Julia or Renee?

My doorbell rang while I was sitting on my small balcony lazing away the afternoon with a cup of coffee.
(I know, I should have been doing something - anything - productive but...)
I levered myself out of my chair and walked to the door, half expecting it to be one of my neighbors with a package for me.
(The guy who delivers my mail really hates walking up all four flights of stairs to my apartment. As a result, he often drops off my orders from Amazon downstairs with a neighbor after claiming that no one answered when he rang my doorbell. I can't really blame him for that because there are days when making that climb with an armful of groceries is not as easy for me as it once was.)
Anyway, I guess that's why I was more than a little surprised to see Marcie Pantano standing outside my door.
"Can I come in? Or are we just going to stand here in your doorway?" she asked after waiting for almost a minute for me to get over my shock.
"Uh, yeah, sure, come in," I said.
She walked in, cast a look around the apartment, and then wandered into the kitchen. Pouring a cup of coffee, she walked into the front room and then out onto my balcony. Sitting down, she fixed me with the kind of look she wore back in the days when she was a reporter.
I pulled a second chair from the living room and joined her on the balcony, trying hard not to squirm under her gaze.
"I hear that you've had a couple of offers from people who say they're interested in doing a movie based on 'Corpus Delectable.' Is that true?" she asked.
I smiled.
"Well, I wouldn't call them offers," I said. "I did get a few emails from people in California and one from a guy in London expressing some interest but they're not actually offers."
She nodded.
"When were you going to tell me about them?" she asked.
"I am, after all, the main character in the book," she added.
I did squirm at that point.
"Well, Marcie..." I said before she cut me off.
"Well nothing," she said. "If there's even the possibility that 'Corpus Delectable' will some day be a movie I should be involved right from the start."
I sighed.
"Look," I said, "writers get emails like this all the time. In over 95 percent of those cases they never go beyond that. Someone reads a book, they get an idea that it could make a good movie script and they send off an email. There's no sense getting really excited about that unless something concrete develops."
She shook her head.
"Nope," she said, "not buying it."
Marcie's skepticism comes naturally, I suppose. She was once a journalist who covered the police beat and she was really very good at her job. She's now a consultant in a small Delaware beach town and the heroine (she hates being called that - she prefers the term 'protagonist') of my murder mystery "Corpus Delectable."
She took a long swallow of coffee then set the mug down on the balcony. Leaning forward, she asked: "So, if this were actually to happen, how much control would you have over casting?"
I shook my head.
"If it happens, and I'm not saying that it ever will, then the answer is 'probably none,' That's just the reality of the business," I said.
"Well, that sucks," she said.
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"Well, let's just say that I've seen a few movies in which the wrong person was cast as the lead in a movie based on a mystery novel and..." her voice trailed off.
I nodded.
I've seen a few of the same movies.
"So, if I did have some input into the casting, who would you choose to play you?" I said, smiling.
"Julia Stiles or Renee Russo," she said without a moment's hesitation.
I was surprised.
"Julia Stiles? Wow, that's a surprise," I said. "I mean, she's not Italian, for one, and you definitely are and, uh..."
"And, uh... I get it," Marcie said with more than a trace of sarcasm. "She's a little young to play me. Is that what you're trying to say?"
I nodded.
"I'd agree with you if I hadn't seen her with Matt Damon in 'Jason Bourne' a few nights ago. She was made up to look older and she was terrific," Marcie said.
I nodded.
"Yeah," I said, "she did a great job in that movie."
"And Renee Russo would be perfect as me," Marcie said.
I smiled.
"I kind of had her in mind when I was writing your character," I admitted. "I didn't base your character on her, you understand, but I really enjoyed watching her in 'The Thomas Crown Affair' with Pierce Brosnan. I wanted to incorporate some of her character in that movie in you."
"Well, there you go," Marcie said.
She leaned back.
"Now, how do we make this happen?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"We don't actually 'make' anything happen," I said. "That's not how it works."
She gave me a pitying glance.
"Writers," she said. "You guys think it's all about putting words on paper. It's more than that, though. You have to go out and make things happen."
I sighed.
"I know what you're saying but I pretty much suck at marketing and things like that," I said. "For me, it really is just about the writing."
She shook her head.
"Well," she said as she stood up, "we're going to have to change that."
I stood and walked to the door with her.
"And we're going to do that how, exactly," I said.
"I'll let you know," she said, smiling. "In the meantime, why don't you try writing a script yourself?"
I stared at her.
"Yeah, yeah, I know... 'but Marcie, that's not what I do.' Well, like I said, we're going to have to change that," she said.
She smiled, stood on tiptoes to give me a peck on the cheek, and then waved goodbye as she headed down the stairs.
"Oh Lord," I said as I closed the door.

To read more about Marcie and her adventures, visit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CLXBIC8