Angela walked fast that morning, not because she liked the way the sun already pressed hot fingers against her neck, but because hope had turned her legs into drums.
Inside her palm was a small brown envelope, the kind that could hold a future if the right person opened it.
Inside the envelope: a photocopy of her CV, a reference letter from the woman whose floors she’d scrubbed for three months, and a passport photograph where Angela had tried to smile without looking like she was begging the camera to be kind.
She held it like it might fly away.
“God,” she whispered under her breath as she cut through the street toward the bus stop, “today is my chance.”
Her mother’s medicines were almost finished. Their landlord had started knocking like a man who enjoyed the sound of fear. And the small tailoring jobs Angela had been taking in the neighborhood, hemming trousers and fixing zippers, had not been enough. Not even close.
