by Lisa Ferrari
“No, I just said what came to mind. Do you think we’ll find him?”
“Absolutely.”
I turn to face Kellan. “Really?”
“Of course. The entire LAPD is after him. The Sheriff’s Department is after him. Homeland Security is after him. The FBI is after him. Sheila has brought the full brunt of her resources into this, too. Right down onto the Attorney General’s office. All six hundred million dollars’ worth. Plus, Uzi has his team on it. They’re, like, professionals. Like, you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff they’ve done and the places they’ve worked. We’re talking, like, Navy SEALs times ten. That guy who pointed that gun at you… he’s a dead man.”
“When do you think they’ll find him?”
“It might take a few days. Or a week. Or a month. But they’ll find him. And honestly I don’t think they’ll even have to. After the car chase and the footage online and all over the news and your impromptu press conference, you’ve got millions of people in your corner. They’re all working for you, trying to find the guy that threatened you. Someone somewhere is going to see that black SUV with the fake plates. And if he has any brains, he’s ditched that plate by now. But everyone who drives that make and model is going to be scrutinized. It’s only a matter of time until he gets arrested.”
“What if he comes back?”
“Back here?”
“Yeah.”
“Uzi will nail him.”
“What do you mean by ‘nail him’? Like, kill him?”
“Maybe. Uzi is a world Krav Maga champion. I’m sure he’ll try to apprehend him but if he has to use deadly force, so be it.”
“Can he do that?”
“Sure. The guy is guilty of about a hundred different felonies now, just like you said on TV. People hate this guy. If he gets shot trying to break in to our house again, no one’s going to give a shit. Certainly not me.”
“Think he’ll try?”
“He can try but there’s going to be someone here twenty-four-seven.”
“What about when we leave? Is Uzi coming with us?”
“Yes. But he has other people on his team. Someone will stay behind to watch the house.”
“What if someone climbs up the ravine into the back yard?”
“It’s all under surveillance. We’ll be able to see them before they even get close to the yard or the house. We’re locked up tighter than Area 51. Don’t worry about that.”
“What if he parks his car down there and flies a drone up here?”
Kellan laughs. “That would be innovative.”
“What would we do if we were out by the pool eating or reading or making love, and a drone shows up and records us doing what we did on the pool table and it ends up on YouTube? I don’t want that.”
“I don’t want that, either. So for the time being I guess we’ll just have to keep our intimate moments indoors.”
“What happens if a drone shows up? Isn’t it invasion of privacy? We have a reasonable expectation of privacy here in our home.”
Kellan looks at me funny. He’s impressed by my lawyer-ese.
“What?” I ask, feigning insult. “I learned about it in my business law class in college. Someone can take pictures of you at the mall or in a parking lot because it’s a public place so there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy. But in your home, it’s different. They can’t just take your picture. I’m not sure if it pertains to back yards, though.”
“Well, I’ll get a dart gun that shoots adhesive harpoons. If a drone shows up, we’ll harpoon it and reel it in so no one can get footage of us going at it like wild animals in the back yard.”
“But I think the drone’s camera sends the footage back to the phone or tablet they’re using to fly it. So capturing the drone wouldn’t do much good.”
“Oh. Good point. I guess we’ll just have to kill the son of a bitch, then.”
Chapter 23
THE NEXT DAY, Kellan has an autobody repair guy come to the house to take my little red Pontiac to get a new bumper, which is going to be almost two grand.
Kellan, Dave, Uzi and I stand in the courtyard, looking at the car, at the ruined bumper. Evidence of the chase. Dave has inspected the car thoroughly, found all the parts online with his wholesaler, and discussed our options with us. Kellan wants the car to look like it did before. Ergo, two grand.
Kellan asks me, “Do you want to sell it and put that two grand toward the purchase of a new car? I mean, it’s almost twenty-five percent of what I paid for the car in the first place.”
“No! I love this car. I don’t ever want to sell it.”
