Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/89

 Emma Lou had smiled, asked for her money once more, closed her ears to all protest, bid the chagrined woman good-bye, 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,