Movie Rights
Cheryl Bissell never dreamed she would one day be a bestselling author. Some men and women spent years perfecting their writing skills, yet few of them would ever achieve the magnitude of success that Cheryl obtained quite by accident. The former English teacher was by no means artistic. She never yearned to express herself in music, painting, dancing or acting. On the contrary, all she had ever wanted in life was to be a wife and a mother. However, that dream of domesticity eroded through years an unhappy marriage and eventually became a nightmare. When her husband left her for another woman, the distraught mother needed something to take the place of that broken dream.
Just as was the case with Creedence Clearwater Revival's renowned riverboat Proud Mary, the big wheels of fate kept on turning, and Cheryl's life kept rolling along on its destined course.
Those big wheels first started to spin when her teenage daughter, Kimberly, came home from school, needing help with her homework. Her assignment was to write a mystery story for her language arts class. Cheryl agreed to help, and as was all too often the case, "helping" with homework meant actually doing the bulk of the work herself while Kimberly watched television or talked on the phone with her girlfriends. Those big wheels were turning as the young mother sat down at her daughter's computer and began to write. That was the point at which Cheryl Bissell received her calling. While not exactly an earth-shattering epiphany, it was nonetheless the turning point in her life. Her mind became flooded with ideas for stories. It seemed as though she could not get the words out fast enough.
Paradoxically, even after she had written several short stories, Cheryl still had no desire to be an author. To her, writing was nothing more than a therapeutic hobby, a balm for her injured psyche. At Kimberly's request, she took a printout of her stories down to the neighborhood Staples and had several copies made, which she gave to her daughter and a few close friends. They, of course, had nothing but praise for her writing, but their opinions were hardly unbiased. By that time, however, the big wheels were in constant motion and nothing could stop them. Eventually, one of her friends gave a copy of Cheryl's stories to a relative who worked for a publisher. Several weeks later, a surprised Cheryl received a letter from Burgess Press, offering to publish her stories.
The question was did she want them published? It was not an easy decision for Cheryl to make. Money was not the issue. The amount that Burgess Press had offered was not bad, although it was nowhere near enough for her and Kimberly to live on for any length of time. Still, she could certainly put it to good use. God knows, there was never a shortage of bills that needed to be paid. The problem was that Cheryl was not sure if she wanted strangers reading her stories and thereby sharing her thoughts. Then, there was bound to be criticism. Could she handle it, or would she be so hurt that she would fold up her petals and never write another word?
Ultimately, practicality won out, and Cheryl accepted the offer from Burgess Press. Although it never made it to the bestseller list, her collection of short mystery stories sold so well that the publisher offered their new author a lucrative contract and a generous advance if she would write a full-length novel.
"But my ideas are only good for short stories—just light literary snacks," she complained, by way of metaphors, to her daughter. "Now I'll have to come up with a full-course meal that will hold the reader's interest from the appetizer until the end of coffee and dessert."
It turned out that writing a novel was not as difficult as Cheryl had imagined. Once she started creating her characters, she became deeply involved in their lives and actions. The protagonist of her story, a thirty-two-year-old woman named Diana Davis, was a remarkable individual living an unremarkable life, the kind of woman you would see in front of you in a checkout line or sitting at the next table in a diner. Many people took no notice of her at all; others dismissed her as an ordinary housewife. Even Diana herself found nothing special about her life since her identity had long ago been submerged when she said, "I do," and gave up her own name to become Mrs. Martin Davis.
What no one saw lying behind the Martha Stewart image the character projected was a soul in torment, a woman so dominated by her overbearing husband that she would suffer any humiliation to avoid a confrontation with him. Eventually, however, Diana was pushed to the limit and something inside her snapped. She brutally murdered her husband, thereby releasing her soul from his influence; and even though Diana was imprisoned for her crime, her spirit was set free at last.
Bound and Shackled, as the book was titled, was published the following year. It was both an artistic and financial success, remaining on The New York Times Best Seller list for ten months. And still, the wheels furiously turned, and Cheryl's life rolled on. Hollywood wanted her book and offered a substantial amount of money for the movie rights to Bound and Shackled.
"All I have to do is sign my name on the dotted line," she said to herself after reading the contract, "and I'll be set for life."
Then why wasn't she excited by the prospect? Why did she feel like a prostitute being asked to sell her body? Cheryl was no idealist. After all, she grew up in America, the land of the free, where everything and everybody had a price. Having given the offer serious consideration, she finally shook off her reservations and sold Hollywood the movie rights to her novel.
* * *
Cheryl and Kimberly Bissell waited in line at the AMC Loews Theater in the Willow Brook Mall to purchase their tickets for the eight o'clock showing. Bound and Shackled, starring Glen Close and Anthony Hopkins, had just opened that day in theaters across the country. Delighted by her mother's novel being brought to life, Kimberly proudly pointed out the movie poster under the theater's "Now Showing" marquis.
