Chapter 5

I didn't exactly sign a contract in blood with Georgia that afternoon, but when we parted, there was a tacit understanding that she would begin a campaign of seduction (openly advertised at home) while I continued to attempt to connect with Charlotte (aka "Mother").

If I could get Charlotte Hamilton actively interested in me as a boon companion, if I could get her involved enough with me to afford me an actual shot at earning her affections, then Georgia would quickly subside. She even had a tall dark and handsome grad student waiting in the wings -- somebody Georgia could tell her mother had swept her off her feet and made her forget about me overnight.

But he would stay in the wings, as I understood Georgia's Master Plan, unless and until Mom came out to play. Otherwise, Georgia would let her mother know that she was preparing to offer me what was behind Door Number Two.

I would manfully resist the open arms (and legs) of Hamilton the Younger for as long as any red-blooded American man could be expected to do so. But at some point, clearly, resistance would be futile, and I would be ready to claim my consolation prize, not having ever been given a scoring opportunity by Charlotte.

Manipulative? Oh, hell yes! But as they always say in those second-rate adventure novels where somebody has just proposed an outlandish scheme: "Y'know, it's crazy enough that it just might work!"

Georgia recognized that my "reluctance" to become involved with her meant that I couldn't readily accept opportunities to go out with her on conventional "dates." No. I would instead continue at reasonable intervals to attempt to date her Mom.

And Georgia would dream up ways that she and I (sans Mom) would be thrown together on non-date dates where she could exercise her feminine wiles on me.

Most importantly, she'd brag about it at home.

How she had decided that it would be exciting to seduce an Older Man, and that I was the older man who interested her the most.

"You're not seeing him, are you, Mom? I mean, I know he's been calling you, asking you out. If you're the least bit interested in Jim, I wouldn't dream of interfering.

" ... But he is awfully attractive, don't you think, Mom? And such a gentleman. I don't know what it is, exactly, but he just -- does it for me, you know? ... So if you and Jim don't have any chemistry, maybe I could take a shot at getting him up to the boiling point ... What do you think, Mom?

"Oh, no, Mom! Of course I'm not in love with him! It's not like that. I mean, I still have the two years in England coming up -- if I get the scholarship -- and anyway, I don't feel that way about Jim Stallworth. I just, y'know, admire his ... maturity. I think he's kinda sexy -- don't you?

"Mom! Don't be so old-fashioned. I mean, you and I have always discussed these kinds of things openly, haven't we? I even told you -- the very next day -- when I lost my virginity. Remember? I told you all about it. I mean, we've been more like sisters than mother and daughter, haven't we?

"Gosh, Mom. The only reason we don't share clothes and stuff is that I'm such a big old cow, and you're so tiny! Gee. Do you think my being so much taller than Jim and all ... do you think that might kind of be a turn-off for him? Or that maybe he'd be, you know, intimidated? Aw, but I don't think so. He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who's easily intimidated. He's been a little stand-offish, though. I think it's the age thing, though, more than the fact that I'm so ... big. That's what I think is holding him back. But you know, Mom, if a woman wants a man, and goes after what she wants, well there's really not a whole lot the man can do about it, is there?"

Yep. I had to figure Charlotte Hamilton would be putty in her daughter's hands once this campaign got fully underway.

Problem was, I was pretty sure that I would be putty in Georgia's hands as well. If this charade were to get out of control at some point, I might find myself being scored upon by the leading single-game female scorer in NCAA Division One history. It might make for a memorable night, but it wasn't going to exactly accomplish my original (and continuing) purpose -- getting involved with the older of the Hamilton Women.

On the fourth -- the first Monday in February

-- I hit the ground running with my new employer, Politically Involved, the online magazine/blog that was growing by leaps and bounds because of the current national interest in the presidential election campaign.

I was a little late getting into the fray, but I did attend a flurry of local and regional events in the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia leading up to the February 12 primaries in all three jurisdictions.

I was showing up alternately at Clinton and Obama rallies in the days before the elections, both in Virginia and Maryland, and Georgia Hamilton showed up at every one of them. Coincidence? Hardly. She simply called my office, wrote down my schedule for the week, and showed up on Wednesday, Thursday and part of Friday at the same events I attended. We both knew what her objective was: to be wherever she could get close to me and still have an at-least-lame excuse for being there.