“Okay. You’re the boss.” Kellan hugs me and kisses my hair.
I hand the keys to Dave the autobody repair guy. He says he’ll bring it back tomorrow or the next day, depending on how long it takes to get the parts and stuff.
I take a pic of the crunched, scratched bumper and put it online:
New Bumper: $898.00
New Diffuser: $468.00
New Energy Absorber: $69.00
Paint: $150
Labor: $400
Grand Total: $1985 + tax
Knowing that someday I’m going to find the f**k who did this and beat the s**t out of him: PRICELESS.
#IWantMyPantiesBack
People immediately begin liking and commenting on my post. Sheila LOLs me with smiley faces. So does Heather. As do 1500 other people I don’t know.
LATER THAT DAY, a courier arrives with final versions of the Really Big Movie’s screenplay, one copy each for Kellan and me.
Uzi receives them outside and brings them into the house.
We take the scripts out by the pool and read them together silently. Kellan finishes first and pretends to continue reading while I finish a short while later.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“I think it’s really good. I think they need to rewrite the ending. Again.”
“Why?”
“You die trying to save me, I kill the Alien Queen to get revenge and rescue the slaves, and I escape alone, without you? Screw that. That’s no fun. That’s not a happy ending. What happened at the end of Predator? Who was on the chopper with Arnold? The girl, too, right? Anna? He didn’t let her die and save his own ass. And what about the ending of Conan? What happened to Sandahl Bergman? She got killed by James Earl Jones’s poison snake arrow and died in Arnold’s arms and at the end of the movie Arnold was alone on his throne, a king by his own hand but still alone.”
“Her death added to his desire for revenge.”
“He didn’t need any added desire. He already wanted revenge because James Earl Jones and his gang killed Arnold’s whole tribe and both of his parents. James Earl Jones cut his mother’s head off right in front of him. Believe me, he was highly motivated. It would’ve been better if Sandahl Bergman hadn’t died and she had been on the throne beside him at the end and they’d lived happily ever after. It’s like in Titanic, why did Jack have to die? Because Rose’s fat ass was the only one who could fit on that stupid piece of wood? It was true love, so they should’ve spent the rest of their lives together. Then she wouldn’t have had to throw that humongous necklace into the ocean to symbolize her letting go of it all after all those years right before she dies. What happened in Twilight? Edward didn’t die fighting for Bella, leaving Bella to kill the Volturi guy who killed Edward. They had Renesmee and the three of them lived happily ever after. That’s the way it should be.”
“Whoa,” said Kellan, “spoiler alert.”
“Oh, please. Anyone who hasn’t read or seen Twilight by now deserves to have the ending spoiled for them.”
“But I die to save you. It’s tragic romance. Like Shakespeare.”
“No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. This is a love story at heart. It’s also an action movie. You don’t kill the hero or the heroine. You let them both live so they can ride off into the sunset together so audiences leave fe
eling uplifted and invigorated and happy so they tell their friends and family how great the movie was and then they go see it and they have the same experience and then they tell their friends and family and then they go see it and so on and so on and so on. Word of mouth sells books. It also sells movies. Sure, a buttload of marketing dollars are spent and the cast does a buttload of press, but if the movie sucks, word will spread within about two days and that will be that. The movie will be dead in the water. What happened at the end of Temple of Doom? Kate Capshaw or Short Round said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ And Indie said, ‘Right. All of us.’ And he rescued all those poor children who had been taken from their families. And what happened at the end of Avatar? Jake almost died but he didn’t. What’s-her-name killed that evil soldier guy with the scar and saved Jake from suffocating in the trailer. James Cameron knew better than to kill one of them.”
“But he killed Jack in Titanic. You just pointed that out. And he killed Reese in Terminator and he killed Arnold in Terminator II.”
“But he didn’t kill Jamie Lee Curtis or Arnold in True Lies. They went on to be spies together. The self-sacrifice trope has its place but this isn’t Romeo and Juliet. We don’t die together in each other’s arms as a protest. We kill that alien bitch and we get the hell out of there. Together. Right?”
