm just isn’t the same without him.”
The following semester, to everyone’s delight, he was back. His hair was grown into long dark brown curls, and he had a beard. His band started playing small gigs in the local coffee shops. My roommate Jocelyn invited me to one of his shows.
“This guy is great,” she said as we walked into Sweet Daddy’s. “Not only does he have a great voice, but he is so funny! He is the funniest person I know!”
Charlie and his two friends, Luke and George, were already playing music in the corner of the shop. Their sound was really smooth, calm, and sexy, with two guitars, a djembe, and vocals. I sat in the back with Jocelyn, sipping my mocha out of a large white mug.
Charlie’s voice was pure, rich, and confident. It reminded me of a cello solo I once overheard in the music building when I was in the choir. I was drawn to his voice as much as I was drawn to his smile. But I was not thinking about him romantically; I was admiring him as a friend and as a musician.
The trio started a new song, asking members of the audience to make up a sound to repeat over and over with the beat. Pretty soon 20 people were humming, zipping, clucking, and clapping along. Jocelyn and I were laughing, too embarrassed to join in.
“Come on, now, ladies!” Charlie called to us. “What’s your sound?”
Jocelyn started tapping the table, and I hid behind my purse.
At the end of the show, we walked over to Charlie as he was wrapping up the cords and microphones.
“Charlie, you guys are amazing!” Jocelyn said.
“Thanks, thanks for coming.” He stopped to give us hugs.
“When is your next show?” I asked.
“I’ll let you know.”
I never heard about his next show. It was a year later when we ran into each other at Petrillo’s, and he saved me a seat right between him and his best friend.
“How are you?” he asked. “Are you still working in the library?”
“No, I work for the paper now,” I said. “I’m the copy editor for The Clause.”
“What classes are you taking? What are you doing after you graduate?”
“I’m actually leaving the country after I graduate,” I said. “I’m going to spend a year in Vancouver, BC, working with inner-city kids. Remember when Bart Campolo came to chapel and challenged us to take a year off of school and devote it to serving God? He said something like, Mormons dedicate two years to missions, and we should at least give one year? I really wanted to do something like that, so I applied for the Urban Promise internship. They called me this week and said I was accepted to the Vancouver summer program.”
“That’s awesome! What will you be doing there?” Charlie asked.
“I think I will be co-directing a summer day camp. But I’m not exactly sure what that means!”
His attention was pleasant. I noticed that Charlie was so … comfortable; it was like talking to someone I’d known since childhood.
I was talking so much that I only ate one piece of pizza. We were still talking as we followed the group out the door and into the parking lot. I gave the birthday girl a hug goodbye, and Charlie and I stood outside, deep in conversation about the Bible paper I had just finished. Charlie was fascinated that the professor gave me an A on the notoriously difficult assignment. My paper was on Matthew 13:44-52, the passage about the kingdom of heaven being like a treasure in a field or a valuable pearl.
“Tell me about the passage,” Charlie said.
“Oh my gosh, we will be here for hours.”
“That’s OK. My ride is already gone.”
“What?” I looked over to the street to see Jack driving away, honking goodbye.
“I guess I have to walk.”
“No, you can ride with me,” I assured him.
We climbed into my Jeep, and I drove him back to his apartment. We stayed in the car talking for a long time.
“My passage is about giving up everything you think you want in exchange for the kingdom of God, once you learn the value of it. The treasure hidden in the field; the pearl of great value; and the so
rting of the fish at the end of the age.”
“I remember when Bart Campolo spoke in chapel,” Charlie said. “I thought to myself, hey, I can start a prayer ministry right here. I should go door-to-door with my church group and pray for people—like my own version of Mission Year.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “I would never want to do that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“That idea intimidates me. I wouldn’t want to start it on my own. I just want to join a ministry that is already functioning.”
We argued for a minute.
“I think we are similar,” Charlie insisted.
“No,” I said. “I think we are very different.”
We ended the conversation on a good note, but I remember feeling strange, like I was sharing too much of myself with someone I hardly knew.
The next day I found a note on the front seat of my car, written on a dollar bill. “Hi. ♥ Charlie.” He had slipped it through the crack in the driver’s side window.
“Aw, Charlie—you’re the best!” I said out loud.
Katelyn and I found out that Charlie’s birthday was coming up, so we decided to make him a chocolate birthday cake. We baked and frosted it in my apartment, and wrote “Happy B-day Charlie” in M&Ms. I also wrote a long message in a card for him, telling him how much I appreciated his friendliness and encouragement. At the end I wrote, “I love you Charlie!” because, for some reason, I really did love him as a friend.
We knocked on his door.
“Surprise!” we yelled when Charlie opened the door.
“What do we have here? Chocolate?”
When I saw the smile on his face as he looked at the cake and read the card, I remembered the smile I admired when he first walked into Marshburn Library. I noticed that he had very twinkly dark brown eyes. And his teeth didn’t bother me as much because he had very nice lips.
His roommate, Jack, walked in the kitchen and saw the cake. “Another one?” he asked, laughing.
“What do you mean?”
“Look in the fridge,” he said. I opened it and saw two more birthday cakes.
“Oh, no! Who are those from?”
“Charlie has lots of girlfriends.”
Charlie smiled. “I like your cake the best, though. M&Ms are my favorite.”
When I gave him a hug goodbye, I towered over him in my high-heeled boots.