illustrious history. Francis Ford Coppola! Carol Burnett! Lloyd Bridges! Jim Morrison! My peeps!
After my first week of school, Dad called to check up on me.
âTell me the name of a fellow theater student whoâll be famous one day,â he challenged.
I didnât hesitate: âThatâs easy, Dad: Jack Black.â
âWell, thatâs an easy one to remember,â Dad responded, sounding excited.
Back in the dorms, whenever I was around Naimah, I tried, to the best of my ability, to âact like Iâd been there before,â just as Brad had always coached me.
Me? Verging on excited hysteria at all times? No sirree!
Naimah had turned out to be the coolest person Iâd ever met, and I didnât want to alienate her by revealing my true personality. She was so cool, in fact, she was dating the biggest basketball star at UCLA. Once, I came home to the suite to find her and her boyfriend lounging on our no-frills dorm couch with Mike Tyson. Yeah, that Mike Tysonâthe famous heavyweight boxer who was, back then, still undefeated and terrifying. Naimah introduced me to âMikeâ and let me âchillâ with their party in our sitting room. (Ever since our complicit run-in with the law, Iâd earned a standing invitation to âhangâ with Naimah and her friendsâthat is, if I didnât talk too much.) I sat there, staring at Iron Mike Tyson, such an anomaly in my dorm room, and tried to look unimpressed and relaxed.
His hardscrabble youth was etched all over his face, even as he laughed and bantered with Naimahâs boyfriend. His laugh was unexpectedly high-pitched. Good God, the manâs hands were massive. Those hands could kill you with one punch, Iâd read somewhere.
Other than squeaking out a chipmunklike âhelloâ when Naimah briefly introduced me, I didnât utter a word the entire night.
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As the school year progressed, Naimah and I encountered a troubling situation: Roommate No. 5âs boyfriend had slept over every single night for the past two months. Why was this a problem, you wonder, since it was in the adjacent bedroom in my suite? Well, how about you try sharing one bathroom the size of a broom closet with five other girls, and then add one bonus guy on top of that? Iâm certain youâd agree in a flash that this was an intolerable situation. But we didnât want to create World War III. Our living quarters were close enough without our creating conflict between the roommates.
Naimah and I hatched our plan.
As luck would have it, Naimah worked in the UCLA admissions office, so she was able to swipe one sheet of official UCLA letterhead. And on that official UCLA letterhead, I weaved my magic, writing a letter that went a little something like this:
March 3, 1989
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To the residents of Hitch Suites, Room D-6:
It has come to our attention that one of you has been permanently housing a nonresident in your suite. Please consult your Hitch Suites Student Manual, section A.6, which explicitly prohibits nonresidents from staying overnight in any university housing complex.
We do not know which of you has committed this infraction, and we do not wish to know. If we receive any further information that a nonresident is residing in your rooms at any time, then all residents of Hitch Suites, Room D-6, shall
be evicted with no additional warning. In that event, no refunds will be provided.
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Sincerely,
Director of Student Housing, UCLA
I then made six copies of this missive and placed a copy in each roommateâs student mailbox, including Naimahâs and mine. In due course that day, each girl collected her mail and was surprised to receive the startling letter. Apparently, none of the girls had noticed that the letter was not signed, nor that the âDirector of Student Housingâ did not even identify him/herself. No one even remotely suspected that Naimah and I were the fraudulent