There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (10 page)

Mom, uncharacteristically, did not put up a fight. The plan had been for all of us to spend the night, but the ring incident shook us all up. Lyda called her grandmother, who soon arrived. Lyda said to me, “You know, Brookie, you can come to my grandmother’s if you want.”

I explained that I had to stay with my mom. I needed to make sure she was OK.

Even then, I realized something wasn’t quite right. “You’re so lucky, Lyda, that you have someplace to go,” I added.

I was a young child, but I was more worried for my mom’s safety than for my own. Sure, I would have preferred the warmth and comfort and safety of the cozy and beautifully decorated guest room in a drama-free home, but I had a deeply embedded sense of loyalty and obligation to my mom and her well-being. I could never abandon my mother by choosing to stay with my friend over her. I was the only one around to take care of my mom and I was constantly worried that something would happen to her. I had made an unspoken promise to continue to be by her side and protect her from harm, and I wasn’t going to let this episode change that.

I am pretty sure we never socialized with that particular family again, and I imagine that this incident fueled gossip about my mother’s drinking and her conduct. I never understood why Mom did not convince others of her innocence. It had begun as a warm gesture toward this little blond girl. Also, why would a grown woman purposely yank a little kid’s hair? It all seemed kind of unfair to me, and I felt embarrassed and sad for my mom.

Over the years, I also had fun memories of both the beach club and hanging with the year-round local community. I remember being
welcomed by the polarized world and not really even noticing the differences.

For many years, I was too young to understand social barriers. I had been taught very strict manners by my mother. Other mothers would comment on how polite and well-behaved I was, and I was always invited for playdates. On one particular playdate I brought my plate to the kitchen sink at the conclusion of the meal. I was quickly reprimanded by the mother and informed that I needn’t do such a thing.

“But my mommy said I should always bring my plate to the sink.”

When I returned home, my mother got a phone call from this particular woman, who said, “Please tell your daughter that we have people working for us who clear the table. When she visits, she does not have to bring her plate to the kitchen sink.”

“Well, we
don’t
have people who do that for us, and you need not worry about her doing it again in your home, because my daughter will not be returning there again for a playdate. Good-bye.”

Mom laughed when she told the story later, loving that a woman from Newark had taught her daughter better manners than people who had more money than we would ever have.

•   •   •

When I was five years old, Dad married Didi Auchincloss. It was on May 1, 1970, in Manhattan. Didi was from a prominent New York family and had been traditionally educated. She had been married previously but was divorced from Tom Auchincloss, who was Jackie Kennedy’s stepbrother.

I don’t remember them meeting or dating, just that one day I was told Dad was getting married. Because I had never experienced my mother and father as a married couple living together and as a bonded couple, I felt no jealousy toward my dad’s new bride. In fact, I thought she was very pretty and that everything in her house was always so
neat. She was petite and reserved and kept her life in strict order. She was a brunette, well-bred, and well-educated debutante who reminded me of Jackie Onassis. Dad had chosen the antithesis of my mother. This, without a doubt, must have killed Mom. There is a beautiful photo of a smiling Dad and Didi coming out of an Upper East Side church and crossing the street. Dad is in tails and Didi has flowers in her hair. To me, it all seemed beautiful and perfect. I used to stare at every detail of this photo when I visited their Eighty-Sixth Street apartment. It all just looked so classic and beautiful.

Didi had two children from her first marriage. Her daughter, Diana, was six years old, and her son, Tommy, was nine. I suddenly had an instant family, and I was excited by the future. It wasn’t long before another baby was on the horizon. My stepsister, Diana, and I were very lucky that our parents married, and even though we did not know it at the time, we were to become partners, allies, confidants, and lifelong sisters.

Didi gave birth to my first half sister, Marina, when Diana and I were seven and six, respectively. Imagine the joy of knowing I was an older sister and that there was now a baby to play with! I had wished that my mom would have another baby, but it was not possible. I vaguely remember her going into a hospital and having a “female operation.” I suggested we adopt: “Just get one from the foundling home.” I didn’t want her with a man, but I did want a baby sibling. Now I had one, and Mom was off the hook.

