The Absentee Party Host

     Page Eighty-One.
     I was the kitchen help at an intimate dinner party in 1983. The job was next door with the neighbors while I was at my first live-in nanny position. These neighbors, the Windsors, had a particularly beautiful, and comfortably large home and hired me to do many projects over a two or three year period. I think I painted a few different bedrooms plus the first floor enclosed porch. I cleaned their basement, took care of the backyard while they were vacationing and was the party help on a couple occasions.
     Each of their parties live in my memory for different reasons. This one in question was slightly bizarre because the husband, a hot shot surgeon at The Cleveland Clinic, spent most of the party with me, in the kitchen. He explained that he liked me more than he liked his guests. He went out front occasionally and talked to them during cocktails and, of course, had to sit with them during dinner. But mostly he was with me in the kitchen. His wife came in and admonished him regularly, but he didn't seem to care.
     I think that the party was primarily her friends. Also, I suspect that he was introverted and had a hard time with crowds. He saw me as a compromise. He was technically attending his party by being on the same floor (as opposed to spending the entire evening in the bedroom) but socialized primarily with me. I didn't care. He kept me company. I bet lots of husbands do that sort of thing, too.