Betty was teaching me about the evils of supply-side economics when Ted came into the room. Betty was just finishing a sentence, “. . . and though Keynesian economics is no kind thing to common people, Say’s Law is truly the work of the white, European, devil mind.”
“I’d have to agree,” Ted said.
This startled Betty. She had not seen him enter.
“I believe that the market is driven by demand,” Ted said. “Otherwise, people get screwed up the hind end. The only thing that ever trickles down to poor people is rain, and that ain’t much more than God’s piss.”
Betty didn’t want to agree with Ted, but she nodded.
“How’s our student doing?” Ted asked.
“Very well,” Betty said. “Not Sidney is quite smart.”
“He’s got his mother’s brains. Have you ever had one of those itches in your ear that you have to scratch with your tongue inside your mouth? In fact that’s the only way to get to it.”
Though I had a boy’s crush on Betty, I knew that I was but eleven and that all the brains and money in the world wouldn’t make her kiss me. I in fact had a kind of crush on Ted as well, and so I found that what I really wanted was for the two of them to kiss. So, I tried to Fesmerize them. I couldn’t stare them into submission at the same time and decided to begin with Ted, as I remembered that I might have had earlier success with Betty during the sandwich incident and so chose to save her for last. I raised my left brow and sharpened, then leveled my penetrating gaze at Ted. He stared back at me for a while with an expression that could only be called quizzical, and I thought that I might have been making some headway until he said,
“Nu’ott, what’s wrong with your eye?”
“He does that sometimes,” Betty said. “I think it’s gas.”
“That doesn’t look good.”
A less persistent person, or a saner one, might have stopped at that point, but I gave it another push.
“Looks like the boy’s gonna pop. Nu’ott, you all right?”
I gave up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Funny little episode you had there.”
“Just thinking,” I said.
“Okay, well, I’m going to talk to a man about a German shepherd dog. They’re great dogs. I especially like the way they walk, all slung low like that. You’re in charge, Betty.” He said that, then leaned over and gave Betty a kiss on the cheek before exiting the room.
Betty was taken by surprise, but hardly offended.
I was more confused than ever. Had my Fesmered suggestion been received and, more importantly, processed? Was I in fact responsible for that unexpected, unseemly, and glaringly inappropriate action? I was left not knowing if I had succeeded or failed, a state worse than failure itself.
“He kissed you,” I said to Betty.
“Oh, that wasn’t a kiss. That was what we call a peck.”
“Why do you think he kissed you?”
“It was a peck, Not Sidney.”
I let the matter rest, though I was no wiser or more percipient for my experiment or for having witnessed the event that I might or might not have caused. The only thing that was clear was that Ted and Betty now believed there was something wrong with me. I suppose I could have likened my new tool to a sort of psychological Swiss Army knife, as I said before, but to continue the metaphor, I could never know whether I was opening the scissors, saw blade, corkscrew, or leather awl, or whether it would open at all.
No one was more surprised than I when Ted invited Betty to join Jane, himself, and me on a sailing day-trip, except perhaps Betty, who surprised herself into a silk sundress and equally inappropriate wedge-soled sandals and onto a bus to St. Simons Island. Jane was glamorous and aloof, attributes that I imagined fed each other. From behind her oversized dark sunglasses she addressed me politely and warmly, pronouncing my name as she had learned it from Ted, Nu’ott. She received Betty politely yet somewhat less warmly, as she was baffled by the presence of the chubby tutor in the silk wraparound. Joining us also was a niece of Jane’s, daughter of her brother, a freckled girl about my age named Wanda Fonda who took an immediate, intense, and indefatigable shine to me.
It was sunny, but there were some clouds drifting around, and it was almost cool. It was cool enough that big goose bumps formed on Betty’s hefty thighs that were continually in view because of the attack of wind at her dress, despite her hands busily clutching fabric. Betty looked sorely out of place as she stepped aboard the Channel Seventeen, and I’m certain she felt that way as well, more so after Jane peeled off her raw linen trousers and white linen shirt, revealing her yellow bikini and cartoonishly narrow waist. There were no goose or duck or sparrow bumps on her as she lay out on the deck and appeared to have the sun’s rays zero in on her like a spotlight.
While Ted motored the sloop out of the slip and toward open water, Wanda Fonda had attached herself to my side. “What kind of name is Nu’ott?”
“My name is Not Sidney.”
“Okay, Not Sidney,” she rather nicely said. “Just what kind of name is Not Sidney?”
“One my crazy mother dreamed up.”
“I think it’s a nice name. I find it much better than my name. I hate that my name rhymes.”
“It’s not so bad. At least it doesn’t get you beaten up all the time.”
Wanda Fonda put her surprisingly strong grip on my forearm and sighed. “Do they beat you up?”
I was saved by Ted calling me over to him at the tiller. I moved to him, Wanda Fonda tethered fast.
“Nu’ott,” he said, “what we’re sailing today is a sloop. A sloop has one mast and two sails — mainsail and foresail. This fractional rig sloop was made by some Frenchies named Beneteau, was made in their factory in South Carolina. They grow great peaches up there. I love to suck on the pit, but then I never know what to do with it. The wind is the most important part of sailing. Without wind, there is no sailing. Today you’ll learn about the wind. Next time, knots. Yep, today you just sit back and watch and I’ll teach you about the wind and the beat and the close reach and the reach and the broad reach and the run, about luff and what it means to be in irons, about coming about and jibbing and about sails. You ever see what the sun can do to a convertible top over time? I had a little MG when I was in college, and the sun turned the top into a shag carpet.”
“Nu’ott, I’m going below for some lemonade,” this from Wanda Fonda. “Can I bring you some?”
“You can bring me a tall glass, Wanda Fonda,” Ted said. The girl was always called by both names. “Bring some for Betty, too. You want some lemonade, Betty? Maybe you want some iced tea instead?”
“Lemonade sounds nice,” Betty said. She was sitting not far from the tiller.
“You want some lemonade, Jane?” Ted called forward.
Jane waved her hand in the air in a way that could have meant yes or no or my nails are perfect.
“What about you, Nu’ott?” Wanda Fonda asked me, again.
“No, thank you,” I said.
With that Wanda Fonda disappeared down the companionway.
We passed under the sweeping suspension bridge, and Ted turned to me and said, “This is the Not Sidney Lanier Bridge.” He chuckled. “Just joking. I think Sidney Lanier was a poet or something.”
I looked at the bridge, looking both east and west along its length, but could not see where or if either end ever found land.
Once past the bridge Ted switched off his motor and raised the mainsail. The feeling of moving under the power of the wind was thrilling even though we weren’t making great speed. The motion of the sloop was hypnotic, at least to me. To Betty, it was nauseating. She swayed against the boat’s rhythm and took on a greenish cast.