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

trying to catch her in some way, so that I could legitimately blame herdrinking for my unhappiness. In earlier years I would have just awakened her and pretended, both that the guy with the red suit was real and that her drinking was not a problem.
    If Mom woke up on her own and dealt with Christmas presents under the tree, then it was proof, I told myself, that Santa existed and her alcohol consumption was, in fact, not that bad. If she stayed asleep and could not rally to play Santa, I could accuse her of passing out and ruining Christmas. I could say, “See, there is no Santa and because you were drunk, I now know and I am crushed. I hate you and I hate your drinking.” This was the year reality hit me, and the blow was threefold. Mom was a drunk, there was no Santa, and Mom’s drinking ruined Christmas. And, in a way, everything.

Chapter Four

    If You Die, I Die
    T hroughout both the closeness and turmoil of living with my mother, I always had something else, which was my relationship with my father and his family. I spent quite a lot of time with him in the Hamptons, where my Pop-Pop, the former tennis champion, was something of a legend at the Meadow Club of Southampton. Mom and I would spend the summers out there, visiting with my dad and enjoying the beach club where my father was a member. We didn’t have a house of our own, but Mom wanted me to know my dad and be a part of the privileged existence that was available via his upbringing.
    We at first stayed at friends’ houses or with relatives of my father’s, but we also rented a room above Herrick Hardware in the town of Southampton. I attended day camp and spent my days at the beach club, where I learned how to swim in the large, rectangular, seemingly Olympic-size pool. There are many pictures of me and my little friends eating hot dogs or ice cream, wearing our little Lilly Pulitzer floral bathing-suit bottoms and no tops.
    When I was a baby, Mom took me to the Meadow Club wheninvited, and as I got older she would drop me off at the club midmorning and I’d be watched by various mothers and families who welcomed me as their own. I am not sure what my mom did during the times I was at the beach club, but I don’t remember her being with me there all the time. She would have had to have been specifically invited, because she was not a member. Mom managed to stay busy. She befriended a bartender at a place called Shippy’s. It was in town and a popular joint for food and drink. It basically became Mom’s go-to watering hole. She had her haunts in every town we inhabited. I imagine Mom spent many hours at that particular establishment sidled up to the dark wood bar.

    There is something tragic in the thought of my being introduced to and accepted by a part of society in which my own mother existed solely on the periphery. She never let on if she felt like an outsider or if she coveted a closer membership to this more rarified world.Looking back, it seems that once again she enjoyed straddling the fence that separated the Waspy culture from her Newark roots. She enjoyed knowing the locals as well as the wealthier set.
    At the end of the beach day, when all the other kids returned to their big houses by the sea, I was either picked up or returned to the small rented walk-up room over Herrick’s. It was a very modest space. The tub stood in the kitchen and was covered by a long wooden lid. In order to bathe, one would lift the wooden countertop and fill the tub. My father stayed with various friends and relatives who had stunning properties a short distance from the ocean with rolling lawns, pools, and guesthouses. I was happy anywhere and bounced between the mansions and our single room. I have to believe I welcomed the proximity of my mom in this tiny space. I felt uneasy, sometimes, in the vastness of these other homes and felt safe in our insulated shell. I was also still so young that I didn’t recognize the disparity in socioeconomic status evident in