She knew she shouldn’t smoke, but she desperately, dreadfully needed a cigarette. She sat at the desk in her dorm room trying to concentrate on the book in front of her: Film Analysis by R. L. Rutsky and Jeffrey Geiger. Her mother had said she was crazy to think she could make a living working on “those Hollywood movies,” as she called them, but her father had glowed with pride when she was accepted into NYU as a film major. “She has a talent, Loretta—you’ll see,” he had said to his wife, squeezing her to him, her round little body plump as a ripe peach. “You should be glad she’s staying close to home,” he continued, looking out at the garden in front of their two-family house in Queens. “She’ll be able to come over for dinner.” Sophia wished she were going away to college, but NYU was a really good school and she was grateful to be accepted into the film studies program there. Now, sitting in her dorm room with most of her classmates asleep around her, she tried to concentrate on the book on her desk, but the words blurred and danced on the page in front of her.