“Right.”
“So when do we tell Sheila and Aaron and Rami that we don’t like the ending? Now or wait for the table read?”
“No, they need to know now. If they want to rewrite it, I think it would be best if it’s done by the time we all get together for the table read.”
I pull out my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Aaron and Rami that their ending sucks.”
This is exactly what I write:
Got the script. Love it. Except the ending. NO NO NO. Romeo&Juliet this is NOT. The hero & heroine must ride off into the sunset TOGETHER. Keep the audience Happy and wanting MORE. Show the alien Queen not all the way dead after we leave. Have her hitch a ride on the rescue ship. (Too much like Aliens but you get the gist.) Anything OTHER than us dying. Sequel!!! = $$$ = :) What say you guys?
I post this to our ReallyBigMovie WhatsApp group Aaron started. Replies start coming in.
Heather is first: I agree. Claire is right again.
Aaron says: Fuck.
Rami says: Fuck.
Calista says: I get to live? I get to be in the SEQUEL? Cha-CHING! $$$$$$$$$$$$
Sheila posts a little emoticon of a woman scratching her head.
Calista writes: Maybe it SHOULD be Romeo&Juliet.
Aaron writes: Romeo&Juliet in SPACE????????
Rami writes: NoNoNo… he dies, she lives, just like we wrote it.
Kellan writes: What if she dies, he lives? (wink, wink)
Calista writes: What if they BOTH die?
Sheila writes: Nobody dies = SEQUEL! Everybody dies = unemployment office!
This goes on for the better part of an hour. At one point, we’re no longer discussing the movie. We’re talking about what deli in town has the best hot pastrami.
In the end, everyone agrees to think about it further.
THE NEXT DAY, Kellan and I take the new Range Rover to the Paramount offices. Uzi follows behind us in his vehicle, and one of his crew stay behind to keep an eye on our house.
Sheila has a huge buffet waiting and everyone pigs out.
While we eat, we chitchat about my stalker.
Calista says she had a stalker once. He kept leaving tampons on her windshield. Then one day, it just stopped. She says it was flattering. Weird, but flattering.
After lunch, we all sit down with coffee and our copies of the script.
Sheila says that since I seem to have a unique insight into the script and I’m the one who has twice thus far found ways to improve it, she’d like to know if I’d like to lead off the discussion and share what I think now that we can actually have a real conversation and are not limited to words on a smart phone, which are void of emotion and body language.
Holy cannoli I’m not prepared for this.
Everyone is staring at me.
I’m pretty sure I suddenly need to pee.
And that I forgot to put on deodorant this morning.
I turn to Kellan.
Kellan winks and smiles his perfect smile. This encourages me.
“Well, let’s see… When I was in college, I took a dramatic writing course in the Theater department, which was separate from the English department where I took most of my classes. The Drama professor was this crazy old guy with grey hair and a smart mouth. But he had us read a book called Backwards and Forwards. It said to start at the ending and write backwards from there. I’ve written thirteen books and sometimes I do that, but what I find works best is to outline the whole thing simply so that I know what the story is. The outline or the first draft is for telling the story to yourself. Then, you can go back and refine it, fill in the plot holes, make sure names and dates and story logic are all consistent, tidy up the housekeeping chores like typos and missing words and stuff, and once it’s fairly clean and coherent, you can read it as a whole. The form is good so now you address the content. If it’s full of typos and whatnot, you can’t get past the form to even consider the content. But once you do that, you can see if it all works. And fixing an outline is a lot easier than fixing an entire first draft of prose, which speaks to the outline method. In the screenplay world, I believe it’s known as a treatment, correct? So, we know the premise of the story. It’s basically Predator meets Avatar, minus the anti-capitalistic, anti-America, Dances With Wolves ripoff motif. There’s no political subtext. It’s just a straight-up, in your face, kick-ass sci-fi love story spectacle full of cool stuff. Right?”
