Family Acts

CHAPTER 1 New York City 2006 Some genius at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences decided that that they should do a tribute to Katie's mother at the daytime Emmy Awards ceremony that spring. At first, the timing was a mystery to Katie. Her mother, Rosalind Harder, had died four years earlier, and she'd retired three years before that. In the world of television, seven years was a lifetime. But when she thought about it, Katie understood. Daytime television was in trouble, audiences were shrinking, and two shows teetered on the brink of cancellation. There wasn't a hell of a lot for the academy to celebrate, so why not take a few minutes to remind everyone of the good old days when Rosalind Harder had over forty million loyal fans tuning in to watch her play Tess Jones on the massively popular soap opera All Our Lives? They asked Katie, who worked as a writer for All Our Lives, to speak at the tribute. Katie dutifully penned a ten-minute speech that captured the charismatic woman who had been her mother, while not dwelling on the fact that the late Rosalind Harder could also be, in the words of one of her harried producers, "the diva from the dark side." When she finished writing the speech, even Katie realized it was one of her best efforts. Which meant it was damn goodher standards for her own work tended to be pretty brutal. In honor of the great event, Katie had her nails done, renewed her prescription for her contact lenses so she wouldn't have to wear her glasses, and, in a moment of wild abandon, bought a new evening dress. The saleswoman admitted it was an "unusual" shade of green, but she assured Katie that the skirt was slenderizing. Shopping wasn't one of Katie's skills. Normally her ensemble for awards shows consisted of her trusty black chiffon palazzo pants paired with a loose-fitting tunic when she was feeling chunky, and a glittery chemise tucked in at the waist when she was feeling more svelte. But, carried away by the excitement of the moment, and the saleswoman's flattery, she forked over a small fortune for the gown and took it home, telling herself that it would look better on camera than it did in real life. But two mornings before the Emmy Awards show, she woke up in the throes of a full-blown anxiety attacksomething that had never happened to her beforeand when she finally started breathing again, she knew there was no way she could face standing up in front of the entire daytime industry, plus whoever might be watching at home. So in spite of the new gown and the snazzy manicure, she conned Teddy Raider, her mother's longtime agent, who also represented Katie, into delivering the speech in her place. On the great night, Katie planned to sit in the audience with the rest of the All Our Lives writing staff and listen to someone else deliver her words. That was what she had been doing most of her adult life; Katie was one of five dialogue writers working for the show her mother had made famous. Being a scriptwriter in daytime television wasn't exactly a glamorous gig. The writing stars in the wonderful world of soap opera were the head writers, who thought up the stories that played out for monthsor sometimes yearson the shows. Those who turned out the daily scripts, like Katie, were the invisible drones. The only reason people in the industry knew the name Katie Harder was because of her high-profile mother. So, on Emmy night, when she took her place in the auditorium of Radio City Music Hall, Katie expected to be, as she always was, anonymous. She and her colleagues were relegated to the bad seats at the back of the auditorium because no one ever wanted a picture of the writers. The tribute to Rosalind Harder took place halfway through the show, at the moment when tShaffer, Louise is the author of 'Family Acts ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400060634 and ISBN 140006063X.