“Yes,” and she moved away, the supple lad clinging to her arm again.
“Who’s the ‘spade,’ Alvar?” Geraldine had seen him stop to talk to her.
“Damned if I know.”
“Aw, sure you know who she is. You danced with her at Small’s.” Braxton hadn’t forgotten.
“Well, I never. Is that it?” Laughter all around as he told about their first meeting. But he didn’t dodge her, for Geraldine and Braxton riled him with their pertinacious badinage. He felt that they were making more fun of him than of her, and to show them just how little he minded their kidding he stalked off to find her. She was waiting, the slim, brown stripling swaying beside her, importuning her not to wait longer. He didn’t want to lose her. She didn’t want to lose Alva, and was glad when they danced off together.
“Who’s your boyfriend?” Alva had fortified himself with gin. His breath smelled familiar.
“Just an acquaintance.” She couldn’t let him know she had come here unescorted. “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“Of course, I did; how could I forget you?” Smooth tongue, phrases with a double meaning.
“I didn’t forget you.” Emma Lou was being coy. “I have often looked for you.”
Looked for him where? My God, what an impression he must have made! He wondered what he had said to her before. Plunge in boy, plunge! The blacker the berry—he chuckled to himself.
Orchestra playing “Blue Skies,” as an especial favor to her. Alva telling her his name and giving her his card, and asking her to phone him some day. Alva close to her and being nice, his arms tightening about her. She would call him tomorrow. Ecstasy ended too soon. The music stopped. He thanked her for the dance and left her standing on the promenade by the side of the waiting slender stripling. She danced with him twice more, then let him take her home.
At ten the next morning Emma Lou called Alva. Braxton came to the telephone.
“Alva’s gone to work; who is it?” People should have more sense than to call that early in the morning. He never got up until noon. Emma Lou was being apologetic.
“Could you tell me what time he will be in?”
“ ’Bout six-thirty. Who shall I say called? This is his roommate.”
“Just … Oh … I’ll call him later. Thank you.”
Braxton swore. “Why in the hell does Alva give so many damn women his phone number?”
Six-thirty-five. His roommate had said about six-thirty. She called again. He came to the phone. She thought his voice was more harsh than usual.
“Oh, I’m all right, only tired.”
“Did you work hard?”
“I always work hard.”
“I … I … just thought I’d call.”
“Glad you did, call me again some time. Goodbye”—said too quickly. No chance to say “When will I see you again?”
She went home, got into the bed and cried herself to sleep.
Arline returned two days ahead of schedule. Things settled back into routine. The brown stripling had taken Emma Lou out twice, but upon her refusal to submit herself to him, had gone away in a huff, and had not returned. She surmised that it was the first time he had made such a request of anyone. He did it so ineptly. Work. Home. Walks. Theaters downtown during the afternoon, and thoughts of Alva. Finally, she just had to call him again. He came to the phone:
“Hello. Who? Emma Lou? Where have you been? I’ve been wondering where you were?”
She was shy, afraid she might be too bold. But Alva had had his usual three glasses of before-dinner gin. He helped her out.
“When can I see you, Sugar?”
Sugar! He had called her “sugar.” She told him where she worked. He was to meet her after the theater that very night.
“How many nights a week you gonna have that little inkspitter up here?”
“Listen here, Brax, you have who you want up here, don’t you?”
“That ain’t it. I just don’t like to see you tied up with a broad like that.”
“Why not? She’s just as good as the rest, and you know what they say, ‘The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.’ ”
“The only thing a black woman is good for is to make money for a brown-skin papa.”
“I guess I don’t know that.”
“Well,” Braxton was satisfied now, “if that’s the case. …”
He had faith in Alva’s wisdom.
Part IV
Rent Party
Saturday evening. Alva had urged her to hurry uptown from work. He was going to take her on a party with some friends of his. This was the first time he had ever asked her to go to any sort of social affair with him. She had never met any of his friends save Braxton, who scarcely spoke to her, and never before had Alva suggested taking her to any sort of social gathering either public or semipublic. He often took her to various motion picture theaters, both downtown and in Harlem, and at least three nights a week he would call for her at the theater and escort her to Harlem. On these occasions they often went to Chinese restaurants or to ice cream parlors before going home. But usually they would go to City College Park, find an empty bench in a dark corner where they could sit and spoon before retiring either to her room or to Alva’s.
Emma Lou had, long before this, suggested going to a dance or to a party, but Alva had always countered that he never attended such affairs during the summer months, that he stayed away from them for precisely the same reason that he stayed away from work, namely, because it was too hot. Dancing, said he, was a matter of calisthenics, and calisthenics were work. Therefore it, like any sort of physical exercise, was taboo during hot weather.
Alva sensed that sooner or later Emma Lou would become aware of his real reason for not taking her out among his friends. He realized that one as color-conscious as she appeared to be would, at some not so distant date, jump to what
