He shook himself loose. “Yeah, Jackie, I have feelings.” His lips curled, his face was red. “I’m feeling fucking angry and sick and tired of seeing you drive by my house spying on me. I am sick of your crazy phone calls.” His voice rose, “Do not come here again or I will get a restraining order and have you arrested for stalking. Do you understand? Do you?”

“Prick!” I screamed in his face and launched my fists at him.

He grabbed my arms, pushed me outside, and slammed the door.

I collapsed on the porch, hysterical, sobbing and screaming, banging my fists on his door over and over. I cried so hard I didn’t even see the man in a safari suit jump out from behind the bushes until the flashes went off in my eyes.

Two days later, the picture hit the tabloids: DUMPED ran the headline. It was on the cover of every magazine at every check stand in every supermarket in every town in America.

INT. SUNSET GOWER STUDIO

CIRCLE OF LIFE SOUNDSTAGE

DAY

AMBER: I want you so much, Storm.

STORM: I want you, Amber. It’s driving me crazy.

AMBER: I can’t go on like this.

THEY EMBRACE.

“And cut! Take five everyone, we’ll reset from the top.”

“I really can’t go on like this,” I hissed to Peter, as we retreated to the makeup trailer.

“What are you talking about?” Peter said.

“This. You and me!” I said exasperated. “I know you’re feeling this, Pete. You get a hard-on every time we kiss.”

“No, Jackie,” Peter said wearily. “Storm gets a hard-on for Amber. Peter feels nothing for Jackie. It’s called acting.”

We were back in production, and I still wasn’t over him. It was excruciating. Amber and Storm’s kisses felt as real to me as Peter’s and mine had, and every love scene rekindled my hope and desire. When the scene ended, I fled to my trailer and cried my eyes out. Peter, on the other hand, quickly untangled himself and walked off to where his latest squeeze was waiting.

Several weeks earlier, I’d left the Oakwood and moved into a historic two-bedroom on Rossmore Avenue with a fireplace, crown moldings, and the musty smell of a glamorous past. At another time, it would have been my dream apartment, but now all I could see were the earthquake cracks in the walls and the uneven floors where the foundation had settled. Still, I was trying to move on. I’d been sleeping with Greg Pallucci, a producer in his forties. The physical opposite of Peter, he was streetwise, short, and rough around the edges. Every morning, I arrived on set exhausted from a night with Pallucci, who couldn’t get enough of me and went straight into the arms of the man I loved but who couldn’t stand me.