If Charlotte was bemused at her daughter's sudden interest in national politics, she didn't say so. It was unlikely that the older woman was entertaining any confusion. No doubt she saw it for what it was -- a part of Georgia's blatant campaign to get James Stallworth into the sack.

"I told her all about running into you in Fairfax City last night," Georgia related to me Thursday afternoon at still-another campaign stop for Barack Obama. "Mom pretended to be all casual about it, but I think I've got her worried."

"With the number of candidates and the number of public appearances around here this week, how does she figure you and I manage to keep showing up at the same ones?"

"Maybe she figured I called your office and asked."

"Well, you'll be out of my hair tomorrow night, at least. You've got a game, right?"

"Yep. But it's a home game. And Mom will be there. Why don't you show up for it, too?"

"As whose guest? Yours -- or hers?"

"I can tell her I invited you to come," Georgia said. "But you could still try to make time with her while I'm on the court."

"I called your mother and asked her out next Sunday afternoon. My thinking was that Sunday afternoon, of all times of the week, she might have some free time for me."

"What did she say?" Georgia asked.

"She asked me whether I had forgotten that you had already invited me to join the two of you at the chamber music recital at Kennedy Center."

"Whoops. Guess I should have made sure you'd been invited, before I told her. So what did you tell her?"

"I pretended that I was talking about taking her somewhere for dinner later in the afternoon. I turned my inquiry into a proposal that we go out together -- without you -- on Sunday evening."

"So you covered for me?"

"What else could I do? Yes, I pretended you'd invited me to the chamber music thing, and that I had accepted."

"Is she going out with you, after?"

"Nope. Loyal to her sweet little daughter. Even though she knows you're out to get me."

"She's not too happy about that," Georgia said.

"Maybe not, but the question is, what exactly is it about our supposed relationship -- yours and mine -- that's making her unhappy? I haven't seen any sign that it's got anything to do with her wanting first dibs on me."

"Oh, I think she's weakening. I think she's gonna start accepting your invitations, just to save me from a fate worse than death."

"I don't really think that boinking me would be quite that terrible."

Georgia laughed. "I don't, either. But she's a mom, after all. Imagine her having to visualize it -- her innocent little girl, penetrated brutally by a grizzled old man like you!"


"Yes. Poor, defenseless little six-foot-two damsel. Christ, you could probably break me in half!"

"Everyone knows men are stronger than women."

"Everyone knows that, huh? Sounds like a generality to me, and one wholly inapplicable in the current circumstances."

"I reckon I probably could make you holler for mercy, at that!" Georgia said.

The Saturday primaries were history in the wee hours of Sunday morning when I posted my Internet column and a separate overview and commentary, freshened up my election-related blog entries, and called it a night. It had been a spirited primary for the Democrats in all three local jurisdictions. Once again, however, the results were sufficiently mixed that both leading candidates were still going to be around to fight another day.

I didn't get to bed until 4:30 a.m., but my date with Charlotte and Georgia wasn't until 2:30 Sunday afternoon, and there evidently wasn't going to be a post-concert dinner date with Charlotte.

Not unless Georgia continued her psychological warfare while I was sleeping.

The concert was surprisingly entertaining, and (not for the first time) I vowed to change my ways and give chamber music a chance now and again. I knew it was an empty promise to myself. The world is too much with us, life is hard and then you die, etc. etc.

We walked back to the Hamilton apartment after the concert, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm, sunny weather. "Are you sure I can't persuade you to come to dinner with me tonight?" I asked Charlotte.

Before she could formulate an answer, Georgia chimed in. "Why, that's a wonderful idea, Jim! Mom, let's do it! We were just going to run the microwave anyway."

The little scamp. Well, not so little, God knows, but a scamp, whatever her size. Georgia was pretending that she thought she'd been included in the dinner invitation all along.

So, what now, Sweet Charlotte?

I figured there were three ways Mama Charlotte could go on this one. She could just say no to me again and try to make her "no" inclusive enough to close down her daughter.