He patted her hand and held it regardless of the onlooking crowd.
“Maybe so, sugar, but you wouldn’t like me if you had to live with me all the time.”
Emma Lou was aggrieved: “I don’t see how you can say that. How do you know? That’s what made me mad last Sunday.”
Alva saw that Emma Lou was ready for argument and he had no intention of favoring her, or of discomfiting himself. He was even sorry that he said as much as he had when she had first broached the “living together” matter over the telephone on Sunday, calling him out of bed before noon while Geraldine was there too, looking, but not asking, for information. He smiled at her indulgently:
“If you say another word about it, I'll kiss you right here in the subway.”
Emma Lou didn’t put it beyond him so she could do nothing but smile and shut up. She rather liked him to talk to her that way. Alva was shouting into her ear again, telling her a scandalous tale he claimed to have heard while playing poker with some of the boys. He thus contrived to keep her entertained until they reached the 135th Street station where they finally emerged from beneath the pavement to mingle with the frowsy crowds of Harlem’s Bowery, Lenox Avenue.
