Chapter 3

Promptly at noon on Sunday, December 30, I knocked on the door to the Hamilton's apartment near George Washington University.

I was a little bit off my feed because, with the Record about to close down forever, my normal heavy workload had gradually reduced itself to virtually nothing. I had a sinking feeling about the fact that the upcoming Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary elections were going to be entirely irrelevant to me this year -- at least from a professional standpoint. The paper I wrote for would be out of business before either event occurred, and I wouldn't be resuming my duties at the new job until those political landmarks were history.

I'd already written and submitted a lengthy end-of-the-political-year piece scheduled to run in today's Sunday edition of the Record. Virtually my only remaining task would be to turn in this fluff piece about Miss 1987, the tall, dark and redoubtable Ms. Georgia Hamilton.

Her sports achievements and her action photos from the GWU Athletic Department had impressed me. She was an Amazon, and a bona fide babe. The fact that I'd known her when she weighed eight pounds and two ounces and had first seen her, quite literally, at her mother's breast was not lost on me.

In a small way, it was a peculiar situation to be in. For young Ms. Hamilton, it would be simple enough to hear that I'd been the same guy who, as a rookie reporter, had written the feature story about her so long ago. She likely knew a little something about the minor fuss that had been made about her at the time, but she certainly wouldn't remember the name of the guy who'd written the story.

To me, though, it was kind of spooky in a strange sort of way. Here I was, called upon to deal with an adult female who'd lived her first twenty-one years without any help from me -- save for the first-day-of-her-life newspaper feature.

Well, at least she would be accustomed to seeing her name in the papers. I knew enough already to understand that she was George Washington University's best basketball player, male or female, in a generation. She had been second-team All-America as a sophomore and last year had made the first team. All indications were that she would make the All-America team again in this, her senior year.

And there were the as-yet-unspecified academic achievements. It seems the Columbus Record had lucked into an extra-interesting young person about whom to write a nostalgia story. From all preliminary indications, Georgia Hamilton might qualify as the city's New Year's Baby of the Century.

Charlotte Hamilton answered my light knock immediately. She must have been waiting for my arrival from close by. "Please come in, Mr. Stallworth," she said. "Oh, I remember you! You haven't aged a day since 1987."

Well, I knew that was just polite repartee, but my first impression was that Charlotte Hamilton had certainly held it together nicely for twenty-one years later herself.

"You know," I told her, handing her my coat and scarf, "the Record editors considered doing this story on this week's eighteen-year-old New Year's baby, but I'm sure they took one look at the two mamas and decided that the twenty-one-year mama was the prettiest."

"And they haven't even seen as much of me as you did!" she said.

"I'm sorry?" I said, not following her remark.

"On New Year's night," she said. "Have you forgotten? You barged right into my room while I was feeding Georgia for the first time."

I know my face must have turned dark red at that moment. "No, I hadn't forgotten," I said, "but I'd kind of hoped that you had!"

She just smiled and led me into the kitchen. "I thought this might be the best place for you to set up. If you want to take any notes or work from your laptop, the kitchen table might do it. I'm afraid we don't have a dining room table or a desk."

"This will do nicely. I really appreciate all this help you're giving me ... Charlotte."

"I'm pleased to do it," she said. "Georgia is competing for a Rhodes Scholarship to study in England next year. Her athletic achievements can only help her -- given her strong academic record. But your little story will add a little color. It could help!"

"Well, I hope it does. I'm really looking forward to meeting your daughter ... again."

"She's an impressive young woman."

We spent the next forty-five minutes discussing the details of Georgia's life. Charlotte recited with obvious pride her daughter's high school and college athletic achievements, her impeccable academics, and the documented streak of creativeness that had seen her win several literary awards -- including some in competitions with adult amateur writers outside the academic arena.

Fortunately for me, Charlotte Hamilton was able to give me chapter and verse -- even transcripts from the University showing her daughter's achievements officially.

I had more than enough material for a first-rate feature story and hadn't even laid eyes on the girl herself yet.

Shortly after noon, we heard signs that Georgia was up and stirring.

"She'll shower and dress and then join us for lunch," Charlotte told me. "It won't be long."

"Incidentally, you haven't said anything about Mr. Hamilton," I said. "The night Georgia was born, he provided me with the bulk of the information I put into the story."

"We divorced in the mid-nineties, when we were living in Pittsburgh," she said. "Georgia was only around eight or nine years old at the time. And two years ago, George died."

"I'm very sorry to hear it."

"He was extremely proud of Georgia, and he lived long enough to see her make second-team All America two years ago. We were still a family as far as Georgia was concerned. George was always very good about that -- being a father, keeping in touch."

"And you haven't remarried?"

"No. I started a new career. Went back to school, became a nurse practitioner. Since then, I've been mostly focused on Georgia and on my work."

"Long time to be a single woman. A beautiful single woman."

If I expected her to blush, I was disappointed. "In these times, being a single woman isn't the trial that it perhaps once was," she said.

"No, I suppose not."

"What about you?" she said. "Do you have a family?"

"Afraid not. Like you, I guess, I've been married to my job for a long time."

"Never married? At all?"

"Nope. And I'm forty-one. Isn't that awful? And I'm not even gay!"

She laughed. "I wasn't thinking that," she said.

"Of course you were," I told her. "That's what everyone thinks, as soon as the subject comes up: He's forty, he's unmarried. Ergo, he's gay."

"We divorcees get a bit of that, too," she said. "If I meet a man who wants to sleep with me and I don't show immediate interest, he concludes that I'm a dyke and that my previous history as a married woman was just an aberration."

"Well, obviously, if you don't want to sleep with him, you've got to be a lesbian," I said, smiling.

"Doesn't happen too often," she said. "I did sleep with a couple of them after all. And word tends to get around."

"I'll need a few details -- names, dates, times, places -- about your husband's life, for the story."

"Well! That's a relief! For a moment there, I thought you were about to ask for names and dates of the men I'd slept with."

"Only if you feel like confiding in me," I told her, smiling.

She provided the information about her late husband as readily as she had provided all the rest. Charlotte Hamilton couldn't have been a much better interview subject if she had herself been a professional journalist.

"Ah! Here's Georgia," she said, as her daughter entered the kitchen.

I had heard that Georgia Hamilton was six-foot-two and built like an Amazon. I'd seen her action shots in basketball regalia. It wasn't enough. Her actual physical presence was still somewhat stunning.

"Thanks for agreeing to see me," I said. "And congratulations on your performance out at UCLA." That morning, I'd checked the late sports on ESPN.com, and, sure enough, GWU had won the two-day, four-team, end-of-the-year tournament in Los Angeles.

"Yes, thanks," she said absently. "What's this all about? ... Mom and I haven't talked since I got back this morning. She just left me a note. She said you wanted to do a feature story on me?"

"We're closing down the Columbus Record for good on January second," I explained. "We wanted to look up our New Year's Day baby from twenty-one years ago and do a feature for our final edition. You know, a 'where is she now' thing."

"Surely you didn't come all the way here from Columbus for that kind of story?"

"No. I'm a local. I've been here in the District for some years now. My editor found out that you were here, and that makes it most convenient for me to be the one to interview you. Also, as it happens I wrote the original feature about you, back when you were born."