She must go to sleep for another hour, for she wished to look “pert” when she applied for a job, especially the kind of job she wanted, and she must get the kind of job she wanted in order to show those people in Boise and Los Angeles that she had been perfectly justified in leaving school, home, and all, to come to New York. They all wondered why she had come. So did she, now that she was here. But at the moment of leaving she would have gone any place to escape having to remain in that hateful Southern California college, or having to face the more dreaded alternative of returning home. Home? It had never been a home.
It did seem strange, this being in Harlem when only a few weeks before she had been over three thousand miles away. Time and distance—strange things, immutable, yet conquerable. But was time conquerable? Hadn’t she read or heard somewhere that all things were subject to time, even God? Yet, once she was there and now she was here. But even at that she hadn’t conquered time. What was that line in Cullen’s verse, “I run, but Time’s abreast with me?” She had only traversed space and defied distance. This suggested a more banal, if a less arduous thought tangent. She had defied more than distance, she had defied parental restraint—still there hadn’t been much of that—friendly concern—there had been still less of that, and malicious, meddlesome gossip, of which there had been plenty. And she still found herself unable to understand why two sets of people in two entirely different communities should seemingly become almost hysterically excited because she, a woman of twenty-one, with three years’ college training and ample sophistication in the ways of sex and self-support, had decided to take a job as an actress’ maid in order to get to New York. They had never seemed interested in her before.
Now she wondered why had she been so painfully anxious to come to New York. She had given as a consoling reason to inquisitive friends and relatives, school. But she knew too well that she had no intentions of ever reentering school. She had had enough of that school in Los Angeles, and her experiences there, more than anything else, had caused this foolhardy hegira to Harlem. She had been desperately driven to escape, and had she not escaped in this manner she might have done something else much more mad.
Emma Lou closed her eyes once more, and tried to sublimate her mental reverie into a sleep-inducing lullaby. Most of all, she wanted to sleep. One had to look “pert” when one sought a job, and she wondered if eight o’clock would find her looking any more “pert” than she did at this present moment. What had caused her to urge John to spend what she knew would be his last night with her when she was so determined to be at her best the following morning! O, what the hell was the use? She was going to sleep.
The alarm had not yet rung, but Emma Lou was awakened gradually by the sizzling and smell of fried and warmed-over breakfast, by the raucous early morning wranglings and window to window greetings, and by the almost constant squeak of those impudent hall floorboards as the various people in her apartment raced one another to the kitchen or to the bathroom or to the front door. How could Harlem be so happily busy, so alive and merry at eight o’clock. Eight o’clock? The alarm rang. Emma Lou scuttled out of the bed and put on her clothes.
An hour later, looking as “pert” as possible, she entered the first employment agency she came to on 135th Street, between Lenox and Seventh Avenues. It was her first visit to such an establishment and she was particularly eager to experience this phase of a working girl’s life. Her first four weeks in Harlem had convinced her that jobs were easy to find, for she had noticed that there were three or four employment agencies to every block in business Harlem. Assuring herself in this way that she would experience little difficulty in obtaining a permanent and tasty position, Emma Lou had abruptly informed Mazelle Lindsay that she was leaving her employ.
“But, child,” her employer had objected, “I feel responsible for you. Your—your mother! Don’t be preposterous. How can you remain in New York alone?”
Emma Lou had smiled, asked for her money once more, closed her ears to all protest, bid the chagrined woman goodbye, and joyously loafed for a week.
Now, with only thirty-five dollars left in the bank, she thought that she had best find a job—find a job and then finish seeing New York. Of course she had seen much already. She had seen John—and he—oh, damn John, she wanted a job.
“What can I do for you?” the harassed woman at the desk was trying to be polite.
“I—I want a job.” R‑r‑ring. The telephone insistently petitioned for attention, giving Emma Lou a moment of respite, while the machine-like woman wearily shouted monosyllabic answers into the instrument, and, at the same time, tried to hush the many loud-mouthed men and women in the room, all, it seemed, trying to out-talk one another. While waiting, Emma Lou surveyed her fellow job-seekers. Seedy lot, was her verdict. Perhaps I should have gone to a more high-toned place. Well, this will do for the moment.
“What kinda job d’ye want?”
“I prefer,” Emma Lou had rehearsed these lines for a week, “a stenographic position in some colored business or professional office.”
“ ’Ny experience?”
“No, but I took two courses in business college, during school vacations. I have a certificate of competency.”
“ ’Ny reference?”
“No New York ones.”
“Where’d ya work before?”
“I—I just came to the city.”
“Where’d ya come … ?” R‑r‑ring. The telephone mercifully reiterated its insistent blare, and,
