Chances Read Online Free PDF

clutched at her sweater and wondered what to do. A hobo skirted by her, and the stench of stale liquor reminded her of grandma Ella. Carrie knew she must make a move. If she marched in through the front entrance and asked for work, what was the worst that could happen to her? They couldn’t eat her, only insult her. And in New York you soon got used to that.
    Gathering her courage she slid inside, suddenly wishing she hadn’t. It seemed as if she stood there for hours with every eye upon her, but it was only a matter of seconds before a huge man descended on her. She braced herself, ready to be thrown out.
    “Eh!” he asked. “You wanna table?”
    She couldn’t believe her ears. A table! Her? A colored girl in a white restaurant! Was the man mad?
    “I’m looking for work,” she mumbled, “scrubbing, washing dishes… anything.”
    “Ah!” he exclaimed. “You want a job? We go to the kitchen. I don’t know we have anything, but we talk about it. You like the hot pasta?”
    Carrie had no idea what pasta was, but anything hot sounded good, and anyway she couldn’t believe her luck at the man’s friendliness. She nodded her head and he put his arm around her and swept her through the restaurant. In the kitchen she met his wife, Luisa, and discovered that his name was Vincenzo. They fussed around her as if it didn’t matter
what
color she was.
    “She’s so young,” Luisa crooned, “just a baby.”
    “I’m sixteen,” Carrie lied, but from the glances they exchanged she knew they didn’t believe her. She wanted to be truthful, but grandma Ella had instilled in her a horrible fear. “You tell anyone your real age,” she threatened, “an’ they’ll throw you in a home for bad girls who skip out of school.” It was so unfair. Grandma Ella was the one who had pulled her out of school and ruined her life.
    Vincenzo and Luisa had no job for her in the restaurant; their kitchen was small, and they already had three assistants. But Vincenzo asked around and returned with the good news that Mr. Bernard Dimes, a regular patron of theirs, needed a cleaner at his house, and if she wanted the job it was hers. If she wanted it indeed!
    Vincenzo took her into the restaurant and introduced her to Mr. Dimes, who looked her over with steady brown eyes. “Can you start on Monday?” he asked.
    She nodded, too scared to speak.
    When she left the restaurant, she was in a daze, stunned by her good fortune. What should she tell grandma Ella? The truth, that she would be working in a private house and making more money? Or a lie, that she was still scrubbing kitchen floors?
    Much as it went against her nature, a lie seemed more sensible. That way she could save the extra money for herself and still hand over the same amount.
    It worked for a month. Every day Carrie left the run-down room she shared with her grandma and traveled downtown to Mr. Dimes’s imposing Park Avenue house. A housekeeper supervised her duties. Carrie only caught sight of Mr. Dimes twice, and on both occasions he smiled and inquired after her welfare.
    She felt she knew him well. She made his bed every day, changed his silk sheets, scrubbed his bathroom, polished his shoes, did his washing and ironing, and dusted his study, where she sometimes lingered over the silver photo frames filled with celebrities.
    Mr. Dimes was a theatrical producer. There was no Mrs. Dimes, only a series of well-groomed blond women who accompanied him on his social rounds. They never stayed over—Carrie was sure of that. She thought he was the most handsome and impressive man she had ever seen. He was thirty-three years old, she discovered, and very rich.
    One day the housekeeper suggested to Carrie that she might care to live in the Park Avenue house. “There’s a small room in the basement, and it would certainly make it easier for you without all that travelin’.”
    Carrie thought it was a wonderful idea. “I’d love to,” she replied.
    “Settled then,” said the