“We will be right there,” Anna called out, heels click-clacking along the marble floor as she retrieved coats from the foyer closet. She donned a cashmere wrap then handed Daddy his tuxedo jacket and straightened his tie. They were off to the premiere of Daddy’s latest picture. Anna was dressed in a rose satin evening gown, her complexion flattered by the hue. In the last several years she had put on weight, and her features were softer but still beautiful. I wished they weren’t leaving. Even if Daddy was furious, I didn’t want to be alone.

“Well, I’m not going back.” I groused, as he slipped into his jacket. “They can all go fuck themselves. I’m quitting.”

Daddy spun around, his face turning purple. He came at me, finger pointed.

“Listen to me, Ja-ckie Gold-stein.” He stabbed each syllable. “You will show up at work tomorrow and honor your contract. Do you understand me, young lady? You will not walk away from your responsibilities like—” He stopped short, turned away. “Let’s go,” he snapped at Anna.

“Wait,” I said, rising. “Like who? Who Dad?” I knew I was baiting him. I wanted him to stay and fight.

“You know very well who.”

“Daddy!” I sobbed and collapsed back on the divan. “It’s not fair. Everyone’s against me,” I wailed, “even you.”

“Oy vey, enough with the drama,” my father said sternly. “You show up for work until that contract expires. You hear me?” He turned, walked out the front door, and climbed into the back of the stretch Limo idling in the driveway.

Anna bent down and pressed her cheek to mine. One of her dangly diamond earrings caught in my hair. “Take his advice, it will all work out, you’ll see,” she whispered, untangling herself. She kissed me lightly on the forehead and followed my father out the door.

Often art imitates life, but then sometimes life imitates…well, daytime television.

For the next two months, I lay “comatose” in a mock hospital bed, my eyes open, unblinking while Peter, Lyle, and Gloria—the actress who played my mother, vied for Emmys, dripping tears and sweat onto my face. During the long hours when I wasn’t on set, I served out my sentence in new cramped quarters, my Winnebago having been hauled away and replaced with a Honeywagon dressing room the size of a closet.

Surprisingly, Penny was thrilled with the outcome. “Now I can submit you for real parts. No more of this daytime dreck,” she’d cajoled. Like this had been her strategy from the start.

I, on the other hand, held out the secret hope that Moira’s plan would backfire, that fans would paper the network with letters on my behalf or better, that the ratings would plummet now that Amber and Storm were no longer heating the airwaves. But the ratings held strong.