Over the years, Diana and I began spending more and more time together and unabashedly laughing the whole time. Diana even became quite attached to my mother, and Mom often introduced us as her daughters. Talk about unconventional! Didi seemed to have no qualms about her firstborn daughter being in the company of her husband’s ex-wife. She allowed Diana to spend time—a great deal of time—in our company and in our small-by-comparison apartment on Seventy-Third Street. Later, she even traveled with my mom and me all over the world. Diana and I became extremely close, and my mom loved us both. All parties involved seemed to support our being together. The three of us became a real team and we all benefited. Diana confided in my mother, who authentically loved her. I now had a partner with whom to commiserate. During the times Diana stayed with my mother and me, it seemed like we were always having fun and laughing.

Soon Dad and Didi moved out to the North Shore of Long Island. They bought a beautiful house in an area called Meadowspring. The
house was huge and the backyard ample. I shared a room with Diana during my visits, and Tom and Marina had their own rooms.

Over the next seven years, little girls would be born into this growing brood. Cristiana next and Olympia “the baby.”

Sometimes Diana would stay in the city with my mom and me. The three of us would drive around in our silver convertible, with the top down, eating cherries or peaches from the fruit stand. We would park outside Dad’s office with the radio blaring, eating our fruit and awaiting my father, who would drive Diana back out to Long Island. It was slightly reminiscent of when Mom used to wait to surprise-attack my father outside his old office building. This time it 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 conventional
mealtimes 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 the
doctor 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 go with
C
or
P
?”

She always smelled good and maintained her own nails. I’d often smell the enamel from down the hall and knew the color she picked would be a subtle one. I made sure to paint my nails black whenever I visited. Didi always wore an array of yellow-gold bangles and bracelets. To this day, if I hear a jingling of bracelets, she comes to mind.

By contrast, my mom was larger than life, disorganized, and often incited chaos. She was frequently boisterous, she drank and cursed like a construction worker, and she wore red lipstick and fire engine–red nail polish. She was clean but often disheveled. Mom’s idea of order was writing important phone numbers on tiny scraps of paper and losing them and tying up her credit cards with one of the thousands of rubber bands she had saved from delivered newspapers.

My mother never seemed outwardly resentful about the other life that I had at my father’s, but there were signs that she wasn’t fully accepting of all it represented. She tried to control it. For instance, at the beginning of every summer, Dad took me to get my annual pair of Top-Siders and a few Lacoste short-sleeve shirts. I loved these outings
and couldn’t wait to wear what I knew the other kids would be wearing. Mom shopped for me only at thrift stores and would never buy me brand labels. In fact, every time I came home with a Lacoste shirt, Mom would painstakingly cut out the little signature alligator. This was not an easy task because the thread was a sturdy plastic, and a hole would inevitably be left. Mom would then sew up the hole with the same color of thread as the shirt, and even though they were brand-new, they looked secondhand. Only then was I allowed to wear the now no-name item. It amazes me how much she coveted the world of privilege yet thwarted its symbols. It was a confusing time for me, but I knew I was loved by both sides. They were each protecting me and caring for me in their individual ways and from their unique perspectives.

Overall, there was a good relationship between the two families. I have always been pleasantly surprised and deeply relieved that neither my mother, nor my father, nor my stepmother ever spoke ill of one another. Nor did they try to pit me against the other family or try to prove their superiority. I went back and forth frequently and never felt like a traitor.

One thing that never changed was my devotion to my mother and the feeling that our lives would be forever intertwined. The brakes on our new black Jeep once went out while we were traveling across the George Washington Bridge heading out to New Jersey.

Mom screamed for me to get in the backseat and strap in because we had no way of stopping. I refused. I remember feeling strangely proud and looking straight ahead and saying, “No! If you die, I die.” I was steadfast.