"Wow! Aren't you excited, Mom? This is your book!"
"To tell you the truth, I'm more frightened than excited."
"Why? The movie is bound to be a blockbuster. It has a dynamite cast, a talented director and an absolutely sensational story."
"'Absolutely sensational story'?" her mother echoed. "Okay, what do you want and how much is it going to cost me?"
Cheryl invariably made the same stale joke whenever she received a compliment from her teenage daughter.
"I'm serious, Mom. Your book was great, and it's going to make a good movie."
Cheryl bought their tickets and then treated her daughter and herself to a big tub of buttered popcorn, a box of Raisinettes—damn the calories—and a large cup of Coca-Cola. Mother and daughter then sat in the theater quietly munching popcorn and chocolate-covered raisins as they watched Cheryl's novel being murdered as surely as Diana Davis had murdered her husband, Martin.
The author had labored for more than eighteen months writing that particular story and giving birth to Diana Davis. She knew her protagonist inside and out, sympathized with her emotional turmoil and shared in her triumph. Rather than remain true to the novel, the screenwriter, Maurice LaBelle, used his own interpretation of Diana's motives to write the screenplay. In so doing, he transformed a timid, frightened and emotionally abused woman into a heartless, egomaniacal shrew, driven insane by her greed for material possessions. It was like changing Dr. Jeckyll into Mr. Hyde, Mr. Rogers into Hannibal Lecter or Barney the lovable purple dinosaur into a velociraptor from Jurassic Park.
Cheryl and Kimberly remained silent until they got back to the car; then Kimberly commented, "Maybe they should have gotten a different director for the movie."
"It's not the director's fault, honey. The movie, taken on its own, was actually very good. Close and Hopkins were great, as usual. But that screenwriter either didn't understand my book or decided to rewrite it his own way."
"I don't think anyone in the audience will understand the point of your story if they didn't read your book. In the movie, I actually found myself feeling sorry for the husband and glad to see Diana go to jail in the end."
"I know. LaBelle completely shifted sympathy from Diana to Martin."
"Are you sorry you gave them your story?"
"I didn't give it to them; I sold it to them. In the words of Michael Corleone, 'They made me an offer I couldn't refuse.'"
"But are you sorry you did it?" Kimberly persisted.
"No, not really," her mother replied honestly. "I don't particularly like what they did to my story, but they own the movie rights. They can do what they want with it. I just think it's ironic that the producer paid me a small fortune to make my story into a movie and then he turned around and used a script that bears little resemblance to my book."
* * *
The movie was a huge box office hit, and its success, in turn, sent Cheryl's book back to the top of the bestseller list, although readers who had seen the movie first were disappointed in the written version of Diana Davis's life. They were expecting a thriller, a book packed with greed, lust, violence and blood. They did not want to know about the subtle tortures and domestic nightmares that had driven an innocent woman to murder.
Regardless of her unsatisfactory experience with Hollywood, the big wheels kept right on turning, and Cheryl's career continued rolling. Burgess Press, delighted with the sales figures for Bound and Shackled, wanted her to write a second novel. They did not care about the movie adaptation; they were in the book publishing business, not the film industry. Cheryl's book sold well, and they wanted her to write another.
One evening, while Cheryl was immersed in her writing, her mind-melding with the personality of the characters, someone rang the doorbell.
"Kim, could you please answer the door?" she yelled out and then remembered that Kimberly was on a date and would not be home for several hours.
She saved the file—just in case of a sudden power outage—and went to answer the door.
"Yes, can I help you?" she asked the vaguely familiar-looking woman on her stoop.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Bissell, but I need to talk to you about your book. May I come in?"
"Well, frankly, I'm quite busy right now."
"This won't take long, I promise."
The woman stepped inside the foyer, and Cheryl automatically shut the door behind her.
"Do I know you, Mrs. ...?"
"Davis," the woman replied, smiling. "And, yes, you do know me. Take a good, long look at my face; it will come to you."
Cheryl stared. The woman was a few years younger than she was, but there was a strong resemblance between the two of them.
"You resemble me quite a bit," the author admitted. "Maybe it's because that's the way I wore my hair when I was still married."
"I know. Your husband didn't like short hair on women—thought it made them look masculine—so you waited until after the divorce to cut it."
That had been almost five years ago. When did she meet this woman? And where?
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Davis, I still can't place you."
"No need for us to be so formal. Just call me Diana."
Cheryl sat down or—more accurately—fell down into the chair behind her.
"You brought me to life," Diana continued. "I was a figment of your imagination, born of your own unhappy marriage. You were the one who lacked the courage to stand up to your husband, so you created me to do it for you. In your book, I had enough of Martin's abuse and killed him, but you lacked the guts to take action against your own husband."
