She hailed a taxi and went to the Renaissance Casino. She did feel foolish, going there without an escort, but the doorman didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps it was all right. Perhaps it was customary for Harlem girls to go about unaccompanied. She checked her wraps and wandered along the promenade that bordered the dance floor. It was early yet, just ten-thirty, and only a few couples were dancing. She found a chair, and tried to look as if she were waiting for someone. The orchestra stopped playing, people crowded past her. She liked the dance hall, liked its draped walls and ceilings, its harmonic color design and soft lights.
The music began again. She didn’t see Jasper. A spindly legged yellow boy, awkward and bashful, asked her to dance with him. She did. The boy danced badly, but dancing with him was better than sitting there alone, looking foolish. She did wish that he would assume a more upright position and stop scrunching his shoulders. It seemed as if he were trying to bend both their backs to the breaking point. As they danced they talked about the music. He asked her did she have an escort. She said yes, and hurried to the ladies’ room when the dance was over.
She didn’t particularly like the looks of the crowd. It was well-behaved enough, but … well … one could see that they didn’t belong to the cultured classes. They weren’t the right sort of people. Maybe nice people didn’t come here. Jasper hadn’t been so nice. She wished she could see him, wouldn’t she give him a piece of her mind?—And for the first time she really sensed the baseness of the trick he had played on her.
She walked out of the ladies’ room and found herself again on the promenade. For a moment she stood there, watching the dancers. The floor was more crowded now, the dancers more numerous and gay. She watched them swirl and glide around the dance floor, and an intense longing for Jasper or John or anyone welled up within her. It was terrible to be so alone, terrible to stand here and see other girls contentedly curled up in men’s arms. She had been foolish to come, Jasper probably never came here. In truth he was no doubt far away from New York by now. What sense was there in her being here. She wasn’t going to stay. She was going home, but before starting toward the check room, she took one more glance at the dancers and saw her cabaret dancing partner.
He was dancing with a slender brown-skin girl, his smile as ecstatic and intense as before. Emma Lou noted the pleasing lines of his body encased in a form-fitting blue suit. Why didn’t he look her way?
“May I have this dance?” A well modulated deep voice. A slender stripling, arrayed in brown, with a dark brown face. He had dimples. They danced. Emma Lou was having difficulty in keeping track of Alva. He seemed to be consciously striving to elude her. He seemed to be deliberately darting in among clusters of couples, where he would remain hidden for some time, only to reappear far ahead or behind her.
Her partner was congenial. He introduced himself, but she did not hear his name, for at that moment, Alva and his partner glided close by. Emma Lou actually shoved the supple, slender boy she was dancing with in Alva’s direction. She mustn’t lose him this time. She must speak. They veered close to one another. They almost collided. Alva looked into her face. She smiled and spoke. He acknowledged her salute, but stared at her, frankly perplexed, and there was no recognition in his face as he moved away, bending his head close to that of his partner, the better to hear something she was asking him.
The slender brown boy clung to Emma Lou’s arm, treated her to a soda, and, at her request, piloted her around the promenade. She saw Alva sitting in a box in the balcony, and suggested to her companion that they parade around the balcony for a while. He assented. He was lonesome too. First summer in New York. Just graduated from Virginia Union University. Going to Columbia School of Law next year. Nice boy, but no appeal. Too—supple.
They passed by Alva’s box. He wasn’t there. Two other couples and the girl he had been dancing with were. Emma Lou and her companion walked the length of the balcony, then retraced their steps just in time to see Alva coming around the corner carrying a cup of water. She watched the rhythmic swing of his legs, like symmetrical pendulums, perfectly shaped; and she admired once more the intriguing lines of his body and pleasing foreignness of his face. As they met, she smiled at him. He was certain he did not know her but he stopped and was polite, feeling that he must find out who she was and where he had met her.
“How do you do?” Emma Lou held out her hand. He shifted the cup of water from his right hand to his left. “I’m glad to see you again.” They shook hands. His clasp was warm, his palm soft and sweaty. The supple lad stepped to one side. “I—I,” Emma Lou was speaking now, “have often wondered if we would meet again.” Alva wanted to laugh. He could not imagine who this girl with the purple-powdered skin was. Where had he seen her? She must be mistaking him for someone else. Well, he was game. He spoke sincerely:
“And I, too, have wanted to see you.”
Emma Lou couldn’t blush, but she almost blubbered with joy.
“Perhaps we’ll have a dance together.”
“My God,” thought Alva, “She’s a quick worker.”
“Oh, certainly, where can I find you?”
“Downstairs on the promenade, near the center boxes.”
“The one after this?” This seemed to be the easiest way out. He could easily dodge her
