Chapter 4

Charlotte and I went out to dinner on Saturday night, the fifth of January. I took her to a Brazilian specialty restaurant downtown, a glorious place where the only dishes on the menu were salads and red meat.

With Charlotte being a health professional, I was taking a chance. This place was not exactly a paragon of healthy dining. In fact, it made the Outback Steakhouse look like a vegan specialty house by comparison.

But I knew from Charlotte's lunch order earlier in the week that she was no vegetarian, and that had been enough to inspire me to take her to Fogo de Chao. When we left there two hours later, stuffed with samples of every variation of red meat known to the creative staff of the restaurant, I knew I'd made the right choice.

"I've never even heard of this place!" she said. "It's amazing! I can feel my arteries clogging even as we speak."

"Yes, it's not the sort of place you'd want to visit more than -- say -- six times a year, and even then at carefully spaced intervals. But it was amazing, wasn't it?"

"It was absolutely sinful! I'm going to have to restrain myself from coming back tomorrow," she said.

We walked the considerable distance to the parking lot where I had left my car, talking easily and enjoying the unseasonably mild temperatures. I was feeling especially good about how this first date with Charlotte Hamilton was going -- not only because the choice of restaurant had turned out even better than I had expected, but because she seemed to be at ease and enjoying my company.

"Georgia is quite smitten with you," she told me as we settled into the car for the drive back to her apartment.

"Smitten, eh?"

"Well, the feature story was the best thing that's been written about her -- ever. She gets quite a bit of press because of the basketball, but this was really different. It was more complete, more well-rounded. And when it got picked up by AP, a good bit of it was run locally so her teammates and friends saw it too."

"Georgia's too level-headed to be impressed by a newspaper feature story," I protested.

"Yes, she is. But it's more than that. I think she's got a crush on you."

"On me? You're kidding!"

"Nope. She seemed pleased that you had asked me out tonight. But she wants me to ask you to attend the awards banquet late this month, honoring GW athletes."

"You're going to be there, of course?"

"Of course. Will you go? With Georgia and me?"

"I'll have to consult my busy schedule. Now that the Columbus Record has become only a dim memory, there's nobody left to look after my events calendar except me."

"When do you start the new job?"

"First Monday in February. I'll be doing some traveling with the presidential candidates, writing about the ongoing campaign. I'll be out of town a lot for awhile."

"The awards banquet is on a Friday -- the twenty-fifth of this month. You'll still be free-and-easy then."

"I'd very much like to come. But that's almost three weeks away. I want to see you again before that."

"I had a lovely time tonight," Charlotte said. "But I don't date much. And I've been away from work over the holidays for far longer than normal for me. Things promise to be pretty hectic at the hospital for awhile. Let's just leave it indefinite for now. We can discuss it on the telephone -- maybe next week."

Well. That didn't sound very encouraging. I had thought Charlotte and I had really hit it off. She laughed at all the appropriate times at my attempts at humor, she had enjoyed the flamboyant restaurant I had so boldly chosen, and we'd had wonderful conversation all evening long.

Now she was apparently resisting any future planning to spend time with me outside of Georgia's request that I attend an awards banquet at the University three weeks hence.

I had hoped for more.

I was, in fact, prepared to give Charlotte Hamilton the Rush. I had intended to try to devote as much of my free January to her as humanly possible.

Well. At least she had said to call her. I'd give her a day or two off and then call to ask about the following weekend. What's the worst that could happen? She could say no -- right?

So that's what I did. I waited until Tuesday night, three whole days after our dinner date, and called. We had a nice conversation but sure enough, Charlotte told me she wouldn't be able to see me that weekend. Demands of work, she pleaded.

Was I getting the bum's rush? I started to ask her about the weekend after next but stopped myself. I would hold off and call again next week. No use pressing her too hard. Not if the answer was likely to be negative, as I feared it would be if I followed up too soon.

A few days later, I heard from Georgia. She called me at home -- my home number being for the moment my only point of contact. My old office downtown was history.

"I'm so pleased you're coming to the awards banquet with us!" she said. "I mean, it's not going to be anything all that special, I guess, but everyone associated with the Sports Information Office is eager to meet you. I've shown all of them your feature about me, and they loved it! They practically re-ran the entire thing on the school's web site! You and the paper have probably got a good copyright case against them if you're interested."