Rami and Aaron look at one another.
They then look at Sheila, who has her eyebrows raised.
“Go on,” says Aaron.
I continue, “Remember what I said yesterday on WhatsApp? Imagine if Schwarzenegger had died killing the predator. Or if Danny Glover had died in the sequel. Or Mel Gibson had died in Lethal Weapon. Even though he did die in Braveheart but that was an entirely different kind of story. Like I said to Kellan yesterday, what if Edward or Bella had died in Twilight? What if Anastasia or Christian Grey had died in Fifty Shades? This is not Game of Thrones we’re talking about here. Imagine if Jake had died at the end of Avatar. It was bad enough Sigourney Weaver died.”
Rami says, “But when characters die it raises the tension. It raises the stakes. Like you just mentioned in Game of Thrones which by that rationale has the highest stakes of any show ever made. I hate that show.”
Aaron says, “You love that show.”
Rami says, “I know.”
“You’re right,” I say, “it does raise the stakes. That’s why we all love and hate Game of Thrones so much. But this isn’t Game of Thrones. That’s an ensemble cast with new characters introduced every season and a few characters bridge the gap until they get whacked. Our movie is a love story. That means the lovers overcome all obstacles and are together in the end and live happily ever after. Unless it’s a tragedy a la Nicholas Sparks and you establish that the happily-ever-after is on its way but then our sexy hero skips on down to Nicaragua to help some orphans and you then promptly kill him off-screen in a mudslide and all the women in the movie theater start crying and they all dive into their purses and pull out the tissues. And if you’re me, you leave the theater pissed. And when someone says, ‘Hey, was Nights in Rodanthe any good?’ you’re all like, ‘Heck no. I hate that movie.’”
Everyone laughs.
“So, while I think it’s a good idea to tug on people’s heart strings, you don’t want to hack them to bits with a machete. But if we can make this movie be a compelling story about two people we really like and care about, so we become invested in their outcome and we really, really, really want them to survive, and we add in some horror elements to
scare the kids, along with some really kick-ass special effects for all the sci-fi fans, and we stack the deck against these two so it looks like they’re well and truly f-u-c-k-e-d, but somehow, somehow, by some inspired action of their own device, and through the sheer power of their love, they overcome all obstacles and survive, then everyone will cheer and will leave the theater with nothing but good things to say about our little movie.”
“So what do you suggest?” Rami asks. He sounds a little pissed.
“Imagine in The Princess Bride if Wesley died on the Six-Fingered-Man’s rack or the chocolate-covered pill Miracle Max gave him didn’t work or he died dueling Humperdink because Humperdink wasn’t such a wuss. Imagine if Wesley and Buttercup didn’t have the kiss at the end with the amazing music. Imagine if in Grease, Danny Zuco died racing and they didn’t have the carnival scene at the end with Olivia Newton John in those tight black pants. Imagine if Forrest Gump died. Imagine if E.T. died and stayed dead. Imagine if Marty died at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance in 1955 because George never kissed Loraine. Imagine if Tom Cruise died and stayed dead in Edge of Tomorrow. What if Christopher Reeve hadn’t flown around the earth so fast it turned in reverse so he could reverse time and save Lois Lane, and she stayed dead? Imagine if when Harry Potter was—”
“Hey!” says Kellan. “I haven’t finished reading it yet. Don’t ruin it.”
“Oh. Sorry!”
“What is your point, Claire?” Sheila asks. She sounds a little pissed, too.
“My point is that I think they should live. Unless we want to do the Thelma and Louise ending, which I don’t.”
“But that’s the point,” says Aaron. “For every film you named, I could name one where someone dies and it’s that very element which makes the film great. Braveheart. Terms of Endearment. The Fly. Nights in Rodanthe. The Notebook.”
“Those are dramas,” says Calista. “Except for The Fly. And Braveheart is questionable because of all the fighting.”
