There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me by Brooke Shields Page A

was slightly more intended to create a stir. Picture an old silver convertible, its top down, loud music and laughter blaring from it, parked in front of a Park Avenue office building filled with investment bankers and CEOs.
    Sometimes Dad picked us both up and sometimes just Diana. I spent many weekends out on Long Island with Dad’s family and accompanied them on spring breaks in the Bahamas. I had two totally different lives and seemed to go in and out of each with ease. At my dad’s there was routine and a schedule we strictly adhered to. There were three meals each day, served at roughly the same times. Kids washed up for meals and often ate with the nanny. During dinner parties, the adults ate in the dining room while the kids stayed in the big kitchen. On days that Dad came back late from work in Manhattan, Didi or the nanny would create a plate for him that he just had to heat up. There was very little in terms of surprise. At the end of the day you could always find my dad sitting in his study watching the boob tube. Bedtimes were set in stone, and only late-night whispering delayed actual sleep.
    By stark contrast, Mom had no set mealtimes. We often ate out at various Chinese or Italian restaurants later than conventionalmealtimes for children. We rarely cooked breakfast but instead went to the corner deli for a buttered roll with coffee and copies of the Daily News and the Post . We’d read each other our horoscopes and enjoyed the taste of the sweet butter on a hard roll. There was always the perfect amount of crunch on the outside and soft on the inside. My coffee was mostly milk and sugar but I loved being able to order “The regular, please.”
    That was our routine and we craved it. With Mom I never had a nanny and only rarely a sitter. Mom and I went to see movies and off-Broadway shows. We’d stay up late and didn’t always get up on time for school.
    But by the time visits to my dad’s rolled around, I welcomed the change of pace. I loved having the option of varied and contrasting lifestyles. The structure that my dad’s world provided was a tremendous relief from the adventurous and more Bohemian existence I lived with my mother. In the same way, the lack of routine and spontaneity with Mom served as a welcome reprieve after living under my stepmother’s roof.
    This duality, however, would create confusion later. Not clearly adopting any one side would later prove to be perplexing. Where did I really belong? It was as if I were living two parallel lives. The environment my father provided was the antithesis of that in which I lived with my single mom.
    However, I was so enmeshed with my own mother that even though I looked forward to the order I felt in my father’s house and knew how included I was as a family member, I was not open to my stepmother as a symbol of anything maternal. I once put ice down our English nanny’s shirt and ran from her only to fall and split open my knee. I was rushed to the hospital and definitely needed stitches. Didi came in with me as I lay down on the bed to be sewn up for the first time in my life. She warmly tried to hold my hand while thedoctor stitched me up, but I refused. Gripping the side of the bed with one hand and holding a clump of the hair on the back of my head with the other, I defiantly stated, “No, thank you. You are not my mother.”
    I did not dislike my stepmother—not in the least—or that my dad had a new wife. But I was simply not attached. I made it clear that nobody in the universe could fill my mother’s shoes. And with all due respect, Didi never tried. My stepmom was the antithesis of my mother. She was tiny, systematic, and never prone to drama. She believed in protocol and lists. She was fastidious and was even known to alphabetize her spices. I used to do anything I could to unsettle her. I loved screaming and having her run into the kitchen, worried I had been hurt again, only to greet her with “Ahhh! Does the cayenne pepper