Jed Wolf

“I’ve got a marked propensity towards procrastination,” I boasted, proud to be something other than irritating to our Berea college girl Wilda.

Governesses once cared for families in the waterfront neighborhood my parents moved us into after my father started designing shopping malls. The few black housekeepers remaining, who’d raised the privileged kids from earlier decades were being phased out. Before “Au-Pairs” were legal, European girls on summer vacations who didn’t know a thing about children or housework filled the void.

Southfield Point was built on a secluded peninsula along the southern terminus of the Wisconsin ice sheet on Long Island Sound. A few Queen Anne mansions overlooked the tides lapping on Volkswagen bus-sized boulders perched on granite bedrock. Edifice residents had the intimate beaches to themselves until fill from dredging Stamford Harbor gave them neighbors in the 30’s. Within each status-conscious Greek revival, English Tudor and Italianate mini mansion, were maids’ quarters. Few Point wives worked in the 1960’s, but Bloomingdales, tennis, travel, flower clubs and “housewife headaches” still required help.

Kind-hearted Bessie bussed back and forth for decades from nearby Waterside which stunk like garbage and fish. She cleaned for several families and even watched my sister and I a few times ‘till the appearance of slave labor grew offensive. White families traded lighter-skinned immigrants among themselves to see what others thought before permanently hiring them. Finally, taking cues from their husbands with European secretaries, busy wives on The Point began hiring lily-white university students from the old world as live-in summer help.

Attuned to emergent feminism and unable to conform, my socially conscious father employed Pappo, a homesick Argentinian who spoke no English and cried every single night on the third floor with her cat for nearly a year and a half before he bought her a plane ticket and hired Wilda.

Our beloved corn-fed “Wildebeest” as teenagers called her, unlike the Elises, Rulas, and Brigettes being passed around our neighborhood, stayed put. Though she was American, her affable Kentuckian mannerisms were equally exotic to me at eleven and my fourteen year old sister who couldn’t help giggling at her accent.

At first, I was wary of getting too near, fearing she might want to be inappropriately touched, until her aphorisms won me over. “Whad’y’all mean, you nevah had a Fluffahnuttah?” she repeated on command introducing me to marshmallow Fluff.

It was worse than having a dog disappear when Wilda got engaged. She was replaced by pregnant Kali who drifted around as if in shock. Grateful to not be in a home for unwed mothers, she spent most of her time in bed. Exquisitely depressed and the source of many closed-door arguments between my parents, Kali languished like a termite queen while my sister and I attended to her until my father rushed her away.

“Goldfinger” was the number one movie that summer as the Halifaxes spruced up their maids’ quarters for chic-accented help. Brigette wore ruffles and dusted for the trend-setting Crowley’s, whose delinquent son mysteriously behaved under her spell. Soon after, the Halifaxes tried Elise, a slim Belgian last seen on the back of Kenny Archer’s Harley at which point they hired Rula, a luscious copper-headed friend of Elise to replace her.

Mr. Halifax was British. He had several Rolls Royces, introduced the Beatles to The Point and was a fan of Sean Connery so the Belgian was merely novel at first ‘til the weather warmed and Rula’s voluptuous hips and powerful boobs stopped time. Like many Point residents, the Halifaxes had a pool. Bikinis and Speedos were summer wear in those days, but no one had seen anything like the gold lamé vessel Rula jiggled around in.

We spent that summer teaching Rula “tricks” to repeatedly perform draped on the diving board, until after boinking a few teenagers and a neighborhood father who was rumored to have sobbed at her breast like a philandering baby, Rula was never seen again.

Amused and underwhelmed by the sluts from Brussels, my politically correct father hired a young, African American from Waterside to watch us for several weeks while my parents vacationed in Africa, so I prepared to be bored.

I was around twelve when I heard Alma drive up in her rusty Vega. Soft spoken, in horn-rimmed glasses, I thought she might be a librarian until my parents left for the airport and Alma began planning a party. “Is the pool heated,” she asked. “You people have a boat?”

She’d gotten my older sister high, and we’d met several of her cool friends who hung out afternoons by our pool planning the soiree. The big day arrived, and I watched from my room as colorful dudes who looked like hustlers lugged coolers, kegs and boom boxes across the yard. Racy-looking women in miniskirts and heels emerged from Cadillacs in the setting sun as neon-colored vehicles lined the streets for the biggest party the Point had ever seen.

“Where’s Jed,” I heard Alma yell in between throbbing R&B tracks. “What’s wrong with you?” she said, a few minutes later, cracking open my bedroom door. “Come on out and have some fun baby.” I followed her out to the pool where she walked me around introducing me to her flamboyant friends, one of whom passed me a joint. I took a big hit, coughed my lungs out then someone handed me a beer. The party went well into the night as what seemed like hundreds of people came and went. Unlike pretentious Point gatherings I skulked around in feeling weird, being among Alma’s friends made me appreciate adults for the very first time in my life.

My sister and I helped her clean up the next day, carefully hiding all the evidence, doing dishes, and cleaning our rooms. Putting on her librarian act, Alma welcomed my parents back, said we were perfect then loudly drove away. She was the last help my parents ever hired. We no longer seemed to need it after that summer, as the water lapped on the little beaches, the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” and Motown, more relevant than God.