Ridiculous/Hilarious/Terrible/Cool (30 page)

EPILOGUE

Daniel Patton is not involved in student government at Penn, though he is friends with the freshman class president. He helped run his campaign.

Daniel has decided to major in communication/ commerce, with a minor in consumer psychology, and another minor in Africana studies. He's taking a class with the renowned Professor Michael Eric Dyson, which he's found especially illuminating. He tried out for an August Wilson play, and though he didn't get a part, he's helping with the show.

Daniel's thirteenth-floor dorm room looks over South Philly. His closet holds twenty pairs of shoes. He hasn't been dressing up in college as much as he did in high school, though. He took a class that made him conscious about branding. And, no cash flow means no new clothes. When Daniel wakes at 10:30 he throws on a T-shirt and some jeans.

Over homecoming weekend there was a fashion show. Daniel took that opportunity to dress up, putting on his gray suit, a crisp white shirt, white Lacoste sneakers. At the after-party, there was lots of dancing and Daniel drank a Long Island iced tea and woke up the next morning with the biggest hangover of his life. It was a fantastic evening.

Daniel has been strategizing about where he will be once he graduates, three years from now. He's on the board of the Black Wharton Undergraduate Association, and in that capacity has been planning the association's conference, meeting representatives of corporations that come through town, networking future opportunities.

Daniel is still open to being mayor of Chicago.

Emily Harris did not try out for the soccer team at Yale.

Her senior season at Payton had been so intense, the responsibility so weighty, she just needed a break from soccer. “Didn't want to have anything to do with it,” she says. College was a big adjustment for her. There were a couple of evenings in the fall she spent crying on the phone with her mother. It was hard being apart from family, hard starting over.

But she instantly felt more open and intimate with friends in college. They were intellectually surprising and inspiring, the kind of people she had hoped she'd meet when she decided to go to Yale.

Emily's top-floor suite has a view of the trees on Old Campus. It also has a huge red couch, her contribution. She's been enjoying her classes, though it was a bit of a surprise to realize she would have to work.

Emily has become friends with one girl on the women's soccer team, and has a crush on a guy on the men's team. She hasn't acted on it. “I wouldn't know what to do,” she says. Other students hook up, sometimes on her red couch. Emily would rather have a relationship.

Emily may still play club soccer at Yale. She says she's out of shape, but doesn't look it.

Over the summer she saw
Wicked
many more times. She won't admit how many. She got to know the show's lead, and was invited backstage. In the fall she went into New York, and through connections, met some Broadway producers. Emily still thinks about acquiring money and power. If she does, she would love to be a Broadway producer.

During the fall Emily wrote a small play, which she sent to her sisters for fun. Next semester she's taking a class in musical theory. She started composing a musical. She's already written one song, which is very pretty.

Maya Boudreau loves New York. She loves NYU. She loves her two roommates—one from Wisconsin, one from London by way of India. They're smart and caring, invested in each other's lives. She didn't expect leaving home to be so easy.

Maya loves her theater study class, her essay writing class, her African dance class, her movement class, her acting class in which she performed a monologue from Adam Rapp's
Stone Cold Dead Serious
about a girl who ran away from home.

Maya has found time to act in a few student films, and next year will audition for more. She's discovering a deeper attraction for film, and for writing. She's still a little obsessed with Wes Anderson.

In the fall Maya saw “Mr. Big” from
Sex in the City
walking around her neighborhood. He was really tall. She hasn't run into Jonathan Safran Foer, but wouldn't mind if she did.

Maya has been sort of seeing two guys. One plays piano, one plays saxophone. She and the saxophone player have been a couple on-and-off, and can't decide if they're friends, or more.

Ben, the high school boyfriend, also attends NYU. He lives in Maya's dorm, a few floors down. They don't talk much. He has a girlfriend, and a mustache.

Maya still has bangs.

She's been fidgeting in her sleep, which she knows because her smart and caring roommates filmed her while she slept and showed her the clip. Her hands were stroking the air, sort of like she was playing the harp. This cracks her up. Maya has developed another tic as well: an elephant seal-like bark that burbles up inside her. She can't help it. She says, “I hope it stops, because what if it doesn't?”

Every day feels like a wonder to Maya. Walking down Broadway on the way to the studio, the streets of the Village bustling around her, each moment filling with untold possibility. She thinks,
This is where I belong.

Diana Martinez is happy being away from home. The University of Illinois has the reputation as a big party school, but Diana hasn't gone to many parties. She parties when she's home in Chicago. Living in Urbana-Champaign is “more relaxful.”

Diana began the year in temporary housing. Then her roommates left and she had the suite to herself. She enjoys her classes. Her favorite is sociology. She's getting good grades. She's swimming. She often talks on the phone with Sandra, up at DePaul. Sometimes she texts Suki, down at Tulane. More than a few times her boyfriend has come down to visit.

Diana started going out with the boyfriend in the summer. He's a lifeguard friend's boyfriend's brother. He's twenty. He works at a warehouse in Chicago. He lives alone—his family has fallen apart—and seeing the toughness of his life opened Diana's eyes. It made her appreciate her own family, the fact that at least they're all together.

Diana's sisters are no longer working at the car wash. They work at the day-care center where Diana used to work. Her older brother isn't working, though he has a new baby with a different woman from the mother of his first child. The two women don't know about each other. Diana finds the drama frustrating.

Over the summer, Diana's father got his U.S. citizenship. Diana went with him to pick up his passport. She still translates correspondence when she's home, most recently some forms for her sisters, who want to open a day-care center in the house.

Diana is starting a new job in the admissions office of the business graduate school. A Latina woman in the department will be mentoring her.

Diana still has her nose stud.

Eventually she wants to go to law school. Her boyfriend wants her to transfer to the University of Illinois at Chicago, so she can be closer to him and to home. People have a way of pulling her back to Chicago. But Diana thinks she'll stay where she is in Urbana-Champaign. She says, “I like to finish what I start.”

Aisha Kamillah Shaikh has a loony roommate. The roommate didn't do laundry for the first months, building a pile of
clothes in the middle of their floor. Then the roommate insisted on placing her bed on top of Aisha's, and woke every morning by hitting her forehead into the ceiling. Then the roommate got the idea of buying an office-size water cooler for the room. Aisha's attitude was to let the roommate do these things, that eventually she'd learn.

Moving was easy for Aisha because she's moved so much. Despite the roommate, or because of the roommate, she likes Claremont. She especially enjoys her Chinese language class. She's not taking art classes, but has sent her mother some elaborately decorated cards.

In Pasadena it is hot during the day, and freezing at night. Aisha wears a red hoodie from the skateboard company Independent, a Palestinian
keffiyeh
around her neck that once was red and white but now has faded into a sort of peach. She almost never wears Pumas. She wears flip-flops now.

Aisha has made a few friends but doesn't love her classmates. She was surprised when some suitemates were critical of her fasting during Ramadan. She likes visiting her brother at Harvey Mudd. His friends are nerdy, but confident in their nerdiness. They've rigged their suite with televisions and an Xbox, and have started a business turning refrigerators into kegerators.

Aisha hasn't dated, though she was set up with a twenty-two -year-old French exchange student on a “screw your roommate” date. They had a nice evening, though much of what they said was lost in translation.

She enjoyed her trip to Pakistan over the summer. The cousin's wedding was strict and religious. No music, no dancing. Afterward the family flew to Islamabad and stayed in the mountains in a house on stilts. They rented a bus and drove on a twisty road and went goose-hunting. Aisha shot a balloon tied to a tree.