Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/215

 found an exceptionally nice place too. It was just two blocks from him, on 138th Street between Eighth Avenue and Edgecombe. It was near the elevated station, near the park, and cost only ten dollars and fifty cents per week for the room, kitchenette and private bath.

On top of his refusal to live with her, Alva had broken two dates with Emma Lou, claiming that he was playing poker. On one of these nights, after leaving work, Emma Lou had decided to walk past his house. Even at a distance she could see that there was a light in his room, and when she finally passed the house, she recognized Geraldine, the girl with whom she had seen Alva dancing at the Renaissance Casino, seated in the window. Angrily, she had gone home, determined to break with Alva on the morrow, and on reaching home had found a letter from her mother which had disturbed her even more. For a long time now her mother had been urging her to come home, and her Uncle Joe had even sent her word that he meant to forward a ticket at an early date. But Emma Lou had no intentions of going home. She was so obsessed with the idea that her mother didn’t want her, and she was so incensed at the people with whom she knew she would be forced to associate, that she could consider her mother’s hysterically-put request only as an insult. Thus, presuming, she had