Chapter 18

There, in the newspaper, The Times Picayune, was my wanted advertisement.

Wanted: A wet nurse. Lost your baby? Got excess mothers milk? Young family with triplets is looking for a wet nurse with an adventuresome soul. Want to get away? We can help. Reasonable wages and found. Must Not be seasick. Pick up the phone and dial 87, ask for Wendy.

There are a great many ex-virgins in New Orleans. Most of them called by the end of the first day of publication. Some were still married; some were still pregnant; some were instantly vomiting over the side ... and we weren't moving. Some were too young ... like 14 and some were too old; some were too beautiful; and some wanted a sugar-daddy. Who we finally chose was 16, not beautiful ... but not ugly ... pleasant. An orphan done wrong. A runaway.

Wendy said, "This one."

I said, "Can you leave this instant?"

"Yes, please," she said.

"What's your name?"

"They call me Heather," she said.

"They call you Heather?"

"There was a sprig of heather wrapped up in my blanket," she said.

"Do you like it?"

"I still have the sprig," she opened a little bible and there it was, a pressed sprig of heather between the pages. "This is the only thing that's mine. Even these clothes belong to the people where I was living. My foster mother turned me out when her son got me pregnant."

"There's nothing you need from home?"

"It's not home ... it's a shelter. They told me my baby died."

"David?"

"Yes?"

"Fire up the fans and we'll get to untying us."

"You'll take me?"

"Right now."

"Thanks be to god. You saved me from the pimps."

Twenty minutes later we were on the river passing Brathwaite heading for the Gulf of Mexico. We stopped at Buras and took Heather clothes shopping. It wasn't the garment district but the general store had good clean sturdy clothes. We wanted foul weather gear but the clerk said we needed to go down to Venice ... The Venice Chandlery would have everything we needed. And they did.

"All this stuff is mine?" Heather said.

"Yes," Wendy was adamant.

Heather burst into tears ... Wendy hugged her. I didn't. She was touchy about men.

There was a Washateria next door to the Chandlery ... they had modern gas engined Maytag wringer washers, good enameled tubs and soft water. They even had the new fangled detergent powders ... no shaving off a bar of Fels. We liked it so much we went back to the boat and fetched our laundry ... by golly ... the faintly yellow shirts were WHITE ... We hung everything in the rigging. It dried in an hour and, as Wendy put it, it was so soft.

"That does it," said Wendy, "I'm doing the sheets, pillowcases, diapers and the trips baby clothes. Inkeri? Artturi? We're going back to the Washateria, pack your duffles. Let's have really clean bedding and soft unmentionables."

They looked so cute. If you want to see females cooing at babies? Triplets will do it every time. Even twins ... who have had more than their fair share of being cooed over ... will blush, giggle and coo at triplet girls.

Wendy and Heather fed the babies while the wash was agitating. Two stacked young women, breast feeding babies, will draw a crowd ... of men.

"We need one of these for the boat," Wendy said, nodding at the Maytag.

The attendant heard her. "Willard Gastineau down at the general carries the Maytag, I can call him."

Wendy nodded.

Young Willard was a very tall spindle of a cajun. He got right to business.

"Twenty-nine ninety-five complete ... two tubs and drain hose included ... plus 2 percent state and local tax and I'll deliver it. That's for the gas model ... the electric is seven dollars more. What's your address?"

"We live on the sailboat tied up at the tee-dock."

"Have I got a deal for you! Let me take photographs of you using the washer on the boat and you can have the whole shebang for twenty-five bucks and I'll eat the tax."

And that's what we did.

While Willard was installing the plumbing necessary to extend the cockpit freshwater shower waterlines, both hot and cold, back to the rear of the cockpit, he kept looking at Heather.

I mentioned it.

"I'm sorry ... I don't mean to make her nervous..." he started...

"I doubt she's even noticed you, Willard," Wendy said.

"She's so calm ... and the name ... Heather ... is restful," he said wistfully. "Ah well ... life goes on."

Willard Gastineau sold washers to boaters, push tugs, ships and the Navy on the strength of that ad with Wendy, Keri and Heather all washing, wringing and hanging to dry.

He sent in ideas for improvements to Maytag for washers and wringers. They employed him as the district distributor. Then the Regional and finally the United States west of the Mississippi. By 1950 Willard was a wealthy man.