the kind of trash you’re going to eviscerate in Snatch. ”
The entrées arrive at this opportune moment, giving Margaret a chance to gather herself. She looks down at her plate, where a mountain of shrubbery floats on a fishy-smelling pool of foam. The aroma of her friend’s entrées—mounds of sea bass smothered in potato-olive puree, Madeira-soaked steaks still bleeding on the plate—makes her feel anemic.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you,” she mutters, feeling vaguely ashamed. This isn’t exactly true—she would do that. She’s done it before, much to the detriment of her relationship with Bart. Perhaps now she’ll be wise enough to think twice before she does a critical review of one of her friend’s projects. But, of course, she won’t have the opportunity anymore, will she?
Damn Stuart Gelkind. For more than a year he strung her along, promising her that Snatch was going to be the linchpin in the new alternative-publishing empire he was starting, the edgy female title that would sit on the magazine stands along with Mother (his planned eco-activism magazine) and AMP (his magazine devoted to unsigned indie bands) and New Sprout (the raw-foods title). He was going to purchase Snatch for a sum that seemed, to Margaret, breathtakingly large—$425,000, plus options! Together, they were going to turn Snatch into an even bigger, better magazine. Glossy covers. Full-color photos. Celebrity interviews (inspiring ones, of course, like indie-movie actresses and hip female politicians). Paid contributors. With Gelkind’s backing Snatch would be more than a struggling feminist zine run out of Margaret’s apartment; it would be a new kind of young women’s magazine, a twenty-first-century anticonsumerist Sassy, a real mainstream publication that inspired girls to think for themselves.
All Margaret had to do was keep Snatch afloat for a few more months (and then a few more, and just a few more, until more than a year had passed), build up circulation to make the publication more appealing to the investors Gelkind was lining up, and when the financing finally came through they would be ready to go. It was a sure thing, Stuart vowed, and she believed him. He was, after all, the son of conservative publishing magnate Maxwell Gelkind, and even if Stuart’s interest in this project sometimes seemed more about spiting his father than about his real commitment to independent publishing, certainly the kid had access to people with very deep pockets. The future looked very promising, and if Margaret found herself paying what otherwise would have seemed an extravagant sum for the lawyers to negotiate the acquisition agreement, and the FedEx bills for all those documents, and the direct-mail solicitations that Stuart had suggested would build up circulation, and the new copier and the glossy paper, it had seemed an unimpugnable investment.
And although Margaret had a momentary twinge about selling out, she told herself that this was a different form of capitalism than, say, her father’s predatory variety of business. She would take ads only from enlightened companies—organic food chains, indie-rock labels, cosmetics not tested on animals—and only ads that were empowering to women. She even splurged by hiring two freelance ad salespeople to focus on just that. And if, after six months, they hadn’t actually sold many ads, she consoled herself with the fact that setting a new paradigm always took time.
And then, last Friday, just a week ago, with the investors finally confirmed and the acquisition papers ready to sign, Stuart had asked to meet her at the Coffee Explosion on Sunset. She knew something was wrong when he didn’t pay for her soy latte; he had always paid for her latte, a gesture one part noblesse oblige and one part future employer.
Stuart, sweating in his Brooks Brothers shirt, stared into the crème of his macchiato and refused to meet her eyes. “Look,” he said. “There’s no easy way to say
The entrées arrive at this opportune moment, giving Margaret a chance to gather herself. She looks down at her plate, where a mountain of shrubbery floats on a fishy-smelling pool of foam. The aroma of her friend’s entrées—mounds of sea bass smothered in potato-olive puree, Madeira-soaked steaks still bleeding on the plate—makes her feel anemic.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you,” she mutters, feeling vaguely ashamed. This isn’t exactly true—she would do that. She’s done it before, much to the detriment of her relationship with Bart. Perhaps now she’ll be wise enough to think twice before she does a critical review of one of her friend’s projects. But, of course, she won’t have the opportunity anymore, will she?
Damn Stuart Gelkind. For more than a year he strung her along, promising her that Snatch was going to be the linchpin in the new alternative-publishing empire he was starting, the edgy female title that would sit on the magazine stands along with Mother (his planned eco-activism magazine) and AMP (his magazine devoted to unsigned indie bands) and New Sprout (the raw-foods title). He was going to purchase Snatch for a sum that seemed, to Margaret, breathtakingly large—$425,000, plus options! Together, they were going to turn Snatch into an even bigger, better magazine. Glossy covers. Full-color photos. Celebrity interviews (inspiring ones, of course, like indie-movie actresses and hip female politicians). Paid contributors. With Gelkind’s backing Snatch would be more than a struggling feminist zine run out of Margaret’s apartment; it would be a new kind of young women’s magazine, a twenty-first-century anticonsumerist Sassy, a real mainstream publication that inspired girls to think for themselves.
All Margaret had to do was keep Snatch afloat for a few more months (and then a few more, and just a few more, until more than a year had passed), build up circulation to make the publication more appealing to the investors Gelkind was lining up, and when the financing finally came through they would be ready to go. It was a sure thing, Stuart vowed, and she believed him. He was, after all, the son of conservative publishing magnate Maxwell Gelkind, and even if Stuart’s interest in this project sometimes seemed more about spiting his father than about his real commitment to independent publishing, certainly the kid had access to people with very deep pockets. The future looked very promising, and if Margaret found herself paying what otherwise would have seemed an extravagant sum for the lawyers to negotiate the acquisition agreement, and the FedEx bills for all those documents, and the direct-mail solicitations that Stuart had suggested would build up circulation, and the new copier and the glossy paper, it had seemed an unimpugnable investment.
And although Margaret had a momentary twinge about selling out, she told herself that this was a different form of capitalism than, say, her father’s predatory variety of business. She would take ads only from enlightened companies—organic food chains, indie-rock labels, cosmetics not tested on animals—and only ads that were empowering to women. She even splurged by hiring two freelance ad salespeople to focus on just that. And if, after six months, they hadn’t actually sold many ads, she consoled herself with the fact that setting a new paradigm always took time.
And then, last Friday, just a week ago, with the investors finally confirmed and the acquisition papers ready to sign, Stuart had asked to meet her at the Coffee Explosion on Sunset. She knew something was wrong when he didn’t pay for her soy latte; he had always paid for her latte, a gesture one part noblesse oblige and one part future employer.
Stuart, sweating in his Brooks Brothers shirt, stared into the crème of his macchiato and refused to meet her eyes. “Look,” he said. “There’s no easy way to say
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