Chapter 4
And my parents?
It wasn't that they didn't love me.
They were just too busy to love me.
When my mom was pregnant with me, she was right in the middle of a concert tour. She found her water break on stage.
According to the people who were there, she suddenly stopped singing during the third song. She held her stomach. Her face turned pale.
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Olivia, are you okay?"
She leaned into the microphone and said something I would never forget. "It's nothing. Probably just something I ate."
Then she finished that song and the next one.
By the third song, she finally couldn't hold on anymore. An ambulance took her away right from the concert venue.
I was born in that ambulance.
Yes. Not in a hospital. In an ambulance.
No epidural. No doula. No husband keeping her company.
My dad was on a movie set in another city. When he got the call, he was in the middle of shooting a fight scene. The director yelled "cut" before he saw the 37 missed calls on his phone.
He called back. My mom had already given birth.
"It's a girl," my mom said.
"What should we name her?" my dad asked.
My mom looked out the window.
The ambulance was parked on the side of the road. Right outside the window was a sign that said Nina's Diner.
"Let's call her Nina," my mom said. "Nina Summers."
That was how I got my name.
Not from spending hours flipping through a baby name book. Not from asking someone wise. Not because they wanted to give me some beautiful meaning.
It came from a small diner.
The day after my mom gave birth to me, she left the hospital and went right back on tour.
She handed me to a nanny named Mary Walker. I called her Mary.
Mary took care of me until I was three. Then she left.
Because her son had to take the SAT, and she had to go home and be there for him.
After that, I went through more than a dozen nannies.
Some left because the pay was too low. Some because the job was too tiring. Some because they couldn't handle my family.
The last nanny left when I was 15.
From that day on, I took care of myself.
I cooked for myself, did my own laundry, went to school by myself, and came home by myself.
Every day after school, the house was empty. Not a single person was around.
I would do my homework first. Then I would make myself dinner, eat, do the dishes, take a shower, and go to bed.
Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear noises downstairs. That meant my mom, Alex or Chloe had come home.
I never went down.
Because I knew they didn't need me.
What they needed was a quiet person who didn't bother them and was always on call. A tool.
*****
When I was in elementary school, the teacher asked us to draw a picture of our families.
I drew six people, including my dad, my mom, Alex, Chloe, Mary, and me.
The teacher looked at it and asked, "Who is this?"
She was pointing at Mary.
I said, "That's Mary. She picks me up from school every day. She makes me dinner and tucks me in at night."
The teacher asked, "What about your mom and dad?"
I said, "They're busy."
She asked, "Busy doing what?"
I thought for a second and said, "Busy being celebrities."
The whole class laughed.
The teacher laughed too.
I was the only one who didn't.
Because I was telling the truth.
Later, the teacher thought it was funny and posted the story as a joke in the parents' group chat.
My mom saw it and called me. "Nina, how could you tell people in the school that your parents are celebrities?"
I said, "Because you are."
"That doesn't mean you should be telling everyone. People will think you're bragging," she said.
I said, "I'm not bragging. I was just answering the teacher."
My mom sighed, "Nina, you need to learn to keep a low profile. You're celebrities' daughter. You have to watch your image."
"Okay," I said.
After hanging up, I thought for a long moment.
Who was I really?
Celebrities' daughter?
But if I were, why was I never mentioned on their social media?
My parents' Twitter feeds never talked about me.
Alex's livestreams never showed me on camera.
Chloe's interviews never brought me up.
Once a reporter asked my mom, "Olivia, how many kids do you have?"
My mom said, "Two. A son and a daughter."
The reporter said, "But online, it says you have three?"
My mom laughed, "You believe what you see online?"
Everyone laughed.
I watched my mom's smile on TV and suddenly felt so cold.
It was summer. The air conditioner wasn't even on. But I still felt cold.
Cold from deep in my bones.