Snapped Read Online Free PDF Page B

logo comes up. “Yeah, I’ve seen this,” I say, ignoring the screen. There are no DON’Ts walking the streets if one is to buy in to the Apples Are Tasty philosophy. Everyone is a DO in their own special way. Rid the world of negativity, embrace your individuality, pay fifty bucks to attend one of the parties we’re already being paid ten grand to throw, for another thousand one of the Apples Are Tasty crew will spend a day shopping with you. But getting your picture on the Apples Are Tasty Web site is the latest and greatest in hipster validation.
    In two months, the site has gone from nothing to a very biggish deal. These party-planners-cum-DJing-style-setters started getting attention and our clients started asking about them. At first we dismissed them as wannabes—we’ve dealt with copycats before—but when we tried to arrange access to one of their parties as a stop on the upcoming Trend Mecca Bootcamp Weekend we were rebuffed. That’s how Ted puts it— rebuffed —but what really happened was he lost it in an e-mail exchange with the Tasty ringleader when the guy refused to cough up comp party tickets for the Trend Mecca Bootcamp Weekend. Then he posted Ted’s tirade online and forwarded it to all the clients he knew we had and to every media outlet on the planet. That was two weeks ago. Things have calmed down, but Ted won’t talk about it. And he’s more determined than ever to ferret out whoever put that apple on his desk the day after the whole thing went down and firetheir ass. We have security cameras everywhere now. It won’t happen again.
    I tell Eva it’s important to know your competition and what they’re doing, but not to get too wrapped up, not to obsessively worry about where they’re going and what they’re doing. There’s room for all of us and we should appreciate each other’s differences because that’s what makes us all unique and wonderful. I’m a raving hypocrite, I know, and I don’t care. I’ve built my career taking pictures of unfortunate-looking people wearing unfortunate-looking outfits. Like Parrot Girl. Like Parrot Girl, who’s staring out at me from my computer, the same Parrot Girl who is the current Apples Are Tasty Look Girl.
    Fuck me and stop the presses. But it’s too late—kill me now or let me fall on the sword I bought in Osaka, the one that I had to fill out reams of paperwork to get through customs. Let Parrot Girl’s parrot gnaw at my corpse.
    They’re right, they’re right, I know they’re right. I hate Parrot Girl, but twenty-year-old urbanites and suburban scenesters don’t. Laminate my picture, doctor my birth date and make me sixty-five. I’ll eat tiny portions ordered from special menus in restaurants, shop for groceries on certain days and ride the Metro for cheap. Book me into a home where I can be with my kind: wrinkled rock stars and one-time starlets with puffy lips and faces that don’t move when they talk about the good old days, which is all anybody talks about. We talk and talk so we can remember when we knew something and weren’t old and disgusting and had better things to do than clip coupons and play bridge and wait to die.
    I don’t want to die. I want to disappear. I want to press Rewind and give Eva a pop quiz. I want to be right. I wantto care. I want to leave. I need to stop and I need to rest but the constant ping of my e-mail makes everything impossible. I rap the side of my computer with a curled knuckle. Eva’s still standing behind me, silent but for the quiet shuffle of her feet. I knock on the side of my computer again as a burst of ping-ping-pings signals the arrival of yet more e-mail undoubtedly demanding my resignation. But it hasn’t been twenty-five years: I won’t get a watch or a shitty roast beef dinner buffet at some economy motel that must have a discount rate for seniors.
    I don’t need to knock on the computer again. I know they’re all inside. The place is packed with girls with shiny jackets