Read Online All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown - Free Book Online
Authors: Janelle Brown
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this so I’m just going to be frank. We’re not going to be able to buy your magazine.”
Margaret could feel the blood draining from her face. She had a mental flash of the pile of bills on her desk, a stack of unopened envelopes two inches thick, waiting for Stuart’s long-promised check to finally arrive. There was a moment of silence before she was able to stammer, “Who is ‘we’? I thought ‘we’ was you?”
“The investors I brought in,” Stuart said, now gazing resolutely out the window as if fascinated by the parking lot. “They decided that Snatch didn’t really have a viable business model after all. You have to admit, the circulation hasn’t exactly skyrocketed this year, despite the direct-mail solicitations—”
“We have fifteen thousand subscribers,” Margaret protested, her voice strangled by the tennis ball that had seemingly lodged in her throat. “That’s still pretty good.”
“I know, I know,” said Stuart. “But the investors I brought in…well, they had a different vision. Bigger, you know? It’s a pretty limited audience you’re reaching. I mean, you know how hard it’s been to sell ads. The investors still think that I should do a women’s magazine, but just something a little more fun. Honestly, Margaret, you know how much I love Snatch, but it’s just too…fringe to be mainstream. I mean, the last issue had a ten-page spread of vibrator reviews? With how-to diagrams!”
“Forty-six percent of all women own vibrators—what’s fringe about that?” She did cringe, though, just a little, remembering the editorial she had written for the issue—an essay she’d composed in a drunken stupor one evening two weeks after Bart left—in which she’d declared vibrators the “great liberating tool of the female masses, making men totally irrelevant and putting women in charge of their own sexual destinies.”
Stuart shrugged. “Well, it’s not going to sell in Peoria.”
Margaret seethed. She took an angry swallow of her latte and looked around the café, at the screenwriters busily tapping away at their laptops, at the retirees meticulously consuming every word of their daily Los Angeles Times, at the bored barista jittery from stolen espressos. She felt, suddenly, more angry than upset at Stuart’s self-entitled carelessness. “You promised me,” she hissed. “Do you know how much I spent—of my own money!—to make this happen? And now you’re just walking away and leaving me holding the bill?”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m probably going to ditch New Sprout, too,” he said, shrugging. “Raw food is too last year.”
She grabbed for the most hurtful thing she could say to him. “God, you’re just like your father.”
Stuart looked at the bottom of his coffee cup, as if waiting for it to refill magically. “Well, it turns out he has kind of a point. I don’t want to, like, lose money. This was supposed to be an investment. I mean, I know you hate greedy capitalists and all that, but this is a business, you know?”
And that was that. Snatch —her baby—was dead, murdered by Stuart Gelkind; though if Margaret was going to be honest with herself, the magazine had been on life support before Gelkind ever came around. The day of its death, Snatch was $92,000 in the hole. To be more specific, Margaret was $92,000 in the hole, since she had been paying all the bills out of her own pocket (or, more specifically, off her numerous credit cards) for the last year anyway. To be really specific, Margaret was exactly $92,548 in the hole, according to the math that she had done on Monday, a few days after Stuart dropped the bomb, as she fiddled with her pocket calculator and watched her father’s company go public on CNBC. (That was three days ago, though, so the figure is probably higher now. Which means Margaret owes $92,548 plus three days of criminal interest to MasterCard, American Express, Visa, and one or two other credit card
Margaret could feel the blood draining from her face. She had a mental flash of the pile of bills on her desk, a stack of unopened envelopes two inches thick, waiting for Stuart’s long-promised check to finally arrive. There was a moment of silence before she was able to stammer, “Who is ‘we’? I thought ‘we’ was you?”
“The investors I brought in,” Stuart said, now gazing resolutely out the window as if fascinated by the parking lot. “They decided that Snatch didn’t really have a viable business model after all. You have to admit, the circulation hasn’t exactly skyrocketed this year, despite the direct-mail solicitations—”
“We have fifteen thousand subscribers,” Margaret protested, her voice strangled by the tennis ball that had seemingly lodged in her throat. “That’s still pretty good.”
“I know, I know,” said Stuart. “But the investors I brought in…well, they had a different vision. Bigger, you know? It’s a pretty limited audience you’re reaching. I mean, you know how hard it’s been to sell ads. The investors still think that I should do a women’s magazine, but just something a little more fun. Honestly, Margaret, you know how much I love Snatch, but it’s just too…fringe to be mainstream. I mean, the last issue had a ten-page spread of vibrator reviews? With how-to diagrams!”
“Forty-six percent of all women own vibrators—what’s fringe about that?” She did cringe, though, just a little, remembering the editorial she had written for the issue—an essay she’d composed in a drunken stupor one evening two weeks after Bart left—in which she’d declared vibrators the “great liberating tool of the female masses, making men totally irrelevant and putting women in charge of their own sexual destinies.”
Stuart shrugged. “Well, it’s not going to sell in Peoria.”
Margaret seethed. She took an angry swallow of her latte and looked around the café, at the screenwriters busily tapping away at their laptops, at the retirees meticulously consuming every word of their daily Los Angeles Times, at the bored barista jittery from stolen espressos. She felt, suddenly, more angry than upset at Stuart’s self-entitled carelessness. “You promised me,” she hissed. “Do you know how much I spent—of my own money!—to make this happen? And now you’re just walking away and leaving me holding the bill?”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m probably going to ditch New Sprout, too,” he said, shrugging. “Raw food is too last year.”
She grabbed for the most hurtful thing she could say to him. “God, you’re just like your father.”
Stuart looked at the bottom of his coffee cup, as if waiting for it to refill magically. “Well, it turns out he has kind of a point. I don’t want to, like, lose money. This was supposed to be an investment. I mean, I know you hate greedy capitalists and all that, but this is a business, you know?”
And that was that. Snatch —her baby—was dead, murdered by Stuart Gelkind; though if Margaret was going to be honest with herself, the magazine had been on life support before Gelkind ever came around. The day of its death, Snatch was $92,000 in the hole. To be more specific, Margaret was $92,000 in the hole, since she had been paying all the bills out of her own pocket (or, more specifically, off her numerous credit cards) for the last year anyway. To be really specific, Margaret was exactly $92,548 in the hole, according to the math that she had done on Monday, a few days after Stuart dropped the bomb, as she fiddled with her pocket calculator and watched her father’s company go public on CNBC. (That was three days ago, though, so the figure is probably higher now. Which means Margaret owes $92,548 plus three days of criminal interest to MasterCard, American Express, Visa, and one or two other credit card
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