"I couldn't just murder him because I was unhappy."
"No, but you didn't have to roll over and play dead either. You cowered like a dog, and he took advantage of that, at least until he got tired of tormenting you and moved on to fresher prey."
"Why have you come here, Diana? To insult me? Fine, you have. Now go back to prison or to the pages of my book or wherever it is you belong."
"You can't get rid of me that easily. Believe it or not, I was proud of who I was. You created me with such compassion and sensitivity that I became a symbol of man's inhumanity to women. People read your book, and they admired me. They were even glad when I shot and killed Martin and angry that I went to jail for my actions."
"So you're here to thank me?"
"No," the fictional murderer replied, taking a gun out of her coat pocket. "You see how well you transformed me, Cheryl? I'm not the least bit timid or afraid anymore. I stopped taking shit from Martin, and I'm not about to start taking any from you."
This is absolutely insane! Cheryl thought. She's not real; she's just a character in a book.
"But the gun is real enough," Diana responded to Cheryl's unspoken thoughts.
"You can read my mind?"
"Don't you get it? I was created in your mind. Every word I said came from you; every action I took was directed by you."
"Why do you need the gun?"
"To persuade you to write another book, to invent a new life for me. You'll start by getting me out of jail. Then I want you to create a new man in my life, a decent one who'll love me and treat me with the respect every woman deserves."
"I don't know if I can do that, Diana. I have a responsibility to my publisher."
"To hell with your publisher! You owe me! You sold me out to that sexist screenwriter who destroyed me. He turned me into a greedy, murderous bitch in front of millions of moviegoers."
"I can't help what he wrote."
"No, but you can make it up to me. Give me a new life, Cheryl."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I'll kill you, just like I killed Martin."
Diana turned and headed for the door.
"I'll be back in a week or two," she said as she was leaving," to see what progress you're making on the new book."
* * *
Cheryl spent weeks trying to invent a new life for Diana Davis. She tried a plot wherein the killer's lawyer appeals her case; and after a second trial, she is found not guilty. Then Diana, a free woman once again, marries her lawyer. Cheryl wrote two chapters based on that plot and, unsatisfied with the story, deleted the file.
The big wheels turned again. The author created a new file and began working on a plot where Diana falls in love with a reporter who is writing a true crime novel based on her life. She goes up before the parole board, and because of her good behavior, she is granted an early release after serving only three years of her sentence.
Diana-come-to-life, who had again shown up at Cheryl's house, was reading over the author's shoulder as she typed.
"Very good!" Diana encouraged her. "And make sure this reporter is a nice guy. Don't stick me with another Martin Davis."
Cheryl stopped typing.
"I can't write with you breathing down my neck," she complained, trying desperately to hide her thoughts from Diana. "I could really use a cup of coffee right now. Can you make it for me? I mean is it possible?"
"What do I look like, a waitress?"
"Fine. I'll get it myself," Cheryl said. "Your release from prison can wait."
"All right. I'll get your damned coffee. You sit your ass back in that chair and write."
"You're nothing at all like the sweet, gentle character I created in Bound and Shackled."
"I was once," Diana argued forlornly. "Prison changes people. I'll go get your coffee now."
Cheryl typed quickly, heedless of errors in grammar or capitalization.
... just as diana returned to her cell to begin packing her belongings, her long sought-after parole only hours away, susan webber, the vicious killer, who had had it in for diana since she was first incarcerated in that godforsaken prison, came up behind her and buried an eight-inch knife in diana's back.
Diana burst into the room, her eyes glowing with hatred. The handle of an eight-inch carving knife was protruding from her back, and she was bleeding profusely.
"You double-crossing bitch!" she screamed.
Diana's hands grabbed Cheryl's throat and began to tighten, cutting off the author's air supply. Cheryl did not try to fight off her attacker. Rather, she kept her fingers firmly on the computer keyboard.
... diana's eyes glazed over and she slumped forward, her heart beating for the last time.
Diana Davis's scream echoed through the house and then abruptly ended as she took her final breath and faded away like a morning fog.
Cheryl put her hands to her burning throat as she gasped for breath and wondered why she felt so guilty. No blood stained her hands. She had committed no actual murder. Oddly enough, however, she did commit a bizarre form of creative suicide. So much of what she had felt and experienced in her own life had gone into creating Diana Davis. Would it have been so difficult to give her a little happiness after the years of misery she had given her in Bound and Shackled?
As a mother, she would move heaven and earth to make her daughter, Kimberly, happy. Was Diana any less her child because she had been conceived and born in her mind rather than in her womb?
Cheryl stared at the computer screen a final time, and then she pressed the power key. She would never write another book or short story again. The big wheels had finally stopped turning.
Salem loves movies, and hopes to one day sell the movie rights to his life story.