"The banquet will be fun for me," I told her, "and for your Mom. Are you receiving any awards yourself?"

"Oh, yeah. They've trumped up some kind of special-recognition thing for me. I guess I'm the first really well-known female athlete the school has had for awhile. Ours is not exactly a big-time athletic program. Everybody -- even the university president -- is a little bit caught up in the team's recent prominence. We're rated number four nationally right now. That's a high-water mark for the GW women's program."

"It'll be fun for me to see both of you again. I'm hoping to ask your mother out again -- socially. I hope that wouldn't be a problem for you."

"For me? Of course not! I'm very pleased that you asked her to dinner last week. And she told me she had a great time."

"She's been too busy, though, to go out again. I plan to call her again early next week."

"She's busy at work, but she's not a workaholic," Georgia said. "I don't think it's really so much the work that's stopping her. You're probably going to find out she's sort of hard to pin down about dating."

"You don't think it's something she'll want to do?"

"I know she likes you," Georgia said. "And I was just pleased as I could be when you called her back ... But she's been awfully reluctant to involve herself with men. She's been that way for a long time. All the time, really, since she divorced my dad."

"She's evidently dated some, though. I mean, we had a conversation about it when we had only just met. It was casual, but she made reference to the fact that she'd had a few men friends. In fact, she was pretty frank about it."

"Yes, but we're talking about a period of something like fourteen years! ... After the divorce, she didn't date at all the whole time we were living in Pittsburgh. The whole time! And when we came here -- it was 2001 -- she went back to college, got her master's and started the whole career as a nurse practitioner. It's true she dated a little here. Men she met in her work, mostly. But she's been out of circulation most of the time for my entire life with her!"

"You think her marriage soured her on the male sex that much?"

"No. No, I don't. Their break-up wasn't like that. They had their differences, and they were substantial, but I don't think it was ever a sex-related thing. She certainly never gave off any I-hate-men vibes around me! I don't get it, really. I've pushed her a little from time to time, but she's seldom shown much interest in getting back into circulation."

"It's a shame," I told Georgia. "I'd really like to try to get to know her better."

"I knew you were interested in her right from the day you interviewed me!" Georgia said. "Gee, Jim, I hope you keep trying! I'd really like for Mom to start dating someone like you."

"Well, I intend to keep trying until I get the impression I'm being a nuisance."

"She's likely to be a hard nut to crack," Georgia agreed, "but I don't think she's going to be quite capable of making you feel like a nuisance. I really think she likes you."

"I hope you're right. Maybe when I call her next week, it'll give me a clue where I stand."

But when I called Charlotte on that Tuesday, the fifteenth of January, she once again made excuses why a weekend date wouldn't be feasible for her. I made clear to her that I was very flexible and that we could go out together during the week or at any other time she found easier to fit into her schedule.

Nope, she told me. There was just too much on her plate.

And so the first time I got to see Charlotte again was the evening of the awards ceremony at GWU. We were a threesome again. Georgia was extremely upbeat all evening; the school officials did a great job in presenting awards and making clear to their athletes that the university appreciated them. All in all, a great evening.

Only, despite Georgia's being one of the brightest stars of the evening as the university's principal honoree at the banquet, I had the distinct impression that Georgia had paid more attention to me, all evening, than her mother did.

It was almost as if Georgia was nursing a crush. On me. And I was literally old enough to be her father.

It wasn't anything that anyone could have pointed to and said, "Bad taste." It wasn't obvious. But a couple of Georgia's teammates came by to meet the man who'd written all those wonderful things about her in the paper, and when they got close, Georgia grabbed my arm and held on as if I were trying to run away -- which I wasn't.

It's hard for a woman six foot two to look like a clinging vine with a smallish man like me, but Georgia did her best. She was all snuggly and chummy with me at every opportunity all evening, and it began to worry me a little. Did this young woman really feel an attraction for me? And if she did, how should I handle it? The fact was, it was Georgia's mother who floated my boat! Sure, the girl was incredibly sexy and attractive. That wasn't lost on me. How could it be, with her rubbing those ample breasts on my upper arm every time she grabbed me to introduce me to another friend or teammate?